Fifty years ago yesterday: the first gay rights protest in the U.S.

Late yesterday saw this story from ABC News by Kirsten Appleton. What's believed to be the first protest for gay rights in American history occurred on April 17, 1965 in front of the White House. Here's an excerpt:

     Paul Kuntzler said that when he and nine other people picketed the White House 50 years ago today, protesting the government's treatment of gays and lesbians, he could not imagine how far the gay rights movement would come in five decades.
     That protest on April 17, 1965, is believed to the first gay rights demonstration, advocates say.
     "It was so revolutionary,” Kuntzler, 73, said. “It had never been done before anywhere in the world. We all wore coat and ties and we all had pseudonyms."
     At the time they felt they had to use made-up names to protect their identities, he said.
     "I wasn’t scared," said Kuntzler, who had moved from Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, to Washington three years before.
     "I was intrigued by the idea. But I was intimidated by all the photographers. I was only 23. And as they came across the street they started photographing us. Every time I approached the cameras, I hid behind my sign because I was unnerved by the whole thing. But I don’t think I was scared. I was very open and proud of being gay.
     "People passed by in disbelief. It was written on their faces," he recalled. "It had never had happened before.”