On this day in 1965, ten gay men and lesbians dressed in their most respectable clothes walked silently in front of the White House, carrying modest signs, becoming the first openly gay people ever to demonstrate at the seat of American power. Organized by the East Coast Homophile Organization in response to Cuba's forced labor camps for homosexuals, they made a deliberate choice: professional attire, quiet dignity, orderly picket lines, because they understood that in 1965 their very presence was already radical enough. Those ten people planted a seed that grew into every March on Washington, every lobby day on Capitol Hill, every vigil and rally that has happened since, demonstrating that showing up is itself an act of resistance. The political ground has shifted and shifted again in the sixty years since that afternoon, but the lesson of that small group on the White House sidewalk has never stopped being true.
Have you ever participated in a protest, march, or act of public witness? What brought you there, and what did you feel?