East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) was established in January 1962 in Philadelphia, to facilitate cooperation between

homophile Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been sodomite, Achillean, Sapphic, Uranian, homophile, lesbian, g ...

organizations and outside administrations. Its formative membership included the Mattachine Society chapters in New York and Washington D.C., the

Daughters of Bilitis The Daughters of Bilitis , also called the DOB or the Daughters, was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the United States. The organization, formed in San Francisco in 1955, was conceived as a social alternative to le ...

chapter in New York, and the

Janus Society The Janus Society was an early homophile organization founded in 1962 and based in Philadelphia. It is notable as the publisher of ''Drum'' magazine, one of the earliest gay publications in the United States and the one most widely circulated in ...

in Philadelphia, which met monthly. Philadelphia was chosen to be the host city, due to its central location among all involved parties. The organization voted to dissolve in 1966 due to internal issues, but was essentially renewed as the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO): a subsidiary of the newly minted

North American Conference of Homophile Organizations The North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO, pronounced "Nay-Ko") was an umbrella organization for a number of homophile organizations. Founded in 1966, the goal of NACHO was to expand coordination among homophile organizations t ...

(NACHO), established in 1966 to better coordinate a larger contingent of homophile organizations. By 1969 ERCHO members included New York's Council on Equality for Homosexuals and the Student Homophile League, Philadelphia's Homophile Action League, Hartford's Institute for Social Ethics, and the West Side Discussion Group, in addition to the original ECHO members. At the November 1969 ERCHO meeting in Philadelphia,

Craig Rodwell Craig L. Rodwell (October 31, 1940 – June 18, 1993) was an American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on November 24, 1967, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors, and as the prime move ...

Fred Sargeant Frédéric André Sargeant (born July 29, 1948) is a French-American gay rights activist and former lieutenant with the Stamford CT Police Department. He participated in each of the nights of the 1969 Stonewall riots and was one of the four ...

Ellen Broidy Ellen Broidy is an American gay rights activist. She was one of the proposers and a co-organizer the first gay pride march. Early life Broidy grew up in Peter Cooper Village, a housing project in New York City. Broidy says she knew she was a l ...

and Linda Rhodes submitted a resolution for a

march March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of Marc ...

to be held in New York City to commemorate the "spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street", which had occurred in June.Sargeant, Fred. "1970: A First-Person Account of the First Gay Pride March." ''The Village Voice.'' June 22, 2010.
retrieved January 3, 2011. Most ERCHO members supported the resolution. As a result of the measure, the first Christopher Street Liberation Day demonstrations took place in June 1970, with coordinated events in Chicago (later

Chicago Pride Parade The Chicago Pride Parade, also colloquially (and formerly) called the Chicago Gay Pride Parade or PRIDE Chicago, is the annual pride parade held on the last Sunday of June in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. It is considered the ...

), New York (later

NYC Pride March The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBTQ community The LGBT community (also known as the LGBTQ+ community, GLBT community, gay community, or queer community) is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, t ...

), Los Angeles (later

Los Angeles Pride The LA Pride Festival & Parade, commonly known as LA Pride, is an annual LGBTQ Pride celebration in Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest LGBTQ Pride events in the world, traditionally held on the second weekend of June, and produ ...

), and San Francisco (later San Francisco Pride). ERCHO, NACHO, and other homophile movements collapsed with the rise of more radical

gay liberation The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xiii ...

politics following the

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...

, and the final NACHO meeting took place 1970.

References

{{Early U.S. gay rights movement 1960s in LGBT history Defunct LGBT organizations in the United States History of LGBT civil rights in the United States LGBT history in the United States LGBT political advocacy groups in the United States 1962 establishments in the United States 1962 in LGBT history

See also

References