Today is PFLAG’s 45th anniversary! To honor this milestone, listen/re-listen to our episode with Morty and Jeanne Manford and how their path that led to the founding of the first organization for parents of gay people that ultimately became PFLAG. Listen via your podcatcher or at this link: http://bit.ly/mgh-manford
“While “Making Gay History” podcast covers some well-known LGBTQ activists like Sylvia Rivera and lesbian duo Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin — host Eric Marcus also covers less known historical figures like Morty Manford, Perry Watkins, and Paulette Goodman. Marcus takes decades old archived audio interviews to “create intimate, personal portraits of both known and long-forgotten champions, heroes, and witnesses to history.”And it is well worth the listen. Many of these activists have been forgotten about because LGBTQ people and stories weren’t deemed as important at the time they were creating change. Marcus is ensuring that they will not be forgotten any longer and the work they paved for our current LGBTQ community will be remembered.“
It’s the 88th birthday of Kay Lahusen, pioneering photojournalist and gay rights advocate! Listen (or re-listen) to our episodes with her and Barbara Gittings:
http://bit.ly/mgh-gittings-lahusen1
http://bit.ly/mgh-gittings-lahusen
Guess who’s birthday it is today? Here’s a photo of producer Sara Burningham with the birthday girl.
Check out this article in Salon about the origins of our podcast: “The urgent mission of #MakingGayHistory” http://bit.ly/mgh-salon
“I was outraged that I didn’t know my history. We were not the fairies. We were not the cowering, fearful people I heard us described as. These were tough people, living through the most — unimaginable to me — difficult times.”
- Eric Marcus (host of “Making Gay History”)
Many thanks to our listeners for a great 2017! Please let us know what you thought by rating & commenting on your podcatcher app (It helps more people find the show): http://bit.ly/mgh-subscribe
More to come in 2018. Happy New Year!
Sometimes it’s hard to ask the next question. That’s what happened when I brought up the subject of AIDS with Morty Manford. You can’t see it because this is audio, but what I saw in that moment, was that Morty’s eyes quickly filled with tears. And that’s why I asked him if AIDS was something I shouldn’t ask about.
Listen at this link: http://bit.ly/mgh-manford2
Or subscribe at http://bit.ly/mgh-subscribe
Morty Manford was one of thousands of young people who joined the fight for gay liberation in the early 1970s. As a member of the Gay Activists Alliance, he challenged New York City’s mayor face to face in a successful effort to get the police off the backs of the gay community.
Listen to his story at http://bit.ly/mgh-manford2
or subscribe at http://bit.ly/mgh-subscribe
Morty Manford was one of many thousands of young people to join the fight for gay liberation in the early 1970s. But before Morty could take on the battle against discrimination and for equality in the streets of New York City, he had an internal fight to deal with first—one that almost cost him his life.
Teenaged Morty Manford came of age in the 1960s, at a time when psychiatrists often did more harm than good with young people struggling to come to terms with their sexuality in a world that had nothing nice to say about homosexuals. But once Morty settled his internal civil war, he jumped with bothl feet into a social justice movement that would change how he saw himself and how the world thought of and treated LGBTQ people.
Listen at this link: http://bit.ly/mgh-manford2
(Or subscribe at http://bit.ly/mgh-subscribe)
Photos courtesy of Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. First photo: Morty Manford following his arrest at a GAA (Gay Activists Alliance) Board of Examiners “zap” protest, New York City, 1971. Credit: Photo by Rich Wandel. Second photo: 1971 Albany gay rights demonstration. Photo by Diana Davies.