Ribbons in the colors of the Catalonian province, yellow and orange, laid silently on the street next to the cardboard flowers by the hand-scrawled epitaph. It had been years since Cleve Jones fulfilled his adolescent dream and come to San Francisco for his first San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Like most of his friends, he too had been swept up in the tide of militance after the Anita Bryant controversy. Weeks after Orange Tuesday, he had left his Castro Street apartment to take a hitchihiking tour of Europe. In Barcelona, he had heard there would be a rally, here, where the blood of a gay man had spilled just four days before. The fledgling Spanish gay activists were cautious as they first approached the spot. This was the first gay demonstration since the death of Francisco Franco, they explained to Cleve; that meant the first gay demonstration in Spanish history. Ever. Slowly, the momentum grew as Jones and a cadre of the braver gays marched down Los Ramblos from the waterfront to the Catalonian provincial capitol.
What do You think about The Mayor Of Castro Street?
