Google, on Wednesday, celebrated the start of the Pride Month with a doodle honouring American astronomer, veteran, and gay rights activist Dr. Frank Kameny.
Franklin Edward Kameny, born in Queens in New York on May 21, 1925, is widely hailed as one of the most prominent figures of the American LGBTQ+ rights movement.
The doodle shows Kameny walking on a snowy day, with a garland of colourful flowers around his neck.
The tech giant, in a blogpost wrote, “Gifted from a young age, Kameny enrolled at Queens College to study physics at just 15 years old. He saw combat during World War II and upon his return to the U.S. obtained a doctorate in astronomy at Harvard University. In 1957, Kameny accepted a job as an astronomer with the Army Map Service, but he was fired just months later based on an executive order effectively barring members of the LGBTQ community from federal employment.”
This led to Kamney suing the federal government. He then went on to file the first gay rights appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1961, and spent a lifetime fighting for equal rights.
“Years before the Stonewall Riots, he organised one of the country’s first gay rights advocacy groups. In the early ‘70s, he also successfully challenged the American Psychiatric Association’s classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder, and in 1975, the Civil Service Commission finally reversed its ban on LGBTQ employees,” the blog post shared.
It was, however, only 50 years later after his dismissal, in 2009, that he received a formal apology from the U.S. government.
The following year, Washington D.C. named a stretch of 17th Street NW near Dupont Circle “Frank Kameny Way” in his honour.
He passed away on October 11, 2011.
Google is also celebrating Pride with colourful confetti every time you click Search, all month long.
Source: History
Pride Month originally began being celebrated in June to pay homage to the Stonewall uprising in June 1969 in New York City, which helped spark the modern gay rights movement.
Source: The Economic Times
