WHAT:

On July 29, 2016, legislation introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Joseph Crowley, of New York’s 14th District, and co-sponsored in the U.S. Senate by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), was signed as Public Law No: 114-200 by President Barack Obama, to designate the Jackson Heights Post Office as the “Jeanne and Jules Manford Post Office Building.”

WHO:

Congressman Joseph Crowley (NY-14)
Councilmember Daniel Dromm (NY-25)
Assemblyman Francisco Moya (NY-39)
Assemblyman Michael DenDekker (NY-34)
Drew Tagliabue, Executive Director, PFLAG NYC
Bill Meehan, Executive Director of Queens Pride Parade
Suzanne Swan, Daughter of Jeanne and Jules Manford
John Lunghi, Postmaster of Flushing, Queens

WHEN:

Saturday, May 20, 2017, 1 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

WHERE:

Jackson Heights Post Office
78-02 37th Avenue
Jackson Heights, New York 11372

BACKGROUND

The idea for PFLAG began in 1972 when Jeanne Manford marched with her son, Morty, in New York's Christopher Street Liberation Day March, the precursor to today's Pride parade. After many gay and lesbian people ran up to Jeanne during the parade and begged her to talk to their parents, she decided to begin a support group. The first formal meeting took place on March 26, 1973 at the Metropolitan-Duane Methodist Church in Greenwich Village (now the Church of the Village). Approximately 20 people attended.

In the next years, through word of mouth and community need, similar groups sprang up around the country, offering “safe havens” and mutual support for parents with gay and lesbian children. Following the 1979 National March for Gay and Lesbian Rights, representatives from these groups met for the first time in Washington, DC.

By 1980, PFLAG, then known as Parents FLAG, began to distribute information to educational institutions and communities of faith nationwide, establishing itself as a source of information for the general public.

Congressman Crowley shared on the House floor: “PFLAG began work on national policy issues, such as stopping the military from discharging lesbian service-members. And it worked to help establish hundreds of chapters in rural communities where LGBT individuals and their families had a more difficult time finding and coordinating with others like them. Today, PFLAG counts over 400 chapters and more than 200,000 members in all 50 states.

Jeanne and Jules continued to work in their community, helping to found a PFLAG chapter in Queens alongside LGBT activist Danny Dromm, now a member of the New York City Council. For her many years of work in support of the LGBT community, Jeanne was honored as the first Grand Marshal of the Queens Pride Parade, which began in 1993, the year after Morty’s death.

The parade runs through the heart of my district in Queens, and passes a reviewing stand situated directly in front of this post office in Jackson Heights. In fact, the street corner next to this post office was itself renamed for someone we lost to a senseless act of hate – Julio Rivera, who was killed in 1990 at the age of 29, targeted because he was gay. Jackson Heights is a thriving neighborhood with a growing LGBT community, and our community will be honored to have our local post office bear the names of Jeanne and Jules Manford. These symbols remind us how far we’ve come.”