Green Thursday, radio program, June 24, 1973, source recording
- BRUCE JEWELL: How long have you been in the gay liberation
- movement?
- FRANK KAMENY: About twelve or thirteen years.
- Since 1961.
- There's no sharp date.
- But since roughly that time.
- I founded the Mattachine Society of Washington the end of 1961,
- and was getting into the movement
- somewhat prior to that.
- BRUCE JEWELL: That seems to be an unusually long time.
- You're an early gay liberationist.
- Was there any reason that you entered into the movement
- so early?
- FRANK KAMENY: Well, by a process of personal evolution.
- I lost a government job at the very end of 1957
- on the basis solely of my homosexuality.
- And I was the first person to fight
- back on the basic issues all the way up to the Supreme Court.
- And the court chose not to take my case in March of 1961.
- And at that point, I felt I had gone
- as far as I could go as an individual working
- as an individual.
- I had been in touch with what there
- was of the movement at that time, a few organizations.
- And I wrote my own brief for the Supreme Court,
- and was forced in doing that to sit down and formulate
- my ideas.
- And I've been faced with the problems.
- So I decided the time has come to move forward
- as an individual through an organization.
- So I have my own ideas of where the movement should go
- and where it hadn't been going up to that point
- that it should go.
- And so, I found the Mattachine Society of Washington,
- and proceeded to set the movement at that time
- off on somewhat different directions
- from where it had been.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Could you tell me where it had been
- and where you believe it should go?
- FRANK KAMENY: The second part of your question
- skips a gap of over ten years.
- But at that time, keep in mind this is back in 1961 now,
- the movement was a-- and I say this non-critically and
- non-judgmentally, because the whole situation was very, very
- different at that time.
- But the movement was a rather bland, conservative,
- non-assertive kind of movement, interested in research
- in homosexuality in attempting by a process of education
- to change public attitudes.
- Such words as activism, and militancy, and the like
- were considered very dirty words in the movement at that time.
- I founded the Mattachine Society of Washington
- as the first explicitly activist, explicitly
- civil liberties organization in the movement.
- And it proceeded to set the pace for the whole movement
- for some years thereafter, and other organizations followed.
- Now, since then of course, we've gone
- through another whole phase.
- And 1969 was the emergence of yet another phase.
- And there have been perhaps two stages within that.
- Any movement that isn't dying evolves and goes
- through stages, and ours has over the twenty years
- that the gay liberation movement in one form or another
- has existed.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You mentioned earlier
- that you'd done some of your own legal work
- in the Supreme Court case.
- Have you continued to use this legal knowledge
- on behalf of gay people and the gay movement?
- FRANK KAMENY: Yes.
- And more, I suppose by evolution than by original intent,
- I've ended up becoming the authority
- in the country on relationships between the homosexual citizen
- and the federal government, specifically
- in the areas of civil service employment, the armed services,
- and security clearances, but also
- in other areas of law that involve the homosexual.
- I'm active, I'm consulted by attorneys across the country.
- I serve as counsel at the administrative level,
- that is below the court level, in a large number of cases.
- And in general, function that way.
- A lot of people have suggested that I
- ought to go to law school and become admitted to the Bar.
- But this would put a crimp into my style,
- because I don't have to observe the amenities that lawyers do.
- I don't have to observe the canons of legal ethics.
- I can advertise for cases and solicit for them,
- and create them, in fact.
- And I don't have to be polite to my adversary lawyers, who
- are anti-gay, and things of that sort that ordinary lawyers do.
- And I have a lot of degrees of freedom.
- One established and prestigious civil liberties organization,
- non-gay, but friends of ours that I've worked with,
- have referred to me as their lawyer without portfolio,
- and have pledged themselves to defend me
- if I ever get prosecuted for practicing law
- without a license.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What current actions are pending
- in the Washington DC area?
- And what things are you planning for the future?
- FRANK KAMENY: Well, there are a number of things.
- I don't know that I can give a complete listing at this point,
- or an exhaustive one.
- We expect momentarily a change in Federal Civil Service
- Commission policy on homosexuals.
- Don't know quite what the change will be,
- but one is in the works.
- We forced a meeting on the chairman of the commission
- last August, and things have moved slowly,
- but moved from there.
- We have a number of security cases going, security clearance
- cases, in Washington and elsewhere,
- and have the Defense Department somewhat beleaguered on that.
- A major decision is due to come down on that shortly.
- And depending on which way it goes,
- it will affect that whole situation.
- Locally, we are attempting to-- we have some civil rights
- legislation before our city council,
- banning discrimination against homosexuals
- in private and public employment,
- housings, and rentals, and real estate, public accommodations,
- and so on.
- And we have every expectation that that
- will pass, and pass rather easily, later on this summer.
- There are a number of other things going along
- as they arise in a number of other related and collateral
- areas.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You, among some others,
- have taken a very-- a leading role
- in dealing with the American Psychiatric Association.
- Could you tell me why you think dealing with the American
- Psychiatric Association, or a psychiatrist,
- is important to the gay movement?
- And secondly, what types of goals do you have in mind?
- FRANK KAMENY: Society finds ways of putting down people
- that it considers unpopular.
- And one of the best ways of doing that
- is to pin nasty name tags on them.
- And the name tags vary from ear to ear,
- depending on what's important to people.
- In the past, if they didn't like you,
- they called you sinful or a heretic.
- Well, the high priests of past ages
- have been replaced as authority figures in our society
- nowadays, for better or for worse,
- by the high priests of the 20th century, the psychiatrists.
- And so now if they don't like you and if you're unpopular,
- they call you sick, and that's exactly what
- the psychiatrists have done.
- And this allegation that homosexuality
- is a sickness, which has absolutely no scientific basis
- at all, has served to maintain and reinforce
- popular prejudice.
- And so, I feel it's necessary before we can really
- achieve full personhood, full citizenship,
- to get rid of the allegation that we are sick, or ill,
- or mentally disturbed, or whatever you want to call it.
- And so, we started approaching the psychiatrists,
- oh, close to ten years ago.
- And it's been a long, slow job.
- We've had to invade their meetings.
- On one occasion, I had to seize the microphone
- and lay down the law to them.
- But we're bringing them around.
- And it looks now as if there will
- be changes in the next number of months to a year or so,
- hopefully, in their official categorization
- of homosexuality.
- And once, we're removed from the characterization of being sick,
- a great many of the weapons of the bigots
- will have been taken from their hands.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You recently attended
- the American Psychiatric Convention in Honolulu.
- Would you tell me something about what
- happened at the convention, your experiences there?
- And what do you think came out of that particular convention?
- FRANK KAMENY: It was a busy and productive week.
- I came back very well satisfied, even
- though we didn't come back with anything actually
- in our pockets at that point.
- The main formal feature of the meeting within this context
- was a special morning session--
- all morning session dealing with the question
- of whether homosexuality should continue
- to be included in the psychiatric nomenclature
- in their diagnostic manual.
- Their diagnostic manual is their sickness book.
- If you're in it, you're sick.
- If you're removed from it, you've been miraculously cured.
- And we are seeking to get ourselves removed from it,
- so that we can be "cured" in quotation marks, "cured en
- masse" by semantics, instead of individually by therapy.
- And the special session consisted of six people:
- two psychiatrists who were very much in favor of our views,
- and positions, and aims; two of the most prominent
- of our opponents, Dr. Socarides and Dr. Bieber;
- and one of our own people, Ronald Gold, from the Gay
- Activist Alliance of New York.
- I was invited to be Chief Discussant
- to discuss the papers as a group after they'd been presented.
- It went off very well.
- The session was probably the best attended
- of any during that whole meeting.
- And Doctor Bieber and Socarides, who had--Doctors Bieber
- and Socarides who had sort of reigned supreme in this area
- for many, many years, were subjected to, for them I think,
- the rather unaccustomed experience of being booed
- and jeered and derided by their colleagues when they presented
- their views.
- They were very, very much on the defensive.
- And I've interacted with both of them
- on a number of occasions in the past.
- And it was the first time I've seen them so.
- They made a number of concessions even there.
- However, they are just two individuals.
- And more important, are the formal things that came out.
- We have a number of resolutions at various stages
- of processing now in the American Psychiatric
- Association.
- The internal structure of that association is enormously
- complex, wheels within wheels within wheels
- with many, many different levels--
- boards of trustees, and the assembly of district branches
- of various committees, and so on and so forth.
- And in process are resolutions by the American Psychiatric
- Association affirming civil rights for homosexuals
- in a variety of specified ways, indicating
- that the use that the government has
- put to the listing in their manual
- is an abuse, not a proper use in placing special burdens
- on homosexuals to prove their stability,
- or their judgment, or their reliability.
- And most important of all, proposals
- which are moving through the APA's machinery
- to drastically modify the listings in this connection
- in their manual.
- And the net effect will be to remove homosexuality
- from their diagnostic manual, which will mean that
- to the extent that the American Psychiatric Association is
- authoritative, and I guess in actual practice
- it is, even if nobody's appointed it as such,
- we will have been officially declared healthy.
- BRUCE JEWELL: There was a caucus, I believe,
- of gay psychiatrists at this convention.
- Could you tell me something about this caucus?
- And if they have any plans to do anything in the future?
- FRANK KAMENY: This is one facet of a phenomenon
- that, well, it has been long in existence
- and is appearing more visibly in many, many, many different
- professions.
- 10 percent of our general population, of course,
- in all areas is gay.
- And so, you would expect, even if you didn't know in advance
- or hadn't taken a survey or checked it out,
- that 10 percent of any particular profession
- would be gay.
- And so, of course, there are 10 percent of all lawyers,
- of all doctors, you name it, all teachers, anything else,
- are homosexual.
- And so, 10 percent of psychiatrists are gay.
- Now, in general in the past, gay professionals
- have tended to remain very, very, very much covert,
- in the closet as we express it, in some professions
- more so than in others.
- But certainly in the past, for rather good reason, a law
- student, for example, known to be gay
- could reasonably well count on not getting admitted to the Bar
- when he finished his schooling.
- Things of that sort.
- This is beginning to change.
- And so, we now have organizations
- of gay law students, gay psychologists, gay doctors,
- and others.
- And a professional accreditation board,
- whether it's from inside or outside the profession,
- is a lot less likely to take on a mass group
- to discredit than an individual.
- You can pick off an individual easily,
- but you can't pick off 10 percent of a law school class.
- That kind of thing.
- The psychiatrists have their gay people as well.
- They have tended to be rather more covert
- than some other professions.
- And for many years, there has been
- what has been somewhat facetiously called the GayPA.
- Simply a group of-- nothing formal, nothing
- organized at all.
- Simply a group of gay psychiatrists
- who knew each other and who would get together
- quite informally, usually on a purely social basis,
- at the annual meetings of the American Psychiatric
- Association, which occur in one part or another of a country
- every May.
- This time, there was a particularly large meeting
- of the GayPA.
- A few people who are non-gay, but not unsympathetic,
- came to the meeting a little bit to the dismay, I think,
- of some of the gay psychiatrists.
- And I must confess that Ron Gold and I brought them there.
- And a great deal of pressure was put
- on them, that is on the gay psychiatrists,
- to begin to come out and declare themselves.
- Most of them still are not.
- It's going to be another few years.
- But if you're a little bit sensitive to the nuances,
- you can see movement there.
- A few of them are beginning to.
- And I think that there will be a slow, but definite movement
- in that direction in the next few years,
- because psychiatrists are particularly oppressed.
- I know at last year's meeting, in 1972 in Dallas,
- we had a panel discussion in which I participated along
- with my colleague Barbara Gittings as representatives
- of the gay community.
- A panel on Psychiatry, Friend or Foe of Homosexuals?
- And one of the people we had on the panel
- was a gay psychiatrist who, because
- of the attitudes of his own profession,
- felt obliged to appear wearing a full head mask,
- so that he was completely unidentifiable.
- And it may sound rather overly dramatic,
- but it served very, very effectively
- to demonstrate exactly what the homosexual psychiatrist goes
- through in terms of the attitudes of his own profession
- toward him.
- And I think he made his point, and made it very, very well.
- So there again, you have a movement there
- to try to do something ultimately
- from inside the profession, as well as merely from outside it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Dr. Kameny, you've been,
- as you mentioned earlier, in the movement for over ten years.
- I'd be interested in knowing what kind
- of changes in attitudes you've seen, first of all,
- by homosexuals towards other homosexuals
- and towards themselves.
- And secondly, what kind of changes
- you've seen in attitudes on the part of heterosexual people
- towards homosexuals, and perhaps vice versa.
- FRANK KAMENY: Well, the changes, of course, have been enormous.
- And answering that question adequately
- could easily take us another hour.
- So any answers I give are going to have
- to be somewhat superficial and necessarily inadequate
- from any total viewpoint.
- There's been, of course, an enormous amount of change.
- When I joined the movement and right on up into the late '60s,
- it was a rather small movement, which we used to lament.
- When I founded the Mattachine Society of Washington,
- there were five or six organizations in the country.
- I could write to the whole movement after dinner,
- and have the rest of the evening free to do other things.
- By the late sixties, there was a tenfold increase, fifty
- or sixty such groups.
- But we were still lamenting with good and valid cause
- that it was not a grassroots movement.
- That it was not a popular movement.
- That it still was very, very small.
- People had become a lot more militant.
- I remember when I organized the first picketing demonstration
- by homosexual's in 1965.
- That was a period when picketing was
- the radical mode of expression of dissent par excellence.
- And it was a rare day indeed when
- you had as few as three groups picketing
- in front of the White House.
- Well, for gay people to picket was considered so extraordinary
- that when a little band of ten frightened gay people marched
- across Pennsylvania Avenue and took up a place in front
- of the White House, we got, not only national,
- but international TV coverage.
- And that has expanded now, so that we
- hope to have ten thousand, or perhaps,
- several times that many marching down 7th Avenue today.
- But at that time, as I said earlier,
- words like militancy and activism
- were really considered dirty words.
- And they were considered radical in the bad and derogatory sense
- of radical.
- But people were beginning to push.
- And the movement sort of turned a corner in June of 1969,
- when the first gay riot in history occurred in New York.
- And there again, whatever one may on a subjective basis
- considered to be the merits or demerits
- of a riot as an expression of dissent,
- the message expressed was very, very clear.
- And that is, that we've been pushed around
- for three thousand years and we're fed up with it.
- And we're starting to push back.
- And if we don't get decent treatment and get it now,
- there's going to be a lot more pushing back.
- And that sort of changed the whole tone of the movement.
- It pumped an enormous amount of energy,
- and vigor, and enthusiasm into it.
- It converted it very much from a small movement, the type
- I described, to as close as it's come thus far to being
- a mass grassroots movement.
- So that, for example, a year and a half
- ago when we had a mailing to all the groups
- that we could find the names of in the country,
- the mailing consisted of five to six hundred groups.
- Or in other words, another tenfold
- increase in the next year and a half,
- and it's going up rapidly beyond that.
- That got gay liberation into the news,
- and homosexuality into the news.
- The subject is discussed now.
- And it's being-- approaches to it are being reconsidered
- in many, many different ways.
- Laws are changing and so on, so that there
- is a great deal of very, very rapid change going on.
- Perhaps one of the most important things
- is the movement of homosexuals into politics.
- And as I see it in somewhat long range terms,
- but not very long range, that perhaps
- is the wave or one of the waves of the future.
- We started going into politics back in the middle sixties.
- We would have done it in Washington earlier than that,
- because we considered it the early sixties,
- but Washington, at that time, had no politics at all
- for us to go into.
- There were no local politics.
- And we had less leverage on national politics
- than anybody else in the country.
- So we didn't.
- But groups in San Francisco began to,
- in the middle sixties, secondhand
- by approaching candidates running for office,
- inviting them to a public forums,
- sending out questionnaires to them, and so on.
- And getting their responses, feeding those back
- into the gay community to guide voting.
- That was sort of going into things
- second hand on the coattails of those politicians
- who offered their coattails.
- In early 1971, when for the first time
- we had a congressional election in the District of Columbia,
- some people in the gay community asked me to run,
- and I did as the first publicly declared homosexual ever
- to run for public office.
- I didn't expect to win.
- So there were no tears when I lost.
- I did accomplish what I intended to, which
- was impact on the governmental political structure, impact
- on the general community, and perhaps most importantly,
- impact on my own community to start politicizing them.
- And so candidates in increasing numbers, openly gay candidates,
- are now running for office over the country.
- We had five people elected to the Democratic National
- Convention, people running here in New York for city council,
- and other offices.
- I understand someone will be running
- for Congress from one district here in the city later
- on this year.
- Elsewhere in the country.
- In many instances, as is to be expected, people don't win.
- They haven't.
- That will change too gradually.
- People will continue to run.
- And I think, ultimately, we'll get in.
- I think this is extremely important, because it
- has to be realized that for--
- and we're going through the same process
- that other minorities have gone through along these lines--
- this realization that for us, as homosexuals,
- this is our society quite as much
- as it is that of the heterosexuals,
- and our country, and our government.
- And they are our political officers.
- And we are going to take what is ours.
- And the way to take it in this context is to run for office,
- and win and get in there.
- And that's exactly what we're doing.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You mentioned the first march
- of about ten people.
- Today, there's a march expected to be at least ten thousand.
- How does that make you feel?
- FRANK KAMENY: Well, very, very enthusiastic.
- Very proud.
- Well, that's about all I can say.
- Very pleased.
- I feel that a process that I helped set into motion
- is now going on, has taken on a life of its own
- very much as it should.
- And (pause) well, very well satisfied.
- That's all I can say.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you very much, Dr. Kameny.
- (pause in recording)
- BRUCE JEWELL: Can I ask you what you think of the gay parade
- here?
- SUBJECT 1: Love it.
- Love it.
- I'm with it.
- And so is he.
- SUBJECT 2: Beautiful.
- Beautiful.
- SUBJECT 1: Beautiful.
- We can make it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How do you feel about the gay parade?
- SUBJECT 3: I think they should have the right
- to march and be as people and regarded as such,
- no matter what the proclivity is.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you very much.
- (pause in recording)
- BRUCE JEWELL: How do you like the parade?
- SUBJECT 4: Pretty good.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you.
- How do you like the parade?
- SUBJECT 5: I think it's nice.
- Glad to see it so big.
- We'll be in it soon.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Good, thank you.
- How do you like the parade?
- SUBJECT 6: I love it.
- SUBJECT 7: Fantastic.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What do you think of the parade?
- SUBJECT 8: I think it's fascinating.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you.
- SUBJECT 9: Terrific.
- SUBJECT 10: Wonderful.
- Yeah, really good.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What do you think of the parade?
- Great.
- Thank you.
- How do you like the parade?
- SUBJECT 11: I love it.
- SUBJECT 12: It's fine.
- SUBJECT 13: Great.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you.
- CROWD: (chanting) Stop racist attacks against gay prisoners.
- Stop racist attacks against gay prisoners.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How do you like the march?
- SUBJECT 14: I love it.
- It's a lot of fun.
- SUBJECT 15: Very, very good.
- Enjoying it, sir.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you.
- How do you like the parade?
- SUBJECT 16: Beautiful.
- SUBJECT 17: This is ridiculous.
- SUBJECT 18: (laughs) Funny.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How do you like the parade?
- SUBJECT 19: Very good.
- Different.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you.
- Your sign says you're from the Gay Teachers Caucus.
- I haven't heard of that.
- What is it?
- SUBJECT 20: It's an organization of gay teachers
- within the National Education Association.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Is it located here, in New York?
- SUBJECT 20: No, it's based in Washington DC.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Very good.
- Glad to hear it.
- How do you like the parade?
- SUBJECT 20: It's really nice.
- It's really big.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you.
- You're a Marshal here.
- How many people do you estimate are at this parade?
- MARSHAL: I would estimate, now, this the fourth one I'm
- with, I would estimate this one's
- got to have at least eight thousand.
- Eight to ten thousand.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you very much.
- I see you are selling the Fag Rag, the Boston Newspaper.
- You must be from Boston?
- SUBJECT 21: Yes, sir.
- Yes.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How do you like the parade?
- SUBJECT 21: Oh, I think it's great.
- I'm really impressed so far anyway.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You have any idea how long it is?
- SUBJECT 21: I understand thirty-one blocks long.
- It stretches to about thirty-one blocks.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thirty-one blocks.
- Thank you very much.
- How do you like the parade?
- Wait.
- (pause in recording)
- SUBJECT 22: (singing) Mussolini Fascist (unintelligible)
- Christianity!
- There is Christianity!
- Viva Mussolini!
- Viva Bianchi!
- Viva Bianchi!
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you, sir.
- CROWD: (singing) (unintelligible)
- when the gays go marching in. (unintelligible)
- Oh, when the gays go marching in.
- Oh, I want to be with that number.
- When the gays go marching in.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Do it for me again.
- CROWD: (chanting) Radical femmes off the butch.
- Radical femmes off the butch.
- Radical femmes off the butch.
- (bagpipe playing)
- CROWD: (chanting) Back must stay oppression (unintelligible)--
- BRUCE JEWELL: I'm with Madeline Davis of Buffalo.
- And she's on the sidelines here watching the parade.
- What do you think of it, Madeline?
- MADELINE DAVIS: Well, it's the first time
- I've ever had a chance to really watch the parade.
- I've usually marched in it.
- And this time, because I have to be at the square early,
- I get a chance to stand by and watch it.
- It's gorgeous.
- It's, oh, wow!
- It's just so beautiful.
- I never saw so many people.
- I'm really impressed.
- I'm really impressed with my own people.
- They're gorgeous.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you very much.
- I notice your license plate is Gay1.
- How did you get that?
- SUBJECT 23: I just applied for a special plate,
- as you can do in the state of Vermont.
- You pay five dollars extra.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What excuse did you
- give them for wanting those particular initials?
- SUBJECT 23: I told them that I had a seven-year-old son, which
- I don't, whose name is Gaylord and who wanted his nickname
- on the plate.
- I got an answer back that Gay was already taken,
- which may or may not be the case.
- So I wrote back and said, my son was so disappointed
- that he came up with a scheme that they could give us
- Gay number one, or number two, or any gays they
- had just so we got a Gay.
- So we got Gay number one.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How about a few honks from Gay number one here?
- (car horn honking)
- SUBJECT 24: Before the gay plates,
- I had plates that said peace.
- But I get much more response on the highways from gay
- than I ever got from peace.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you.
- What do you think of the parade?
- SUBJECT 25: It's excellent.
- Yeah.
- I think it's pretty good.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Very good to hear.
- Enjoying it?
- SUBJECT 25: Sure.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you.
- SUBJECT 26: (singing) Come on, mama.
- Come on, hon.
- Let me play with your hot cross buns.
- Well, come on, mama!
- Come on, hon!
- Say, let me play with your hot cross buns!
- Come on.
- Come on. (unintelligible) Do it, do it darling!
- BRUCE JEWELL: I see by your sign you're with the Black Lesbian
- Caucus.
- SUBJECT 27: Yes, I am.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Could you tell me something about that?
- SUBJECT 27: It's a group in New York.
- We meet at the firehouse every Sunday.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Is it a fairly new group?
- SUBJECT 27: No, it's been going on-- you might say fairly new.
- It's been going on like about five or six months now.
- And we meet for like two or three hours every week.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How do you feel being at a parade like this?
- SUBJECT 27: It's great.
- It's great, because like I'm triply
- oppressed for my blackness, as a woman, and as a lesbian.
- So it's really great.
- There's not too many of us out here, but we're here, you know,
- and that's a good thing.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you very much.
- CROWD: (chanting) So will we fight back!
- Smash gay oppression!
- So will we fight back!
- Smash gay oppression!
- So will we fight back!
- Smash gay oppression!
- So will we fight back!
- Smash gay oppression!
- BRUCE JEWELL: We are now entering the Washington Square
- here, in New York City.
- The crowds are filling out.
- I'll have some more things later.
- (applause)
- SUBJECT 28: OK.
- Listen to this loud and clear.
- For the first time in four years,
- we have the mothers and fathers of the gay community marching.
- A standing ovation to our moms and dads.
- (cheering)
- SUBJECT 28: Standing ovation for moms and dads!
- (applause)
- (whistling)
- BRUCE JEWELL: What's your reaction to the march?
- SUBJECT 29: I think it's fantastic.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Have you ever been on one before?
- SUBJECT 29: Never.
- Never before.
- BRUCE JEWELL: From New York?
- SUBJECT 29: From Long Island.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How about you?
- SUBJECT 30: I think it's great, really is.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What do you like about it in particular?
- SUBJECT 30: The people.
- The gay people.
- That's what's nice.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Have you been on a march before?
- SUBJECT 30: Nope.
- First one.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you very much.
- What's your reaction to this gathering?
- SUBJECT 31: It's wild.
- SUBJECT 32: Come on.
- There are more of you than that!
- Again!
- CROWD: Gay power!
- SUBJECT 33: --it's the first time I've been able to do--
- SUBJECT 34: --I have never in my life
- been so happy to see every single time she
- walks into any room on the (unintelligible).
- I'm sorry.
- (live instrumental music)
- SUBJECT 35: Yeah, C sharp (unintelligible)
- SUBJECT 36: --once said something
- on national television that has stayed close to my heart
- ever since I heard it.
- And every time I think of it, I think
- of you looking at me like that.
- She once said to David Susskind, "Screw you."
- When I first realized that I was a lesbian,
- I picked up a book in the library.
- And the book said that all lesbians love the color green
- and they dress like men.
- So I came to New York looking for my people, dressed
- like a man.
- And I found out that those books were wrong.
- And she has vowed to change that misinformation,
- to change the information that we read in books, so
- that young people will grow up learning the right thing
- about themselves.
- And I love her for that.
- I love her for everything she stands for.
- She's come back to New York to find
- her people, Barbara Gittings.
- (applause)
- BARBARA GITTINGS: Hello, everybody.
- CROWD: Hello Barbara
- BARBARA GITTINGS: And welcome to the greatest consciousness
- raising event in gay history.
- (applause)
- This may not be quite the total lavender revolution,
- but it certainly is a revelation.
- No more can people talk about us as
- though we were a tribe of three hundred people
- on a Polynesian island six thousand miles away.
- (applause)
- (bell ringing)
- Because we are everywhere, aren't we?
- CROWD: Yes!
- BRUCE JEWELL: In the remainder of her speech,
- Barbara Gitting's listed the accomplishments
- of the gay liberation movement, and ended
- by leading the crowd in a chant of, "Gay is good.
- Gay is proud.
- Gay is natural.
- Gay is normal.
- Gay is gorgeous.
- Gay is positive.
- Gay is healthy.
- Gay is happy.
- Gay is love."
- Then she said, now turn to the person next to you,
- and say, "You are beautiful," and that's what people did.
- All smiles, they turned around.
- Some people kissed one another.
- It was really beautiful.
- Following Barbara Gitting's speech,
- Master of Ceremonies Vito Russo introduced the Los Angeles Gay
- Community Leader Morris Kight.
- During his speech, Mr. Kight mentions a little boy
- by the name of Jason, who had been lost
- and was found, just as Kight was about to begin his speech.
- So here's Morris Kight.
- VITO RUSSO: --man who founded the GLF of Los Angeles,
- the President of the Board of Directors of the Gay Community
- Services in Los Angeles, and was in the Peace Movement
- before most of us were born.
- He is the "Silver Thread" as he calls it.
- From southern Los Angeles to New York City,
- and he comes bringing us love.
- "The Dean," as John Francis Hunter
- calls him, of the Gay Liberation Movement, Morris Kight.
- (applause)
- MORRIS KIGHT: Brothers and sisters, I
- bring you greetings of love.
- I am delighted that Jason has been found.
- I'm much happier that we've been found.
- There was at this demonstration a picket
- sign, which I think is classic.
- One of the best I have ever seen in my life.
- "Don't pretend to be somebody else.
- Be yourself."
- (applause)
- (cheering)
- If I did all the things in New York that I was assigned to do,
- I would have to stay a year.
- I'll come back.
- Dick Michaels, the Publisher of The Advocate,
- asked me, especially, to bring you his warm personal greeting.
- The sisters who run the Lesbian Tide Collective
- asked me to do the same thing.
- Just before I left Los Angeles, the last person
- that I saw other than my closest coworkers
- at the Gay Community Services Center
- was Reverend Troy Perry, who asked
- me to bring you his greetings.
- A great many of the people said, look up ole so and so.
- Or, so and so I used to know them real well.
- I don't have time to do that.
- So if somebody in southern California says,
- "Did Morris say hello?"
- Please do that.
- Say, "Yes, he looked me up.
- He said hello."
- OK?
- Alright.
- Now, let's talk.
- In New York, I have been the recipient
- of the most hospitality that I have ever
- received in my entire life.
- Don Goodman of the Mattachine Society
- has had me to the society offices and to a lovely dinner.
- I was at the West Side Discussion Group Fair
- yesterday.
- I couldn't have enjoyed myself more.
- Last night, I was to the Gay Activist
- Alliance of New Jersey.
- For a thrilling and beautiful march, and afterwards
- a delightful party.
- Billy Rousseau, one of my coworkers in Los Angeles,
- is in the city.
- And he's provided transportation for me.
- And I think you, Billy.
- Beyond that, two beautiful people and many joining them,
- Jonathan (unintelligible) and David (unintelligible),
- had me to Coming Out.
- And I never had such an emotional experience
- in my lifetime.
- Beyond that, the Gay Activist Alliance
- has had me to the firehouse time and again, and I've enjoyed it.
- My host in New York has been Morty Manford.
- Thank him.
- OK.
- At this time every year throughout America, there
- is held graduation exercises.
- And they always talk about promises.
- They're going to promise you a lot of things, the universe,
- dominion, progress, domination over women,
- over blacks, over Chicanos, over us, over children,
- domination, domination.
- I call it the great bullshit revelation (unintelligible).
- (applause)
- So that's not what we're talking about.
- We're talking about not dominating.
- We're talking about sharing, and loving, and caring.
- So we have a promise that we should make one another.
- Other minorities have had those who promised them things.
- Sojourner Truth said to black women,
- "That white man over there says that that woman, that lady
- must be lifted into a carriage.
- Nobody ever lifted me into their carriage.
- And ain't I a woman?"
- Marcus Garvey said, "Liberty and justice for all?
- Well, they must be talking about white folks,
- because us black folks never had no liberty and justice.
- Unfortunately, nobody promised us anything,
- except misery, and destruction, and genocide.
- We have been promised a life of death,
- and destruction, and despair until this generation, in which
- we have joined together to promise one another
- it should never happen again."
- In that context, we must remember Dachau, Belsen,
- Pilzen, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, in which a million
- of our brothers and sisters were scooped up
- off the streets of Europe, and taken to that place.
- And there, submitted to the ultimate solution to gayness,
- incinerated and turned into soap.
- Never again.
- Never again will we allow this to happen.
- (applause)
- In the names of Rob Shaffer, assassinated
- on duty serving you.
- In the name of Frank Bartley, assassinated in Berkeley,
- because he attempted to talk to somebody about caring,
- and touching, and feeling.
- In memory of the two hundred of our brothers and sisters
- burned to death in Salem, not because they were witches,
- because they were part of us.
- In memory of that one million incinerated at Buchenwald.
- In memory of Diego (unintelligible)
- down at the police station.
- (unintelligible) a victim also.
- In memory of each and every one of these,
- we say no more genocide.
- Never again will you be allowed to take our children from us.
- You will not be allowed to take our dignity.
- You would not be allowed to take our lives.
- You will not be allowed to deny us a home, a job.
- And we demand that you give us the room that we want
- not to be part of your society.
- I do not wish to work at the White House,
- because I don't want to be a thief.
- (applause)