American Experience; Stonewall Uprising; Interview with John O'Brien, 4 of 4

This is something you were trying to get about my life. I left a couple of things out. Thank you, David. In July 1967, I participated in anti-war demonstration in Philadelphia. I went over to join the gay demonstration, but I was not allowed to be on it, because when I was too young and I wasn't wearing a suit, that was my first experience to try to be involved in the game movement. I was very hurtful because they turned me away, and here I am in front of most of my friends and approaches.

We're going to take that kind of courage to walk over from a non-gay demonstration and join the gay demonstration, which few people would join, and they wouldn't let me on because I wasn't wearing a suit and I wasn't old enough. So what did they do? They would not be on. They just blocked me and wouldn't let me on. They let one of the people from the peace demonstration, David McRennels, because he was older and he wore a suit. But they wouldn't let me on because I wasn't wearing a suit, and that reflected my attitudes about those people. Three years later, I became the president of that organization, the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, the very group that wouldn't let me on three years earlier. By the way, homophile, what was the homophile role? Can you define it in a nutshell? What was it called that? Because they didn't like to be called homosexual, which was just being sexual only. You know, Kurt Bernanke was the one who defined the word homosexual, Hungary, 1859. But the thing is that the homophile movement that developed out of one and madashine felt that it was more than just being into sex, and so they saw themselves as a homophile, not just homosexual.

Homosexuals seen more as a negative, which is ironic because homosexual was considered a favorable term put by gay people a century earlier before that there was no name. And what was your relationship to what was your political work, the most important thing you did after Stonewall? The most important thing was I was one of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front in New York City. I chaired the first meetings, organized it, set the agenda. I'm the ones who got the organization space. I was on the board of alternate U, which was a radical university group. So I allowed them to use that space to meet and to hold their dances there. What did you, what were you hoping the Gay Liberation Front would do? What was your loftiest goal for them? To be gay and my hope was that the Gay Liberation Front would grow and be part of the movement then, the movement for radical politics, the movement against the system, against the man, against the, and that's what it turned into.

The people in the organization identified with the rebellions of the 60s and got involved in the anti-war movement and in support of the black community. And that's what I was into as well as well. Sorry. So it's like the spirit of Stonewall didn't die. Not at all. The irony is that it was my motion to give $500 to the black Panther Party from our dance money that set up a conservative group, more out of it called the Gay Actress Alliance. The GA emerged from my motion which passed for that. I was active in the sort of the black Panther Party. Yes. What about the story of your being kicked out of the alliance?

Oh sure. You know, all of this wouldn't have, the events for my life, ironic, but if they didn't each happen, I wouldn't have had what happened to me. In 1969, on January 9th, I had joined a group called Young Social Alliance. And I was called into their office because it was reported that I was gay, that somebody else they had found who was gay had said I was gay. And they were hoping I would say no I wasn't, because they didn't think I was. I had large muscles, very masculine at the time, and I said I was. And so they kicked me out of that organization solely because I was gay because I admitted it. Had I not left, I probably would not have been more active in the alternate university and an SDS. And I would not have been able to give the space then for the founding of the Gay Liberation Front to be held there, wherever there was few places ever allowed for gays to meet. So it all fits so nicely the history. It's how irony is of history at times. Had I not been discriminated against by others in the left, I would not have gone out and rebelled to make the changes for the gay community.

Last question, I think you love history. What is Stonewall as an event? Is there any analogy in history? Are there many analogies? I think Stonewall is equivalent to, for gay people, is equivalent to the sit down in the restaurants in Greensboro and North Carolina for a young African American students, or to, I'm drawing a blanket, her name. Rosa Parks, sitting in the bus in Montgomery. It's also similar to Susan B. Anthony, wanting to cast a vote, or to somebody who I highly admire. And the camera is running, so I'm having a terrible time remembering her name, so give me a second here, because she did the Women's Bible. She got up and spoke at the Seneca Conference on Women. I know her grandiose.

Thank you. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, coming back from the Anti-Slavery Convention in London. After being denied, be seated there. Who then went on to form and say that women's rights were important and organized the Seneca Falls Convention for women. It's similar to any, there's many historical times in history, when people who stood up and spoke out against injustice changed momentum in the world. Whether it was Particus in the Slavery Billion in Rome, whether it was Doe's later on who were tired of making bricks for the, for the pharaohs. There have always been groups of people who have stood up, and it's Doe's historical moments, whether it's the French Revolution, the German peasant uprising, the American Revolution, or the Stonewall Rebellion, they all have a profound place in history. They've made change, they've affected many people's lives, and it's not just gay people's lives, the Stonewall is affected.

It's affected every person's life, because everybody in the world today, whether you're in Nepal or Malaysia, knows what the word gay means. That wasn't true, it's not very long ago. Before we took the name gay liberation front, most non-gay people did not know that was the term we used for each other, that was identity. But today, most places in the world, if you say gay, they know what that means. That has had a profound effect, in 50, 40 years, we've swept the world. And the Blue Diamond Society in Nepal today is an open gay organization in Nepal, representatives in the government. All do the Stonewall. I just think that you could repeat the sentence in 40 years for this one in the world. It's really true. It's really true. It's an idea that is more than an idea, but it's a movement that in 40 years has swept the world.

From the night of Stonewall, we have now affected, and today, open mayors of Berlin, Paris, all over the world who are openly gay, due to those kids who fought those nights at Stonewall. Who many of those people today would not want to associate with? But, as you said, Obama's change starts in the bottom line. It did. It did start at the bottom, because the slaves reviled first. The slave masters responded. It was women who spoke out first that wasn't men on the condition of women that made the changes. Men could have said there was problems with the way women were treated. It was when women took the power and organized that the changes actually started to happen, the same for gays. It takes the group that sells who are discriminated against to organize.

The Jewish people until they organized as a group, not changes made. The persecution of Jews is, you know, very long indeed in this world. It's very similar to gays, and it's only when they organized that that change started to take place. Otherwise, it was commonly accepted. It was perfectly okay. I think a lot of identity I have with the Jewish community. I mean, I'm not into Israel. I'm not a pro-Israel person. I support, but my Jewish friends, I very much relate to, for their history of discrimination and pain. It's...