Henry's Vision

     On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall riots occurred in New York City.  It is looked upon as the catalyst for the modern-day LGBT rights movement, and Pride parades are held nationally over the last weekend of June to commemorate the occasion. 

That's not the story I'm here to tell.

     In 1924, the Cubs were enjoying a successful summer before swooning to a fifth-place finish.  Leopold and Loeb were planning to commit the perfect crime, and a German emigrant was about to make history.  Henry Gerber had come to America in 1913 and settled in Chicago due to its large German-American presence.  When the First World War(which also just celebrated a big anniversary) started, Gerber served over in Germany.  While there, he traveled to Berlin where he became acquainted with the work of Magnus Hirschfeld.  Hirschfeld had been working with the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee to ease some of the anti-homosexual laws that were on the German books at the time.  Gerber was inspired by Hirschfeld and wanted to create a similar organization in America.  And so, when he came back after the war, he drew up plans for an organization that would "promote and protect the interests of people who by reasons of mental and physical abnormalities are abused and hindered in the legal pursuit of happiness which is guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence and to combat the public prejudices against them by dissemination of factors according to modern science among intellectuals of mature age." 

     The State of Illinois granted a charter, and on December 24, 1924 the Society for Human Rights was officially recognized as the first gay rights group in America.  The group soon got to work, publishing a newsletter(which was the first gay-interest publication in the United States), and generally pushing for advocacy.  Unfortunately for Gerber, the long arm of the law did not spare the society.  In a matter of mere months, Gerber had been harassed and fined by law enforcement, he closed down the Society, and moved to New York City.  But that's not where the story ends.  In 1950, Henry Hay was inspired by the Society for Human Rights(amongst other things) when he formed the Mattachine Society, which was the first successful gay-rights organization.