Gay Activists' Alliance - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

on December 21, 1969, after the Stonewall riots

Stonewall riots

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...

, by dissident members of the Gay Liberation Front

Gay Liberation Front

Gay Liberation Front was the name of a number of Gay Liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots, in which police clashed with gay demonstrators.-The Gay Liberation Front:...

(GLF). Some early members included Jim Owles, Marty Robinson, Kay Lahusen

Kay Lahusen

Kay Lahusen is considered the first openly gay photojournalist of the gay rights movement. Lahusen's photographs of lesbians appeared on several of the covers of The Ladder from 1964 to 1966 while her partner, Barbara Gittings, was the editor...

, Arthur Bell

Arthur Bell (journalist)

Arthur Bell was a journalist, author and LGBT rights activist.Bell, an early member of the Gay Liberation Front and a founding member of the Gay Activists Alliance in New York City, wrote two books. Dancing the Gay Lib Blues was published in 1971 and he published Kings Don't Mean a Thing in 1978...

, Arthur Evans

Arthur Evans (author)

Arthur Scott Evans was an early gay rights advocate and author, most well known for his 1978 book Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture.-Early life:...

, Sylvia Rae Rivera

Sylvia Rivera

Sylvia Rae Rivera was an American transgender activist. Rivera was a founding member of both the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance and helped found STAR , a group dedicated to helping homeless young street trans women, with her friend Marsha P...

, Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson born in Elizabeth, New Jersey as Malcolm Michaels, Jr. was an African American transgender activist and a popular figure in New York City's gay and art scene from the 1960s to the 1990s....

, Jim Coles, and Brenda Howard

Brenda Howard

Brenda Howard was an American bisexual rights activist and sex-positive feminist. Howard was an important figure in the modern LGBT rights movement.- Biography :...

.

The group wanted to form a "single issue, politically neutral, whose goal was to "secure basic human rights, dignity and freedom for all gay people."

The Gay Activists Alliance was most active from 1970 to 1974. They published the Gay Activist newspaper until 1980. GAA first met at the Church of the Holy Apostles (9th Ave. & 28th St.) Their next New York City headquarters, the Firehouse at 99 Wooster Street in Soho, was occupied in May 1971 and burned down by arsonists on October 15, 1974. David Eisenbach, Gay Power, page 266 "By 1980 GAA had begun to sound like the Gay Liberation Front in 1969. After Activists met to officially disband the Alliance a year later..."

GAA members performed zaps

Zap (action)

A zap is a form of political direct action that came into use in the 1970s in the United States. Popularized by the early gay liberation group Gay Activists Alliance, a zap was a raucous public demonstration designed to embarrass a public figure or celebrity while calling the attention of both gays...

, (first conceived by Marty Robinson) public peaceful confrontations with officials to draw media attention. Their first president was Jim Owles. Some of their more visible actions included protests against an anti-gay episode on the popular TV series Marcus Welby, M.D.
Marcus Welby, M.D.
Marcus Welby, M.D. is an American medical drama television program that aired on ABC from September 23, 1969, to July 29, 1976. It starred Robert Young as a family practitioner with a kind bedside manner, and was produced by David Victor and David J. O'Connell...

, a zap of Mayor John Lindsay

John Lindsay

John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician, lawyer and broadcaster who was a U.S. Congressman, Mayor of New York City, candidate for U.S...

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

and later at Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...

, a zap against Gov. Nelson Rockefeller (the "Rockefeller 5"), a zap at the Marriage License Bureau demanding marriage rights for gays, a zap against Fidelifacts, which provided anti-gay information to employers, a zap at the NYC Taxi Commission (which required gay cab drivers to get an OK from a psychiatrist before being employed), and a zap at the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....

, which printed a scurrilous editorial attacking "queers, lezzies, pansies, call them what you will."

The symbol of the Gay Activists Alliance was the lower case Greek letter lambda

Lambda

Lambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is related to the Phoenician letter Lamed . Letters in other alphabets that stemmed from lambda include the Roman L and the Cyrillic letter El...

(λ). It is not clear in the historical record, that the current Gay Activists Alliance International is actually an off-shoot of the original Gay Activists Alliance.

Research Resources

Gay Activists Alliance Records, 1970-1983 (11 linear feet) are housed at New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...

Manuscripts and Archives Division.
Several collections relating to the Gay Activists Alliance can be found at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center's National History Archive in New York City. http://www.gaycenter.org/community/archive/collection

External links

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See also

Research Resources

External links