“Here’s another bunch of kids protesting something, you don’t know what.” “Protest marches were much more common back in the 1970s,” he said. Tretter also said the event probably didn’t raise more eyebrows because it was just another protest. “Either from Lebanon or Greece,” he said.
Tretter said references to lesbians were misinterpreted as referring to people from Lebanon. People didn’t know what gay power or gay pride meant,” Tretter said. “Most people didn’t have any idea of what we were saying or why,” he said. But the public response that first year was mainly puzzlement, according to Tretter. Tretter remembers that only about 10 people made it all the way to Fourth Street and back at the inaugural version of what would become one of the largest LGBT celebrations in the country. “We didn’t have the know-how to get permits.” “We had to march on the sidewalk,” he said. There were chants and homemade signs, but the marchers stayed out of the street, Tretter said. So following a picnic lunch in Loring Park, a small band of protesters marched down Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. “We wanted to do something here,” Tretter said.
