The scourge of AIDS
decimated an entire generation of men, including many who
fought for gay rights back in the heady days that followed
Stonewall in 1969. But one of those brave men, John Knoebel, is
alive and well, and telling the story of the early days of gay
liberation.
Knoebel, who works as
the vice president of consumer marketing for Regent
Media (the parent company of
The Advocate
), spoke to
blogger Christopher De La Torre
about moving to New York City a week after Stonewall, being the
victim of a hate crime, and working for the Gay Liberation
Front, an early gay advocacy group.
"Already something
of an antiwar activist from my college days in Madison, Wis., I
did feel immediately drawn to the radical energy of GLF and
started attending meetings in November 1969," Knoebel
says. "For the next few months, I became a student of gay
politics, participated in numerous street demonstrations, and
very energetically 'came out' in the
movement."
Knoebel worked closely
with GLF on the first gay pride march that took place in June
1970, "However, on the Friday night before the march, I
was gay bashed in the Village with four of my friends, and
ended up in Bellevue Hospital getting 14 stitches on my face.
Nonetheless, on Sunday we made the march, pushing our friend
Peter Ruffit, who had suffered a broken ankle in the attack, in
a wheelchair all the way to Central Park."
Knoebel also discusses GLF's interactions with the Black
Panthers, who had influential leaders like Huey Newton and
Afeni Shakur (future mother of rap star Tupac
Shakur) embracing the gay cause. Knoebel and two other
GLF leaders once met up with Newton and Jane Fonda in
Fonda's Upper East Side penthouse to discuss working
together on a joint liberation effort for blacks, women, and
gays.
"Within minutes,
Huey arrived shirtless, still drying himself with a bath
towel," Knoebel remembers. "I remember him as a very
attractive individual, well-built and with particularly
striking eyes. We wondered later if he'd been intentionally
showing off."
Knoebel ends the
interview by saying the root cause of homophobia remains
sexism, and that gays will not achieve equality in America
until women do.
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