The 1970s was a pivotal decade for the LGBTQ+ movement. Building on the 1969 Stonewall uprisings, new organizations were established, including the National Gay Task Force (later the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, now the National LGBTQ Task Force), PFLAG, and Lambda Legal. This decade of activism culminated in 1979 with the first national march on Washington for lesbian and gay rights, attended by an estimated 125,000 people.
The march had been planned for a long time, but one of its sponsors, the groundbreaking gay politician Harvey Milk, did not live to see it. Here’s an overview of the march, how it took place and what it accomplished.
the beginning
“The earliest paper evidence traces the origins of organizing to a meeting held by the National Gay Mobilization Committee in the student union on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973,” Amin Ghaziani wrote. gay & lesbian reviews Jeff Grabert, who led the rally, said one of the goals of the march would be to “gain solidarity for the gay movement in the country, which is currently isolated and divided.” However, no infrastructure for marching emerged from the rally.
Then, in October 1978, the March on Washington Committee, a Minneapolis-based group, began discussing such events. “Unfortunately, the Minneapolis group disbanded a little more than two weeks before a scheduled weekend meeting of lesbian and gay leaders from across the country, deciding that deep internal conflicts over racism and classism in the organizing process made it impossible to plan a march effectively,” Ghaziani wrote.
Enter Harvey Milk.
In 1977, Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city’s version of the San Francisco City Council. He was California’s first openly gay elected official. After the Minneapolis group disbanded, he decided to take charge of planning the march. However, he was assassinated on November 27, 1978, along with Mayor George Moscone, by former Board of Supervisors member Dan White.
Related: Who is Harvey Milk?
Two of the march’s organizers, Steve Ort and Joyce Hunter, felt that Milk’s death gave them even more reason to march. As quoted by Ghaziani, they wrote to activists across the country: “This project must be carried out as a memorial to the countless others who suffered and died at the hands of Harvey Milk and his bigots.” “We must make Harvey’s dream come true for those who are still alive and for those yet to come who will love someone of the same sex.” Calls for a march soon came from all over the country. Organizers chose 1979 as the date because it was the 10th.th Stonewall Memorial Day.
Other hosts included lesbian comedian Robin Tyler and Metropolitan Community Church founder Pastor Troy Perry. “Both were influential figures in the movement at the time.” defender “Tyler was known for producing events and easily pushing people around, especially gay men, to get things done his way.”
Phyllis Frye, an attorney often referred to as the grandmother of the transgender rights movement, also participated. “Her transgender advocacy created a movement, and she used march organizing as a vehicle. [achieving] That’s it,” fellow organizer Ray Hill said. defender “The state of our collective movement in 1979 was one in which the development of its components was uneven. With the exception of Phyllis’ advocacy, there was no trans movement.”
Even though no one was using the term LGBTQ+ in 1979, the march ultimately reflected the diversity of the community. There were also quite a few transgenders, bisexuals, lesbians, gays, and people of color.
On the day
The march had “five core demands: comprehensive civil rights protections, an end to discriminatory laws, equal parenting rights, freedom from workplace discrimination, and an end to anti-LGBTQ+ immigration policies,” the Ohio-based organization said. stonewall columbus Notes on the website. These were “bold and radical for their time,” the group added. They remain relevant today because there are still laws that discriminate against LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender people, and the federal government has never enacted an LGBTQ-inclusive civil rights law. The Employment Discrimination Act was never passed, and neither was its successor, the Equality Act.
March participants gathered at the U.S. Capitol, walked down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House, and held a rally on the National Mall.
One of the speakers at the rally, Charles Roe, a black gay man from Houston, was a university archivist and a founding member of the Houston Committee, a professional association for black gay men. According to his profile, he called for “integration, not assimilation.” National Park Service website. Gays and lesbians don’t have to be exactly like straight people to have equal rights, he said. “I’m worried that gay people who are aggressive gays, militant gays, obvious gays, stubborn gays, or who don’t identify as gay will benefit…and the real sissies and bitchy women of this country will still have to live in gay ghettos and won’t achieve the true meaning of this movement,” he said.
Speakers included the famous poet Audre Lorde, who called for intersectional movements long before the term was popularized. “We are telling the world that the struggle of lesbians and gay men is a real, special and inseparable part of the struggle of all oppressed peoples in this country.” “I am proud to speak out here today as a Black lesbian feminist who strives for a world where all children can grow up free from the ills of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, because these oppressions are inseparable.”
Another famous poet, Allen Ginsberg, read aloud the poem “Song” from his book. howl On the rally stage. His partner, fellow poet Peter Orlovsky, read aloud a poem from his book, “Someone Fell in Love with Me When I Was 12.” Beautiful asshole poems and smiling vegetable songs.
Tyler brought her signature sense of humor to the event. “Someone said this rally was to show society that we are just as good as everyone else,” she said. The Washington Post. “Well, I think the oppression we endured has made us better.”
PFLAG’s Richard Ashworth, then known as Lesbian and Gay Parents and Friends, said, “We love our gay children,” drawing cheers and applause. post Reported. “They’re not rebellious or selfish, they’re just true to their nature,” he continued. “This is not an epidemic, it was established in infancy, probably before birth. They did not get infected with it. This is not a curable disease.”
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The event also had homophobic opponents. “Approximately 75 Protestant pastors and church members gathered in the science and technology hearing room of the Rayburn House office building to pray for homosexuals to ‘repent,'” the newspaper said. post he pointed out. One of them was notorious televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. “God didn’t create Adam and Steve, he created Adam and Eve,” he said.
“Homosexuality, like theft or drug addiction, begins with a choice to disobey God’s law,” he added. “I am not opposed to equal housing and employment opportunities for homosexuals, but I am opposed to them teaching in classrooms and holding leadership positions.”
Similarly notorious anti-gay activist Anita Bryant did not go to Washington, but sent a telegram saying she was praying “for the misguided people who will march on Washington today and flaunt their immoral lifestyles.”
Related: Why did a gay man throw a pie in Anita Bryant’s face and who was he?
According to reports, there were only a few incidents of heckling along the march route. post article. One of them held a placard that read, “Repent or perish—2 Peter 2:12.” Members of the LA Gay Freedom Band responded by shouting, “The Lord is my shepherd, and he knows I’m gay.”
aftermath
As already mentioned, many of the demands of the 1979 march remain unfulfilled. However, the movement was energized and somewhat united. “Here we are weaving an entirely new identity from the threads of a once-scattered community.” defender I wrote about the event.
That energy and unity will be sorely needed in the coming decades, as AIDS has devastated gay men and trans women. There were national LGBTQ+ marches in 1987, 1993, 2000, and again in 2009, followed by multiple trans visibility marches.
Over the years, the community has experienced progress and setbacks. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and its abolition. Comprehensive federal hate crimes legislation. The Defense of Marriage Act, its repeal, and national marriage equality. Presidents Obama and Biden’s pro-LGBTQ policies and President Donald Trump’s hostility toward transgender people in particular.
But the 1979 march “was a declaration that LGBTQ+ people would not be made invisible or silenced,” Stonewall Columbus pointed out, and there was no turning back. “For many who participated in the march, it was the first time they had publicly declared their identity. The courage it took to do so in 1979, when any public display of LGBTQ+ pride was met with hostility, is a reminder of the resilience and courage that has always driven our movement.”
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
