PFLAG founder Jeanne Manford, who died in January at 92, and founded Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in 1972, has been honored in a plaque that will be affixed later this year to the Greenwich Village church where the organization was born.
Said Andrew Berman, the Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, at a ceremony at the Church of the Village (then Duane United Methodist Church) yesterday:
One of many great points of pride that I take in celebrating the history of Greenwich Village is the incredibly important role that it played in providing a safe, open, and nurturing environment for LGBT people, especially when too few such places existed. It is no coincidence that Jeanne, and other brave and loving parents, found themselves in this church, in this community, forty years ago, seeking to change the fundamental way in which we saw our families and our society.
It is thus with great pride that I would like to unveil today the bronze historic plaque marker which will be placed on the exterior of this wonderful church to mark the beginning, forty years ago, of PFLAG, by Jeanne Manford.
Congressman Jerrold Nadler and City Councilmember Danny Dromm were among the elected officials who attended yesterday's unveiling.
