Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 07:08:30 -0700 (PDT) From: jessea@uclink4.berkeley.edu (jessea greenman) Subject: Civil Disobedience at the Supreme Court - A Look Back One Decade Later [please share with others. media...we welcome your calls and email!] Civil Disobedience at the Supreme Court - A Look Back One Decade Later Dateline: August 7, 1997 Hello! October 1997 will be the ten year anniversary of our FABulous mass civil disobedience for queer rights. We think this is a great opportunity for a reunion, or, rather, a series of reunions (with a decidedly festive atmosphere!). So, you are asking yourself, "Just who is this 'we'"? We are Eileen Hansen, a national coordinator of the 1987 Supreme CD, and Jessea Greenman, participant. We are planning to organize such a reunion for those in the San Francisco Bay Area. We write to you now to ask you to organize such a reunion in YOUR area. We envision this as fairly simple: we plan to put out a press release to the local queer media to get publicity. We'll try to get one of the local meeting places to donate space or else we'll pass the hat at the gathering to pay for renting the space. We're going to ask the local queer historical society folks to come with good recording equipment and tape the thing. We are going to ask each person who went to the CD action to come with a PREPARED story/anecdote about her/his experience around the civil disobedience. We think it will be quite fun, this story-swapping. As far as we know, it hasn't happened on this large a scale yet (most affinity groups have done this within their own circles). We want to have a great time, remember the good and the bad, and make sure it all gets preserved for history. We intend to make our meeting free and open to the public and hope that young people, especially, will come to hear about the largest queer civil disobedience actions to date! Now, those of you who know Eileen know that when she heard this idea of Jessea's, Eileen naturally just had to turn it into something bigger and better. That is where YOU come in!!! The vision is that a goodly number of these area reunions to commemorate the '87 demonstration and CD @ the Supremes will be held all over the country, and either notes taken or tapes recorded. We are trying to arrange that a NATIONAL gathering to pool the information and distill lessons from it all will be held. This will, we hope (but this has not yet been confirmed), take place as a panel/workshop at the NGLTF (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) Creating Change Conference in San Diego CA in November of this year. So that's the concept: run with it! You don't really need us for anything, but we'd like to hear what you are planning, have a contact person's name or two, and then be able to let everyone know how to pool their notes/tapes. So email Jessea: or phone her (510-601-8883) or phone Eileen 415-291-5454. We welcome media calls, too! If you are interested in attending NGLTF's Creating Change Conference to talk about your CD in DC, register on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ngltf.org/cc97.