In November 1983, Rev. Jesse Jackson announced his candidacy for the U.S. Presidency. Shortly after that announcement, one day in early 1984 word spread around New York City that Jackson would be making an appearance in New York’s Greenwich Village on West 12th St. for a campaign event.
A crowd gathered in the street at the appointed time around a flatbed truck with a PA system and a few banners and campaign signs. It was a latter day facsimile of the whistle stop tour that Theodore Roosevelt had made popular many decades before — meeting the voters where they live. The location for Jackson’s appearance was only steps away from New York’s LGBT1 community center, and it was literally in the shadow of St. Vincent’s Hospital, one of the few medical facilities in New York…
