The Annual Reminder Protests

This essay is part of a content series exploring the nations, stories, and themes included in the Museum’s special exhibition The Declaration’s Journey, presented by Griffin Catalyst, on view through Jan. 3, 2027. Click here for more information about the exhibition. 

Philadelphia has been celebrating the Fourth of July since 1777, and those celebrations have grown to include parades, concerts, block parties, and more. In the mid-1960s, there was another event going on alongside the Independence Day festivities. The Annual Reminder protests took place on the Fourth of July outside of Independence Hall from 1965-1969, arguing for equal rights for LGBTQ+ people under the law. 

At that time, homosexuality was a crime in much of the country. If people were outed, they risked being arrested, as well as losing their jobs, homes, and families. In the spring of 1965, an alliance of early gay civil rights organizations known as the East Coast Homophile Organizations began staging pickets as a protest tactic against these laws. One activist, Craig Rodwell, suggested a Fourth of July picket at Independence Hall, using the Declaration of Independence to make the point. As Rodwell put it, “We can call it the Annual Reminder – the Reminder that a group of Americans still don’t have their basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In addition to the symbolism of the location, Pennsylvania was also one of the few states that had its anti-LGBTQ+ laws challenged in the 1960s, and there was already a significant LGBTQ+ rights movement (then known as the homophile rights movement) in Philadelphia. 

The first Annual Reminder took place in July of 1965 and had 44 participants. It was organized by Frank Kameny, who had turned to activism after being fired from the federal government due to his sexual orientation, alongside Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen. Like many other activists in the movement, Kameny was inspired by the broader Civil Rights Movement and the work of Martin Luther King Jr., especially the power of public demonstrations. The Annual Reminder grew over the next four years, with people from multiple states coming to Philadelphia, some of whom were members of early LGBTQ+ rights groups like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis. Kameny required picketers to dress in respectable business attire. Participants carried signs with slogans such as “Homosexuals are American Citizens Also" and “Equality for Homosexual Citizens,” as well as references to the Declaration of Independence, including “Homosexuals Ask for Redress of Grievances” and “The Pursuit of Happiness is an Inalienable Right for Homosexuals Also.” Pamphlets referencing the freedoms and rights discussed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were also handed out to passersby; a pamphlet from the fourth Annual Reminder in 1968 is on view in The Declaration’s Journey, on loan from the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.  

In June 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York. Such raids were frequent in gay bars at the time, but on this night, patrons fought back. The raid, and the response to it, was a watershed moment in the fight for equality for LGBTQ+ people. (A fragment of the ceiling from the Stonewall Inn is also featured in the exhibition, on loan from Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center.) Happening mere days after the Stonewall raid, the Annual Reminder on the Fourth of July 1969 would be the last. Picketers pushed back on the organizers’ strict policies of public presentability by wearing what they wanted and holding hands with other participants. 

After the last Annual Reminder, tensions grew within the movement. Some activists, like organizer Frank Kameny, wanted to keep up the respectable image that the Annual Reminders had created – people in office attire arguing that they deserved rights as American citizens. Others, like Craig Rodwell, argued that the Annual Reminder should be moved to New York and be held in June, instead of July, to commemorate Stonewall. They also proposed relaxing the age and dress restrictions of the event, as well as asking homophile organizations around the country to join them, to create a larger, more visible event. In June of 1970, a new annual event, which would come to be known as Pride, took place in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Other cities joined in subsequent years, with Philadelphia’s first Pride parade taking place in 1972. Whereas the Annual Reminder protests had been silent pickets, Pride parades were more visible, vocal, and larger in scale.  

The pamphlet from the fourth Annual Reminder protest in 1968 ends by asking if the rights, liberties and freedoms in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were “merely being given lip-service for some of our citizens?” By invoking the Declaration and using the backdrop of Independence Hall where it was signed, LGBTQ+ activists argued for their rights as American citizens. While the Annual Reminder protests were short-lived, annual Pride parades remind people every year that the LGBTQ+ community deserves equal rights and freedoms and that, like other civil rights movements since 1776, the effort is ongoing.