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![banners: maireddog:
Mark Ashton died on this day, the 11th of February, in 1987.
Mark
was born on the 19th of May, 1960 in Oldham, but grew up in Portrush, Northern Ireland. He moved to London in 1978, where he worked in
a bar in King’s Cross, in drag as a barmaid with a blonde beehive.
In
the 1980s, he volunteered for London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard,
campaigned for CND and joined the Communist Party, becoming the first gay secretary of the Young Communist League. Though Mark transformed the Party’s approach to LGBT rights, he and Mike Jackson, who he’d met through Switchboard, wanted to be active as openly gay people. They formed
Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) when they collected donations for miners on strike at 1984 Gay Pride.
In the evening of 1984 Pride, a miner spoke at a rally, and they were struck by the similarities between the two struggle, of LGBT rights and the Miners’ Strike. Having collected about £150, they advertised a meeting in Capital Gay. 11 people turned up and from the meeting they made a leaflet to launch LGSM - the leaflet was accepted except with an amendment to ‘one in ten miners is gay.’
As LGSM, they supported the miners as lesbian and gay people. At the second meeting, they decided to focus on one community, of the Dulais Valley, as one of the members, Hugh Williams, was from there. They then met David (Dai) Donovan, who also had thought through the similarities of their struggles and how LGSM could help. A month later, 27 lesbians and gay men, arrived at Onllwyn village in Dulais Valley.
Other than some hostility (and confusion towards vegetarianism), they experienced warmth, friendship and solidarity. LGSM raised £20,000 for families of miners on strike, and based on The Sun writing that “a group of perverts” were “supporting the pits,” they organised the Pits and Perverts concert in December, 1984, headlined by Bronski Beat. The miners marched with LGSM at Gay Pride in 1985.
Mark was admitted to hospital on 30th January, 1987, and died 12 days later from pneumonia, aged 26. At his memorial, there were banners from the Communist Party, Anti-Apartheid, anti-nuclear, Caribbean and community groups, as well as from LGSM. The Mark Ashton Trust was created to support individuals
diagnosed with Aids; Mark is also remembered on the UK Aids Memorial
Quilt and by Terrence Higgins Trust, with the Mark Ashton Red Ribbon
Fund and a plaque at their London headquarters. In 2017, on what would have been his 57th birthday, he was honoured with a blue
plaque above Gay’s The Word bookshop.
[Images: 1. Mark Ashton at Gay Pride 1981. 2. Mark Ashton at Gay
Pride
1985, wearing a LGSM t-shirt and holding a pink “Communist Party” banner
with the words “pinko commie queers.” 3. Blue plaque reading: “Lesbians
and Gays Support the Miners. Mark Ashton 1960-1987. Political and
Community Activist. LGSM met at Gay’s the Word bookship on this site
1984/5.”]](https://pics.onsizzle.com/maireddog-mark-ashton-died-on-this-day-the-11th-of-42056555.png)
![banners: in New York. Emotions, however, remained
venomous even after ten states ratified the
Constitution, and Governor Clinton still thought
civil war possible. One member of the French
diplomatic legation, Victor du Pont, wrote to
Samuel du Pont de Nemours that if the
Constitution faltered in New York, outraged
federalists might pounce on Clinton and his
retinue when they returned home and "smear
them with tar, roll them in feathers, and finally
walk them through the streets."111 On July 17,
Hamilton predicted that New York City might
secede from the state if the Constitution was
turned down; Clinton chided him from his chair
for his "highly indiscreet and improper"
warning.112 Working himself up into a grand
state of pathos, Hamilton summoned the ghosts
of "departed patriots" and living heroes and with
his words wrung tears from onlookers.113
Days later, Melancton Smith finally broke the
deadlock when he endorsed the Constitution if
Congress would promise to consider some
amendments. Paying indirect tribute to
Hamilton, Smith credited "the reasonings of
gentlemen" on the other side for his changed
vote.114 On July 26, Smith and a dozen other
antifederalists switched their votes to favor the
Constitution, producing a wafer-thin majority
The final vote of thirty to twenty-seven was the
smallest victory margin at any state convention
and portended future political troubles for
Hamilton. Governor Clinton would not budge
but tolerated followers who changed their votes.
Anticipating New York's approval, a huge rally
had taken place in New York City three days
earlier to express boisterous enthusiasm for the
new government. It started at eight in the
morning in light rain as five thousand
representatives of sixty trades-from wig
makers to bricklayers, florists to
cabinetmakers-marched down Broadway amid
a profusion of brightly colored floats and
banners. The Constitution might be denounced
as a rich man's plot upstate, but the city's
artisans were now stouthearted federalists and
crafted displays to illustrate the benefits that
would flow from union. The bakers hoisted aloft
a ten-foot "federal loaf," brewers pulleda
three-hundred-gallon cask of ale, and coopers
hauled barrels built with thirteen staves. Many
of Hamilton's friends joined the crowd. Robert
Troup marched alongside lawyers and judges,
brandishing the new Constitution. Nicholas
Cruger, his old employer from St. Croix, donned
a farmer's costume and escorted a plow drawn
by six Oxen.
The parade apotheosized the hero of the hour,
the man who had snatched victory from thee
antifederalist majority. So exuberant was the
lionization of Alexander Hamilton that admirers
wanted to rechristen the city "Hamiltoniana." It
was one of the few times in his life that
Hamilton basked in the warmth of public
adulation. Sail makers waved a flag depicting a
laurel-wreathed Hamilton bearing the
Constitution while an allegorical figure
representing Fame blew a trumpet in the air.
This paled before the grandest tribute of all to
Hamilton. Gliding down Broadway, pulled by ten
horses, was a miniature frigate, twenty-seven
feet long, baptized the "Federal Ship Hamilton."
The model ship rose above all other floats "with
flowing sheets and full sails[.]..the canvas
waves dashing against her sides" and
concealing the carriage wheels moving the ship,
noted one observer.115 The cart men fluttered
banners that proclaimed, "Behold the federal
ship of fame /The Hamilton we call her name; /
To every craft she gives employ; / Sure cartmen
have their share of joy."116 When the Hamilton
arrived near the Battery, it was received by
congressmen standing outside Bayard's Tavern.
To represent the transition from the Articles of
Confederation to the Constitution, the ship
changed pilots amid a deafening cannonade.
The parade marked the zenith of the federalist
alliance with city artisans. Hamilton had never
courted the masses, and never again was he to
enjoy their favor to this extent. Riding high on
the crest of the new Constitution, Hamilton and
the federalists held undisputed sway in the city
November #HAMILDROP:
Here is the moment in Chernow’s book—when Hamilton argued for New York to be part of these new United States—and Hamilton being embraced by his adopted city—that we couldn’t fit in the show.
So I called John Kander and we wrote it together. Stay tuned. https://t.co/wdTtcukaEZ](https://pics.onsizzle.com/in-new-york-emotions-however-remained-venomous-even-after-ten-37692079.png)
