Exhibiting location
William Way LGBTQ Community Center
For LGBT Americans, 1976 was a time of both great progress and continued injustices. Pennsylvania governor Milton Shapp’s executive order outlawing discrimination against gay and lesbian employees in the state executive branch and his establishment of an advisory Council for Sexual Minorities in 1976, were firsts of their kind in the US. But in the same year, the United States Supreme Court, in a summary affirmation, upheld Virginia’s right to ban sex between consenting gay men. Anita Bryant’s famous anti-gay discrimination campaign in Florida and other right-wing attacks on our community were not long to follow. In Philadelphia, several LGBTQ+ organizations were founded in 1976, including the Gay Democratic Caucus (the first gay political organization in the city), the Philadelphia Gay News, and the Gay Community Center of Philadelphia (today’s William Way LGBT Community Center). They joined a plethora of existing organizations which had formed in the early 1970s to secure equal rights for our community. Materials from 1976, including evidence of LGBT Philadelphians participating in Bicentennial or counter-Bicentennial events, are available for research in the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives at William Way LGBT Community Center.
Visit their site
