Throwback Thursday Remembers PFLAG Founder Jeanne Manford

On this day in queer history, December 4th, one of the most loving and influential people whose name you probably don't know was born. Jeanne Manford was born in 1920, and although you don't know her, you've felt her influence as the mother of a gay son. Manford and her husband, Jules, formed Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in 1972, and the reach of this organisation to bridge the gap between parents and their queer children is immeasurable.

Jeanne Sobelson was born in Flushing, Queens, NYC. After a brief stint in college in Alabama, she returned home to NY after her father's death. She would marry Jules Manford and have three children: Charles, Morty, and Suzanne. She would return to college and receive her bachelor's, and join the faculty as a teacher at P.S. 32 in Queens.

In April of 1972, the Manfords received a phone call during dinner that their son, Morty, a prominent gay activist, had been brought to a local hospital after being brutally attacked while arrested for distributing flyers inside the fiftieth annual Inner Circle dinner, a political gathering in New York City. This propelled Jeanne to write a letter, which appeared in the New York Post:

I would like to commend The Post for its coverage last week of the tragic incident that took place at the Inner Circle dinner, when hoodlums who work for our city were allowed to beat up the young men of the Gay Activists Alliance and walk away while our police stood by watching. It might be that these ‘men’ have themselves some deep rooted sexual problems or they would not have become so enraged as to commit violence in beatings.
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I am proud of my son, Morty Manford, and the hard work he has been doing in urging homosexuals to accept their feelings and not let the bigots and sick people take advantage of them in the ways they have done in the past and are continuing to do.

I hope that your honest and forthright coverage of the incident has made many of the gays who have been fearful gain courage to come out and join the bandwagon. They are working for a fair chance at employment and dignity and to become a vocal and respected minority. It is a fight for recognition such as all minority groups must wage and needs support from outsiders as well as participants in the movements.

Two months later, Jeanne Manford walked with her husband and son, Morty, in that year's Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade (later called the New York Pride Parade). She would say that the response she received, impassioned hugs and tears for as she carried her sign expressing her support as a mother, from the young people lining the street, gave her and her husband the realisation of just how many young queer people are set adrift by their families. In a 1996 interview, she recalled the "young people were hugging me, kissing me, screaming, asking if I would talk to their parents ... [as] few of them were out to their parents for fear of rejection."

The Manfords soon made their idea a reality, and Parents of Gays, the group's initial name, met about 20 local parents in the Metropolitan-Duane Methodist Church, now the Church of the Village. Since those early days, PFLAG has become a global activist organization, helping parents seek guidance in how to accept, understand, and move past their fears when it comes to their LGBTQ+ child.

I recall an early Pride parade in Chicago in the 80s, and bursting into tears at the sight of the PFLAG group marching with their banner, receiving some of the loudest and most joyous reactions from the crowd. My mother used one of their books after my own coming out.

In her later life, Jeanne Manford would serve as the Grand Marshall of the 1991 New York City Gay Pride March, and serve the same function in 1993 for the first Pride March in Queens. By this time, she was a few years retired, and had already lost two sons (Charles in 1966 and Morty to AIDS in 1992) and her husband Jules (in 1982). She would move to MN to care for a grandchild, and later to Daly City, CA. But her work with her pivotal organization never waned.

In 2009, President Barack Obama honored her founding of PFLAG in a televised speech in front of the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner:

Jeanne Manford died in her home in Daly City on January 8, 2013, aged 92. The following month, Obama announced he would award her posthumously with the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal, the second-highest civilian award given by the United States, for her work in co-founding PFLAG and her years of LGBT advocacy. She was one of a group of eighteen people to receive the award, from more than six thousand nominations. Her daughter, Suzanne, received the award at a White House ceremony on her behalf.

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