Resources for Research
on Regional Organizations in the 1960s
The original materials referenced below are the generous donations of Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen.

ORGANIZING ON THE EAST COAST

In January 1962, representatives of homophile organizations on the east coast met in Philadelphia and agreed to form a loose affiliation called ECHO, for East Coast Homophile Organizations.  ECHO organized three successive annual conferences and also undertook sponsorship of the July 4th Annual Reminder picketing at Philadelphia's Independence Hall in 1965.

The first annual conference was held in Philadelphia under the theme Homosexuality -- Time for ReappraisalI. The second conference was held in Washington, DC in 1964 (not without difficulty as hotels declined to host the event) with the theme Homosexuality - Civil Liberties and Social Rights.  The third and final ECHO conference was held in New York City in 1965 with the theme The Homosexual Citizen in the Great Society.
 

ECHO - East Coast Homophile Organizations

Make Echo Meaningful, September 7, 1965 - response to letter and withdrawals from ECHO
ECHO 1965 Conference flyer
ECHO 1965 Program
Memo on Echo, 1965 message discussing the Daughters of Bilitis' withdrawal from ECHO
ECHO1964, preconference report on difficulties organizing the conference
Registration form for 1964 ECHO conference
Proceedings of the 1964 ECHO conference, excerpts:.

• Keynote address by Bob Belanger (Mattachine Society of Washington, pseudonym Robert King):
• Address by Julian Hodges (NY Mattachine),

ECHO flyer: How to Handle a Federal Investigation

Jack Nichols addressing ECHO 65 in New York City
(c) Jack Nichols

ERHC - Eastern Regional Homophile Conference

Minutes of the Spring 1968 meeting, April 27-28, 1968
Leaflet for 4th Annual Reminder, sponsored by ERCH, 1968
ERHC resolutions, 1968
Rules for the ERHC
 

ERCHO - Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations
ERCHO was created as "a constituent but autonomous body of the North American Homophile Conference" (the original name of NACHO).

Leaflet for 5th Annual Reminder, sponsored by ERCHO, 1969
Letter accompanying a survey of employment issues
Invitation to join ERCHO, January 1970

ORGANIZING NATIONALLY
Although the 1965 ECHO conference in New York City had only three sponsoring organizations, the Mattachines of New York, Washington, and Philadelphia, the conference was attended by a wide range of delegates from across the nation.  The response encouraged those attending to schedule a meeting in Kansas City to consider creating a national association of homophile organizations.

Nationa Planning Conferences - Some thirty homophile organizations from around the United States participated in the follow-up to the 1965 ECHO conference in laying the groundwork for the first national organization of gay/homophile civil rights organizations.  The following papers are from the planning meetings that led to the creation of NACHO.  The planning conferences were held in Kansas City (February 1966), San Francisco (August 1966), and Washington, DC (August 1967)

Agenda, National Planning Conference, Roger Smith Hotel (18th & Pennsylvania NW, Washington, DC), August 17 - 19, 1967
Press release and invitation to press conference, August 11, 1967 and August 16, 1967
Draft resolutions (undated but grouped with the 1967 NPC materials)
 

NACHO - North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (originally the North American Homophile Conference)

Resolution adopting "Gay is Good" as slogan of the homophile movement, August 1968
Memorandum from NACHO regarding the Macy vs. US Civil Service Commission decision, February 1970