# Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights (1987) Held on **October 11, 1987** in Washington, D.C. — the **Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights**, which drew approximately **500,000–750,000 participants** depending on estimate. The 1987 March was the **largest American LGBTQ political demonstration to date**, dramatically larger than the 1979 March (75,000–125,000), and marked the moment when the AIDS-era political mobilization scaled to mass-movement proportions. ## What Was Different About 1987 The 1987 March happened under conditions the 1979 March's organizers could not have anticipated: - **The [[AIDS Crisis]]** had killed more than 20,000 Americans by October 1987 — and an estimated 100,000-200,000 Americans were HIV-positive, the overwhelming majority gay men - **[[ACT UP]]** had been founded in March 1987 and had already conducted its founding Wall Street demonstration in March and its FDA action in October — making confrontational AIDS direct-action a defining political tactic for the first time - **The Reagan administration's sustained refusal** to acknowledge AIDS as a public-health emergency had created a mass political demand for federal action - **The Hardwick decision** ([[Bowers v. Hardwick]], 1986) had upheld state sodomy laws and demonstrated the hostility of the contemporary federal judiciary ## Defining Moments Two events of the 1987 March became iconic: - **The first National Mall display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt** — [[Cleve Jones]]'s NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was displayed for the first time on the National Mall on October 11, 1987, with 1,920 panels memorializing some of the AIDS dead. The Quilt's Mall display became one of the most photographed events of the late-1980s American LGBTQ movement and made the AIDS dead newly visible to mainstream American consciousness - **A mass civil-disobedience action at the Supreme Court** the following day (October 13, 1987), at which approximately 600 demonstrators were arrested protesting *Bowers v. Hardwick* ## Place in the Vault The 1987 March was **the moment when the American LGBTQ-rights movement scaled to mass-mobilization political size** — and the moment when the AIDS crisis became unavoidable as a national political-discourse event. The Quilt's first Mall display in particular has become one of the most-cited AIDS-era cultural events and a continuing reference point for how mass-cultural representation interacts with political mobilization. --- ## See Also - [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] - [[Queer Liberation Timeline]] - [[First National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights]] - [[Third National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights]] - [[ACT UP]] - [[AIDS Crisis]] - [[Cleve Jones]]