The 78ers have led the Sydney Mardi Gras parade each year since 1998.
The 78ers are activists who participated in Sydney’s first Mardi Gras, held on June 24, 1978. That original event began as a gay-rights protest and street festival, but police broke it up and arrested 53 participants. Subsequent protests helped turn the event into a major Australian movement for LGBTQ rights.
In 1997, members of the original 1978 movement helped plan the twentieth-anniversary commemoration. The group became known as the 78ers and began leading the annual parade in 1998, linking the modern celebration to its protest origins.
The 78ers are sometimes confused with New Mardi Gras, the organization associated with running the event and selecting parade leadership, or with Dykes on Bikes, a motorcycle group often seen near the front. Those groups have important parade roles, but they are not the historic group named in this question.