Dale Jennings, c. 1940. In February 1952, Dale Jennings, one of the founders of the Mattachine Socie
Dale Jennings, c. 1940. In February 1952, Dale Jennings, one of the founders of the Mattachine Society and, later, of ONE, Inc., two of the earliest homophile organizations in America, was approached by a man in a public restroom in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park. Having no interest in the man, Jennings left, but the man insisted on walking Jennings home. Upon arriving at Jennings’ house, the man invited himself in, continued to have his sexual advances rebuffed, until he finally forced Jennings’ hand down the front of his pants; at that moment, the undercover officer handcuffed Jennings, arrested him, and charged him with solicitation. Jennings and his Mattachine colleagues, namely Harry Hay, however, devised a virtually unheard-of plan to challenge the entrapment at trial: Jennings would admit to being homosexual and defend himself in open court in a “he said-he said” against police officers. On June 23, 1952, sixty-four years ago today, after forty hours of deliberation, the jury requested the judge dismiss the case, as eleven jurors voted for acquittal, while one juror had announced that he would hold out for guilty until hell froze over. Jennings, in other words, won. News of the victory spread, and the Mattachine Society’s membership exponentially grew in a matter of months. Although physical retaliation in the face of police harassment did not become a tool of the gay rights movement for more than a decade, Dale Jennings’ legal retaliation should not be ignored. In 1953, at the annual Mattachine Society Banquet, Jennings declared, “We are that little band that the Future will celebrate…in today’s absence of tomorrow’s laurels, let us immodestly crown ourselves…, for we are most surely making history. We most surely are leaders, historic fighting leaders! Our only mistakes occur when we forget that fact.” #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #lgbtpride #queerhistorymatters #haveprideinhistory (at Los Angeles, California) -- source link
#lgbthistory#haveprideinhistory#lgbtpride#queerhistorymatters#lgbttheirstory#lgbtherstory