BEFORE STONEWALL
Audre Lorde
Caribbean American poet, scholar, activist, and librarian Audre Lorde was a pivotal figure in LGBTQ and feminist literature and politics in the 1970s and 80s.
Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon
Lifetime activists and partners Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon cofounded the pioneering lesbian organization the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955, the first of its kind in the United States.
Franklin Kameny
Frank Kameny devoted his life to activism after being dismissed from a government position as an astronomer in 1958 because of his homosexuality. A key member of the Washington, D.C., Mattachine Society, Kameny was instrumental in the pickets of the White House and the Pentagon in the 1960s, and was the first openly gay candidate for the US Congress, in 1971.
DURING STONEWALL
Dick Leitsch
Activist and journalist Dick Leitsch was president of the New York Mattachine Society in the 1960s. He spearheaded their pioneering demonstrations, including the “sip-in” at a bar called Julius' in 1966 to protest the New York State Liquor Authority's then effective policy outlawing the service of alcohol to out homosexuals.
Randy Wicker &
Marsha P Johnson
Homophile-era activist Randy Wicker and trans activist Marsha P. Johnson were an unlikely pair. Wicker is a former member of Mattachine and was one of the first openly gay people to discuss their experiences on radio and television. Johnson participated in the Stonewall uprising and was a cofounder of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR).
Sylvia Rivera
An icon of the New York City LGBTQ community, Sylvia Rivera was a Puerto Rican and Venezuelan activist with the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance, and cofounder of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR).
AFTER STONEWALL
Martha Shelley
Writer and activist Martha Shelley was a leader of the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis in the 1960s and a member of the Gay Liberation Front and Radicalesbians after Stonewall.
Harry Hay
Harry Hay cofounded the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles in 1950, one of the first gay rights groups in the United States. In the 1970s he was a leader of the Los Angeles chapter of the Gay Liberation Front. He later cofounded the gay liberation movement the Radical Faeries.