Jim Morgan
Jim Morgan was one of the organizers of the 1983 rally and march. He has been an activist for civil rights and served as a member of the Vermont Human Rights Commission and is a retired social worker.
I had just, I was starting to come out in New York State. I lived in Saratoga just before I moved to Vermont and had gone to Skidmore College and began exploring the lesbian and gay community in Albany. And when I moved to Vermont, I found a group of people who were very welcoming, a very strong lesbian and gay community, although there was really, you know, the only bar had closed recently and there really wasn't any meeting place to—to...
What was the name of that bar?
Oh, gosh, I can't, I can't remember. And so anyway, I met people like Howdy and a variety of other people who were active in lesbian and gay issues. And it seemed to me as though it really was a time that Vermont was really beginning to ramp up kind of their—their organized efforts.
You know, at, there really—there were very strong men, but there were very, very strong women as well. And it was the first time that I—I was exposed to kind of a separatist nature. And, but I also recognized in that meeting that there were a lot of men, mostly of age, who, gay or not, encompassed a lot of the the kind of privileged male thinking. And so, you know, gay or not, that came across. And so that didn't help at all blend kind of, any kind of groups that were kind of separatist or outliers, if you will. And that was very eye-opening to me.
I, I do remember feeling as though I was part of a group, and that was that was quite empowering to me because when I was in New York State, I really felt like I was kind of struggling with coming out and really wouldn't say that I had gotten there completely. But what I found from this group of organizers was that there seemed to be solidarity among the group and that as we got to know each other, we also got to trust each other and relied on each other. And that, I think, was the very first time that I ever had that sense within a lesbian and gay group that there was safety within that group and that people were respecting your contribution, whatever that contribution might be. I do, again, remember kind of that anxiety, at the first march, and really just wondering how that was going to go. And I don't think that anxiety left even when we began marching because people gathered around the street. And so when, when you were in the City Hall Park, you were, you were kind of captive and people would walk around you and you would kind of keep your eyes out a little bit about what was going on around you. You still had to do that when you were on the move, but then you were on the move and and you were passing others and and looking at their expressions. And I don't—I don't recall any horrible backlash. I'm sure that there were people that were perhaps shouting things from the crowd, you know, perhaps religious convictions. But I, I don't remember any real confrontations that happened. I do remember that in, in other marches, other years, once it was known that this was going to continue to happen and that it was going to be an annual event. I do remember years where there were often, often religious groups, people couching their concerns in terms of religion or Christianity.