Michigan's LGBTQ+ Pioneers Take Center Stage In PBS Detroit Special — Watch the Video Here!
'One Detroit' celebrates October's LGBTQ+ History Month with a deep dive into the state's groundbreaking activists and milestone moments
LGBTQ+ History Month has been observed each October since 1994, when Missouri high school history teacher Rodney Wilson proposed the idea. Wilson chose October to coincide with National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11 and to honor the first and second marches on Washington for LGBTQ+ rights in 1979 and 1987.
This October, PBS Detroit's "One Detroit" honored the month with an in-depth look at Michigan's pivotal role in LGBTQ+ history, tracing a path from the state's first Pride celebration 53 years ago to today's elected officials. The segment, available to watch at https://video.detroitpbs.org, reveals how Michigan helped shape the national movement for LGBTQ+ rights.
The special begins at Ferndale Pride 2025, one of Michigan's largest Pride celebrations, before traveling back to 1972 when Detroit hosted Christopher Street Detroit, the state's first Pride march. The event drew inspiration from New York City's 1970 Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day March, which commemorated the Stonewall Inn uprising.
Historian Tim Retzloff, who has spent years documenting this history, helped create a comic book titled "Come Out! In Detroit" with illustrator Isabel Clare Paul to tell the origin story of that historic 1972 march. The 32-page comic is based on eyewitness accounts, oral histories and largely unseen photographs from the event. An exhibit about the comic book is on display at the Detroit Historical Museum.
"This wasn't 15 or 20 people marching down Woodward Avenue. This was many people marching down Woodward Avenue," Retzloff explains in the segment.
The PBS segment features interviews with several pioneers who were there, including Merrilee Melvin, who helped organize the march, and Susan Swope, then a Wayne State University law student. Swope recalls the climate of fear that existed at the time.
"In high school, I realized I was lesbian, but I did not have a word for it. I thought I was the only one in the world," Swope shares. "Well, it was illegal. Being gay was actually illegal. So you had to be very much more secreted and closeted in those days."
One of the most significant figures profiled is Jim Toy, who became the first person to publicly come out as gay in Michigan during an April 1970 anti-war rally. Toy, who died in 2022, went on to help create what's considered the first LGBTQ+ office at any university in the world when he established the Human Sexuality Office at the University of Michigan in 1971.
Ann Arbor emerges as another crucial location in the story. The city observed the nation's first Gay Pride Week in 1972. Two years later, Kathy Kozachenko made history by becoming the first openly LGBTQ+ person elected to public office in the United States when she won a seat on the Ann Arbor City Council by just 52 votes.
Kozachenko, now living in Pittsburgh, emphasized the unique environment that made her 1974 victory possible.
"When I talk about that time period, people have to remember that what I'm talking about is a very liberal... liberal isn't even the word — a radical college campus," she says in the segment. "So things were different where I was than they were in the rest of the country."
The special brings the story forward to today's representation. State Rep. Jason Morgan spoke about finding acceptance in Ann Arbor and highlighted that Michigan's current LGBTQ+ caucus includes six representatives and one senator.
"We are still at seven today. And that is huge. That is massive progress for our state," Morgan says. "It does matter that we are at the table when decisions are being made and that we are represented."
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