The Lavender Menace Zap was a protest organized by a group of lesbian activists named the RadicaLesbians. They organized after Betty Friedan, the founder of The National Organization for Women, referred to lesbians as a “lavender menace”. To protest the erasure that they experienced in women’s organizations such as NOW, these activists attended The Second Congress to Unite Women on May 1, 1970. Here, they turned off the lights and appeared onstage with “lavender menace” T-shirts. This event was the beginning of a new era in which lesbian concerns began to be taken into account in women’s organizations.
http://web-static.nypl.org/exhibitions/1969/radicalesbians.html
“The Lavender Menace” by Diana Davies
