In the turbulent ’60s, a handful of LGBT rights activists—believing the courts were a dead end—turned to the Constitution’s 1st Amendment: the right to speak out.
Barbara Gittings at the 1966 Annual Reminder. Photograph by Kay Tobin Lahusen. Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Collection, John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives
The Right to Speak Out:
Testing the Promise of the First Amendment, 1960s-'80s
“15 MILLION HOMOSEXUAL AMERICANS ASK FOR EQUALITY, OPPORTUNITY, DIGNITY.”
—slogan on sign at the first of the Annual Reminders staged at Independence Hall, 1965
Protests Begin
In spring of 1965, LGBT activists hold planned protests in front of the White House and the Pentagon. Spontaneous protests break out, too, in communities in Philadelphia and San Francisco.
The Annual Reminder Demonstrations: July 4th, 1965-1969
Women wore dresses; men wore shirts and ties. All wore a sense of pride.
Protests Ignite a Revolution
The fight for gay rights intensified in the early hours of June 28, 1969, when New York City police raided Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn.
Rising Voices and Rising Reactions: the 1970s and 1980s
Rising visibility angered those who saw LGBT people as undeserving of civil rights.
A New Wave of LGBT Activism
Reacting to a growing anti-gay climate, the largest gay rights march to date draws some 100,000 LGBT people and their allies to Washington, DC, on October 14, 1979.
“Do You Think Homosexuals Are Revolting? You Bet Your Sweet Ass We Are!”
—flyer announcing the first meeting of what would become the Gay Liberation Front, following the Stonewall riots, 1969