OH-4314_LuciaFitzgerald_e03.wav
Luchia Fitzgerald: [00:00:00] But I tell you, this whole thing in Manchester really did start to kick off from that base, the working class base, we were the ones that kicked the whole thing off. And then everyone wanted to join and take over and say, OK, let’s go for equality.
Dr. Sarah Feinstein: [00:00:16] So when you’re you’re having the meetings on Thursday night, what were some of the issues that came up?
Luchia Fitzgerald: [00:00:23] And the things on the agenda was brutality from the police and brutality in general and educating families and stuff like that and and the extended family and educating ourselves at the same time and also to look at the whole prospects of people in their jobs. That was very important to people, because now we were talking to people that had a very good education, that was coming out of the closet and stuff like that. And we started to look at all those aspects that anybody would look at in anybody’s life to see if we could do anything about whatever. And so different people lended a hand, say some of the baristers and the solicitors would say, OK, we’re going to look at our profession. Some of the teachers that say, yes, I look at my profession. So all the professions went away and they came back around the table and we had no profession. We were just working class kids. Most of us worked in mills or factories, but they came back with all these answers and stuff like that. And it was fantastic. They really were. And and that was very helpful for us. And then we told them and that, you know, about our depression, like going home on the bus in the night because they were able to get into cars or taxis.
[00:01:37] We had to go home on the night bus and risk getting the daylights kicked out of our even going missing. Never be seen again. See, so we were all educating each other without prejudice. They didn’t look down on us and we didn’t look up at them and think their little snooty little so-and-so because we were all gay. You see, this is where it all came to play yet again. And we were we talked about that. We talked about the solidarity amongst the and the classes, which was fantastic because obviously, you know, there were barriers and there always has been barriers between the classes. But in this case with gay people at that time, we started to break down the barriers and educate each other and there was no discrimination. If you were sat on that table in that room, it didn’t matter whether you had an education or not. You were equal to everyone else in that room, whether it was a barrister or a teacher or whatever, which was quite nice. We all made sure there’s equality. We started with ourselves as far as equality was concerned, before we could well walk out that door and scream at the world. We’re here, we’re queer, and we want equality. It’s as simple as that. And that’s what we decided we would do.