How activists challenged the politics of civility By The Smithsonian Institute, adapted by Newsela staff on 11.07.19 Word Count 1,036 Level 1040L

Image 1. The city of Raleigh, North Carolina held its first celebration on June 25, 1988. Photo from: Flickr/State Archives of North Carolina.

On April 13, 1970, New York Mayor John Lindsay and his wife arrived at the Metropolitan Opera House. It was opening night of the season. The Republican mayor had no idea he was about to be ambushed by members of the newly formed Gay Activist Alliance (GAA). The protesters entered the event in tuxedos and shouted, "End Police Harassment!" and "Gay Power!"

A year earlier, newspaper headlines were covering the . These riots happened between members of the gay community and police because of a raid at the . The Inn was a in the neighborhood of Manhattan.

For most of the 20th century, , gay, bisexual, (LGBT) Americans were unwelcome in society. They were forced to hide their sexuality, and many laws prohibited their activities. In the 1970s things began to change.

Employment Discrimination

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. Lindsay had refused to enact a citywide anti-discrimination law after the riots. During the next two years, gay rights activists confronted the mayor in public. In 1972 Lindsay finally relented. He signed an executive order to forbid discriminating against job candidates for city government jobs based on sexual orientation.

For the next three decades the movement continued to confront public figures. They pioneered the hit-and-run tactic known as "zap action." Zaps gained media attention and forced homophobic figures and institutions to acknowledge gay rights.

The first groups to stage zaps included the GAA and the (GLF). They formed soon after Stonewall and were committed to nonviolent but aggressive resistance.

Polite Activism Ends

These new groups departed from polite activism that characterized earlier "" groups. These included the (the first lesbian rights group) and the (a gay rights group). These organizations preferred to work with institutions rather than against them. After the Stonewall riots, the Mattachines encouraged the LGBT community to cooperate with the police.

The zap was intended to be a spectacle, to both draw attention to the movement and unfold on camera.

In the early 1970s, most zaps protested negative representations of gays and in television shows, films and newspapers. Activists knew the media influenced public opinion and they wanted more control over the narrative. In 1973 activist Mark Segal snuck onto the set of the CBS Evening News. He leapt in front of Walter Cronkite waving a banner that read: "Gays Protest CBS Prejudice." The action reached an audience of 60 million viewers. Afterward, many wondered why CBS hadn't covered the Stonewall riots or other pride marches.

Zaps quickly transformed into a necessary part of the liberation movement. According to Life magazine, participants felt that one good zap was worth months of therapy. Perhaps more significantly, though, this type of protest was politically effective.

The fight for gay rights intensified during the summer of 1977. Anti-gay responses happened with an increase in hate crimes, inflammatory language and local efforts to undo protective legislation.

Fighting Negative Media With "Super-Zaps"

Activists escalated their response, staging "super-zaps." Some of their actions received bad press. A TIME magazine article called them "gay goons" and quoted one of their critics, "Why do people who claim to want human rights go around like a bunch of Storm Troopers trying to intimidate others?"

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com. The biggest moment of the year involved Florida orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant. She had created the "Save Our Children" campaign in Miami. It was a Christian group claiming to protect young people from gays and lesbians.

Bryant had called gay people "human garbage." At a televised press conference, she was speaking about how to "do away with the homosexuals." Activist Thom Higgins stepped in and smashed a pie in her face. Humiliated and eager to perform the victim role, a tearful Bryant proceeded to pray for Higgins' soul. Bryant never changed her stance on gay rights, and her career fell apart in the following years.

Putting Their Bodies On The Line

When the AIDS epidemic destroyed gay communities in the 1980s, the movement became an urgent life-or- death struggle. Activists who witnessed their friends and partners dying knew they had to put their bodies on the line. Evangelicals were calling AIDS "God's punishment." Meanwhile the Reagan administration showed willful negligence with a long approval process for new medications. It was no time to be civil. Out of this crisis, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, also known as ACT-UP, was born in 1987.

ACT-UP had an anarchist, or aggressive, spirit and became expert at protesting. The group famously snuck in to the Republican National Women's Club in drag. The group also shut down Food and Drug Administration offices and even chained themselves to pharmaceutical company headquarters. ACT-UP had a strong media strategy, coordinating their campaigns in advance with news reporters. They created their own media with eye-catching posters and slogans like "Silence Equals Death."

Some activists felt the group went too far, but historians recognize that ACT-UP forced politicians and the public to meaningfully reckon with AIDS.

Whenever the threats of homophobic violence, media vilification or repressive laws reached a tipping point, gay liberation activists made a choice. They decided civility was not the answer and channeled their anger and fear into confrontational direct action instead. GAA activist Morty Manford reflected years after his involvement in this type of protest, "We were doing something new. We were doing something righteous."

This article is available at 5 reading levels at https://newsela.com.