http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid95540.asp
July 02, 2009
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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