[2] The first major attempt at organizing a national gay and lesbian march on Washington occurred on Thanksgiving weekend in 1973 in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.
[1] A steering committee was created, which identified a primary goal of the march—transforming the gay movement from local to national—before being dissolved in October, due to internal dissent.
[4] Committee member Harvey Milk moved forward with organizing the march, and managed to secure support from some local groups in D.C. which had previously been in opposition.
In the official program for the march, the closing paragraph of Allen Young's welcome makes clear the objective of turning the focus of the gay movement from local issues to national advocacy:[1] Today in the capital of America, we are all here, the almost liberated and the slightly repressed; the butch, the femme and everything in-between; the androgynous; the monogamous and the promiscuous; the masturbators and the fellators and the tribadists; men in dresses and women in neckties; those who bite and those who cuddle; celebates [sic] and pederasts; diesel dykes and nelly queens; amazons and size queens, Yellow, Black, Brown, White, and Red; the shorthaired and the long, the fat and the thin; the nude and the prude; the beauties and the beasts; the studs and the duds; the communes, the couples, and the singles; pubescents and the octogenarians.
Activist, comic, and producer Robin Tyler emceed the rally,[6][7] where speakers included Harry Britt, Charlotte Bunch, Allen Ginsberg (who read his poem "Song"[citation needed]) and Peter Orlovsky, Flo Kennedy, Morris Kight, Audre Lorde, Leonard Matlovich, Kate Millett, Troy Perry, Eleanor Smeal, Adele Starr (the first PFLAG president), and Congressman Ted Weiss.
[8] The march was the centerpiece of a five-day "Third World Conference" that began on October 11, and included workshops and panel discussions, as well as administrative meetings and recreation.