Mark Allan Segal (born 1951), is a social activist and author. He participated in 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 was one of the original founders 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 ...

where he created its Gay Youth program. He was the founder and former president of the

National Gay Newspaper Guild The National Gay Newspaper Guild is an organization of LGBT newspapers located in the United States. Through Rivendell Media, the guild gathers statistics on the readership of the member publications. Member publications *''Bay Area Reporter'' * ...

and purchased the

Philadelphia Gay News ''Philadelphia Gay News'' (PGN) is a lesbian, gay, bisexuality, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) newspaper in the Philadelphia area. The publication was founded in 1976 by Mark Segal, who was inspired by activist Frank Kameny when they met in 1970 ...

. He has won numerous journalism awards for his column "Mark my Works," including best column by The National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspaper Association and The Society of Professional Journalist.

Gay rights activism

Segal was a participant at Stonewall in 1969 and help found the Gay Liberation Front that same year. He was also a member of The Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day committee, which organized the first Gay Pride parade in 1970. In 1972, after being thrown out of dance competition for dancing with a male lover, Segal crashed the evening news broadcast of

WPVI-TV WPVI-TV (channel 6), branded on-air as 6 ABC, is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station ...

, an act that became known as a " zap" and that he helped popularize. He repeated the action during many other television broadcasts. On 11 December 1973, Segal interrupted

Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the mo ...

's broadcast of the

CBS Evening News The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature s ...

when he ran in front of the camera and held up a yellow sign saying “Gays Protest CBS Prejudice.” In 1975, he went on a hunger strike on behalf of the passage of a law to guarantee equal rights for homosexuals. In 1976, he founded the Philadelphia Gay News, a

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

(

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

) newspaper in the

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

area. The publication was inspired by activist

Frank Kameny Franklin Edward Kameny (May 21, 1925 – October 11, 2011) was an American gay rights activist. He has been referred to as "one of the most significant figures" in the American gay rights movement. In 1957, Kameny was dismissed from his po ...

, whom Segal first met in 1970. In 1988, Segal had a televised debate with a Philadelphia city councilman, Francis Rafferty, about Gay Pride Month. Segal partnered with the

Obama Administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...

to create and build the nation's first official “LGBT Friendly” Senior Affordable housing apartment building. The 19.8 million dollar project known as The John C. Anderson Apartments opened in 2013. On May 17, 2018, Segal donated 16 cubic feet of personal papers and artifacts to the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

in Washington DC.

Book

Segal is the author of the book "And Then I Danced: Traveling the Road to

Equality" a memoir of his life and experience as a gay rights activist. The book was named "Best Book" by the National Lesbian Gay Journalist Association in 2015.

Personal life

Segal is Jewish and originally from

Mount Airy, Philadelphia Mount Airy is a neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. __TOC__ Geography Mount Airy is bounded on the northwest by the Cresheim Valley, which is part of Fairmount Park. Beyond this lies Chestnut Hill. On t ...

. He attended school at Germantown High School and

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...

. His friends include several prominent gay activists like

Barbara Gittings Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) was a prominent American activist for LGBT equality. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) from 1958 to 1963, edited the national DOB magazine ''The Ladd ...

Harry Hay Henry "Harry" Hay Jr. (April 7, 1912 – October 24, 2002) was an American gay rights activist, communist, and labor advocate. He was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States, as well as ...

and

Troy Perry Troy Deroy Perry Jr (born July 27, 1940) is the founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, with a ministry with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, in Los Angeles on October 6, 1968. Early life Troy Perry is the eldest o ...

. On July 5, 2014, Segal married his partner of 10 years, Jason Villemez. At the time, Villemez was 29 and Segal was 63. The ceremony was officiated by Judge Dan Anders, Philadelphia’s first openly gay judge.

References

"Pursuits: Q&A: Mark Segal".
''

Philadelphia Magazine ''Philadelphia'' (also called "''Philadelphia'' magazine" or referred to by the nickname "Phillymag", once called ''Greater Philadelphia'') is a regional monthly magazine published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by the Lipson family of Philadelphia ...

'', 2009.

External links

Profile of Mark Segal
at

National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, is an American professional association dedicated to unbiased coverage of LGBTQ issues in the media. It is based in Washington, D.C., and the membership consists primarily of journalists, students, edu ...

Profile of Mark Segal
at

Philly.com ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

Philadelphia Gay News websiteMark Segal's official Facebook page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Segal, Mark American LGBT rights activists Living people American male journalists American LGBT journalists American gay writers Writers from Philadelphia American publishers (people) LGBT Jews Temple University alumni 1951 births LGBT people from Pennsylvania Gay Liberation Front members