Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight was an LGBT activist. She organized the first Pride parade and is known as the “Mother of Pride.” Today's Out Spotlight is Brenda Howard.

Brenda Howard was born December 24, 1946 in the Bronx and grew up in Syosset, Nassau County, Long Island, New York. She graduated from Syosset High School and from Borough of Manhattan Community College with an AAS degree in Nursing.

In the late 1960s, Howard was active in the movement against the Vietnam War. In 1969 she lived in an urban commune of anti-war activists and draft resisters in downtown Brooklyn New York. Like many other women in the US anti-war movement at the time, she became critical of its domination by men, and she soon became involved in the feminist movement as well.

A militant activist who helped plan and participated in LGBT rights actions for over three decades, Howard was an active member of the Gay Liberation Front and for several years chair of the Gay Activists Alliance's Speakers Bureau in the post-Stonewall era.

She participated in the 1969 Stonewall riots that marked a turning point in the gay rights movement. A year later, she organized the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March to mark Stonewall’s anniversary.

Howard is known as the "Mother of Pride" for her work in coordinating a rally and the march to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots. She also originated the idea of a week-long series of events around Pride Day which became the genesis of the annual LGBT Pride celebrations that are now held around the world every June.   Additionally, she along with fellow LGBT activists Stephen Donaldson and L. Craig Schoonmaker are credited with popularizing the word "Pride" to describe these festivities.

A fixture in New York City's LGBT Community she was active in the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights which helped guide New York City's LGBT rights law through the City Council in 1986.

In 1987 she helped found the New York Area Bisexual Network to help co-ordinate services to the region's growing Bisexual community. She was also an active member of the early bisexual political activist group BiPAC, a Regional Organizer for BiNet USA, a co-facilitator of the Bisexual S/M Discussion Group and a founder of the nation’s first Alcoholics Anonymous chapter for bisexuals.

On a national level, Howard’s activism included work on the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation where she was female co-chair of the leather contingent and Stonewall 25 in 1994.

The Brenda Howard Award, created in her memory by PLFAG, is presented annually to a group or individual advocating on behalf of the bisexual community.Howard is survived by her partner, Larry Nelson.

“Bi, Poly, Switch—I’m not greedy, I know what I want.”