As soon as the news broke that the U.S. had killed Osama bin Laden, celebratory crowds of hundreds, even thousands, massed across the country in places like Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, New York City’s Times Square, and Lafayette Park across from the White House. But as one television reporter mused, where did all those flags waved in celebration across from the White House come from?
We have the answer.
Alexander Nicholson, Founder & Director of Servicemembers United, has told The New Civil Rights Movement that he and a colleague, Jarrod Chlapowski, passed around a number of 18″ x 12″ flags when the news broke.
The flags were in storage nearby, kept in memory of a 2007 event, “12,000 Flags For 12,000 Patriots,” (photo, below) organized and executed on the National Mall in November of 2007 by Servicemembers United, the nation’s largest organization of LGBT troops and veterans of the U.S. armed forces, as well as their partners and civilian allies. HRC, SLDN, and the Log Cabin Republicans were honorary co-sponsors of the event, according to Nicholson.
“Last night, when the news broke about the killing of Bin Laden, Servicemembers United pulled a bunch of those flags out of storage and took them down to the spontaneous crowd celebrating in front of the White House and distributed them to the crowd,” Nicholson tells The New Civil Rights Movement.
The event was held in 2007 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 12,000 LGBT soldiers who had been discharged at that point under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). 2007 marked the 14th anniversary of DADT, which is still in effect today, despite the fact that a bill to repeal the unjust law has been voted and passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.
Today, approximately 14,000 LGBT service members have been discharged under DADT.