About 200 students at Bucks County Community College held a protest after the college canceled a planned speech by gay rights activist Dick Leitsch.
Bucks County Community College
Bucks County Community College (Bucks) is a public community college in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1964, Bucks has three campuses and online courses: a main campus in Newtown, an "Upper Bucks" campus in the town of Perkasie, and a "Lower Bucks" campus in the town of Bristol. There are also various satellite facilities located throughout the county. The college offers courses via face-to-face classroom-based instruction, eLearning classes offered completely online, and in hybrid (blended) modes that combine face-to-face instruction with online learning. The college is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
1968 Bucks County Community College protest
On May 9, 1968, a group of up to 200 students at Bucks County Community College in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, protested the cancelation by the college president of a planned speech by gay rights activist Dick Leitsch scheduled at the campus later that day. The protest, which was largely peaceful and lasted several hours on the campus, is considered one of only about 30 known gay rights protests in the United States prior to the 1969 Stonewall riots.
Dick Leitsch
Richard Joseph Leitsch, also known as Richard Valentine Leitsch and more commonly Dick Leitsch, was an American LGBT rights activist. He was president of gay rights group the Mattachine Society in the 1960s. He conceptualized and led the "Sip-In" at Julius' Bar, one of the earliest acts of gay civil disobedience in the United States, LGBT activists used "sip-ins" to attempt to gain the legal right to drink in bars in New York. He was also known for being the first gay reporter to publish an account of the Stonewall Riots and the first person to interview Bette Midler in print media.