The summer of 1976 brought a heat that clung to Memphis like a second skin, but it did not deter the thirty-five individuals who gathered in Audubon Park on June 27. They arrived quietly, carrying blankets and baskets of food, looking over their shoulders as they stepped into an unspoken agreement: they would be seen. It was not a parade, not a rally, not a mass movement, but it was something radical. It was the first recorded Pride event in Memphis.
They called it “Gay Day in the Park.” In a city where LGBTQ+ lives were lived in the margins, where existing too openly meant risking jobs, safety, and even family ties, this gathering was an act of quiet defiance. There were no rainbow flags, no corporate sponsors, no police barricades marking a parade route. What they had instead was a shared understanding that visibility itself was a form of resistance.
The event was organized by the Sexuality and Lesbianism Task Force of the Memphis Chapter of the National Organization for Women, with support from the Metropolitan Community Church Study Group. At a time when mainstream feminism often excluded lesbians and religious institutions largely condemned LGBTQ+ identities, these two organizations provided a rare alliance. Abby Ruben and Jeanetta Welch, both leaders in the local movement, understood that Memphis needed this moment. They worked behind the scenes to make it happen, ensuring that, for a few hours, their community could gather in the open air, free from the suffocating isolation so many experienced in their daily lives.
The setting was deceptively simple. Just a park, a patch of grass, a scattering of picnic blankets. But beneath that simplicity was something profound. It had only been three years since the American Psychiatric Association had removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. The country was shifting, but not quickly enough for those living in cities like Memphis, where acceptance remained elusive. That day, for the first time in a public space, LGBTQ+ Memphians laughed, ate, and spoke openly about who they were. It was an ordinary afternoon transformed into an extraordinary moment.
There were no reporters covering this story, no photographers documenting history in real time. The significance of the gathering would only be fully understood in hindsight, as future generations built on what these thirty-five individuals had started. Four years later, the city’s LGBTQ+ community would come together again for the 1980 Gay Pride Week Picnic. By 1981, Memphis would see its first Pride March. Over the decades, what began as a small act of courage grew into Mid-South Pride, one of the largest Pride festivals in the region.
To celebrate Pride in Memphis today is to stand on the foundation laid in Audubon Park all those years ago. The colorful parades, the festivals that now draw thousands, the unapologetic joy of public celebration—all of it can be traced back to that first picnic. The bravery of those thirty-five individuals did not come with the assurance of safety or widespread support. It came with the knowledge that simply gathering together, simply existing in public, was an act of resistance.
The history of Pride in Memphis is not one of grand declarations or immediate victories. It is a history of small, steady steps forward, of moments that might have seemed insignificant at the time but proved monumental in the long run. The first Pride in Memphis was not a march through downtown but a quiet afternoon in the park. And yet, it changed everything.