Marty Robinson (gay activist)

Martin "Marty" Robinson (November 25, 1942[1] – March 19, 1992) was an American gay activist, founder of the Lavender Hill Mob.

Robinson had been a hippie and had dropped out of Brooklyn College[2] and worked in construction.[3] In late June 1969 he was a participant in the Stonewall Riot, which focused his activism on gay rights;[2] on July 27 he led the first Christopher Street Liberation March.[3] He was a member of the Mattachine Action Committee[4][5] and co-founded the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance later that year,[5][6][7] and subsequently ACT-UP,[4] the National Gay Task Force and GLAAD.[8]

On June 24, 1970, with his partner Tom Doerr and three others, he was arrested at a GAA sit-in at the Republican State Committee; they became known as the Rockefeller Five.[8][9] In 1986 he left GLAAD and founded the Lavender Hill Mob because he felt existing pressure groups were not sufficiently radical to effect policy change required by the AIDS crisis.[2][6][10][11] He is credited with developing political "zaps", chaotic and theatrical interventions intended to attract the attention of the press.[10][12]

Robinson died of AIDS in March 1992.[6][13] An archive of his papers is held by the New York City GLBT Center.[3]

References
  1. "Birth certificate, Robinson Collection". National History Archives at the NYC LGBT Center. Box 3-19. Retrieved May 15, 2019.CS1 maint: location (link)
  2. Kahn, Arthur D. (2005). AIDS, The Winter War: A Testing of America. Temple University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-56639-018-7.
  3. "Archive: 27. Marty Robinson Collection". The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Community Center. Archived from the original on June 13, 2010.
  4. Myers, JoAnne (2013). Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movements. Lanham, Maryland / Boulder, Colorado / New York: Scarecrow. pp. 317–18. ISBN 9780810872264.
  5. Riemer, Matthew; Brown, Leighton (2019). We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation. New York: Ten Speed. p. 118. ISBN 9780399581816.
  6. Lambert, Bruce (March 24, 1992). "Martin Robinson, 49, Organizer Of Demonstrations for Gay Rights". New York Times.
  7. Myers, pp. 175–76.
  8. Baumann, Jason, ed. (2019). Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era. New York: Norton. ISBN 9781324002062.
  9. Kohler, Will (August 5, 2018). "Gay History – August 5, 1970: Charges Dropped Against The Gay Activists Alliance's Rockefeller Five". Back2Stonewall. Retrieved May 21, 2019.
  10. Clendinen, Dudley; Nagourney, Adam (2016). Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 543. ISBN 978-0-684-86743-4.
  11. Boffey, Phillip M. (February 26, 1987). "Homosexuals Applaud Rejection Of Mandatory Tests For AIDS". The New York Times.
  12. Riemer and Brown, p. 125.
  13. The Advocate. Liberation Publications. 1992. p. 136. Martin Robinson, a longtime gay activist, died of complications from AIDS March 19

[1]

  1. "Marty Robinson Collection". The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. 2018-02-12. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
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