The original ordinance vote is why Wichita has a second pride event in September, Boyd explained. They, along with the Homophile Alliance of Sedgwick County, circulated petitions to get a gay rights City of Wichita ordinance on a special ballot that was narrowly passed in September 1977. It was McKinney who got Boyd involved in several early pivotal events within the Wichita gay-and-lesbian community. McKinney, a well-known Wichita activist, had collected oral histories and other documentation of gay and lesbian life in Kansas. The original footage was donated to the Bruce McKinney Collection at the University of Kansas Spencer Library. It was rejected for “technical flaws,” Boyd said. In 2004, Boyd converted the film to DVD and today has only one remaining copy.īoyd said the film has only been released twice before: in 1992 when it was submitted to the San Diego Gay/Lesbian Film Festival and won Documentary of the Year, and in 2004 when he submitted the DVD to the Tallgrass Film Festival. The documentary was never meant to be shown commercially, Boyd said, so limited copies were initially made on VHS tapes. The film includes reactions from the general public, airing what Boyd calls “really hateful” comments that had come into a KFH radio show when the parade was a featured topic. “No cameras had ever been allowed inside those bars before because those were still the days of random assaults, broken windshields and tires, and few people wanted to be seen on camera,” said Boyd. Since the bars were so dimly lit, the subjects’ faces could remain in half-shadow. That style worked particularly well when Boyd was granted unheard-of access to film Wichita gay bar owners and patrons. In Wichita, Boyd shot more than 10 hours of footage between April and June 1990, using the style of cinema verité - in which subjects are shot with unscripted dialogue and action and natural lighting.
Boyd, who lived in San Francisco between 19, described Call as one of his mentors. His only other experience with a camera had come shooting 20 minutes of 8mm footage of a 1985 San Francisco parade for Hal Call, a decorated World War II veteran and an outspoken gay activist. It was a story he wanted to share with others who were planning pride parades in their communities - to show them the conversations and arguments that happened behind the scenes. Years later, Boyd shared the footage with producers of the ABC News show “20/20,” which aired a segment by reporter John Stossel on the Westboro church.īoyd was part of the inaugural parade’s planning committee until he became the designated documentarian. He claimed the soldiers’ deaths were part of God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality.Īt the time, Phelps was running for governor of Kansas and welcomed the chance to be interviewed, Boyd recalled.
He became known for picketing various events, including U.S. It was one of Phelps’ first such protests. Phelps had travelled to Wichita to protest a meeting of the parade planning committee, which was getting advice from parade organizers from other cities. One of the opening scenes of Boyd’s film features Phelps, pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, unloading anti-gay signs from a van on May 10, 1990. Patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village had fought back against a raid on the gay bar. history, held in 1970 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of what’s known as the Stonewall Riots. June also marks the 50 th anniversary of the first gay pride march in U.S. Boyd, 66, calls himself a retired gay activist.
To mark the anniversary - and because this year’s parade was canceled due to a ban on mass gatherings - Boyd is making his 82-minute documentary, “Parade Won! In the Pursuit of Pride,” available for free viewing on YouTube. … And I decided that’s the story I wanted to tell.” While parades in other cities had been filmed, Boyd said, “They never showed what it took to get the parade on the streets. He captured both sides of the story - organizers still fearful of anti-gay prejudice and violence and opponents led by the controversial Topeka figure Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church. Thirty years ago this month, Gregory Boyd filmed history in the making by documenting the genesis of Wichita’s first gay pride parade. Click the DVD cover below to watch the documentary on YouTube.