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No mater where you look, pride is on display on Christopher Street. Flags adorn the Stonewall Inn, the site of the historic riots 40 years ago.

This year's Pride march will mark that key event in gay rights, as well as another one – the assassination of openly-gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk.

"Milk, in a way, is kind of like Stonewall of the west," said Michael Lavelle of the advocacy group Heritage of Pride. "So it's the right activist spirit to say that Stonewall is alive and well and continuing."

March organizers say this year's grand marshals include: Governor David Paterson, who's a long time supporter of gay marriage, activist Cleve Jones, a friend of Harvey Milk who came up with the idea for the AIDS memorial quilt, and Dustin Lance Black, whose movie about Milk's life won an Academy Award.

"I've heard it's people from every different sort of class, every different race, every gender watching this parade, and not just gay and lesbian people but also a lot of straight people and potential allies," said Black.

Cleve Jones said he is hoping his participation in the parade will inspire people to action.

"Many young people are, I think, skeptical that real change can occur; it can," said Jones. "And it happens when ordinary people take up the challenge, do the hard work, and come out of the closet, reveal themselves to their families and friends and co-workers. That's how we win and that's how we're going to win."

After Sunday's festivities, these grand marshals say they're turning their attention to Washington, D.C. and the national equality march that's scheduled there in October. That march comes 30 years after the first national march.

Both Jones and Black are hoping to make a strong statement to the president, the Supreme Court and to Congress.

"It's the tradition of this country to spread freedom," said Black. "It's the tradition of this country to spread equal opportunity, and that work has to be done with the federal government."

"We need to organize," said Jones. "We need to work harder. We need to be smarter about it and we really need to build pressure in all 435 congressional districts across the country to demand full equality now."

In the meantime, they say, it's time to pay homage to place where the movement began.