Jack Nichols (activist)

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Jack Nichols (b. John Richard Nichols in Washington, D.C. on March 16, 1938 — May 2, 2005) was an American gay rights activist. He co-founded the Washington D.C. branch of the Mattachine Society in 1961 with Franklin E. Kameny.

1 Biography
2 Activism
3 Works
4 References

[edit] Biography

Nichols was born in Washington, D.C. and came out as gay to his parents as a teenager.^[1]

[edit] Activism

Nichols founded the D.C. branch of the Mattachine Society in 1961, and the Florida branch in 1965. Beginning in 1963, he chaired the D.C. chapter's Committee on Religious Concerns, which later developed into the Washington Area Council on Religion and the Homosexual. This organization was pioneering in forging links between the gay rights movement and the National Council of Churches.^[2]

Nichols led the first gay rights march on the White House, in April 1965.^[3] He also successfully lobbied the American Psychiatric Association to rescind its definition of homosexuality as a form of mental illness.^[3]

In 1969, after moving to New York, Nichols and his partner Lige Clarke founded GAY, the first gay weekly newspaper in the US.^[1]

From February 1997, Nichols was Senior Editor at www.GayToday.com, an online newsmagazine. He died on May 2, 2005, of complications from cancer. ^[4]

[edit] Works

Clarke, Lige; Jack Nichols (1974). Roommates Can't Always be Lovers: An Intimate Guide to Male-male Relationships. St. Martin's Press.
(1975) Men's Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity. Penguin. ISBN 0140040366.
(1996) The Gay Agenda: Talking Back to the Fundamentalists. Prometheus. ISBN 1573921033.
(2004) The Tomcat Chronicles: Erotic Adventures of a Gay Liberation Pioneer. Haworth Press. ISBN 1560234881.