Dr. Alan Barman (d. September 2010, age 52): Barman was one of the founders of the City of Brotherly Love Softball League and was a longtime player and supporter of the league.
Don Belton (d. December 2009, age 53): Belton was a Philadelphia native who taught English at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University and was a well-respected gay poet and writer.
Bob “Brownie” Brown (d. January 2010, age 66): Brown was a native Philadelphian who served as a waiter at Venture Inn for nearly 40 years, whose passion for the venue earned him a very large following.
Brian Caffall (d. May 2003, age 56): Caffall was a local freelance writer who contributed stories to PGN, Philadelphia Weekly and City Paper and also worked as an HIV/AIDS educator.
John Keith Clark (d. May 2003, age 61): Clark was PGN’s managing editor and also served as a writer, as well as a contributor to other LGBT publications such as the Bay Area Reporter.
Rosalie Davies (d. July 2009, age 70): Davies was a local lesbian activist, founding Custody Action for Lesbian Mothers in 1974 and providing free legal services to lesbian mothers, attaining her law degree after facing her own custody battle when she came out as a lesbian.
Brittany DeLoach (d. April 2007, age 31): DeLoach was a Philadelphia transgender activist who filed a complaint against the Philadelphia Police in 2004, contending she was profiled as a sex worker because of her transgender status.
Harry Eberlin (d. December 2006, age 69): Eberlin was PGN’s first photographer and was integral in documenting some of the city’s early LGBT developments.
Charles Engel (d. October 2005, age 75): Engel was a longtime LGBT activist who was a founding member and longtime supporter of ActionAIDS and contributed to the Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force, the AIDS Task Force and the Philadelphia Community Health Alternatives, the predecessor to Mazzoni Center.
Bruce Flannery (d. August 2009, age 54): Flannery was a local activist who served as executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of AIDS Service Organization from 1995-2005, securing expanded state funding for HIV/AIDS issues and widening the medications available through the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program.
Larry Frankel (d. August 2009, age 54): Frankel served as the legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania from 1992-2008, as well as a five-year stint as the agency’s executive director, lobbying for LGBT-rights legislation and connecting state lawmakers with the LGBT community.
Dr. John Fryer (d. February 2003, age 64): Fryer was a Temple University psychiatry professor who helped create the Philadelphia AIDS Task Force and, in 1972, spoke about homosexuality to the American Psychological Association as “Dr. H. Anonymous,” with a wig and mask on, an action that spurred the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder, which took place the following year.
Barbara Gittings (d. February 2007, age 75): Gittings lost her battle with breast cancer after a long career as an LGBT-rights activist, having organized demonstrations such as those held at Independence Hall in the 1960s and launching groups like Daughters of Bilitis.
Dale Lorenzo Grundy (d. April 2007, age 49): Grundy was a local community and political activist who served as a board member of ActionAIDS and the Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutritional Alliance and was chair of the University of Pennsylvania’s HIV/AIDS Prevention and Research Community Advisory Board, initiating the agency’s annual Red Ribbon Awards.
Sean Halpern (d. July 2004, age 35): Halpern was a partner at Reed Smith, LLP, and devoted an extensive portion of his work to pro-bono representation of members of the HIV/AIDS community.
Jon Paul Hammond (d. November 2010, age 500: Hammond was a longtime HIV/AIDS and harm-reduction activist in Philadelphia and California who served as a co-founder of the city’s first syringe-exchange program, Prevention Point.
Harry Hay (d. October 2002, age 90): Hay is largely considered the founder of the LGBT-rights movement. He founded the nation’s first gay-rights organization, the Mattachine Society, in 1950, as well as the Radical Faeries in the 1970s.
Laurel Hester (d. February 2006, age 49): Hester was a 23-year New Jersey police veteran who, after learning she was dying of cancer, began a crusade to allow her partner to receive her pension benefits, a decision granted weeks before her death.
Cheryl Ingrahm (d. March 2002, age 45): Ingrahm was an out attorney who served as a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of Philadelphia and helped create the LGBT-rights committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association.
Robert Jones (d. February 2006, age 64): Jones was a successful gay businessman who owned several local gay hot spots from the 1970s through the ’90s, including The DCA Club and Steps.
Dr. Walter Lear (d. May 2010, age 87): Lear is considered one of the region’s most well-respected and earliest LGBT leaders, helping to launch such agencies as the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund, the Philadelphia AIDS Task Force, the local Radial Faeries and the predecessor to the William Way LGBT Community Center. He was the city’s first deputy health commissioner and the first openly gay member of the city’s Human Relations Commission.
Harry Langhorne (d. May 2001, age 53): Langhorne was an early local LGBT activist who was key in the passage of the city’s 1982 LGBT-rights ordinance, helped establish the governor’s Council on Sexual Minorities and successfully pressed for an executive order banning LGBT discrimination in state government.
Marilyn Maneely (d. September 2005, age 55): Maneely was a New Jersey resident who, with her partner of 14 years, served as a plaintiff in the landmark Lewis v. Harris marriage-equality suit, which allowed civil unions in the state in 2006.
Alan Lee Morrison (d. August 2002, age 35): Morrison was a local psychiatrist who focused on HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues and served on the board of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Community Health Alternatives.
Gerald O’Neill (d. September 2002, age 41): O’Neill was a CBLSL player and commissioner, treasurer of the William Way LGBT Community Center board and finance director of ActionAIDS.
Rand Skolnick (d. July 2008, age 50): Skolnick was a gay businessman and philanthropist who owned New Hope bar The Raven with his partner.
Tony Sparacino (d. February 2007, age 44): Sparacino was a popular Gayborhood businessman who owned Sparacino Mens and Sparacino Shoes, and also served on the board of the Sapphire Fund and organized a monthly LGBT networking party.
Otto Tornvall (d. June 2003, age 43):Tornvall was a local gay businessman who owned Philadelphia’s Post Bar and the Silhouette Lounge in Scranton.
Stanley Ward (d. August 2010, age 67): Ward served as editor of the PGN throughout the 1980s, guiding the paper through its coverage of the AIDS crisis.
Mort Wernik (d. April 2009, age 73): Wernik was the original owner of gay bar Uncles, which he operated for 25 years.