a&e features
50 years of pioneers
Golden anniversary of Philadelphia ’65 event to honor early gay activists
Barbara Gittings at the 1966 Independence Day protest. (Photo by Kay Tobin Lahusen, courtesy LGBT50)
LGBT 50th Anniversary
Thursday, July 2
Wreath laying at gay pioneers marker, 2:15 p.m.
National legal panel, 6:30 p.m.
National politics panel (moderated by Blade editor Kevin Naff), 8:15 p.m.
50th anniversary party, 10 p.m.
Friday, July 3
National interfaith service, 4 p.m.
“Gay Pioneers” screening, 6 p.m.
Saturday, July 4
50th anniversary VIP lunch, 11:30 a.m.
50th anniversary ceremony, 2:30 p.m.
VIP cocktail reception, 4:30 p.m.
Several other tie-in events are planned. There is no registration fee and most events are free and are held on or near Independence Mall. For more information, visit lgbt50th.org.
Frank Kameny was always quick to point out to anyone misinformed that the legendary Stonewall Riots of 1969 were not the beginnings of the modern gay rights movement.
“When people say, as you so often hear, that the gay movement started with Stonewall, if I have a chance under the circumstances in which it’s said, I invariably correct them very insistently,” Kameny, who died in 2011 at age 86, told the Blade in a 2009 interview on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of those riots. “And point out that the movement was just sort of 20 years old already and there was a groundwork.”
Kameny, friends and colleagues say, would be pleased that some of the lesser-known early gay rights demonstrations he co-coordinated, are getting properly commemorated. On July 2-5, the 50th anniversary of the East Coast Homophile Organization’s (ECHO), first Independence Day demonstration at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 1965, an event that was continued through 1969, will be commemorated with a lavish, three-day spate of activities. The Mattachine Society of Washington, founded by Kameny and the late Jack Nichols, was one of the main ECHO groups.
The National LGBT 50th Anniversary Celebration is being coordinated by an organizing committee within Equality Forum. Malcolm Lazin, Equality Forum’s executive director and event committee chair, says it’s important these “Gay Pioneers,” (also the name of a 2004 documentary short he helped make that told of the 1965 proceedings) are remembered. A 40th anniversary event was held 10 years ago and many of the pioneers were able to attend, but Lazin says this year’s event is on a much bigger scale.
Among the festivities are panel discussions, a screening of “Gay Pioneers,” fireworks, parties, LGBT history exhibits, concerts, an interfaith service, a wreath laying at the Gay Pioneers historic marker, a street festival and a one-hour anniversary ceremony in front of Independence Hall emceed by lesbian comedian Wanda Sykes. Prominent guests will include James Obergefell, a plaintiff in the current Supreme Court marriage case, along with activists Edith Windsor, Judy Shepard and more. There is no registration fee and most programs are free. Lazin says there’s no way to predict how many might attend but says because of the holiday weekend and Philadelphia’s proximity to Washington and New York, not to mention the historic nature of the proceedings, “we expect a very, very large crowd.”
Lazin says even though the Mattachine Society had held previous protests — perhaps most notably a White House picket in April 1965 — the Philadelphia demonstration deserves special commemoration. He says there were only about 200 people out to any public degree at the time. Kameny remembered it being even fewer.
“The ones before had always been based around a specific issue such as the one at the White House to protest Fidel Castro who rounded up Cuban homosexuals,” Lazin says. “There was another one around military discharges and another around the Civil Service Commission’s prohibition against the federal government employing gays and lesbians. This one was remarkably different. It was not just one city involved, but three. Also, it was the first time it was not based around a specific issue and … it was the first time it wasn’t a one-off. These continued every July 4th from 1965 to 1969 and it was organized by the truly seminal leaders of the movement.”
Lazin calls Kameny and his longtime co-conspirator, the late Barbara Gittings, who was involved with Kameny right from the beginning (though she lived in Philadelphia) and who died of breast cancer at age 74 in 2007, the “father and mother of the LGBT civil rights movement.” Others involved included Rev. Robert Wood, now a nonagenarian whom the Blade interviewed last year (Wood authored the seminal 1960 book “Christ and the Homosexual”) and Lilli Vincenz, who lives in the D.C. area and was involved with Kameny very early on.
“When Frank and Barbara and the other gay pioneers stepped forward,” Lazin says, “the federal government would not employ an openly gay person, the American Psychiatric Association classified us as mentally ill and virtually every state made it a crime for consenting adults to engage in same-sex intimacy in their own homes. Most states also made it either a crime or grounds for a loss of license for more than one homosexual to be in a bar, so homophobia was totally accepted and totally pervasive and totally toxic. It took huge courage for Frank and Barbara to step forward, knowing it would make them unemployable and personas non grata, so we all stand on their shoulders.”
Kate Kendell, director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who says it will be a great honor to pay tribute to Gittings at the anniversary ceremony at Independence Hall on the anniversary, agrees.
“It’s so often the case that we sometimes neglect to fully appreciate the shoulders we stand on,” Kendell says. “Barbara Gittings demonstrated a kind of remarkable courage that for the time was unprecedented. To march in front of the White House with a sign demanding that homosexuals not be discriminated against by the government and then to pass out literature to passersby or to those who stopped to talk, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, demanded a sort of bravery that frankly, I would not have possessed. And we know that our visibility is the most important first step to our liberation. She, and of course Frank Kameny, created that visibility out of almost nothing. There was no existing infrastructure there, there were no role models, there were no headlines and every story or reference in pop culture or in the media was shaming, negative and depicted us as a threat and sick. Barbara Gittings with a handful of other people who stood up at that time are owed an un-repayable debt.”
Kay Tobin Lahusen, Gittings’ partner of 46 years, says Gittings would be pleased at the recognition.
“She would have felt like a little bit of heaven had come down to Earth,” Lahusen, 85, says during a phone interview with the Blade. “She would have loved to have seen her fellow picketers recognized for their role in helping launch the movement. She was for anything that advanced the cause.”
Lahusen, who met Gittings at a Daughters of Bilitis picnic in 1961, is in good spirits. Though she won’t attend the festivities next month (“I’ll get lots of reports, don’t worry,” she says), she takes delight in last weekend’s landslide vote in Ireland to legalize same-sex marriage, calling it a “landmark victory of the gay cause.” She quotes an observer who said it “puts us ‘on the vanguard of social change movements’ and I would agree.” She’s also thrilled that a biography of Gittings by Tracy Baim of Windy City Times will be released by the time of the Philadelphia commemoration.
“It’s chock-full of photographs of Barbara and her activities, most of which I took,” Lahusen says. “When I survey all that has happened in the last 50 years, there has been a tectonic shift in attitudes. It’s quite amazing and thrilling.”
Paul Kuntzler, who met Kameny one night at the Chicken Hut, a long-closed D.C. gay bar, in February 1962, is one of the few survivors of the 1965 Independence Hall demonstration who will be attending the 50th anniversary. He knew Gittings well and says she and Kameny were kindred spirits and close friends.
“She was basically the Frank Kameny of Philadelphia,” Kuntzler says. “Very brainy, a very fine mind. Very quick witted. Very smart. She was truly an intellectual and like Frank in many ways.”
He says she’d be honored by the commemoration.
“She was the principal person in Philly and among women in the U.S., she was the most important, the most influential.”
Kuntzler, who has amazing recall of dates and events, remembers some details of the first July 4th event but says some of the other early demonstrations in which he participated with the Mattachine Society, stand out more in his memory.
Kuntzler had spent the weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Del., with his partner, Stephen Brent Miller (who died in 2004).
“I left that morning from Rehoboth Beach in a suit and tie and drove to Philly for the event,” Kuntzler, 73, says. “I believe it was about an hour long. And then I drove back. … I don’t remember any reaction, not particularly. I think we just did it. The one at the White House stands out much more vividly because there were so many photographers there. I guess they were expecting us. I think there were some barricades we marched around. According to people today, there were 40 there but I would be surprised if it was that many. I didn’t remember there being quite that many. But we were all in suits and ties.”
Kuntzler says the mood was festive but he was eager to return to his partner at the beach.
“We had dinner that night at the Avenue Restaurant, which was a very popular place, very good food. There were several of us at the table for dinner and I met Richard Davison, who just died a couple years ago, but he was working for the federal government at the time and I remember he was very nervous as I was talking about what had gone on earlier in the day because in those days, if you were gay and they found out, you could get fired.”
Kuntzler says to his knowledge, only a handful who attended are still alive including Randy Wicker of New York, Vincenz and a few others whose names he does not recall.
Kameny long contended that the Stonewall Riots would never have happened had he and the other pioneers not laid the groundwork. It’s a theory Lazin and Kendell readily agree with.
“To say Stonewall started everything is like saying the Boston Tea Party started the American Revolution,” Lazin says. “And forgetting that Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and other seminal founding fathers had laid the groundwork. … What’s remarkable about Frank and Barbara is that not only did they lead the way prior, they continued leading the way after Stonewall as well.”
Kameny told the Blade in 2009 about the convergence of events around the time of Stonewall, which had happened less than a week before the final Independence Day protest in 1969. Kameny, who had been in Washington when Stonewall happened but heard about it immediately through fellow ECHO contacts, said he was elated. Kameny happily joined in the first Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day March on June 28, 1970 — the first Pride march — and said he was thrilled to realize the movement was at a major turning point.
“I remember … seeing this vast horde of people and I was absolutely speechless,” said Kameny, who was used to counting protest participants in the dozens rather than the thousands. “Flowing in like a river into the Sheep Meadow in Central Park, if nothing else, there it was in front of one’s eyes. It would have been impossible in terms of anything movement-wise prior to that. We had clearly overstepped a line. We had transitioned.”
As exciting as that was, Kendell says it would be a travesty if the earlier efforts of Kameny and Gittings and their comrades were forgotten.
“First you start to see the small tremors and people start to question the dominant patriarchy and they start to question the way power is structured and they start to question their own oppression,” Kendell says. “But then there’s a moment when the match just gets lit. … When Stonewall happened, the fury of it was ignited by that simmering sense of injustice, which was, I think, in large part ignited by the events in Philadelphia.”
Kendell also says, even with the enormous strides that have been made, LGBT people today can still be inspired by the examples of Kameny and Gittings.
“For me, the moral of the story is that you can resist wherever you are and whoever you are,” she says. “It’s not something that happens somewhere else. We’re agents in our own liberation.”
Gay protesters at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 1965. (Photo courtesy LGBT50)
a&e features
Queery: Meet artist, performer John Levengood
Modern creative talks nightlife, coming out, and his personal queer heroes
John Levengood (he/him) describes himself as a modern creative with a wide‑ranging toolkit. He blends music, technology, civic duty, and a sharp sense of wit into a cohesive artistic identity. Known primarily as a recording artist and performer, he’s also a self‑taught music producer and software engineer who embodies a generation of creators who build their own lanes rather than wait for one to appear.
Levengood, 32, who is single and identifies as gay and queer, is best known as a recording artist who has performed at Pride festivals across the country, including the main stages of World Pride DC, Central Arkansas Pride, and Charlotte Pride.
“Locally in the DMV, I’m known for turning heads at nightlife venues with my eye-catching sense of style. When I go out, I don’t try to blend in. I hope I inspire people to be themselves and have the courage to stand out,” he says.
He’s also known for hosting karaoke at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, Va., on Thursday nights. “I like to create a space where people feel comfortable expressing themselves, building community, and showcasing their talents.”
He also creates social media content from my performances and do interviews at LGBTQ+ bars and theatres in the DMV. Follow the Arlington resident @johnlevengood.
How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?
I have been fully out of the closet since 2019. My parents were the hardest people to tell because my family has always been my rock and at the time I couldn’t imagine a world without them. Their reactions were extremely positive and supportive so I had nothing to fear all along.
I remember sitting on the couch with my mom, dad, and sister in our hotel room in New Orleans during our winter vacation and being so nervous to tell them. After I finally mustered up the nerve and made the proclamation, I realized my dad had already fallen asleep on the couch. My mom promised to tell him when he woke up.
Who’s your LGBTQ hero?
My LGBTQ heroes are Harvey Milk for paving the way for gays in politics and Elton John for being a pioneer for the fabulous and authentic. My local heroes in the DMV are Howard Hicks, manager of Green Lantern, and Tony Rivenbark, manager of Freddie’s Beach Bar. Both of them are essential to creating spaces where I’ve felt welcome and safe since moving to the DMV.
What’s Washington’s best nightspot, past or present?
Trade tops the list for me because of the dance floor and outdoor space. It’s so nice to get a break from the music every once and a while to be able to have a conversation.
We live in challenging times. How do you cope?
I’m still figuring this out. What is working right now is writing music and spending time with family and friends. I’ve also been spending less time on social media going to the gym at least three times a week.
What streaming show are you binging?
After “Traitors” Season 4 ended, I was in a bit of a show hole, but “Stumble” has me in a laughing loop right now. The writing is so witty.
What do you wish you’d known at 18?
At 18, I wish I would have known how liberating it is to come out of the closet. It would have been nice to know some winning lottery numbers as well.
What are your friends messaging about in your most recent group chat?
We are planning our next trip to New York City. If you can believe it, I visited NYC for the first time in 2025 for Pride and I’ve been back every quarter since. Growing up in the country, I was subconsciously primed to be scared of the city. But my mind has been blown. I can’t wait to go back.
Why Washington?
It’s the closest metropolitan area to my family, but not too close. I love the museums, the diversity, the history, and the proximity to the beach and mountains. It’s also nice to live in a city with public transportation.
Aging RFK Stadium has come down, but the RFK grounds are still getting lit up. Welcome back to the stage Project GLOW, D.C.’s homegrown electronic festival, on May 30-31. Back for its fifth year on these musically inclined acres, Project GLOW returns with an even more diverse lineup, and one that continues to celebrate LGBTQ antecedents, attendees, and acts.
Project GLOW 2026 headliners include house and techno star Mau P, progressive house legend Eric Prydz, hard-techno favorite Sara Landry, and bass acts Excision b2b Sullivan King, among the lineup of trance, bass, house, techno, dubstep, and others for the fifth anniversary year.
President & CEO Pete Kalamoutsos — born and raised in D.C. — founded Club GLOW in 1999. In 2020, GLOW entered into a partnership with global entertainment company Insomniac Events to produce live events like Project GLOW, which kicked off in 2022.
As in past years, Project GLOW not only makes space, but is intentionally inclusive of the LGBTQ community, one of its most dedicated fan bases. The festival’s LGBTQ-focused Secret Garden stage blooms again — a more intimate dance area that stands on the strength of DJs and musicians who draw from the LGBTQ community. D.C.’s LGBTQ nightlife mastermind Ed Bailey is the creative mind behind Secret Garden again. He joined Project GLOW in 2023.
“Kalamoustos says that “he’s proud of his partnership with Ed Bailey, along with Capital Pride and [nightlife producer] Jake Resnikow. It’s amazing to collaborate with Bailey at the Secret Garden stage, especially after the curated lineup we worked on at Pride last year.”
The Secret Garden will be a bit different from other stages: Eternal (“At the Eternal stage, time stands still. Lose yourself in the dance of past, present, and future, surrendering to the eternal rhythm of the universe”) and Pulse (“Feel the rhythm of the beat pulse through your veins as the heartbeat of the crowd synchronizes into one. Here, every moment vibrates with life as it guides you through a new dimension of euphoria”). The Secret Garden stage is in the round, surrounded by 16 shipping containers. The containers play canvas to muralists from around the world, who are coming in to paint them in a vibrant garden-style vibe. “We gave this stage some extra love with this layout,” K says, “ we finally cracked the code.”
K says that this will be the biggest lineup yet for the Secret Garden, featuring Nicole Moudaber b2b Chasewest, Riordan b2b Bullet Tooth, Ranger Trucco, Cassian, Eli & Fur, Cosmic Gate and Hayla. The stage is also the largest yet, featuring an expanded dance floor and 360-degree viewing.
Across all stages, K says that his goal for the fifth anniversary is “More art and fan interactive experience, more like a festival, strive to be like a Tomorrowland, as budget grows to add more experience.” Last year’s Project GLOW alone drew 40,000 attendees over two days.
K, however, was not satisfied with one festival this spring. GLOW recently announced a “pop-up” one-day event. Teaming up with Black Book Records, GLOW is set to throw a first-of-its-kind dance-music takeover of Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., headlined by electronic music star Chris Lake. Set for April 18, this euphoric block party will feature bass and vibes blocks from the White House. Organizers expect as many as 10,000 fans to attend. Beyond music, there will be food, activations, and plenty of other activities taking place around 6th St and Pennsylvania Ave NW – a location familiar to many in the LGBTQ community, as this sits squarely inside the blocks of the Capital Pride party that takes place in DC every June.
Over the past two decades, Club GLOW has produced thousands of events, from club nights to large-scale festivals including Project GLOW, Moonrise Festival, and more. Club GLOW also operates Echostage.
a&e features
New book celebrates 1970s dance music icons
‘A Night at the Disco’ features interviews with Donna Summer, Debbie Harry, more
If you’re a fan of 1970s-era dance music, don’t miss the irresistible new book by Christian John Wikane and Alice Harris, “A Night at the Disco,” which revisits more than 90 interviews conducted with some of the biggest names in pop culture.
“A Night at the Disco” (ACC Art Books) was published on March 24, and distributed by Simon & Schuster. It celebrates more than 100 artists who sparked a phenomenon in dance music from 1970-1979 and features excerpts from interviews with everyone from Donna Summer to Debbie Harry.
Lost City Books (2467 18th St., N.W.) will welcome author Christian John Wikane for a book signing and conversation about “A Night at the Disco” on Thursday, April 16 at 6 p.m. Details at lostcitybookstore.com. Bird in Hand Coffee & Books in Baltimore (11 E. 33rd St.) )will also host a Q&A with the author on Wednesday, April 15 at 6 p.m. Details at theivybookshop.com.
Below is an excerpt from “A Night at the Disco.”
“I’ll let in anyone who looks like they’ll make things fun.” Steve Rubell is guiding a New York Times reporter through Studio 54 as resident DJ Richie Kaczor dazzles the crowd with records by CHIC, Odyssey, and T-Connection. “Disco, that’s where the happy people go,” The Trammps sing as dancers spin and twirl underneath tubes of flashing lights. Seven months since Rubell and co-owner Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 in April 1977, it’s welcomed untold numbers of “happy people” … at least those lucky enough to pass through the doors.
“We were part of the chosen few,” says André De Shields, who immortalized the title role in The Wiz on Broadway at the time. “We could show up at Studio 54 and the doorman at the velvet stanchion would look over everyone and point to us from The Wiz to come in, that kind of thing.” As the lead vocalist in the GRAMMY-nominated Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, whose debut modernized big band sophistication for the discothèques, Cory Daye had carte blanche in the club. “The energy was like a New Year’s Eve party every night,” she says. “I would go up to the mezzanine and watch the mechanical light pillars go up and down, metallic confetti falling from the ceiling, the spoon and the moon. I was so fascinated and enamored by it.
“When a certain song came on, the people would just rush to the dance floor. There was no contact dancing — the hustle was pretty much on its way out — but it was just an amazing experience to see all the cultures together. It was a fusion of cultures, which described my life and my band, so I was right at home there.”
“Studio 54 was the place,” adds Linda Clifford. “Crazy parties. If you could think it, you would see it. It was like a circus. Just an amazing place to be. I worked 54 so many times. It was like a second home to me. The people there treated me so well. The crowd always seemed to enjoy my show. I always had a good time with them. That was the most important thing: making sure that they had fun.”
Well before Studio 54 opened, disco had become a business juggernaut. “A four billion dollar market and still growing,” Billboard announced in February 1977, with dance music offering more variety than ever. “There is no longer a single, readily identifiable disco beat, but a kaleidoscope of sounds that are melodic and danceable,” Tom Moulton told the magazine. In the clubs, records by veteran artists like Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees were mixed in with a range of new acts like Grace Jones, Boney M., and The Ritchie Family, while everyone from ABBA to Marvin Gaye scored number one pop hits with songs that had club-centric storylines.
Beyond the charts, disco itself remained as idiosyncratic as ever, especially on several productions by Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis, whose studio creations, El Coco (“Let’s Get It Together,” “Cocomotion”) and Le Pamplemousse (“Le Spank”), joined their own “Lust” from Seven Deadly Sins (1977) among the most tantalizing releases on AVI Records. Rinder & Lewis also produced acts for the newly hatched Butterfly Records in Los Angeles, where Saint Tropez (“On a Rien à Perdre”) and Tuxedo Junction (“Moonlight Serenade”) reflected the duo’s high gloss sound, spanning everything from European sophistication to a more literal translation of the ’40s sensibilities popularized by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.
12-inch singles had also grown as the preferred format to approximate the club music experience at home. Nearly a year after Atlantic Records introduced its series of promotional 12-inch singles for DJs, New York-based Salsoul Records released the industry’s first commercially available 12-inch single, “Ten Percent” by Double Exposure, in May 1976. A year later, T.K. Records was the first label to certify a gold record for a 12-inch single when Peter Brown’s “Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me” tallied one million sales.— Christian John Wikane
(From “A Night at the Disco” by Alice Harris & Christian John Wikane. Published by ACC Art Books.)
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