Should Gays Support George McGovern & the Democratic Party?

New York: West Side Militant Forum, 1972. Xerox. 11 x 8 1/2 in. Very good. Item #5671

Flyer for a talk at The West Side Militant Forum regarding 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern and his platform relating to the LGBTQ community.

Rich Wandel, president of the Gay Activists Alliance, spoke with Social Workers Party candidate Liz Jayko, and Morty Manford, long-time Columbia organizer involved with the GAA and the Gay Liberation Front.

Manford, who was 21 years old at the time of this event, founded Gay People at Columbia University in 1968, one of the nation’s first gay campus groups. He graduated from Columbia in 1975 and Cardozo Law School in 1981 before joining the Legal Aid Society and later the Attorney General’s office. Before his time as a lawyer, he sued Michael Maye, then president of the city’s Uniformed Firefighters Association, after being assaulted by Maye during a protest. Though Maye was acquitted, the pressure from the legal and campaign is considered instrumental in forcing New York City to pass its first gay rights law in 1986. Manford died in 1992 from an AIDS related complications at the age of 41.

Rich Wandel is president of the Gay Activists Alliance, an organization surveilled by the FBI for its work. Wandel, a lifelong photographer, was a frequent contributor to New York’s Gay newspaper, and the Los Angeles Advocate for many years. He is also the founding archivist of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center National History Archive.

Early mainstream electoral activism by LGBTQ organizers in the United States, and a scarce document of early 1970s New York gay politics.

Price: $250.00