They tell the stories as though it all happened yesterday:

“As we marched the parade route, so many people came up an hugged me and cried and talked about their own parents,” says Jeanne Manford, the pioneer of the PFLAG movement.

“We called a convention in our home, with 30 to 35 people. We sent out for food, had pizza and drank beer. We really spent 48 hours together and formed the national organization,” says Adele Starr, who helped form a national organization of parents’ groups.

“When there was no group to put on a national convention, I put one on myself, with my son. In Atlanta, GA, in 1985, when there was no chapter down there, we decided to give the rednecks something to look at,” says Bob Benov, who has been a part of the PFLAG movement from the beginning.

“Nobody came to the first meeting. But one by one, they just started coming — very slowly — and they started talking. The meetings in those days were just out-of-this-world emotional,” says Lois Adams, who co-founded one of the first non-urban parents’ groups.

 

But it didn’t happen yesterday…

It began more than 30 years ago, with the first meeting of a parents’ support group. Over a quarter of a century, that single support group in New York has grown to become a network of more than 500 chapters worldwide, with more than 200,000 members and supporters.

It started simply, almost accidentally. In April 1972, the New York Post published a letter from Jeanne Manford, whose gay son had been badly beaten at a protest while police stood by. “I didn’t think anything of it, but I guess it was the first time a mother ever sat down publicly and said, ‘Yes, I have a homosexual child,’” recalls Manford.

Two months later, Manford and her son, Morty, marched in New York’s gay pride parade together. Manford carried a sign which read, “Parents of Gays: Unite in Support for Our Children.” The crowd screamed, yelled and cried as Manford approached. Initially, she thought they were cheering for Dr. Benjamin Spock, who walked behind the Manfords, but as people began to crowd around her, she realized they were reacting to her.

“As we marched the parade route, Morty and I began talking about starting a group for parents,” said Manford, then a fourth-grade school teacher in New York. “I never had any idea it would start all of this. I remember, as we marched, telling Morty that I hoped it would someday become a national organization, but that was just a dream. I never envisioned we would reach so many people.”

When Manford got home from the parade, her telephone rang constantly. Gay and lesbian people wanted her to speak with their parents. Other parents wanted to share their stories with her. For several months, Manford continued to field telephone calls, participate in panel discussions and travel the country for radio and television interviews.

 

 

 

In March 1973, New York City Parents of Gays held its first meeting.

Nearly 20 people gathered in a Methodist church in Greenwich Village to share their stories and support each other. Amy and Dick Ashworth, whose two sons were gay, and Bob and Elaine Benov, who also had two gay sons, began attending meetings in the group’s first year.

“It made an immediate difference in our lives,” Benov said. “At that time we came from a very different place and needed the help that we got from the parents’ group and stayed on to continue it.”

Throughout the 1970s, the New York group received calls from parents nationwide who wanted support or information to start groups in their communities. Amy Ashworth traveled to dozens of cities to help start local groups. Jeanne Manford and her husband, Jules, traveled to the West Coast in 1974, where they encouraged Larry and Adele Starr to form a group in Los Angeles.

 

 

 

In March 1976, the Starrs launched the Los Angeles group, the first parents group to apply for non-profit, tax-exempt status.

More than 35 people went to the Starrs’ home for the first meeting. “During the next couple of years, I was taking a lot of helpline calls. Each time someone called it made me feel better, too,” Adele Starr recalls.

Among the people Starr spoke with were Harlen and Lois Adams, from rural Chico, CA. The Adams’ son, Martin, came out to them in 1962. “My father

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