The Long Beach City Council will be honored in the Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride parade this Sunday. In October 2006, the Council voted 9-0 to give final approval to a resolution supporting civil marriage licenses for same sex couples. In recognition of the Council’s compassion and courage, the entire Council has been named this year’s “Morris Kight Political Grand Marshall.” This is a great honor.
Morris Kight was a pioneer of the social and political movement for gay liberation and struggle for civil rights. Beyond this, his leadership in grass-roots activism and peaceful protest succeeded in creating dramatic social change.
Kight was born in Comanche County Texas, and graduated from Texas Christian University. When he arrived in Los Angeles in the late fifties, medical and psychiatric professions treated homosexuality as a disorder and religious leaders treated it as a sin. Kight envisioned a day when gays and lesbians could assume their place in society without fear. He often cited Eleanor Roosevelt as an influence on his values and his activism.
Kight’s philosophy was deeply rooted in pacifism. He studied the work of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in the early thirties and has never advocated, condoned, or tolerated violence as a method of social change. During World War II he worked to raise the consciousness of the genocide being conducted in Europe and after the war, he opposed the development of nuclear weapons. He came to prominence with the Dow Action Committee, protesting weapons manufacturing during the Vietnam War.
Organized by Kight, the first meeting of the Gay Liberation Front took place in the late sixties with 18 in attendance. The first action on their agenda was to get rid of the “FAGGOT STAY OUT” sign hanging over the bar at Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood. In 1970, they held sit-ins and protests until management agreed to remove the sign.
This was just the beginning: Within a single two-year period, over 150 protests and demonstrations were organized. Police often targeted Kight, and his home was raided several times. Kight kept the ‘FAGGOT STAY OUT” sign, and displayed it at events over the years.
In response to the Stonewall Riots in New York, Kight participated in organizing a gay pride parade, which became the present-day Christopher Street West, one of the largest gay pride celebrations in the country. He was a founder of many political and service organizations including The Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Los Angeles (1971), The Van Ness Recovery House (the first drug and alcohol recovery house for LGBT people) and The Stonewall Democratic Club.
In 1980, Kight was appointed Commissioner on the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations, and in 1988, he became the first openly gay President of the Commission.
Morris Kight loved Long Beach; He celebrated his 80th birthday with us on the set of the Gay & Lesbian Newsmagazine, along with his dear friend, LAPD Sgt. Mitch Grobeson.
“We have lost the Martin Luther King Jr. of the gay community,” said Sgt. Grobeson at the time of Kight’s death. “He was fearless and had a level of energy that can’t be matched. When the LAPD was trying to fire me for wearing my uniform in the AIDS Walk, it was Morris Kight who came forward to testify on my behalf. There is no one who can replace him.”
Morris would have been proud to see the Council honored in his name. He will be in our hearts on Sunday.
The parade steps off Sunday morning, May 20th at 10:30 am on Ocean and Temple Avenue and proceeds west along Ocean, concluding at Alamitos near the Festival grounds. Comedienne Suzanne Westenhoeffer will serve as the Grand Marshall for the 2007 Long Beach Gay Pride Parade, with the City Council as Political Grand Marshall.