This year’s Vancouver Pride Parade is far from Pat Rocco’s first ‘ that one took place in 1970 in Los Angeles on the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

“Nobody wanted to give us permission to do it,” he recalled. “There was a big, big fight with City Hall.”

Despite fears that the parade would be beset by homophobic harassment, 500 people eventually took part, and thousands came to watch. In recognition of his efforts on that pioneering event, his famous gay filmmaking, and his other activism, Rocco has been named one of the four grand marshals of this week’s Vancouver Pride Parade.

Vancouver’s event takes place this Sunday, and organizers expect more than 600,000 people to show up.

Another grand marshal is Joan-E, an LGBT entertainer and MC, who was “really honoured” to be given the position and said that Pride is “about power, to be honest.”

“When people see that many people on a street, and big companies that support it, and politicians support it, it sends a strong message,” she said.

This year’s two other grand marshals are former Burnaby-Douglas MP Bill Siksay, the first openly gay non-incumbent to be elected to the federal House of Commons, and co-founder and executive director of AIDS Vancouver, Bob Tivey, who is this year’s posthumous grand marshal following his death this past March.