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Gay rights advocates picket the White House: 1965
Washington Area Spark posted a photo:
The D.C. Mattachine Society stages a gay rights picket at the White House October 23, 1965 protesting discrimination against gay and lesbian people in the federal government and employment at-large.
Known identifications: Ernestine Eckstein—front, beginning to turn away.
This was the third picket line in front of the White House the group sponsored in 1965.
Picket signs include “Fair employment applies to homosexuals too,” and “Sexual preference is irrelevant to any employment.”
The Mattachine Society, the first homosexual rights group in the modern era in the Washington, DC area, was formed by Franklin Kameny and Jack Nichols in August 1961.
On April 17, 1965, the D.C. Mattachine Society held the first organized public demonstration for gay and lesbian rights in front of the White House.
Other early D.C. Mattachine Society picket lines took place at the US Civil Service Commission and the White House.
The original Mattachine Society was formed in Los Angeles in 1950 by Harry Hay, a veteran party member, and others. Initially it was largely composed of former communists, but others began to join and chapters were set up in several cities.
As the Red Scare expanded, Hay was forced out of leadership of the group and other former communists expelled.
The national organization disbanded in 1961. The Washington, D.C. group used the name Mattachine Society, but was formed independently of the national organization.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsjCQ69wA
Photo by Kay Tobin. Courtesy of the Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen gay history papers and photographs, New York Public Library. Rights managed by the New York Public Library.
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