Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay trailer

Dir. Eric Slade
2001 57 min. USA

This much-anticipated documentary takes us through the fascinating and extraordinary life of Harry Hay; labor organizer, Marxist teacher, and founding member of the Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights organizations in the country. Harry has been at center stage of gay pride for more than half a century. His story provides a chronicle of the gay rights movement, as well as a history of California in the 20th Century.

Harry Hay joined the Communist Party in the early 1930s and participated in the San Francisco General Strike of 1934. In the mid-1950s he was called before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, and around this time Harry started the Mattachine Society. This momentous film features poignant interviews with Harry and many of the surviving original members of this historic and brave group of gay men. In the last 40 years, Harry has immersed himself in the counterculture youth movement, the Radical Fairies, and Native American culture.

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Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Harry
• Hay
• radical
• fairies
• Mattachine
• Society
• lgbt
• history
• gay
• rights
• Eric
• Slade
• leaders
• queer
• faeries
• glbt

[magicrulz101]

I want to thank Harry Hay, I want to thank the Mattachine Society and I want to thank the Daughters of Bilitis but I would never be able to thank them enough for all they have done.

[TreblePop]

He stated that the members and founders of the Mattachine Society considered it a Brotherhood, and described it as a Golden Brotherhood. I think that's awesome. I wish there were a Golden Brotherhood for gay men today.

[Seattlecarnut]

I remember first watching this documentary. I only wish I could've met this radical gay Harry Hay.

[magicrulz101]

@vonnes3 Nope, he wasn't.

[Browned79]

Again, Socialism and Communism are very different theoretically. People often mix them up. Human rights (including gay rights and feminism) generally gets advanced by liberals, social democrats and libertarian-socialists. Soviet Russia kept anti-gay laws outside of Russia itself. Communist founders were rather reactionary about sexuality.

[Browned79]

1. Communism is at its theoretical foundation anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-human rights in general. 2. Socialism is actually quite different from Communism and some of the earliest 19th century gay rights proponents were Social Democrats or Libertarian Socialists. 3. Adam Smith Capitalism is actually a very humane economy theory, but people forget he was talking about a very different economic system then is often associated with his theories.

[thenewmiLONNIEum]

@Browned79

The Black Panther Party issued a solidarity statement with the Gay Liberation Movement a full ten years before the Democratic Party gave queers a place "under the table" with their 1980 Platform. The first gay candidate for president was from the Socialist Party.

If you're trying to assert that capitalism and its parties, the Democrats and Republicans, are better for queers, you're full of shit. Watch the movie and learn for yourself.

[thenewmiLONNIEum]

@Browned79

The earliest gay liberation organizations associated more closely with socialist/communist groups than with capitalist groups like the Democrats simply because they all often found themselves on the same side at a protest. Whether they were protesting the Vietnam War, racism, sexism, or whatnot, queer people found themselves marching alongside socialists and communists and, more often than not, NOT with Democratic politicians.

[thenewmiLONNIEum]

@Browned79

Not true at all. The first politicians to speak out in a legislative body in favor of gay rights were German socialists. After the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks legalized homosexuality (nearly 100 years before the good ol US of A). Harry Hay created the conditions for queer people by applying Marx's theories of nations and the struggle democracy to people who, to that time, were not even considered a "type", thereby creating a "community" of people fighting for their rights.

[bearcub410]

always remember that the christian right wing would have all gays in concentration camps if they could , never give up the fight for equal rights !!!! remember what they did to us in nazi germany !!!!! they would do it again if they could , they are the evil ones , thank you

[bearcub410]

these are the people that led the way for gay rights . thank you so much for posting this .

[Prez627]

@magicrulz101 I agree with you