Cleve Jones, a longtime gay and AIDS activist, apparently today at the Prop 8 decision-prompted Meet in the Middle 4 Equality rally in Fresno called for a national LGBT march on Washington, D.C. on October 10 & 11, 2009.
With those words, as Jones knows well, the floodgates have opened.
As I learned first-hand in the Spring of 1998, nothing is more stressful, contested and controversial as the call for a national march. I was the Political Intern at the Human Rights Campaign as the last national march began coming into focus: the Millennium March on Washington. I’ve never seen anything like it, before or since.
As with any broad-based, long-term political movement, leadership is never quite clear. No one person or group can be “in charge” of the LGBT equality movement. Organizations — whether in D.C. or states or cities — constantly, though, are jockeying for leadership. Individuals with long activist histories — from Robin Tyler to David Mixner to others* — also try to keep a claim on the mantle of leadership with similar calls to Jones’ for marches in the next couple years.
This time, with Twitter and Facebook and a well-developed blogosphere, I have to imagine it is going to be even more insane. Even if they wanted to do so, could the national groups quell his call for a march?
Recall how out of the loop the national and state organizations seemed to be as the Join the Impact protests of Proposition 8 began bubbling up? The impact of their disengagement went both ways. The events weren’t as “pretty” as a Gay, Inc.-produced event. The Columbus event that I attended, for example, didn’t have a clearly organized plan or speaker list. Elected officials who would have attended did not appear to have been formally alerted of the event.
The events, though, brought out thousands and thousands of people across the nation. Despite the lack of formal organizing help, the Internet — primarily Facebook — quickly made the events well-known to the younger, now-activated activist set. The events led these new potential leaders to actively engage with the movement for LGBT equality as time has passed and, as I discussed earlier this week, they also led to a (permanent?) change in the forward momentum of the movement.
But, it’s not just the recent past that is important to consider. In order to understand where Cleve’s words today will lead us, a glance further back also will be helpful.
The first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights (great historical info here) was held on Sunday, October 14, 1979. Robin Tyler hosted a concert on Saturday evening, and D.C. Mayor Marion Barry spoke, as a supporter, at the rally. Although not resulting in much in terms of change, the event was a great convergence of those supportive of lesbian and gay rights at a time when the assaults of Anita Bryant and the assassination of Harvey Milk had lesbian and gay people rather shell-shocked.
In 1987, the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights took place on October 11. The community was, again, shell-shocked, dealing with the ravages of the AIDS crisis and the result of the Supreme Court’s decision upholding anti-gay sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick. The march was the first time that the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, a project started by Cleve Jones, was displayed on the National Mall. The quilt returned in 1988 and 1992 for October displays on the Mall.
In 1993, the national march — the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation — was held after the election of President Bill Clinton, on April 25, two month before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell even was introduced as congressional legislation and more than seven months before the policy would become law under Clinton’s signature. It was the first march organized around a time of hope, rather than shock and dismay. At the same time, the march was quickly followed by the disappointment of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
On October 11, 1996, less than a month after President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law, the entire AIDS Memorial Quilt was unfolded on the Mall, the last time the entire quilt has been on display. I was one of the thousands of volunteers who helped unfold the quilt that morning, and the power of that moment — realizing the expansive vision of Cleve Jones and looking out over the unbelievable expanse of quilt panels — will stay with me forever.
Then, after much in-fighting and out-fighting and debate and angst, the 2000 Millennium March on Washington happened on April 30, 2000, with the HRC-backed Equality Rocks concert having taken place at RFK Stadium the night before. Despite all the controversy that preceded and followed the march, the event itself was extraordinary. It happened to take place in the same week that then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed his state’s civil union bill into law and the Supreme Court heard oral arguments from Evan Wolfson in the Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale. As in 1993, the event was held at a time of hope for equality advocates.
The energy and power of that event was a powerful statement to all in Washington, Democrat and Republican, that the movement for LGBT equality was going strong. Of course, BSA v. Dale didn’t turn out as Lambda Legal had hoped. And, despite early entreaties by then-Governor George W. Bush to gay Republicans and a running mate who declared in the vice presidential debate that marriage was a state issue, the Bush Administration did not do much, if anything, for LGBT eqaulity — and did much harm, from supporting the Federal Marriage Amendment to threatening to veto hate crimes legislation.
So, without much in terms of actual progress to show from the four marches on Washington, what about now?
More than nine years since the last march and the Internet’s citizen-journalist/cyber-activist revolution later, LGBT equality advocates across the nation — from the head of HRC to the high school student in Nevada — tonight must ask themselves: Is Cleve Jones right?
Is it time for another march on Washington?
* = Although Tyler (last fall, to little response), Mixner (on his blog, May 20) and Jones (at Towleroad on May 21) had been talking about calling for a march and debating the timing, I believe that Jones’ call on Saturday at a large rally of motivated California activists and LGBT people and their allies, with a given date, has taken this debate “off paper” and to the grassroots. It was that move — from a discussion online about if and when to a declaration of October 10-11 from Jones — that led to this post.
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Chris Geidner is the award-winning senior political editor at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, The American Prospect, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. In 2011, he received the Excellence in News Writing Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his coverage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found
Chris,
Yet again, another timely and well-written post. So as not to dodge the call of the question, let me begin by saying I think a national March would be a terrific event. That being said, why is the purpose of the march? Visibility, support for equal marriage rights, AIDS awareness, transgender inclusion? The options are endless. I am in favor of a march with a well-defined objective. A hodgepodge of causes mustered under the guise of “GLBT” sounds like an awful idea.
That being said, the actual reason I wanted to comment is because I continue to be dismayed by the way you, and so many others, mischarachterize Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I don’t know if it’s conscious or unconscious, but the failure to see the policy as the progressive initiative it was, at the time. Figurative witch hunts were occurring, and members of our armed services were being weeded out and interrogated about their sexuality. DADT put an end to that abhorrent practice. And while it has most certainly become archaic and outdated, at the time it was much-needed. It has certainly, in the long-run, done much more good than harm. President Clinton fouled up with DOMA but he did the gay community a huge service by advocating on behalf of, and signing, DADT.
Thank you for an extremely well-written post on the history of LGBT marches on Washington.
I was wondering what you thought about the timing of this proposed march. Would a march in 2010 be more beneficial given that is an election year and there would be more pressure on politicians to act?
James, I think you read more into my words than are there. The statements I make are factual about the timing and factual about the gay community’s response at the time.
Clinton did sign DADT into law after having promised, in the campaign, to end the ban on gay service. George Stephanopoulos details the time in his book, All Too Human. Even he, while defending Clinton’s actions, writes that the “administration can be fairly faulted for raising hopes that couldn’t be fulfilled.” That, I believe, is a good explanation of actions that cause disappointment.
As to the substance of your comment, however, I think you are the one to mischaracterize DADT. Even at the time, it was seen as a compromise that Stephanopoulos says “satisfied no one” — not a progressive initiative.
It might have been marginally better than what had previously existed, but it also — while horribly implemented — gave folks who might otherwise have been pressured to support ending the ban on openly gay servicemembers an excuse to point to a theoretically OK policy to avoid making the change.
Finally, it’s just incorrect to write that Clinton “did the gay community a huge service by advocating on behalf of, and signing, DADT.” First, he did no such thing. Sam Nunn devised the policy, and the Joint Chiefs — and specificaly, Colin Powell — forced Clinton into a position of accepting it or having Powell talking publicly, via congressional testimony, about his opposition to allowing openly gay servicemembers. Second, I think Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has more than a decade’s worth of reports proving to you that members of our armed services are still “being weeded out and interrogated about their sexuality.”
In sum, the policy was, at best, a necessary but flawed compromise that has never been properly implemented and has allowed amazingly weak evidence to allow the continued discharge of otherwise perfectly good servicemembers. I don’t believe that I have mischaracterized DADT, either what it was then or what it is now. And I think that you overstate what it represented at the time of its passage.
Hi, Chris-
Thanks for replying. Could you please send me a link/transcript of where/when President Clinton “promised, in the campaign, to end the ban on gay service.” Obviously, being (significantly, hehe) older than me, you probably recall the campaign promises more vividly- but for reference, I’d like to look into that. Any help you could provide would be appreciated.
Further, simply because something is a “compromise” doesn’t mean it isn’t “progressive”. The two are not mutually exclusive, and I’d caution you from believing that to be the case. Barney Frank himself was a staunch supporter of DADT, and at the that point he was the sole out gay member of Congress. Further, a policy that is poorly implemented, is different than a bad policy.
All of that being said, I remain on your side about the importance of DADT being repealed, as soon as possible.
The statement was made in a speech at Harvard, and it is covered, among other places, in Stephanopoulos’s book.
Perhaps we need to reflect on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. Lacking any leadership, and frustrated with the status quo there was a response.
We have the same situation today. There is no visible leadership, a lot of self proclaimed leaders, talk about incremental rights, but really no significant movement.
It might be time to put some faith in this movement and once again revisit our roots. As I recall the first March on Washington in 1979 the March did not get major Gay Political endorsement until the week of the March.
We are divided community perhaps the focus should be working towards unity, and just perhaps this March might be a step in that direction.
In my opinion, scheduling the mall is a valid critism, but I go back to Stonewall, I don’t schedules were the problem than.
I support the Call for the March, lets not get lost in the details. We all can find reasons not to confront our fears.