#robin tyler

AsNPR covers the 50th Anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots, we visit the archives to listen to NPR’s coverage of the first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979, ten years after Stonewall.

In the All Things Considered piece, we hear activist and comedian Robin Tyler addressing the crowd at a rally. She declares that gay and lesbian people are not responsible for the violence committed against them.

 “…and they dared to call us violent. Well they don’t have to tell us about violence because they have violated us since the beginning of time. They have violated us in prisons, they have violated us in mental institutions and by behavior modification; they have alienated us from our parents and taken away our children. And they have told us, one of the worst violations of all, that closets stand for privacy and not for prison. So don’t tell us about violence!” 

– Robin Tyler, 1979

Gay rights activism and support has evolved over the years, from well before the Stonewall riots to the Pride rallies and marches happening throughout America in 2019.

In Radically Normal: How Gay Rights Activists Changed The Minds Of Their Opponents, NPR’s social science podcast Hidden Brain tackles how American opinions of LGBTQ rights have changed over time.

Evan Wolfson, a proponent of marriage equality since the 1990’s, speaks about how the gay rights movement was able to grow its support:

“In order to really succeed, it was not about just simply asserting our own and talking to ourselves. We had to find a way of bringing the majority of others - who are, of course, the majority - to a better understanding of who we are and a more capacious understanding of freedom.” 

– Evan Wolfson, 2019

Posted by Vanessa Barker, NPR RADintern