by Bach Polakowski | May 4, 2005 | 2005 Hall of Fame
Don Slater was a leader among the gay men who, in 1953, founded ONE magazine. Slater saw that act as essential to the effort to secure rights for gay men and lesbians. A social movement has to have a voice beyond its own members,” he said. For the first time, ONE gave...
by Bach Polakowski | May 4, 2005 | 2005 Hall of Fame
The name Randy Shilts is inextricably linked with the modern AIDS epidemic. As a reporter for The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle and as the author of the 1987 book “And the Band Played On,” Randy spent the bulk of his career covering the disease that, sadly,...
by Bach Polakowski | May 4, 2005 | 2005 Hall of Fame
Sarah Pettit’s life was cut short in 2003 by lymphoma, but her work as a senior editor at Newsweek and a pioneer in gay media had a lasting impact. Pettit’s emergence as a groundbreaking journalist began in 1989, when she became the arts editor for the...
by Bach Polakowski | May 4, 2005 | 2005 Hall of Fame
The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) was not particularly welcoming to its lesbian and gay members before Thomas Morgan III was elected as the association’s president in 1989. Many doubted that they existed — sometimes openly referring to...
by Bach Polakowski | May 4, 2005 | 2006 Hall of Fame
Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin founded The Ladder, a legendary publication that, according to historian John D’Emilio, “offered American lesbians, for the first time in history, the opportunity to speak with their own voices.” The two journalists, who also were —...
by Bach Polakowski | May 4, 2005 | 2005 Hall of Fame
By the time a 56-year-old Leroy Aarons outed himself in an emotional address at the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) conference in 1990, he’d already had a remarkable journalism career as a longtime Washington Post scribe, co-founder of the Maynard...
