PHOTOS: 7 LGBT Heroes Honored With Plaques in Chicago's Legacy Walk

Today, National Coming Out Day, the Chicago Legacy Project will dedicate seven new bronze plaques recognizing LGBT heroes along its Legacy Walk, a series of biographical markers along North Halsted Street.

The dedication ceremony, which will be held from 3 to 5 p.m., honors astronaut Sally Ride, Broadway legend Cole Porter, poet Audre Lorde, "The Saint of 9/11" Father Mychal Judge, Olympic athlete Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, and David Kato, the murdered acivist from Uganda. An additional plaque honors the Stonewall Riots as the event that gave birth to the modern LGBT rights movement.

These will join 23 other biographical markers on Halsted Street in the city's Boystown neighborhood, making the Chicago Legacy Walk the world's largest collection of such monuments.

Below, read the biographies of these LGBT people who have changed the world. And see the entire collection of Chicago Legacy Project plaques, including markers for Walt Whitman, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, and the only such marker to mention Alan Turing's sexual orientation, at LegacyProjectChicago.Org.