
This Eyewitness News file footage was captured on the evening of the first Mardi Gras in Sydney on 24 June 1978.
The clip is mostly silent and includes footage of a street march by lesbian and gay protesters, some of whom are then violently arrested by police in Kings Cross.
The clip ends with a statement by NSW Premier Neville Wran.
Read Ken Davis' first-hand account of the first Mardi Gras, a pivotal moment in Australian social and political history.
Ken Davis is visible in the clip, wearing 'radical drag' – a country-style brown and orange dress (at approximately 00:08-00:14).
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.