Vol. 8, No. 5
May 1993
Pridgen
calls
trial a
scam
...Page 4
The CaroWnae Most Comprehensive Ga\j & Lesbian Newspaper Printed on Pecycied Paper FREE
One Million in D.C
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•iv.
by David Prybylo
Q-Notes Staff
WAS HINGTON—On Thursday, six char
tered 757jumbojetsleftSan Francisco bound
for D.C. From New York, extra flights had
been scheduled and more cars added to
Amtrak’s trains.
On Friday night, the CTOwds in the Dupont.
Circle section of Washington, the city's gay
district, jammed the sidewalks. Lines outside
restaurants and stores formed early and lasted
well into the night. Street vendors, selling
mostly march-related items such as t-shirts
and freedom ring necklaces, competed with
hundreds of volunteers — some paid home
less people — passing out a multitude of
flyers and packets from Overlooked Opin
ions, a firm hired to make an official count of
march participants
By Saturday afternoon, the throngs of
anxious marchers swelled so much that they
spilled into the streets causing traffic to slow
to near gridlock. By nightfall, the sidewalks
along P S treet and Connecticut Avenue were
virtually indistinguishable from the streets,
and an air of jubilant expectation floated over
the crowds like a pink cloud.
At7:00, thousands of lesbians left Dupont
Circle on The Dyke March down Connecticut
Avenue, the crowd cheered in support and the
women began chanting "We're dykes, don't
touch us, we'll hurt you."
The crowd had not thinned when the
marchers left, however, as new bodies poured
into the area by the subway-load to take their
places. Chartered buses from New York —
some say a hundred or more—had begun to
arrive.
In Dupont Circle itself, a sound truck had
managed to squeeze through and set up, to
the delight of the crowd gathered there — a
crowd made up mostly of those who did not
want to attend, or couldn ’ t get into, any of the
37 march-related events happening around
thecity. Soon, local entertainer Pussy Tourette
was performing her apparent signature num
ber, Real Pussy, with two back-ups.
Meanwhile, the fountain was the site of its
own impromptu spectacle as a hundred or so
stood front-to-back along the edge of the pool
and did The Bunny Hop and The Hokey
Pokey.
By 10:00, local news media were report
ing over a million out-of-towners had con
verged into the city. When word of this hit the
street, even the most jaded were not sur
prised.
“I don’t doubt it,” said one man. “I’m
from San Francisco and I’ve never seen
anything like this.”
And even more were on their way. At a
reception on Saturday night for Carolinas
participants, Doug Ferguson, co-chair of
UNC-Chapel Hill's B-GLAD organization,
announced that several chartered buses would
be leaving the university at 5 a.m. on Sunday,
filled with students headed for the march.
When they arrived, they joined over 200
other buses parked at the Pentagon and Sta
dium-Armory parking lots.
On Sunday morning the city awoke to
clear, sunny weather and the marchers, many
bleary-eyed and groggy from Saturday night’s
pre-march festivities, began making their
way to the Washington Monument. They
came in taxis and buses, on subway trains and
on foot, carrying signs and wearing t-shirts
that proclaimed their pride (“That’s Mr.
Faggot to you”, “We are proud of our gay
children”), their political agendas (“Colo
rado under siege”, “Lesbian rights now”,
“We’ll outlast Jesse”), and their unique sense
of humor (“Let’s all do millinary service”, “I
don’t even own an ice pick”, “World peace
through drag”).
A morning stage and assembly rally had
begun at 9:00, giving all but the very early
arrivers a sense of an event in progress.
Marshals were stationed for blocks around
the monument park facilitating the pedes
trian traffic and directing arriving marchers
to the location of the contingent assembly
points. On the rally stage, both the mood of
celebration and the sense of political purpose
were heightened. Performances by the Windy
City Gay Men’s Chorus, the Washington
Sisters, and more than two dozen other groups
and individuals helped stir the exuberance of
the gathering crowd, while speeches by Phil
Donahue, Jesse Jackson, and others reminded
the marchers that the march was, after all, a
political and social demonstration. Donahue
heated up the crowd with a speech in which
he repeatedly told Americans to “get over it.”
“Homophobia is nothing but prejudice
and fear,” Donahue told the crowd. “America,
get over it. To Pat Robertson and Cardinal
John O'Connor we say with one voice, ‘Get
over it!”’
Jackson was one of several speakers who
criticized Bill Clinton’s decision to leave
town on Sunday, saying, “People you voted
for have fled the city.”
By noon—official start time of the march
—most of the crowd was there, gathered into
98 separate contingents and ready to go.
With banners, flags, and signs held high,
with drum-bands and whistles keeping time,
and with anticipation and a sense of history
making charging the air, marchers sto^
with their contingents and waited for the
actual march to begin.
And, except for those at the very begin
ning, wait is what they did. The North Caro
lina contingent, 6,000 strong and 19th in
place, began to march at 2:45; South Carolina
■stepped off more than a half-hour later.
According to Mandy Carter, Southern
District Field Organizer with NGLTF, the
delay was the result of the overwhelming
turn-out. New York, marching immediately
in front of North Carolina, had about 30,000
participants, she said.
Also, ACT UP staged a 7-minute die-in at
2:00 in front of the White House, adding to
the delay.
Though some grumbled about the frustrat
ing wait and others left the monument area
and went directly to the rally site at the Mall,
most were patient and apparently unperturbed.
A 23-year-old man from New Mexico, still
waiting to begin marching at 4:00, said he
didn't mind the wait. "Every minute of this
weekend has been erasing 23 years of living
in the closet," he told a reporter from the
Washington Post.
According to the Post, the last marcher
passed the White House at 5:55 p.m.
Once the marchers got moving, however,
the afternoon fulfilled its expectations. The
entire march route — seemingly long under
a hot, bright sun — was lined by vocal,
enthusiastic supporters, many carrying signs
and sporting buttons and t-shirts indistin
guishable from those of the marchers.
One group of on-lookers. Straight Up, an
organization of straight men who support
gay rights, received applause from the march
ers as they passed. Most applause, though.
came from the opposite side, with the P-
FLAG and gay veterans contingents receiv
ing the loudest.
Those marchers who left the monument
area after 2:00 saw the outlines of bodies
drawn in chalk on the pavement in front of
the White House, a haunting reminder of the
ACT UP demonstration and of the devastat
ing effect AIDS has had on our community.
The first of two counter-protest demon
strations was located just past the White
House and on the other side of Pennsylvania
Avenue. The handful of counter-demonstra
tors, holding signs such as “God hates fags”
and “Two gay rights: AIDS and Hell,” were
met with contempt from the marchers who
shouted “Shame! Shame!” and “Love is not
a sin,” as they passed. According to police
Capt. Michael Radzilowski, hostil ity between
marchers and counter-demonstrators was lim
ited to “verbal banter.”
At the end of the approximately 1/2 mile
parade, marchers stepped onto the Mall —
the elongated expanse of grass and trees
stretching between the Capitol and the Wash
ington Monument—where a rally had been
underway since 2:00. The speakers and
entertainers, in a mirror of the marchers
themselves, covered the speettum from out
spoken to outrageous.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) read a letter
of support sent with her by Bill Clinton. “I
stand with you in the struggle for equality for
all Americans, including gay men and lesbi
ans,” the letter read. “I still believe every
American who works hard and plays by the
rules ought to be part of the national commu
nity. Let us work together to make this vision
real.” Though most applauded, some in the
crowd began to shout “Where’s Bill?”
Larry Kramer, founder of GMHC and
radical AIDS activist, blasted the Clinton
Administration for its failure to follow through
on promises of new AIDS programs and
infusion of more funds for research.
Dorothy Hajdys, mother of murdered gay
sailor Allen Schindler, addressed the crowd
and, haltingly at times, pleaded for an end to
the military ban and civil rights for gays. Her
story brought tears to many in the crowd and
drew a standing ovation.
Continued on page 23