Army Building, ca. 1902.

A picket line in front of the U.S. Army Building in Lower Manhattan on September 19, 1964, was later identified as the first public demonstration for gay rights in the United States by Barbara Gittings, co-founder of the Daughters of Bilitis, New York Chapter, in 1958. Organized by Randy Wicker of the Homosexual League of New York (HLNY), and the New York City League for Sexual Freedom (LSF), it protested the military’s treatment of gay people – including rejection, less-than-honorable discharges, and violation of privacy through a policy of sending gay men’s records to current and potential employers. Historian David Carter has called Wicker “the first militant activist on the East Coast.”