The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on December 21, 1969, almost six months after 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 ...
, by dissident members of the
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a ...
(GLF). In contrast to the Liberation Front, the Activists Alliance solely and specifically served to gay and lesbian rights, declared themself politically neutral and wanted to work within the political system.
History
The group was incorporated by Hal Weiner, Esq., of Coles & Weiner, a two-person firm, after Weiner defended Sylvia Rivera in a criminal court proceeding where she had been arrested in
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...
while obtaining signatures on a petition for the first proposed LGBTQ legislation in the
New York City Council
The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of New York City. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five Borough (New York City), boroughs.
The council serves as a check against the Mayor of New York City, mayor in a may ...
, Intro 475, and charged with
soliciting
Solicitation is the act of offering, or attempting to purchase, goods and/or services. Legal status may be specific to the time or place where it occurs. The crime of "solicitation to commit a crime" occurs when a person encourages, "solicits, r ...
for the purpose of sex, rather than exercising a civil right to petition. The corporate certificate was rejected by the New York State Division of Corporations and State Records, on the grounds that the name was not a fit name for a New York corporation because of the connotation in which the word "gay" was being used, and that the corporation was being formed to violate the
sodomy laws of New York. It took five years to win the right to incorporate under that name.
The founding members, seven men and one woman, of the Gay Activists Alliance were dissatisfied members of the Gay Liberation Front. Some of the founding members included Fred Orlansky, Arthur Bell, Arthur Evans,
Marty Robinson, Tom Doerr, Peter Marleau,
Kay Tobin Lahusen, and Fred Cabellero. The group members wanted to form a "
single issue
Single-issue politics involves political campaigning or political support based on one essential policy area or idea.
Political expression
One weakness of such an approach is that effective political parties are usually coalitions of faction ...
, politically neutral
rganization whose goal would be to "secure basic human rights, dignity and freedom for all gay people." The political neutrality and single-themedness stood in contrast to the Gay Liberation Front, which allied itself with the radical
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...
, criticized the Vietnam War and had a hard left-wing, anti-capitalistic stance. GAA was most active from 1970 to 1974.
In one action in March 1970, the GAA organized protests against the police raid on the Snake Pit bar in
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
and the injuries suffered by
Diego Viñales
Diego Viñales (born Alfredo Diego Viñales) is a former Argentinian student who was swept up in a police raid on the Snake Pit gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village in March 1970. The raid at the Stonewall Inn that had sparked rioting and gay a ...
in the resulting chaos. These protests helped spark interest in the upcoming
Christopher Street Liberation Day
The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBTQ community in New York City. Among the largest Pride events in the world, the NYC Pride March attracts tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each J ...
events already planned for 28 June. This event, scheduled to commemorate the first anniversary of 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 ...
was the first
Pride march
The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBTQ community in New York City. Among the largest Pride events in the world, the NYC Pride March attracts tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each J ...
celebration in the United States.
They published the ''Gay Activist'' newspaper until 1980. GAA first met at the Church of the Holy Apostles (9th Ave. & 28th St.) Their next New York City headquarters, the ''Firehouse'' at 99 Wooster Street in Soho, was occupied in May 1971 and burned down by
arson
Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wat ...
ists on October 15, 1974.
"By 1980 GAA had begun to sound like the Gay Liberation Front in 1969. After Activists met to officially disband the Alliance a year later..."
GAA members performed
zaps (first conceived by Marty Robinson), raucous public demonstrations designed to embarrass a public figure or celebrity while calling the attention of both gays and straights to issues of LGBT rights. Some of their more visible actions included protests against an anti-gay episode on the popular TV series ''
Marcus Welby, M.D. Marcus, Markus, Márkus or Mărcuș may refer to:
* Marcus (name), a masculine given name
* Marcus (praenomen), a Roman personal name
Places
* Marcus, a main belt asteroid, also known as (369088) Marcus 2008 GG44
* Mărcuş, a village in Dobârl ...
'', many zaps of Mayor
John Lindsay
John Vliet Lindsay (; November 24, 1921 – December 19, 2000) was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, mayor of New York City, and candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regular ...
at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
and later at
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplac ...
, a zap against Governor
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...
(the "Rockefeller 5"), a zap at the Marriage License Bureau demanding marriage rights for gays, a zap against Fidelifacts, which provided anti-gay information to employers, a zap at the NYC Taxi Commission (which required gay cab drivers to get an OK from a psychiatrist before being employed), and a zap at the ''
New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...
'', which printed a scurrilous editorial attacking "queers, lezzies, pansies, call them what you will." Four were arrested. Although, GAA was nominally non-violent, zaps could sometimes involve physical altercations and vandalism. GAA co-founder Morty Manford got into scuffles with security and administration during his successful effort to found the student club Gay People at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in 1971, as well as at a famous protest against homophobia at the elite
Inner Circle event in 1972.
GAA was associated with a series of combative zaps against homophobic politicians and anti-gay activists in the summer of 1977. Although ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine derided them as "Gay goons", the actions succeeded in keeping the conservative backlash of the late-1970s out of New York state.
The GAA Firehouse on
Wooster Street also served as a community center and had extremely popular dances that helped fund the organization. The stairwell was decorated with a photomontage
agitprop
Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred to ...
mural created by the British artist
Mario Dubsky (1939–85) and the American painter
John Button (1929–82) both of whom were early victims of
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
. The Mural was destroyed in the fire that destroyed the centre in 1974. The symbol of the Gay Activists Alliance was the lower case Greek letter
lambda
Lambda (}, ''lám(b)da'') is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant . In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoenician Lamed . Lambda gave rise ...
(λ).
Gay Activist Alliance Committees
The Gay Activist Alliance formed multiple sub-committees that allowed the organization to intensely focus on multiple gay and lesbians issue at one time. The committees were named after the issue they were devoted to. The following list of several different sub-committees illustrate the wide-ranging topics the subcommittees covered: Political projects, police power, municipal fair employment law, fair tax, municipal government committee, state government, legal committee, news, leaflets and graphics, fundraising, social affairs, orientations, speakers bureau and agitprop committee.
[Manuscripts and Archives Division, Thcocke New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, Gay Activists Alliance Records, "Gay Activist Alliance Committee."]
Firehouse Committee
This committee was dedicated to the upkeep of the Firehouse, which became its headquarters in 1971. The Firehouse Committee was in charge of organizing its iconic dances that aided in, "fostering Gay solidarity and understanding through social contact among all members of good will in the gay community."
[Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, Gay Activists Alliance Records, "Gay Activist Alliance and Committee Services."] On the ''
LGBTQ&A
''LGBTQ&A'' is a podcast hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by '' The Advocate'' magazine in partnership with GLAAD. It features interviews with notable LGBTQ figures such as Pete Buttigieg, Laverne Cox, Janelle Monáe, Brandi Carlile, and ...
'' podcast,
Dr. Charles Silverstein said, "It was paid for through our Saturday night dances where people paid us $2.00 to come to the dance, and all the soda or beer that you want for the night. Through that they paid the rent. It's not like there was a lot of fancy furniture in there...I mean, the furniture were the rejects from the street." Silverstein says GAA meetings drew 200-300 people and the dances drew "easily 1,000."
Lesbian Liberation Committee
While the majority demographic of the Gay Activist Alliance were men, this sub-committee was important because it was devoted to planning events in order, "to support a sense of community among all lesbians."
Municipal Fair Employment Law
This sub-committee was dedicated to outlawing homosexual job discrimination in both the public and private sector. The purpose of this committee was, "to recommend strategy to GAA for demonstrations and lobbying in order to effect passage in the City Council."
Police Power
Similar to the Municipal Fair Employment Law sub-committee, this sub-committee recommended strategies to the rest of the GAA for resisting oppression and discrimination against the gays and lesbian committee.
Political Projects
This committee oversaw all other political sub-committees in the GAA, because this sub-committee's purpose was to recommend the formation of new sub-committees, and also changes in mandates to pre-existing political sub-committees.
Social Affairs
This sub-committee was in charge of organizing and hosting various social events in order to unite the gay and lesbian community. More importantly, it helped raise money for the GAA from admission fees to the social events.
Youth Information Service
This sub-committee is just one example of the Gay Activist Alliance's commitment to gay and lesbian youth. The Youth Information Service was dedicated to offering representative of the GAA to speak, "on the topic of Gay Liberation for youthful or youth-orientated groups or organizations especially including high schools and colleges."
See also
*
List of LGBT rights organizations
This is a list of LGBT rights organizations around the world. For social and support groups or organizations affiliated with mainstream religious organizations, please see ''List of LGBT-related organizations and conferences''. For organization ...
*
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. ...
*
Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a ...
References
Further reading
Archival resources
Gay Activists Alliance Records, 1970–1983(11 linear feet) are housed at
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
br>
Manuscripts and Archives Division
* Archives relating to the Gay Activists Alliance from The New York Public Library'
Archives and Manuscriptssection.
External links
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, NYC - photo of GAA meeting 1971FBI file on the GAAGay Activists Alliance (1969-1981)- pictures & publicationsArchive.orgGay Activists Alliance in Morris County (NJ)
{{Authority control
1969 in LGBT history
LGBT political advocacy groups in New York (state)
Defunct LGBT organizations based in New York City
Organizations established in 1969
1969 establishments in New York City