On Gay Pride Day in 1973, someone set the entrance to a French Quarter gay bar on fire.
Author Johnny Townsend pored through old records and tracked down survivors of the Fire and relatives and friends of those killed to compile this fascinating account of a forgotten moment in gay history..
During this era of rampant homophobia, several families refused to claim the bodies, and many churches refused to bury the dead.
Two children waited outside of a movie theater across town for a father and step-father who would never pick them up.
A man who\'d helped his friend escape first was found dead near the Fire escape.
A mother who\'d gone to the bar with her two gay sons died alongside them.
In the terrible inferno that followed, thirty-two people lost their lives, including a third of the local congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church, their pastor burning to death halfway out a second-story window as he tried to claw his way to freedom.
On Gay Pride Day in 1973, someone set the entrance to a French Quarter gay bar on fire
