Gay Rights Pioneer Jack Nichols Dead At 67
5/03/05
Long before Stonewall, Jack Nichols, along with Frank Kameny, founded the Washington D.C. Mattachine Society in 1961. They took the name for their organization from Harry Hay, who had founded the first Mattachine Society in Los Angeles in 1950, and who later went on to found The Radical Faeries.
Nichols was responsible for some of the first Gay Rights demonstrations in this country, most notably the famed March On Washington in April 1965. He also helped to convince the American Psychiatric Society that it would be a good idea to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness.
A remarkable man, a remarkable life... R.I.P.
