The San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band has touched numerous lives in many ways in its over 30 years of performing. You can also submit your musical memory via e-mail to sflgfb [at] sflgfb [dot] org.
Here are memories from a few of the lives that the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band has touched.
I joined the Band in 1978. Our first appearance after the Pride Parade was the Columbus Day Parade. Jon (Sims) decided to surround our marching members with “body guards” just in case of trouble. My fondest memory was when we stopped in North Beach in front of a drunken and belligerent straight crowd. They were…
My fondest memory of the band was in college. I was a freshman at LSU in Baton Rouge, La. and decided to go to the Lesbian Gay Student Organization. It was there that I saw the Life and times of Harvey Milk and saw a clip of the band marching down Market St. I remember…
There are so many many BIG memories I have of The Band, but one of the smaller yet very significant ones I recall was the opening of the Wells Fargo Bank in the Castro. Of all places–a bank–to first hear and then see The Band coming up over the hill and down Castro Street in…
It was 1998 and I was standing in the Exploratorium. And there was the band in full uniform providing a marching escort for my then-boss as he walked to the other end of the Palace of Fine Arts, all of it being broadcast live to radio stations around the country and streamed world-wide on the…
Being a member of the band has touched my life in more ways than I ever thought were possible. It’s given my friends I cherish, music I love, and memories that will last me for the rest of my life. None have touched me as much as the first DAN I ever played in. It…
I had been away from the United Methodist Church for 25 years. I was angry at the church for not leading the fight for the liberation of LGBT people, as it had led on many other social justice issues. I felt a yearning in the mid-1990s to return, and I saw a flyer that said…
Twenty-five years ago my son Jim and I attended our first Gay Freedom Parade. At that time, he was employed by a conservative law firm where he was very much in the closet. As the small band marched by, Jim’s eyes lit up and he turned to me and declared, “I want to play my…