Activist and PFLAG Founder Jeanne Manford Dies at 92
Posted by Justin Snow
January 8, 2013 5:53 PMhttp://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2013/01/activist-and-pflag-founder-jeanne-manford-dies-at.html
Photo: Jeanne Manford marches with her son Morty Manford in 1972. (Courtesy PFLAG)Jeanne Manford, activist and founder of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, died today at the age of 92.
Hailed as one of the LGBT-rights movement's first straight allies, Manford founded PFLAG after her son, Morty Manford, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1992, was among those patrons at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village when a police raid sparked the 1969 Stonewall riots. When Morty Manford was beaten during a Gay Activists Alliance demonstration in April 1972 and police failed to intervene, Jeanne Manford wrote a letter to the New York Post standing by her son.
"I have a homosexual son, and I love him," her letter read.
That same year Jeanne Manford marched with her son in New York City's Christopher Street Liberation Day March. The outpouring of support from those marching in the parade who asked her to talk to their parents led her to found a support group that later became PFLAG. Today, the organization has 350 chapters in the U.S. with more than 200,000 members.
PFLAG's executive director, Jody Huckaby, issued a statement remembering Manford as a "pioneer" and "Mother of the Straight Ally movement:
"All of us – people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and straight allies alike – owe Jeanne our gratitude. We are all beneficiaries of her courage. Jeanne Manford proved the power of a single person to transform the world."
