Greetings from Washington DC was a short documentary about the First National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, which took place on Sunday, October 14th 1979.

It was estimated that some 125,000 people took part. As the first national demonstration of gay and lesbian political strength, marchers made five specific demands on the US Government. These were:

• Pass a comprehensive Lesbian/Gay Rights Bill in Congress
• Issue a Presidential Executive Order banning discrimination based on Sexual Orientation in the Federal Government, the Military, and Federally Contracted private employment
• Repeal all Anti-Lesbian/Gay Laws
• End discrimination in Lesbian-Mother and Gay-Father custody cases
• Protect Lesbian and Gay Youth from any Laws which are Used to Discriminate, Oppress, and/or Harass them in their Homes, Schools, Jobs, and Social Environments

Greetings from Washington DC sent an extraordinary message of hope to LGBT people around the world in 1981. Given that the gay and lesbian rights movement was very much in its infancy at that time, the movie offered some particularly powerful images.

This was, for instance, not only the first ever national LGBT march in the USA but also the largest gathering of LGBT people anywhere in the world at that time. (By comparison,a 1980 BBC documentary on the 1979 Lesbian and Gay Pride rally in London described the 3,000 participants there as “the largest assembly of homosexual men and women Europe had ever seen”.) Greetings from Washington DC captured what were, quite literally, unprecedented scenes of political action and LGBT solidarity and strength.

Sadly,like so many LGBT resources, the film now seems to have disappeared without trace. Hopefully there are copies lodged safely in the many lesbian and gay archives that now exist in the USA and elsewhere. If so, it can only be hoped that we shall get to see it again in public in the not too distant future.