Subject: Notes From The March On Washington...
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 20:20:12 EDT

Visit The Millennium March Website At
http://www.mmow.org

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/  Notes From The March  \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
News of the Millennium March on Washington
Produced by the MMOW Staff
June 15, 1999

INDEX:
1.  Don't Miss "After Stonewall" on PBS on June 23
2.  Have You Picked Up A Copy Of "Out For Good"?
3.  MMOW E-Mail News Service Continues To Grow
4.  Welcome To The Newest MMOW Endorsing Organization
5.  Thanks To Dance 1 Video, MMOW Is Featured in 300 Clubs
6.  How National GLBT Marches Change Lives... Be Sure To Read This

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1.  Don't Miss "After Stonewall" on PBS on June 23
Don't miss the new documentary, "After Stonewall: From the Riots to the 
Millennium," which will premiere on PBS on Wednesday, June 23rd. Produced by 
Emmy Award winner John Scagliotti, "After Stonewall" includes prominent 
coverage of the first three national GLBT Marches on Washington (1979, 1987, 
and 1993). The documentary also features some of the organizers of the 
upcoming Millennium March, scheduled for April 30, 2000.
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2.  Have You Picked Up A Copy of "Out For Good"?
There's an excellent -- and extensive -- new book jut off the press entitled, 
"Out for Good: The Struggle To Build A Gay Rights Movement In America," 
authored by New York Times reporters Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney. 
"Out for Good" provides excellent historical coverage of the first three 
national Marches on Washington. The new book is published by Simon and 
Schuster and is available in most bookstores.  An excerpt from this 
outstanding book appears below.
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3.  MMOW E-Mail News Service Continues To Grow!
The free E-Mail News Service of the Millennium March on Washington continues 
to grow daily! The MMOW E-Mail News Service is a great way to keep informed 
of news and events related to the March on Washington. Pass the word! And 
encourage you friends to sign-up for this free information service. Simply 
send sign-up requests to [email-masked].
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4.  We Welcome A New MMOW Endorsing Organization!
We extend a warm welcome to the friends and member of the Gay and Lesbian 
Political Action Committee of Utah (GALPAC), which endorsed the Millennium 
March on Washington this week. GALPAC works to promote equality for the GLBT 
community of Utah, and supports local political candidates who are committed 
to achieving this goal. They have designated their vice-chair, Kellie Anne 
Foreman, to serve on the MMOW Leadership Committee. (Every endorsing 
organization may appoint a member to serve on this national MMOW Leadership 
Council with full voice and full vote.) We are pleased to welcome GALPAC's 7 
board members and more than 250 members to MMOW's rapidly growing list of 
local, state, regional and national endorsers.
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5.  Thanks To Dance 1 Video, MMOW Is Featured In 300 Clubs
Thanks to the gang at Dance 1 Video, the March on Washington is now being 
featured in bars and clubs across the US. Dance 1 Video, called "the gay 
American Bandstand" by Genre magazine, is the premier provider of music and 
dance videos -- and their videos play in more than 300 bars throughout the 
country. The summer dance video features clips of past Marches on Washington 
-- and invites patrons to visit the official MMOW website at www.mmow.org. 
For more information on Dance 1, inlcuding club locations, visit their 
website at www.gaywired.com/danceone/home.html.
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6.  How National GLBT Marches Change Lives... 

LETTER FROM BUTCH McKAY, DIRECTOR OF FL. COASTAL PRIDE:

Just a note of endorsement for the Millennium March on Washington scheduled 
for April 30, 2000...  

Growing up in conservative Alabama, I never felt that I had a right to be 
open about my sexuality......I felt I was doing the responsible thing by 
leading a double life. 

It was a lot of pressure and strain to try and please myself and society 
both, but I managed to do so for many years. Being a gay man and losing 
hundreds of friends to AIDS in the eighties and early nineties and witnessing 
the discrimination against them, not only because of a virus but mostly 
because of their sexual orientation, I finally had enough and went to 
Washington, DC for the 93 March on Washington to show support for some of my 
HIV+ gay friends. 

That weekend changed my life forever. 

I had never had the courage to attend a rally in Alabama or in N. W. Florida 
where I had relocated. That March gave me the courage and strength to say to 
myself "I'm Gay and it is okay!" After I dealt with my own internal 
homophobia, I learned to deal with homophobia in my conservative community. 

I returned home from that March to Panama City and agreed to be interviewed 
on the front page of the local newspaper about my Washington, DC experience 
and what it was like to be a gay male in the Bible Belt. That article was the 
last hurdle to being total free and comfortable with myself.

I have gone on to become a gay activist and Director of an AIDS organization 
and founder of a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered organization called 
Coastal Pride. Coastal Pride has signed on in support of the Millennium March 
on Washington for Equality. 

My story is only man's opinion, but for me the 93 March on Washington saved 
my life and set me free. If I had not gone, no telling where I would be in my 
personal life today. 

I know that I share the experience of a lot of gay men and lesbians in small 
southern towns who have had their lives changed for the betterment of 
themselves and the gay community because of national events like the March on 
Washington. I encourage everyone to support the Millennium March on 
Washington for Equality in April of 2000. Please feel free to share my 
comments. 

PRIDE is not a birthright, it is a commitment!
Keep the Pride,
Butch McKay

(END)

Out for Good
The Struggle To Build A Gay Rights Movement In America
by Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney
copyright by Simon and Schuster, 1999

Excerpt From Page 398:

"One last grand scheme had emerged from the smoke of the defeat of St. Paul's 
ordinance, and it was now absorbing Endean's colleagues back in Minneapolis: 
a national lesbian and gay rights march on Washington, patterned after the 
black civil rights and anti-war marches of the 1960's and early 1970's. The 
idea had surfaced with a splash at a lesbian-feminist fundraiser held at the 
University of Minnesota in spring 1978. "What are you planning to do if you 
lose?" demanded Robin Tyler, the lesbian-feminist comedienne from Los Angeles 
who was the main entertainment. She was referring to the imminent repeal of 
the city's gay right laws. They had to fight back, she told the audience. "We 
ought to have a march on Washington. We could all sleep in tents on the Mall. 
You know how gay men love to camp." It was a pun, a joke on gay male 
sensibilities. But when the women started roaring again, Robin Tyler realized 
that they liked the idea.

"Tyler returned to Los Angeles after her show, but in Minnesota, in the grim 
aftermath of the St. Paul Repeal, the idea of a march caught fire, and a 
committee was formed. There was something particularly lovely, in such a glum 
period, about the image of a vast, might gay throng advancing down 
Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol. But short on money and rent by 
tensions between women and men, the Committee for a March on Washington 
collapsed by the end of October. There was little support for the idea in 
Washington, or even in California, where Harvey Milk, in the midst of the 
Briggs fight, was dismissive for this idea from Minnesota. 

"But with the Briggs initiative defeated, Milk embraced the concept, Robin 
Tyler had spread the seeds in stage appearances in California, too, some of 
which she shared with Milk, and Milk, was now arguing that the march be held 
on July 4, 1979, because it would have "great symbolic impact, reminding 
people of the Declaration of Independence, in which gay people were left 
out." Endean, who made of secret of his dislike for Milk, was appalled. "Do 
you know what Harvey Milk's talking about?" Endean fumed on the telephone to 
Kerry Woodward. What a numbskull idea, Endean though. Congress would be in 
recess for the summer. The city would be an oven. If the march failed to 
attract big numbers, it would be devastating to a movement whose sense of 
siege had just been lifted by the electoral victories in Washington, DC., 
California and Seattle. It would make his job at GRNL even more difficult. 
And if the march succeeded in exciting gay activists across the country, it 
would be hard to compete for resources against it, when his own 
organizational goal seemed such a different glimmer.

"Either way -- succeed or fail -- Endean couldn't see a national march on 
Washington helping. The other movement people in Washington, as well as the 
leadership of the National Gay Task Force in New York, the Metropolitan 
Community Church, and the groups Dignity and Integrity, all felt the same 
way. The march wasn't their project, and it made them nervous. But the whole 
equation changed when Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated 
in San Francisco." (copyright Simon and Schuster, 1999)