MARK SEGAL is an LGBT activist and journalist born on this date. In 51 years of activism he has been a participant at the stonewall rebellion, a founding member of Gay Liberation Front and founder of Gay Youth, a member of The Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day committee which created the first Gay Pride in 1970. He is best known for his campaign to end LGBT invisibility on TV News and Programming by disrupting live TV shows including The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and the Today Show with Barbara Walters. 40 years after interrupting the Today Show on NBC, he was asked to serve on the Joint Diversity Council of Comcast NBCUniversal to continue to educate the network on LGBT issues.
He is the founder and publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News, which in 2018 was named one of the nation’s best weekly newspapers by the National Newspaper Association. He has served as President of both The National LGBT Press Association and The National Gay Newspaper Guild and in 2015 published his memoirs “And Then I Danced: traveling the road to LGBT equality,” which was named best book by The National LGBT Journalist Association.
He partnered with the Obama administration to created and build the nation’s first official “LGBT Friendly” Senior Affordable housing apartment building. The 19.8 million dollar project know as The John C. Anderson Apartments opened in 2013.
Last year his personal papers and artifacts from the last 50 years were added to the collection of The Smithsonian Institute of American History in Washington DC