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Answer: The Annual Reminder Day picket.
Barbara Gittings was born in Vienna, Austria, in July 1932. Her family moved back the United States when she was a child and settled in Wilmington, Delaware. She eventually moved to Philadelphia, and later to Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, where she passed away in 2007.
For the entirety of her life after a year in college, Gittings was deeply involved in the gay rights movement. In 1958, she founded a chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the first lesbian organization in the U. S., in New York. She later served as editor of the DOB's national magazine called The Ladder.
Meanwhile in Philadelphia, starting in the summer of 1965, she and other activists organized a public demonstration called Reminder Day outside of Independence Hall. These protests in support of gay rights and equality happened yearly and became known as Annual Reminders. This year marks the 50th anniversary of these rallies.
Among Gittings many other achievements, she worked for several years on a campaign to have the American Psychiatric Association (APA) declassify homosexuality as a mental illness. In 1972, Gittings sat on a panel on homosexuality at the APA's annual meeting, and she helped employ a gay psychiatrist to speak in support. Though he utilized a mask and a voice changer, Dr. John E Fryer, a psychiatrist who worked much of his life in Philadelphia, delivered a speech as one Dr. H. Anonymous that began "I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist." A year later, in a landmark victory for the homophile movement, the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Among HSP collections are several document the history LGBT movement locally and nationally. That largest collection is the John E. Fryer papers (#3465), which contains his personal and professional papers: general files, printed matter, photographs, and more.