Photo by Michael Key, Washington Blade
Saying they were unwavering in their commitment to LGBT equality, a contingent of 14 LGBT activists and their straight supporters held a rally across the street from the U.S. Capitol early Saturday afternoon as part of a series of Worldwide LGBT Civil Rights marches in the U.S. and abroad.
The event was promoted mostly on Facebook without the involvement of established local and national LGBT organizations. It was the brainchild of Oklahoma City gay activist Joe Knudson, who called for a series of simultaneous LGBT marches and rallies in cities throughout the world on April 21.
With less than 20 participants present at the conclusion of the rally, organizers chose to forego the march. “These marches are occurring in over thirty cities around the globe,” said Curtis Sledge, a Richmond, Va., gay activist who organized the D.C. event and was among three speakers at the rally held at Upper Senate Park.
Full Story from The Washington Blade
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I think that was the major problem; it wasn’t on the radar of the larger national groups, so it wasn’t well publicized, and there wasn’t a lot of advance notice. It can take a lot of planning to get even a small group together, as I’ve found when we’ve tried to do things at the local college.
I think that despite facebook’s ability to mobilize people online, often when it comes to making plans to become physically involved in an event, people tend to look to larger, established groups to check out whether an event is “real.” Not that they would expect to find the Westerboro Baptist Church waiting at the other end. But all of us have had the experience of getting all fired up to do something, and find out that everyone else seemed to have missed the memo. So there you are, just having spent time, effort, planning and money, and you don’t see anyone else around who looks as if they’re there for the same reason.
Maybe we need a clearinghouse for events. Not that I’m signing on for the job; I never even remember the button to push on my phone for schedules.