The Pride flag is waving once more at Stonewall, the historic monument honoring LGBTQ+ rights in Greenwich Village. On Thursday, elected officials of New York and hundreds of protesters and activists gathered at the park next to the Stonewall Inn to replace the flag, which was removed sometime before this week, the New York Times reports. The original Pride flag was swapped out for an American flag at the behest of the Trump administration. Now, the two flags hang side-by-side.
“Stonewall is a sacred site in this city,” City Council Speaker Julie Menin told the crowd on Thursday. “It is sacred ground for civil rights and sacred ground for the LGBTQ community.”
Stonewall employees told the Times they noticed the flag was missing on Monday morning, though it’s not clear exactly when it was taken down. In January, Trump issued a directive that prohibits “non-agency flags and pennants” in the national park system, per a National Park Service memo signed by NPS acting director Jessica Bowron. On Wednesday, responding to a question about the Stonewall flag’s removal, the Interior Department told CNN in a statement that “recent adjustments to flag displays at the monument were made to ensure consistency with federal guidance and applicable executive order.”
The removal is the latest development in the Trump administration’s efforts to scale back protections for LGBTQ+ Americans.
“This is just one symbol of their attempt to tell a community that they are going to come after us and chase us into the shadows,” State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick told reporters Thursday. “We are not going back.”