National March! On Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights: Official Souvenir Program Page: 7
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Long, Long Road toWashington
by JIM KEPNER
Although lesbians and gay men have contributed disproportion-
ately to American life, it has taken us a very long time to get here, to
make our rights a national issue, alongside other minorities. And
those who underestimated our difficulty have long counted that
tardiness a mark of inferiority.
BEFORE THE MOVEMENT: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT
Most gays before 1950 bought society's view that they were sick
or sinful, so I was not surprised in 1943 that my urgings to organize
met consternation. To face the issues even secretly seemed unthink-
able.
I didn't know that Henry Hay, who would launch our movement
in 1950, had been making similar tries, nor that Henry Gerber had
actually incorporated Chicago's Society for Human Rights in 1924.
Inspired by Germany's thriving gay movement, he had sought big-
name supporters (Birth controller Margaret Sanger said no because of
his bumptious chauvinism, tho she, like Edith Ellis and Emma
Goldman, had long defended gays). He settled for a postal worker,
a Black street preacher and a laundry queen (?)-all soon arrested.
Bitter at the lack of support, Gerber returned to the Army and ran a
pen-pals club for ten years-a chief way for lonely gays to meet. He
dropped that thankless task in 1939 and joined several men in a
lively correspondence on the need to organize.
They explored problems still with us, barely seeing the divergence
of their social goals or definitions of homosexuality. They wrote
windy letters to anti-gay publications and each joined the homo-
phile groups that formed later.
The problems of a class of people can only produce a movement
after a few able, charismatic individuals agree on how to define and
approach those problems. The answers were not self evident. Most
pre-1950 gays were mired in Freudian or religious guilt or romantic
longings for ancient Greece, or too frightened to admit any common
feeling for other gays.
Those who felt such empathy staffed movements for every other
cause, not daring to mention our own. We were often asked by
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D.C. Media Committee. National March! On Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights: Official Souvenir Program, pamphlet, 1979; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc276226/m1/9/: accessed June 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.