Ted Brown

Biography

Ted Brown is a British gay rights activist. He organised the United Kingdom’s first Gay Pride Rally in 1972 as part of his work in the Gay Liberation Front and co-founded Black Lesbians and Gays Against Media Homophobia (BLAGAMH). He has been described by The Guardian as a “key figure in both British civil rights history and LGBT history”. 

In 1972 Ted Brown walked through central London, stopped at Trafalgar Square for a kiss, and made history. He was at the UK’s first official Gay Pride that he had helped to organise, in which more than 2,000 people marched through the capital before holding a mass kiss-in. 

That day he took photographs of buoyant butch lesbians and men in drag, crowding around the Trafalgar Square lions and fountains, draping them with banners and demanding liberation for all. 

Organised by the UK branch of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), the London march followed the Stonewall riots and first Pride parade in the US. “The basic principle of the GLF was that one should come out to show people who we actually are,” says Brown. 

His work with the GLF, his efforts to improve the treatment and representation of LGBT people in the media, and his battle against abusive policing make him a key figure in both British civil rights history and LGBT history. He was one of the few Black faces in the first Pride march.