WEBVTT - Planning the Very First Gay Pride March 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.000 But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:09.320 the Outspoken Podcast Network. Hey, it's Jordan. I wanted to 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:14.680 share some exciting news. We've been nominated for Outstanding Podcast 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.800 of the Year at the Glad Awards. This is the 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.720 top recognition for queer media in our industry, and I 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.640 just wanted to say thank you so much, because we 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.080 couldn't have done this without you. Your emails, your messages 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.440 to me on Instagram and TikTok. They mean so much 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.360 to me and they keep me really encouraged and fired up. 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.000 So keep sending them and keep telling me what you 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.680 think of the episodes. I love hearing from you. Now 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:41.720 let's get into the show. 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:47.360 The marches now are parades. This was a march. This 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:51.120 was a march. This was a civil rights march. There 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:56.640 were no floats, there were no corporate sponsors. All the 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:03.880 signs were handmade. What seems today like a paltry number 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.880 of people, you know, in the thousands, as opposed in 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:12.560 the hundreds of thousands approaching the millions. To me, it 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:18.400 looked like this strong. It was our community doing it 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.600 by ourselves and for ourselves. And we immediately started screaming, 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:28.560 you know, join us, Join us. 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.399 As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South, 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:34.880 I thought being gay was the worst thing I could 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.760 ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.640 that by seeking out our history, and what I've found 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:47.240 are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love. 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.240 In this episode, we'll meet Ellen Broidy, one of the 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.520 organizers of the first ever Pride March, held in New 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.280 York in nineteen seventy. We'll learn about the original goals 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:01.880 of that first Pride March, and over half a century later, 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.160 whether Ellen thinks we've accomplished them. For my Heart Podcast, 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.640 I'm Jordan and Solves, and this is what we loved. 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.040 I remember my first Pride March. I was fifteen years 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.240 old in Houston, Texas, the city that I grew up in, 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:42.560 and I had a really good friend of mine who 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:44.960 was openly gay that I went to high school with, 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.800 and she begged me to come to the Pride parade 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.560 with her. Most of the people in my life had 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.240 already suspected that I was gay, but I was so 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.320 deeply ashamed that I didn't want to admit it even 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.399 to myself. And I thought, oh my, oh my, God, 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.560 if anyone sees me going to the Pride parade, it 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:07.160 will confirm all of these accusations. But I let her 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:12.280 convince me. To be honest, It wasn't this euphoric moment 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.919 when I suddenly felt so seen and heard and inspired 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.880 to come out. It was in the sweltering heat of 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.840 the Texas summer, and I remember feeling so out of place. 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.440 I tried to dress in what I thought was my 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:32.400 straightest outfit ever in case anyone saw me, basketball shorts 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.720 and a red polo with the collar popped. I can't 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.720 even say that this was of the times, because it 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.200 honestly would have been tragic in any era. But what 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.000 I do remember is a little debate that happened on 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:52.200 the street corner. It was between one of the church hecklers, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.000 who was saying all gay people were going to Hell, 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.280 and a gay queen who was probably in college. He 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.840 was small, sporting gene schwartz and a tank top that 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.840 showed his humble but noticeable build, and was wearing Harry 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:10.400 Potter glasses with rainbow glitter on his face. A femme queen. 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.960 I remember the heckler screaming up Bible verse after Bible verse. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.320 But I also remember the queen pulling out his own 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.920 Bible verses to defend being gay. He seemed really eloquent 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.920 and so calm. This was twenty eleven. I had never 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:32.080 seen anyone so confidently defend being gay. I hadn't seen 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.680 that many gay people up until that point. Actually, it 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.120 was clear that he came to Pride to have fun 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.279 with his friends, but it was also clear that he 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.080 was there to take up the space he believed he deserved, 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:49.360 exactly as who he was. My next guest, doctor Ellen Broidy, 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.560 probably had that same feeling when she attended her first 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.719 Pride March. The first Pride March, ever, she was actually 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.799 the person that proposed it, and, along with others, helped 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.919 organize it. It took place one year after Stonewall in 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.880 nineteen seventy in New York City. At the time, being 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:16.000 queer was considered criminal and a mental illness, but this 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.840 was also during a time of great social progress in America. 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.159 I grew up in a home with two parents who 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.080 were in fact activists. My mother was for many years 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.279 the only white employee at the National Urban League. My 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:42.160 father was a white collar worker. They were both quite 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:47.640 aware of the inequalities that exist in our country. And 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:51.840 remember this is back in the forties and fifties. They 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:56.080 would take me to marches and demonstrations. I remember actually 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:00.000 going with my mother to picket a Woolworths in Manhattan. 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.479 What was Wolworth's, a wo Worst and Selix was a 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:11.160 large department store chain. They were basically one floor. They 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.960 were called five and dimes. There's a place where you 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:21.200 could get inexpensive things. The Woolworths had segregated lunch counters 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.640 in the South. Some of the first actions that these 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:31.600 students took in the South were at Woolworth's lunch counters. 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.160 And so you and your mom were going to just. 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.480 Pick it outside. It was just, you know, a statement 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:39.080 of statement of support. 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.880 When was the first moment that you knew you were gay? 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:46.800 It didn't have to do a sort of my personal 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:53.400 attraction to individuals, more of a personal attraction to a concept. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:58.000 I went to elementary school in Greenwich Village and I 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.960 would see people in the street who, even at a 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:06.600 young age, I could clearly identify as belonging to a 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.240 certain community, and it almost like a light went off. 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:16.800 That's my community. That's where it was completely separated out 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:22.240 from attraction, from sexuality, from any kind of physicality. It 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.360 was almost this sense of there's a community out there 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.960 of people like me. Whatever that might mean to a 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:35.400 twelve year old, but that was my first sort of recognition. 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.680 And I also remember like being on the bus going 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.720 to school and knowing it's like I had this physical 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.880 core in the middle of my being telling me who 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:52.640 I was and leading me. You might say I was 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.600 led by my gut, and I guess that's the easiest 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:56.280 way to say it. 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.440 And what was it like being a queer person in 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.200 the fifty and sixties in America? 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.920 It wasn't so long after the McCarthy era, you know, 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:11.840 inco comedy queer was It was very clear that being 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:18.840 gay in America was being an outlaw. However, I kind 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:23.160 of enjoyed that. I enjoyed the illicitness of it, the 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:30.200 illegality of it. I enjoyed the transgression, even though I 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:35.600 had learned through no particular example, and nobody taught me this, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:41.000 but I had learned at that point that you'd be quiet, 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:45.760 you'd be careful, you take care because it was dangerous. 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:47.960 I mean, people were being beaten up in the streets. 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.240 There were bar rays going on all the time. Even 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.800 though I was too young to even frequent any of 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:58.679 those places, I knew enough to know what was going on. 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.800 So Ellen, before you went to NYU, you were at 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:08.400 Boston College, and while you were there you had a 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:13.520 nervous breakdown. And I'm wondering, was that because you were 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.760 coming to terms with your sexuality? 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:24.480 Oh, I had a between high school, I went to college, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:30.200 I went to Boston University. I lasted just under a 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:35.240 quarter before I had a complete and total meltdown, and 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.600 I'm not sure why, but I had to leave school. 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:43.040 I was hospitalized for quite some time, but then came 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.600 out of the hospital and went to NYU. And I 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:53.680 really don't think that my emerging sense of self or 0:09:55.559 --> 0:10:01.120 the repressive environment led to whatever was that caused me 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.400 to collapse emotionally or mentally. When I was at Boston 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:13.559 University those three plus months, I wouldn't exactly call it 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:18.800 a gay community, but my best friends were two gay 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:23.400 men and a lesbian, so we were clearly out to 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:29.079 each other. In fact, when I said to the psychiatrists 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.120 who also was a lesbian who I was assigned to 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:38.400 in the hospital, my problems are because I'm a lesbian's 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.280 you know, that's why I'm here, That's why I had 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.520 self destructive behavior. Yeah, yah yah. And she looked at 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:49.240 me and she said, you are too messed up to 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.480 call yourself something that indicates you know how to love. 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.120 That was a pretty positive thing to say to a 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:02.360 messed up eighteen year old. Don't blame it on who 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:07.520 you are, your sexuality. There's a lot of other stuff 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.880 going on here, but that core of who you are 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:12.040 is not the problem. 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:12.920 Hmm. 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.280 She was an amazing woman. Her name was doctor Catherine Thales. 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.760 Well, fast forwarding a little bit too. When you get 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.880 to NYU, you become involved with an organization called the 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:30.520 Student Homophile League League. Yes, tell us what that is 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.320 and why you became involved and sort of what it 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.440 was like being a part of that group. This was 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:36.199 the sixties. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:43.079 This was the sixties. This was nineteen maybe sixty five 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.000 or sixty six, sort of around the same time the 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:51.480 Oscar Wild Memorial Bookshop opened. But a man named Stephen Donaldson, 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:56.240 who was a student at Columbia, had started a group, 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:01.559 the first group in the nation forgb We did not 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.440 have LGBTQ, we didn't have the whole alphabet. At that 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:10.319 point it was lesbians, gays, and one or two bisexuals. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:13.600 We didn't trust because we thought they did good. And 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.679 three or four of us from NYU met in Stephen's 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:23.600 dorm room one day and asked about the possibility of 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.720 starting It wasn't exactly a chapter, but borrowing the name 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:32.319 Student Homophile League and starting our own group at NYU, 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:38.160 and Stephen said fine. We would meet in a room 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:44.400 in the student union, and of course a lot of 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:48.520 the young people were deeply in the closet and we'd 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.160 have the door open where the meeting was being held, 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.560 and you'd see kids walking back and forth and back 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:00.280 and forth before they decided they could come in. So 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.360 it took It took courage. You know, they're looking around, 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:05.680 who's looking at me? Who else is here on the 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.680 fourth floor of the student union. But they came in, 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.440 they joined, and it became a rather active group. 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.200 What was it like coming out to your family? 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.360 I'd agreed to do a TV show in New York 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:25.560 on the PBS, on the public television station. It was me, 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:30.800 Jack Nichols, elij Clark, and I can't remember who else. 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:36.200 And I knew that my parents watched this show. I 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.600 wasn't out to them yet, but I knew they watched 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:44.839 the show. So I decided, brilliant that I probably should 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:50.400 tell my mother. So I called her up and I 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:55.199 invited her out to lunch. We went to lunch right 0:13:55.240 --> 0:14:00.200 across from her office building. Every single person in the 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.280 agency must have come by the restaurant while we were there. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:09.600 My mother was so was wound up. She was so tight. 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.880 She was sure I was going to say I had cancer, 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:18.880 I'd flunked out of college, some horrific thing. And I 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:24.800 blurted out a crazy conglomeration of lesbian, gay homess. I 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.680 didn't even know the word that I used. She leans 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.880 back in her chair. All the tension drains from her face. 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:34.840 It was kind of amazing. It was almost like watching 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:40.520 a cartoon. And she says, I've known since you were three. 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.760 So I said, why didn't you tell me? She said, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.440 I didn't think it was any of my business. You'd 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.560 find out on your own, in your own good time. 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.560 But and it was always a butt with my mother. 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:57.520 My mother. Butt was her favorite word. But don't tell 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.360 your father. You'd be able to take it. He won't 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:03.400 be able to deal with it. I'm an only child 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.880 also won't be able to deal with it. So fine, 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:11.760 I don't tell my father. I do the show. The 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.680 next morning, I'm coming home from class. And this was 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.560 in the days of no cell phones, of course, just 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.280 your regular yellow phone on the wall. We lived in 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.680 a fifth floor walk up, and I swear you could 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:31.120 hear the angry phone ringing from the first floor. Yet 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:36.080 on the phone, it's mother. She says, the shit's hit 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:40.320 the fan, and she hangs up. My father had been 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:47.640 at lunch that day after the show, and some a colleague, 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.200 a work colleague, not a friend, a work colleague came 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:53.080 by and said, I saw your daughter on TV last night, 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:58.120 and proceeded to out me to my father in the 0:15:58.120 --> 0:15:59.640 middle of a business lunch. 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:01.160 Wow. 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:09.160 He was furious, having nothing to do with my being 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.560 a lesbian and everything to do with the fact that 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:14.560 my mother and I didn't trust him. 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:15.880 Oh wow. 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:20.360 We had that blow up and that was it. Then 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:29.160 it was just his anger at feeling ignored, avoided, eliminated, whatever, 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:30.680 not being trusted. 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.360 In June of nineteen sixty nine, the Stonewall Riots happened 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.280 when a bunch of street queens stood their ground against 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:50.160 the cops and won. Ellen was spending the summer on 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:54.120 Fire Island, but word got to her fast. The riots 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.520 brought attention and support to the gay community for the 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:03.040 discrimination they faced, and her activist friends knew how important 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:07.719 this momentum was to capitalize on. One month after Stonewall, 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.840 the first radical LGBT activist group was born. It was 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:17.240 called the Gay Liberation Front or GLF for short, and 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.200 when Ellen got back from Fire Island, she joined it. 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.840 In November of that year, queer activists held a meeting 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.960 called the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations. Ellen attended, 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.960 and it was there that she proposed the first ever 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:37.400 annual pride demonstration. It was to be called the Christopher 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:43.280 Street Liberation Day March. In nineteen sixty nine, Stonewall happens, 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:50.080 and you present the idea of a march to commemorate 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.280 the one year anniversary. Tell us how you came up 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:58.160 with that idea, how you presented it, and what the 0:17:58.200 --> 0:17:59.840 goal of the march was. 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:06.440 Yes, I was working, in quotes at the Oscar Wild 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:10.239 Memorial Bookshop. The end quotes means I was part of 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.600 the unpaid staff, but I was there almost every afternoon 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.600 because the original site of the Oscar Wild was in 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:20.840 the middle of the NYU campus. This is before it 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.560 moved over to Christopher Street in a much larger space. 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.000 So Craig Rodwell and I were actually quite good friends. 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.159 And tell us a little bit about what the Oscar 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.280 World Bookstore was. Who Craig Rodwell is. 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:38.439 Greig Rodwell was an amazing guy. He regrettably died in 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:43.119 the eighties, I believe of stomach cancer. But Craig came 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:49.600 from the Midwest. He had a rough life, a rough childhood, 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.000 a very supportive mother, but he came from a single 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:58.040 parent household. Knew he was gay, also pre natally, but 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.720 he always had this dream to open up a bookshop 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:12.440 that would handle gay and lesbian literature, positive stuff, novels, nonfiction. 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.120 Of the few writers who were not saying we were 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:22.199 either morally diseased or physically diseased or mentally diseased at 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.439 any rate. He scraped together the money and he opened 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:31.640 up this bookshop on Mercer Street, and I would hang 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:35.280 out there. My partner Linda would come after work. Everybody 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:39.360 would be there. It became sort of like a small 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:45.560 community center. Stonewall happens in June of sixty nine. In 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:50.480 November of sixty nine, there was a meeting in Philadelphia 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:55.040 of something called the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations 0:19:55.440 --> 0:20:01.920 or ERCO, which drew groups most we from New York, 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:07.600 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, but some groups for Fatherfield GLF 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:12.960 had started by this point, so they were an organization 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:18.720 that could have quote unquote delegates to this meeting, and 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.439 I was going both as a member of GLF and 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:27.080 as the president of the Gay Students Liberation at NYU. 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:30.720 The night before we were going to go to Philadelphia, 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:37.199 Craig and his then partner Fred Sargent, and myself and 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:42.000 my partner Linda had dinner at Craig's apartment, and we 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.880 started talking about what we thought was going to happen 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:47.040 at this meeting, you know, what was going to be 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:51.280 on the agenda, what was important, what was critical. And 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:55.000 the more we talked, the more it became a parent 0:20:55.560 --> 0:21:01.080 that Stonewall and what happened at Stonewall really needed to 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:05.600 feature large in whatever was going to be going on. 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:14.639 We were talking, suddenly Craig disappears. He comes back. He 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:19.480 has a pad and a pen. He says let's write 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:25.399 a statement. Let's talk about what we can do to 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:30.560 make Stonewall stay alive. I have to step back here 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:35.640 because there's a lot of history that predates this, because 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:40.960 we came up with a proposal based on a reaction 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:50.520 to another demonstration supporting the rights of lesbians and gay 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:54.760 men to be employed by the federal government because Frank 0:21:54.840 --> 0:22:01.240 Hammony had been fired for being gay from his position 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:07.080 as a federal employee. So every year, for several years, 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.919 this demonstration would go on. The men were required to 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:16.879 wear jackets and ties, the women dresses or skirts. It 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:21.919 was extraordinarily orderly. There was minimum age I think you 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:25.600 had to be twenty one or older. And part of 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:33.560 our proposal was to turn this annual event, this very 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:41.280 regimented dress code, age delimited event into a major statement 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:46.440 for game and lesbian liberation and gay lesbian pride. So 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:49.600 that's what we were working with. And actually we talk 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:53.560 about this in the proposal, but we mentioned that, and 0:22:53.600 --> 0:23:00.280 we mentioned no dress codes, no age limits. 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:05.800 Stonewall marked a huge shift in gay American activism. Before Stonewall, 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.960 the scene was dominated by two groups, the Mattachine Society 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:13.119 for Gay Men and the daughters of Balitis for lesbians. 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:16.680 Their goals were to work within the system to seek 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:20.800 change through legal action and peaceful protest. They wanted to 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:25.800 conform and assimilate into American society. But Ellen was part 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:30.119 of Gay Liberation Front or GLF, a new generation of 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:33.840 activists that didn't feel that way anymore. They didn't like 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:38.040 society the way it was. They wanted radical change, an 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:41.639 end to capitalism, an end to the nuclear family, and 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:45.119 an end to the military. This created tension at the 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:49.280 conference because both the radicals and the conformists were present. 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:55.439 How I ended up making the proposal is that Craig 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:02.480 was very much a lightning rod, controversial well controversial mostly 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:08.159 He had butted heads with Matachine for years. He and 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.480 Dick Leitch, who was the president of Matachine, were sort 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:14.879 of on and off frenemies. It was always hard to 0:24:14.920 --> 0:24:18.679 figure out what their relationship was. But the concern was 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:23.520 that if Craig made the proposal, the people in the 0:24:23.600 --> 0:24:28.520 room would look at the speaker, not the speech. It 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:33.760 was decided that since I was credentialed at this meeting 0:24:34.200 --> 0:24:40.320 because of the NYU group, that there would be less pushback. 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:47.320 So we wrote it collectively Craig knew better than to 0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:50.960 say that he should present it, and it fell to 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:51.920 me to present it. 0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:53.520 How did it go? 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:59.960 It passed with only one abstention, which was New York. 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:05.280 They abstained and briefly kind of tell me what were 0:25:05.320 --> 0:25:07.359 the goals of this march? 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:14.320 Visibility? I think that was that was probably the major goal. 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:25.439 Visibility memorializing what happened at Stonewall, fighting back, the power 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:32.960 to be in the streets as who you are, and 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:37.800 the fact that it was open to everybody that you 0:25:37.840 --> 0:25:41.960 didn't you didn't have to conform to a certain idea 0:25:42.000 --> 0:25:45.080 of what a gay man or a lesbian was. We 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:48.800 weren't asking anybody's permission to be who we were. 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:53.560 And a couple of days before the march, leading up 0:25:53.600 --> 0:25:57.760 to the march, were you nervous at all about anything? 0:25:58.520 --> 0:26:04.439 I was terrified. We had no idea whether the people 0:26:04.480 --> 0:26:07.560 who were going to be lining the streets, on the 0:26:07.600 --> 0:26:10.760 fire escapes, looking at the windows were there to support 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:16.160 us or to do us harm. It was a complete unknown, 0:26:17.359 --> 0:26:21.320 and that saur buying was also a complete unknown. What 0:26:21.440 --> 0:26:25.119 the behavior of the police would be. They were not 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:29.679 given what happened to Stonewall. They were not exactly our friends. 0:26:30.600 --> 0:26:33.600 In other words, you were nervous about violence. 0:26:34.800 --> 0:26:40.280 Yes, I was not nervous about being seen and being 0:26:40.440 --> 0:26:43.679 in the street and making that kind of statement. I 0:26:43.800 --> 0:26:49.040 was nervous about something preventing us from making the statement 0:26:49.080 --> 0:26:54.720 that we needed to make. But I will say that 0:26:55.800 --> 0:26:59.480 the minute we stepped into the street and started marching 0:26:59.600 --> 0:27:04.160 up from the village to Central Park, all that fear dissipated. 0:27:05.080 --> 0:27:10.840 At this point, you're kind of on I guess, rocky 0:27:10.960 --> 0:27:14.560 terms with your dad and mom. After sort of coming up. 0:27:14.720 --> 0:27:19.840 The morning of the march, my father called me. He said, 0:27:19.880 --> 0:27:23.440 I know this is happening today. It was widely advertised 0:27:23.480 --> 0:27:27.920 in the city. I know this is happening today. You 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:32.080 write down on the palm of your hand our lawyer's 0:27:32.200 --> 0:27:36.440 number if there's any trouble, if you get into trouble, 0:27:36.760 --> 0:27:41.920 if you're arrested, if you're harassed, if any authority gets 0:27:41.960 --> 0:27:45.960 in your face, that's your first phone call. Wow, he 0:27:46.000 --> 0:27:49.640 wrote me a poem. I can't even remember why he 0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:54.119 did it, what caused him to do it, But he 0:27:54.160 --> 0:28:00.200 wrote a poem. But the tone of it was, and 0:28:00.320 --> 0:28:04.880 the winds, the waves, nothing can wash away the love 0:28:05.720 --> 0:28:11.640 of a father for his child, I count myself extraordinarily blessed. 0:28:13.520 --> 0:28:17.400 So going back to the march, describe what that day 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:21.400 was like. So you start the day off being kind 0:28:21.400 --> 0:28:25.920 of scared and nervous, understandably so, and walk me through 0:28:26.320 --> 0:28:29.000 kind of what you see, what you smell, what you hear. 0:28:29.359 --> 0:28:31.800 Getting to Christopher Street. We lived in the East Village, 0:28:32.000 --> 0:28:36.160 So going all the way across town to Christopher Street, 0:28:36.760 --> 0:28:43.200 what seems today like a paltry number of people, you know, 0:28:43.280 --> 0:28:46.240 in the thousands, as opposed in the hundreds of thousands 0:28:46.280 --> 0:28:51.959 approaching the millions. To me, it looked like this throng 0:28:54.320 --> 0:28:58.600 and that created a sense of safety because there is 0:28:58.640 --> 0:29:02.000 I mean, let's face it, there's there's in numbers. The 0:29:02.040 --> 0:29:06.720 marches now are parades. This was a march. This was 0:29:06.720 --> 0:29:10.400 a march. This was a civil rights march. There were 0:29:10.400 --> 0:29:15.480 no floats, there were no corporate sponsors, there were no 0:29:15.640 --> 0:29:19.239 police walking behind us like this was some sort of 0:29:19.280 --> 0:29:24.040 perverse Macy's Day parade. It was just people taking to 0:29:24.120 --> 0:29:30.640 the streets, owning the streets. All the signs were handmade. 0:29:31.200 --> 0:29:35.680 People were dressed in everything from the most flamboyant drag 0:29:35.800 --> 0:29:39.920 you can imagine too, you know, the separatest lesbians in 0:29:40.040 --> 0:29:47.480 their flannel shirts and workboots. It was our community doing 0:29:47.560 --> 0:29:52.479 it by ourselves and for ourselves. There were people lining 0:29:52.560 --> 0:29:57.000 the sidewalks, there were people on the on the fire escapes, 0:29:57.040 --> 0:30:00.480 there were people on the roofs. And we immediately started screaming, 0:30:00.640 --> 0:30:03.640 you know, join us, join us, out of the closets, 0:30:03.680 --> 0:30:06.400