The year was 1978. Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister of Australia. Neville Wran was Premier of New South Wales.
On the same day that Evonne Cawley won her fourth Australian women’s title, the federal government established the SBS. A bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, killing two men, on February 13.
Sir John Kerr quit as ambassador to UNESCO on the first day of duty on March 2. Later that year, on December 12, in Brisbane, police arrested 346 people after a crowd of more than 1500 tried to protest against Queensland’s anti-street march laws.
The Bee Gees were singing Night Fever, Stayin’ Alive and How Deep is Your Love and the Commodores Three Times a Lady. Other top songs included You’re the One that I want by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, It’s a Heartache by Bonnie Tyler, We are the Champions by Queen, Take a chance on me and The Name of the Game by ABBA, Last Chance by Donna Summer, You’re in my Heart by Rod Stewart, Love is in the air by John Paul Young, You Belong to Me by Carly Simon, Here You Come Again by Dolly Parton, Don’t It Make my Blue Eyes Brown by Crystal Gayle, Capocabana by Barry Manilow and I Can’t Stand the Rain by Eruption.
The day was June 24, 1978. The early hours of the day saw smoke from bush and industrial fires. At around 9pm that day, the temperature was 14.7 degrees. By midnight, it had dropped to 13.6 degrees. Around 9pm, a north-west wind of 26km was blowing.
Taylor Square, a major road junction where Oxford Street meets Flinders Street and Bourke Street, was starting to get busy. An assortment of gay men, lesbians, drag queens, heterosexuals, long-haired radicals and others were assembling for the Mardi-Gras style festival. Across the square were the Darlinghurst Courthouse, an imposing sandstone building, and the notorious Darlinghurst police station. Fifty-three protesters were to spend the night and early hours of the morning in the cells of the police station.
The parade was to commemorate the Stonewall Riots of June 28, 1969, a series of violent riots involving the New York City police and gay men, lesbians and transgender people. We were also there to protest against the Briggs initiative in the United States, aimed at preventing gay men and lesbians from teaching in California’s public schools. It was a walk from Taylor’s Square to Hyde Park. It was to be a fun-filled festival, not a ‘political’ march. Marches took place in the morning in busy streets crammed with families and children. Marches were for fair dinkum activists. The Mardi Gras was simply a parade, a concession to homosexuals in the closet and an opportunity for them to come out in public, their faces painted and hidden behind masks and costumes.
It started quietly enough. Lance Gowland drove the lead truck. We followed to the tunes of “Sing if you’re glad to be gay” and "Better Blatant than Latent". We shouted slogans: "Out of the Closets and on to the Streets", "Stop Police Attacks on Gays, Women and Blacks" and "2, 4, 6, 8 – Gay is as good as straight". We stopped outside bars in Oxford Street and invited the patrons to come "out of the bars and into the streets". One of those bars was Capriccio’s where I had spent many a late night dancing in my high platformed snakeskin boots, politically incorrect but a great buy from Mr Figgins, then in Pitt Street. Our shouts brought many patrons onto the street. Some joined us in the parade.
The who’s who of the gay and lesbian movement was there. Ron Austin, who had thought of the idea of a festival and Kym Skinner turned up early at Taylor Square. A policeman brushed past them and wished them a “happy Mardi Gras”. The woman who gave Mardi Gras its name (Marg McMann), still recuperating from heart surgery, was – she thought – safely on the back of the lead truck. Di Minnis, then a separatist lesbian, hobbled along with one leg in plaster, the obligatory bike accident for a young dyke (as she put it). Robyn Plaister, Peter Bonsall Boone, Peter de Waal, Ken Davis, Craig Johnston, Brian McGahen, Jeff Stanton, Jeffrey McCarthy and Dennis Freney were also there. As was Pope Bob the Last. Some arrived late. Peter Murphy was dropped by his friends at Hyde Park, blissfully unaware that within a few hours he would be in Darlinghurst police station, being bashed.
The police were keen to clear Oxford Street and restore the traffic flow to normality. They cared little about our rights and our permits to hold the parade. They hurried us down Oxford Street. Then they confiscated the lead truck, stopped the music, drove it away and nearly threw everyone off it, including Marg McMann. So we were all dressed up with nowhere to go. And we were angry, very angry. The police thought we would quickly scatter. But someone (Jeff Stanton?) shouted “off to the Cross”. Others including Jeff McCarthy took on the call with gusto and we were on our way to the Kings Cross. What for, only God knows!
As we entered Kings Cross, police were already blocking the area around the El Alamein Fountain, a renowned beat. As we entered Darlinghurst Road, police blocked the other end of the street. They were fuming at our disobedience and wanted to teach us a lesson. Police attacked the crowd, many of whom were already dispersing. Instead of retreating, we fought back and made history.
The parade quickly turned into a riot. Some protesters were hurled into police vans only to be freed by other protesters. Others, like Robyn Plaister, found themselves the centre of a tug of war, with police pulling her on one side and protesters dragging her away from them. Rubbish bins were thrown at police. Some Kings Cross revellers joined in. Many were frightened and some were not keen to risk arrest. Kimberley O’Sullivan, who had only arrived in Sydney from Melbourne the night, before crawled under a car. She watched most of the riot from everyone’s knees down.
Police took the 53 protesters to the Darlinghurst police station. We followed. We were met by a line of stocky policemen blocking the entrance to the station. Outside the station, protesters collected money to bail out those who were arrested. We chanted “let them go”. One short bespectacled lesbian wanted her 15 minutes of fame. She walked past the police line, yelling “oink, oink, oink.” The police ignored her. They did not want to make a martyr of her. Ultimately, one of them lost his cool and dragged her inside the police station, to the applause of those outside.
The following Monday, crowds gathered outside the court in Liverpool Street. Seven more were arrested. Fourteen more were arrested on July 15, 1978 outside the Darlinghurst police station as part of the Drop the Charges rally. And then, on August 27, 1978, another 110 others at the Right to Life Movement meeting at Hyde Park (75 at Taylor’s Square and 35 at Hyde Park). In total, 184 arrests.
The movement had finally come of age. We had had enough of the state and the Church telling us what to do with our bodies and, for the first time in Australia, a crowd of mostly gay men and lesbians stood up to the police. The Stonewall riots may well have been a watershed for the worldwide gay and lesbian rights movement but for Australia, the Mardi Gras of 1978 was our first very public act of resistance and a turning point in our struggle against oppression.
This article is dedicated to Bernard Rourke, a fellow 78er, who died tragically on February 14, 1982. He is fondly remembered. Chetcuti is currently researching the first Mardi Gras. Anyone who took part in the events of 1978 is kindly requested to contact him via email ......
Mardi Gras fever
Melbourne’s Mardi Gras contingent is set to be a record one, with several more groups signed up than the three profiled in last week’s issue of bnews.
The Melbourne Rainbow Band will be performing through the parade and also Foreplay, the pre-march march, where they’ll entertain the crowd. Rainbow Band spokesperson Luke David said it is a great opportunity.
“We get the whole road to ourselves [during Foreplay] and march in front of thousands. We love it. We will be the only community group doing Foreplay this year,” he said.
There will be 30 members of the band travelling to Sydney plus banner bearers and interstate members, and planned songs include Aint No Mountain High Enough, Disco Inferno and Blink 182's All the Small Things.
This year will be the first time ever Arcilesbica Australia (a support group for Australian/Italian women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, intersex or queer) is marching. The gourp, which will be small but proud, will present a very multicultural theme in keeping with their heritage, and will show off several Vespa scooters, a FIAT 500 convertible Bambino and a resurrected Michelangelo's David (who will sport a strap on – potentially a large salami).
If you aren’t making the trek north for the parade, tune into JOY 949. From midday on March 1 the JOY crew will be counting down the gayest songs of all time, then at 6pm there’s an uninterrupted hour-long set from The Freemason’s and then from 7pm, the JOY team will broadcast LIVE from the Mardi Gras Parade.
by JOSEPH CARMEL CHETCUTI
