Ron deHarte has heard the story hundreds of times, but it never loses its impact.

Nicole Murray-Ramirez tells the story often – how he, along with Tom Holman and Jess Jessop, marched into the San Diego Police Department to request a permit for San Diego’s first Pride parade.

Regardless of the fact that many people in the San Diego GLBT community know the story, Murray-Ramirez will continue to share it, so that history isn’t lost.

Eight out of 10 times Murray-Ramirez hears the story or reads it in print, it isn’t correct.

“There were three of us – Tom Holman, Jess Jessop and I,” Murray-Ramirez said. “People forget that Tom and Jess were there, because they are no longer alive. But they deserve credit. They deserve a lot of credit.”

In part, that’s why deHarte and San Diego LGBT Pride have launched the first phase of “Stonewall 40: Generations of Pride in San Diego” – so credit is given to those who pioneered Pride, and those who have helped sustain it for more than three decades.

The “Stonewall 40: Generations of Pride in San Diego” will be a comprehensive, multimedia timeline highlighting key individuals and events that helped shape San Diego Pride after the Stonewall riots in 1969. The Greenwich Village uprising became the flash point of the modern gay rights movement in the United States.

The archive project will debut on the Pride Web site before the 2008 celebration and will feature sound and video clips, along with photographs and transcribed interviews with activists.

The project will be updated throughout the year, leading up to the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and the 35th anniversary of San Diego Pride in 2009.

“It isn’t an overnight project,” said deHarte, executive director of San Diego Pride. “We wanted to do something so we don’t lose sight of some of the benchmarks, some of the milestones, in our history.”

San Diego Pride and project coordinator John Bilow have put a call out to activists who want to share their stories, photographs and memorabilia.

“I’m amazed at how much of our history we don’t have,” Bilow said. “A lot of the stories are memories of people who don’t remember clearly or who have passed away or moved. … I’m just surprised at how little of our own history we don’t know.”

In the early phase of the project, Bilow has interviewed activists, including Murray-Ramirez, who have volunteered with Pride during its 34 years.

The stories Murray-Ramirez shares are more well known than some others Bilow has come across.

“For every Nicole, there are 200 people you’d run into on the street who have stories, and you’d never know,” he said. “Nicole’s stories have been told, but so many people’s haven’t.”

Bilow and deHarte said the project will appeal to all community members, but is geared toward appealing to a younger demographic and toward reaching an outside audience. “We wanted to tell this story – not just to recognize the folks in our community who have made Pride what it is,” deHarte said. “We wanted to tell it in a way so that it is made more interesting for youth today – so it’s more interesting than just a magazine article on 40 years of Pride.”

“So many 18- or 19-year olds think Pride is just a party – and it is a party. … But they need to know how the party started,” Bilow said.

San Diego Pride has asked anyone who has information or material that would benefit the project to contact Bilow at history@sdpride.org or call the Pride office at 619-297-7683, ext. 5

“I salute Pride for doing this, not only for the activists still with us, for the activists not here to share testimonies of their heroism, of pioneering and trailblazing and fighting the good fight,” Murray-Ramirez said. “We have an obligation to put names to the early years, to the first demonstrations – some of the activists who are alive helped, but we didn’t do this alone.”

San Diego Pride’s 2008 celebration is scheduled for July 19-20. The festivities include a mile-long parade down University Avenue in Hillcrest at 11 a.m., July 19, and a two-day festival on July 19-20, featuring multiple performance stages, local community organizations, arts/crafts, employee groups and food and beverage gardens.