Picketing the Time-Life Building: November 1969

First-person account by Ellen Broidy

On October 31, 1969, mere months after the Stonewall rebellion ushered in the dawn of the new gay liberation movement, Time Magazine published a cover story entitled “The Homosexual in America.” Filled with misinformation and seething with disdain for lesbians and gay men, the article was nothing short of an all-out attack on members of the LGBT community. Time quoted every soon-to-be discredited theory about the causes of homosexuality and the dangers that lesbians and gay men posed to the general populace. In short, while the cover article was the first in a mainstream publication to address the question of homosexuality, it’s dangerous and condescending tone did little to either “enlighten” the public or provide an accurate rendering of gay life in 1969.

Although in existence for barely 4 months, the Gay Liberation Front sprung into action immediately upon learning of the cover story. A day or two after Time hit the stands, a ragtag group of GLF’ers descended upon the Time-Life Building on the corner of 50th Street and the Avenue of the Americas (aka 6th Avenue). Carrying hastily created handmade signs that read “Time Inc, Don’t Dictate Morality” and “Time Inc., I am a Human Being,” the group, which started out with just a handful of hardy souls marching in the rain, soon turned into a full-scale demonstration, blocking the entry plaza to the building.

I was there, decked out in a skirt, heels and winter coat, having come right from my student job at NYU. A careful look at the photos of me during the demonstration picture someone who doesn’t look entirely comfortable being there – and for good reason. I had recently come out to my parents, my mother, unsurprisingly, taking the news a bit better than my father who clearly needed time to “process” the information. At any rate, while they both, in their own way, accepted the fact that their only child was a lesbian, my father was not quite ready to announce it to the world. My appearance at the demonstration that afternoon was as close to a public declaration as I could imagine since my father worked for Time-Life in that very building and he, or any number of his colleagues, were apt to appear at any moment. Even in the growing crowd, it wouldn’t be hard to identify a single individual in the narrow space of the sidewalk.

Although hardly my finest revolutionary moment, I do give myself credit, some 50+ years later, for staying put. I understood the risks – and there were, in fact, real risks of exposure – I realized that it was important for me to be there, important for me to take a stand. As it turned out, I did not encounter my father or any of his friends or colleagues that damp, chilly afternoon. I am not sure what I would have said or done had I been “recognized,” but I hope I would have stood tall, embraced my GLF comrades, and insisted on the necessity of our being there to protest a grievous wrong.