23 Lindsay had made the statement that he would permit me to speak. Of course, he knew darn well the police had already thrown me out, didn’t realize that I would come back. And I snuck back in. I mean, I broke through their security lines again. I can’t tell you how I did it, but I got back in and I came right down that aisle. And I could see him looking up from the podium at me, you know, bit- ing his lip and saying,“Oh shit, here he comes again.” And I walked right back up on stage and I said to him,“I under- stand you said I could speak.” And he said,“Yes,” and he yielded the podium to me. And I addressed the audience about the police brutality and the harassment we were facing. And I said my piece. I thanked them and I left as surreptitiously as I’d entered. See, I had this thing with John Lindsay. Somehow or another we had encounter after encounter face to face. There were several examples, I mean, I got arrested in his presidential head- quarters. There was a big demonstration at Radio City, and it was very well planned. The Political Action Commit- tee with GAA [Gay Activists Alliance] did the planning. As soon as Lindsay, uh, came to the podium, I went right up to the railing at the front of the bal- cony and handcuffed myself to it. And I made my statement,“Homosexuals need your help to end police harass- ment.” And some people had these little pocket alarms, I mean, and it created upset. Lindsay wasn’t allowed to speak. We were all shouting that the police were harassing gays in the city, they were brutalizing gays, you’ve got to stop this. You know, while we were honking and hooting and shouting our one-liners, you could see their sense of loss. They lost this battle. Eric: The confrontational protests that Morty Manford and the other young post-Stonewall activists engaged in were called “zaps.” And they worked. Before long the police began showing restraint and the bar raids came to an end. Zap-like tactics were a hallmark of LGBTQ and AIDS activism into the 1990s and continue to be used today. Morty Manford died of complica- tions from AIDS on May 14, 1992. He was 41 years old. So long. Until next time. 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135