Homophile Action League

The Homophile Action League (HAL) was established in 1968 in Philadelphia as part of the Homophile movement in the United States.[1][2][3] The organization advocated for the rights of the LGBT community and served as a predecessor to the Gay Liberation Front.[4][5][6][7]

Homophile Action League
Formation1968
Dissolved1973
Headquarters1321 Arch Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Co-founder
Ada Bello
Co-founder
Carole Friedman

Background

The Homophile Action League was founded in August 1968 by LGBT rights activists and lovers Ada Bello and Carole Friedman.[8][9][10] Other early members and leaders in the organization included Byrna Aronson, George Bodamer, Rosalie Davies, Lourdes Alvarez, Jerry Curtis, Barbara Gittings, and her life partner, Kay Lahusen.[11][12][13][14][15][16]

The organization was established after the dissolution of the local chapter of an LGBT advocacy organization called the Daughters of Bilitis, the first American lesbian civil rights group. While the group was largely run by lesbian women at its inception, its membership also included gay men.[8][17]

Upon its founding, the stated mission of the organization was to "change society's legal, social, and scientific attitudes toward the homosexual in order to achieve justified recognition of the homosexual as a first-class citizen and a first-class human being."[18][19]

Activities

After the Philadelphia Police Department raided Rusty's bar (a lesbian bar) and arrested 12 women in 1968, members of the league held meetings with the department to express their concerns and desire for reforms.[20][8][21]

The Homophile Action League published the "HAL Newsletter" in the late 1960s and early 1970s[11] which challenged discrimination and police harassment against the LGBT community.[20][22] The league's newsletter was also one of the first publications to use and publish the term "Gay Pride" in 1970.[23]

The league had an office space at 34 South 17th Street, a space that was shared with the Janus Society. The organization later had an office location at 1321 Arch Street.[24]

The organization was a member of the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, a subsidiary of the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations.[25] Representatives from the organization also took part in the final Annual Reminder protest at Independence Hall in July 1969 (among the earliest LGBT demonstrations in the United States) and subsequent Christopher Street Liberation Day demonstrations.[4][26][27][28][29] In June 1972, the Homophile Action League served as one of the host organizations of the first official Gay Pride Parade in Philadelphia.[30][31]

The organization held regular meetings at the St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia's Hamilton Village.[32][33] The organization hosted social events (including some of the first public gay dances in Philadelphia) as well as forums and training on topics including LGBT rights, political advocacy, and an educational series titled "Homosexuality and Religion." Guest speakers to the organization included Joe Acanfora in November 1972.[11]

In 1970, member Jerry Curtis registered as the league's lobbyist with the Pennsylvania General Assembly, becoming one of the first LGBT organization lobbyists in the history of the state.[34][35] During the early 1970s, members of the league actively lobbied members of the Philadelphia City Council to enact gay rights legislation that would add housing and employment non-discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation.[14][36] The efforts were unsuccessful at the time, with legislation being stalled in committee for several years and failing to pass in 1974 (similarly worded legislation was later enacted in 1982).[37]

With the rise of more radical gay liberation politics following the riots, homophile organizations such as the Homophile Action League were largely inactive by the mid-1970s. The gay liberation movement replaced the term "homophile" with a new set of terminology such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.[38]

HAL Collective

For a brief period during the early 1970s, the organization ran the "HAL Collective," a house that offered cooperative housing to gays and lesbians in Philadelphia.[15]

Legacy

One of the members of the league, Kiyoshi Kuromiya, co-founded the Gay Liberation Front in 1969 following the Stonewall riots.[39][40]

A picket sign used by the Homophile Action League (donated by Frank Kameny in 2006) is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History.[41]

See also

References
  1. Ferentinos, Susan (2016). "Sitting In, Speaking Out: Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Homophile Movement". Pennsylvania Legacies. 16 (1): 20–26. doi:10.5215/pennlega.16.1.0020. ISSN 1544-6360. JSTOR 10.5215/pennlega.16.1.0020.
  2. Hall, Simon (2008). "Protest Movements in the 1970s: The Long 1960s". Journal of Contemporary History. 43 (4): 655–672. doi:10.1177/0022009408095421. ISSN 0022-0094. JSTOR 40543228. S2CID 162919237.
  3. Newton, David E. (2009-10-27). Gay and Lesbian Rights: A Reference Handbook, 2nd Edition: A Reference Handbook, Second Edition. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-307-1.
  4. "Ada Bello". If They Should Ask. Archived from the original on 2017-11-11. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  5. Stein, Marc Robert (1994). The city of sisterly and brotherly loves: The making of lesbian and gay movements in greater Philadelphia, 1948-1972 (Thesis). ProQuest 304122700.
  6. Porter II, Juan (May 29, 2020). "You Should Know This Gay Asian-American Civil Rights, Anti-War, and HIV/AIDS Activist". TheBody. Archived from the original on March 18, 2021. Retrieved October 15, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  7. Baumann, Jason (2019-04-30). The Stonewall Reader. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-313351-3.
  8. "Ada Bello (born 1933), Interviewed February 7, 1993 · Philadelphia LGBT History Project, Marc Stein, Creator · OutHistory". outhistory.org. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  9. "Barbara Gittings (1932-2007), Interviewed February 2, 1993 · Philadelphia LGBT History Project, Marc Stein, Creator · OutHistory". outhistory.org. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  10. "Carole Friedman (born 1945), Interviewed June 24, 1993 · Philadelphia LGBT History Project, Marc Stein, Creator · OutHistory". outhistory.org. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  11. "Homophile Action League (HAL) Newsletter: January 1973". Philadelphia Studies. 2016-06-16. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  12. "Before Stonewall: The Gay Pride Movement in Philadelphia | Historical Society of Pennsylvania". hsp.org. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  13. Brownworth, Victoria A. (2015-08-14). "How Did Early Gay Activists Find the Courage to Stand Up for Their Rights?". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  14. "Harry Langhorne (1947-2001), Interviewed June 25, 1996 · Philadelphia LGBT History Project, Marc Stein, Creator · OutHistory". outhistory.org. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  15. "Rosalie Davies (1939-2009), Interviewed May 28, 1993 · Philadelphia LGBT History Project, Marc Stein, Creator · OutHistory". outhistory.org. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  16. Nichols, David, and Morris J. Kafka-Holzschlag. "The Rutgers University Lesbian/Gay Alliance 1969-1989, The First Twenty Years." The Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries 51.2 (1989).
  17. Stein, Marc (2022). Queer Public History: Essays on Scholarly Activism (1 ed.). University of California Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv2kx88vx. ISBN 978-0-520-30431-4. JSTOR j.ctv2kx88vx.
  18. Faderman, Lillian (2016-09-27). The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-9412-3.
  19. Stewart, Chuck (2014-12-16). Proud Heritage: People, Issues, and Documents of the LGBT Experience [3 volumes]: People, Issues, and Documents of the LGBT Experience. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-399-8.
  20. Gregg, Cherri (2019-06-19). "For LGBT people of color, equality has been a multi-layered fight". KYW. Archived from the original on 2019-09-27. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  21. Stein, Marc (2022-03-22). Queer Public History: Essays on Scholarly Activism. Univ of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-30431-4.
  22. Beemyn, Brett (2013-05-13). Creating a Place For Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-22240-6.
  23. "'Pride': The Word That Went From Vice to Strength". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  24. "Philadelphia Area Sites of LGBT Historical Importance | exhibits.hsp.org". digitalhistory.hsp.org. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  25. Sargeant, Fred (1969). "Interview". New Symposium II. Archived from the original on June 14, 2010. Retrieved May 8, 2010 – via David Carter.
  26. "NYC Pride March". NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project.
  27. Andrews-Spicer, Taylor (2014-10-01). "LGBTQIA: Five Moments in Philadelphia's LGBT History That You Should Know -". Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  28. "Annual Reminder Participants · Marc Stein: 50th Anniversary Annual Reminders, Philadelphia, July 4, 1965-July 4, 1969 · OutHistory". outhistory.org. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  29. Stein, Marc (2019-05-07). The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. NYU Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-9571-7.
  30. Skiba, Bob (2018-06-08). "Gay Pride in Philadelphia, 1972-2018". Philadelphia Gay News. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  31. "The history of Philadelphia's gay rights movement". Philadelphia Corporation For Aging. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  32. "History | St. Mary's, Hamilton Village". Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  33. "A Statement Concerning St. Mary's Church, Hamilton Village, and the Homophile Action League (1970)". Philadelphia Studies. 2015-07-07. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  34. Katz, Jonathan (1975). A Gay News Chronology, January 1969-May 1975: Index and Abstracts of Articles from the New York Times. Arno Press. ISBN 978-0-405-07409-7.
  35. "New Pennsylvania Lobbyist Seeking Homosexual Rights". The New York Times. 1970-09-20. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
  36. Nickels, Thom (2002). Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-1000-2.
  37. Mumford, Kevin J. The Trouble with Gay Rights: Race and the Politics of Sexual Orientation in Philadelphia, 1969–1982, Journal of American History, Volume 98, Issue 1, June 2011, Pages 49–72, doi:10.1093/jahist/jar139
  38. Dudley Clendinen; Adam Nagourney (30 July 2013). Out For Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in Ame. Simon and Schuster. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-1-4767-4071-3.
  39. Lubin, Joan; Vaccaro, Jeanne (2020). "AIDS infrastructures, queer networks: Architecting the critical path". First Monday. doi:10.5210/fm.v25i10.10403. ISSN 1396-0466. S2CID 225026921.
  40. Porter II, Juan (May 29, 2020). "You Should Know This Gay Asian-American Civil Rights, Anti-War, and HIV/AIDS Activist". TheBody. Archived from the original on March 18, 2021. Retrieved October 15, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  41. "Homophile Action League - Philadelphia". National Museum of American History. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
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