On this day in 1993, somewhere between 800,000 and one million people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, making it one of the largest political demonstrations in American history. They came in the shadow of the AIDS crisis, in the early days of the Clinton administration, with 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' looming on the horizon, and they came anyway, in numbers that stunned even the organizers. The march featured the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which had grown to tens of thousands of panels, spread out across the Mall in a grief so vast it stopped people in their tracks. What those hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated that day was the sheer scale of queer America and its allies, impossible to ignore or dismiss. Three decades later, their footsteps still echo in every advocacy victory and every Pride march.
If you were there, or if someone you love was, we want to hear about it. What does that day mean to you?