Introduction
On April 25, 1993, as many as one million lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their supporters converged on our nation’s capital. Organizers titled the event “A SIMPLE MATTER OF JUSTICE: 1993 MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR LESBIAN, GAY AND BI EQUAL RIGHTS AND LIBERATION.”
This 33-minute video documentary “short” is a synthesis of key issues and concerns on the minds and in the hearts of many of the people who attended that remarkable demonstration. These issues and concerns are presented as a linear overview of the day of the march. Interviews, speeches, montage video imagery, and music performed on the Washington Mall are used to weave together an overview of the cultural and political contexts in which the march occurred. The speech excerpts and music are all credited to C-SPAN, which broadcast the main stage live for six hours.
I was a broadcast journalism major at the University of Oregon at the time, and this was a capstone project that was both academic and deeply personal. Voters in the state had just defeated an ugly and divisive anti-gay ballot measure that would have forbid even approaching the government with calls for protections and equal rights for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. A similar, though slightly less harshly worded, ballot measure had won in Colorado, though it was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court in Romer v. Evans in 1996.
Attention to LGB – and to an extent T – people and issues had reached a new crescendo around the country with particular attention to the fight for gays to serve openly in the military and calls for same-sex marriage. Both of these issues would take years more to resolve, but the 1993 March on Washington was arguably a turning point in broader public awareness, understanding, and acceptance. At the time, same-sex sexual relations were still widely criminalized in the United States and would be until the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. In 1993, life-saving HIV medications were still nearly three years away.
This digitized version was taken from a DVD of what was a videotape copy of the SDHS final cut, so it still includes some of the technical flaws of a pre-digital age copy of the original medium. I ran it through an AI video enhancement program, but the improvement was hardly noticeable.
I include with the video the paper I wrote to accompany the project. It explains some of the theoretical grounding in the history of documentary film making, my process both on the ground and during editing, and some of the technical and creative challenges along the way.
I have had the DVD version – which my parents made for me from the videotape copy I gave them – sitting around for years. I am very pleased to now finally have turned my attention to sharing what I hope others will find to be a illuminating take on a powerful and inspiring and historic event. My thanks to the many march participants who offered their thoughts and perspectives, and to OutHistory for providing this platform.
Note: Schlittler’s photography and text project, Out and Elected in the USA: 1974-2004 is also available on the OutHistory website.