BBC World Service and now witness history with me, Alex Collins.

Today I'm going to take you back 50 years to the UK's first official gay pride march.

I've been speaking to an activist who was at the event in London.

It's the first of July 1972, Ted Brown is in Trafalgar Square waiting for LGBT activists

to start a march through London.

There's excitement in the air and a mood of celebration.

There were men kissing men, men kissing what looked like men in drag,

and there were women kissing women and women kissing men in drag and vice versa.

So you were not absolutely sure what you were looking at.

It was a declaration of freedom, a declaration of rights.

We did that in front of the police, almost as a challenge.

Unfortunately nobody got arrested.

Ted hadn't always felt confident about celebrating his sexuality in public.

In the early 1970s, homosexuality was legal in the UK,

but it was still a hostile place for LGBT people.

And as a black man, Ted faced extra challenges,

something his mother told him when he came out to her.

My mother cried on my shoulders.

I cried on her shoulders because she said,

you're going to have to face the hostility of people against black people,

but also against homosexuals.

And there's a little that you can do about it, except be brave.

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