In a U.S. federal prison in Kentucky because of his refusal as a pacifist to join the military in World War II, Bayard Rustin is placed in isolation by prison officials who accuse him of sexual misconduct. Rustin was preparing to launch a strike of…
Time magazine features on its cover a picture of Air Force Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, with the caption “I Am a Homosexual: The Gay Drive for Acceptance.” Matlovich was challenging the military’s longstanding policy of excluding gays, lesbians, and…
David Wojnarowicz, Artist and AIDS Activist
Bettina Aptheker, Activist, Writer, Teacher
Alison Bechdel, Writer and Cartoonist
Jane Addams, Social Justice Activist
Sylvester, Singer and Performer
Edward Carpenter, Writer and Activist
Christopher Isherwood, Writer
The Wolfenden Report is released in Great Britain. Named after Sir John Wolfenden, who chaired the committee appointed by the British Home Secretary, the Report recommended that laws criminalizing consensual sex in private between adults be…
In the wake of the national March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the first conference of East Coast Homophile Organizations opens in Philadelphia. The conference, whose theme was “Homosexuality—Time for Reappraisal,” brought together gay and…
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom brings more than 200,000 people to Washington DC in support of racial equality and justice. Larger than any other protest demonstration since the 1930s, it pushed the civil rights movement into the center…
Mart Crowley, Writer
Perry Watkins, Army Veteran and Activist
Alix Dobkin, Musician, Singer, and Songwriter
Alfred Kinsey’s study, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, is released. Based on interviews with thousands of women, it sharply challenged conventional beliefs about sexual behavior in the U.S., and revealed that sex outside marriage was far more…
Congress enacts the Ryan White Care Act. After a decade in which Congress and the President largely ignored the AIDS epidemic, the Ryan White Care Act finally provided significant financial resources for HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment.
Virginia Apuzzo and Bill Kraus, delegates to the Democratic National Convention in New York City, placed in nomination the name of Mel Boozer for Vice President of the United States. Boozer, an African American gay man who was then president of the…
Strom Thurmond, a white supremacist Senator from South Carolina, verbally attacks Bayard Rustin on the floor of the U.S. Senate and labels him a sexual pervert in an effort to discredit the upcoming March on Washington, for which Rustin is the chief…
Martin Duberman, Historian, Writer, and Activist