Born On This Day- November 19th... Gay Rights Pioneer Morris Kight

40+ years ago, Christopher Street West, which oversees the L.A. Gay Pride Parade, was co-founded by gay rights pioneer- Morris Kight, who also started up the Gay Liberation Front in Los Angeles in 1969 & the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center in 1971, when it was known as the Gay Community Services Center.

Born in 1919 in Comanche County, Texas, Kight arrived in Los Angeles in 1958 when he was almost 40. He had been working for social justice causes since the early 1940s, & suddenly he found himself, dealing with the brutal ways that the L.A. Police Department chose to treat gay people.


He often cited Eleanor Roosevelt as an influence on his values & his activism. He came to prominence with the Dow Action Committee, protesting weapons manufacturing during the Vietnam War. In 1969, he & a small group of others launched the Gay Liberation Front, one of the first such efforts.He focused his work on GLBT people, but he was a dedicated civil rights proponent & had long, deep ties with the Peace & Non-violence movements. Kight followed a Gandhian pacifism. He had taken a personal oath of poverty, & lived on very little money. He truly wanted people "to live an open & free life without fear of persecution."


Kight was a relentless organizer & protested & won all sorts of battles. His proudest achievement was the founding of the Gay Community Services Center, later to be known as the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, in 1971, a time when gays & lesbians still needed to be extremely cautious about living openly gay lives.


The Center was initially housed in 2, & eventually 3, ramshackle Queen Ann buildings on Wilshire Boulevard. Right after the opening, Kight was standing on the rickety front porch of the main building under the home made-looking sign: Gay Community Services Center. One man said, "Morris, you are going to get us all killed with that sign." Kight: "Well, dear, then don't stand under the sign."


One of the most important & effective gay rights figures in the history of the United States, Kight spent his final days at Carl Bean House in Los Angeles, a guest of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, one of the many agencies he nurtured & supported. He passed away in 2003 at 83.


Rarely satisfied with all he had achieved, Kight also created some of the movement's most visible efforts, including: The L.A. gay pride march (Christopher Street West Parade); The Morris Kight Collection, which archives 1000s of artifacts chronicling the beginning of gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgender civil rights & contains both fine art by gay men & lesbians & memorabilia including posters & photographs documenting the struggle for glbtq rights.; & the Stonewall Democratic Club in California politics.


Kight: “I'm sure we are going to get our freedom. I see it everywhere: In the marketplace, in the stores, in the homes, in dealing with families, in the kind of attention we get from radio, television and the newspapers. Still, I realize we're not home yet. We have a long way to go. There are 1,750 arrests in L.A. each month. I weep for each of them. Everyone who's denied a job, I weep for. Everyone who is driven from their homes by a misunderstanding family, I have to offer my love to."

A portrait of Morris Kight by Stathis Orphanos,

 & a sign from a West Hollywood restaurant that inspired a protest led by  Kight.