Barbara Gittings

Barbara Gittings, the prominent gay rights activist, died this past Sunday. She and a handful of gay men and lesbians held demonstrations outside the White House and Independence Hall seeking equal rights for gay people. I met her several times during the 90s. She was a big literary supporter as well--she was head of the American Library Association's Gay Task Force. She also had a active hand in persuading the American Psychiatric Association to drop its categorization of homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973.