In a neighborhood that once shunned him, a Boston gay rights pioneer finally gets his moment
On the same weekend that saw hundreds of thousands of people flocking to Boston’s Pride parade route, a much quieter walk took place on the brick-laden backstreets of Beacon Hill. There, a handful of people gathered for the inaugural National Park Service tour honoring a little-known yet pioneering gay rights activist. The tour explores the life of the late Prescott Townsend, a queer advocate whose long life spanned the 19th century and the first Pride Parade in New York City in 1970, and who lived an exuberantly out gay life that flew in the face of the social and legal boundaries of […]