Shoulders to Stand On

Gay Liberation Front

By Evelyn Bailey

Bob Osborne, Larry Fine, R.J. Alcala, Patti Evans, Karen Hagberg, Marshall Goldman. Who would you say these people are?

These men and women were the Shoulders on which the University of Rochester’s Gay Liberation Front was founded.

This October marks the 40^th Anniversary of the Gay Liberation Front. On the U of R campus the group has gone through many name changes, and is currently the Pride Network. The University of Rochester’s Meliora Weekend, Oct. 14–16, provides two opportunities to celebrate this extraordinary event where past meets the present: Pride Network 40th Anniversary After Hours, Friday, Oct. 15, 9 p.m.-12 midnight at Wilson Commons, Bridge Lounge; College Diversity Roundtable: Conversations about Diversity at the College, Saturday, October 16, 4:30 p.m.-6 p.m., Gleason Hall, Room 318/418. All are welcome!

Bob Osborne

by Evelyn Bailey

In last month’s Shoulders To Stand On article we looked at HOW and WHAT the Gay Liberation Front was.  This month we will look at who the people involved in the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) were.  We need to remember the times in which the GLF was established. 

The year was 1970.  A Richard Nixon was President.  U.S. troops invade Cambodia (May 1). Four students at Kent State University in Ohio slain by National Guardsmen at demonstration protesting incursion into Cambodia (May 4).   This was the year the Beatles broke up, the year Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin died of a drug overdose at the age of 27, the year of Midnight Cowboy, Love Story, Airport, the year IBM introduces the floppy disk, the year Maya Angelou wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and the year of the 5th Dimension’s Grammy award winning song Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.

Onto this stage steps Bob Osborne, the original founder of the Gay Liberation movement in Rochester.  Bob had a flair for revolutionary rhetoric.  His early writings in the first three Empty Closets carried with them the spirit of the turbulent 1960s.

1971: News from the Empty Closet

The following news items were taken from the February and March 1971 editions of the Empty Closet.

Gay People vs State Assembly
Reported by Bob Osborne

Three members of the Rochester gay community (Bob Osborne, R.J. Alcala, and Marshall Goldman) addressed the Special Committee on Discrimination Against Homosexuals, of the New York State Assembly in its first (ever) public hearings January 7 in New York City.

Assembly men present for the hearings were Stephen Solarz (Brooklyn) and Tonly Olivieri and Franz Leichter (both Manhattan).