As the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots on June 28th, author Kate Clinton reflected in Beacon Broadside what the gay pride landmark means for people around the country.

Her post comes as New York City is hosting Pride Week, an annual celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender pride--a movement born as brave individuals stood up for their rights in 1969 outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City (pictured, via). Earlier this week author Rachel Kramer Bussel discussed pride week on the Morning Media Menu.

Here's more from the essay: "It used to be hard to find a NY gay person of a certain age who did not claim to have been at the Stonewall Riots. I am a New Yorker of that certain age, but I most certainly was not at the Stonewall Riots. In 1969 I had just graduated from a small Jesuit college in upstate New York. Insert 'Class of 69' joke here. I was a member of the Gay Resistance. I was trying not to come out. Because of that resistance, I could not and then would not hear the news of gay liberation spreading upstate from Greenwich Village." (Via Colleen Lindsay)