Jack Nichols

Jack Nichols, Jr., of Cocoa Beach, Florida, died early Monday morning in Cape Canaveral Hospital, at the age of 67. Mr. Nichols was the son of FBI Agent Jack Nichols, Sr., deceased, and Mary Finlayson Nichols Lund, longtime Cocoa beach activist, who survives.

Mr. Nichols grew up in a household with his mother, and his grandmother and grandfather, both of whom were Scottish immigrants. Reared in the Scottish “free thinker” tradition, he was self-educated, having read over 1000 books on philosophy, poetry, and religion by 15. Scottish poet Robert Burns and American poet Walt Whitman, along with the great orator Robert G. Ingersoll, were strong influences.

In 1961, Mr. Nichols, along with Frank Kameny, co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., to promote homosexual rights, as well as homosexual liberation from stereotypes that undermined the self-images of homosexuals. As an activist, Mr. Nichols became the first person in the gay movement to formally challenge the psychiatric establishment’s position that homosexuality was a sickness. At the time when the Washington Mattachine voted to back Nichols’ challenge, homosexuals either accepted that they were sick, or were too afraid to challenge the psychiatric establishment. By 1973, after vigorous debate, the American Psychiatric Association abandoned its view that homosexuality was a sickness.

On April 17, 1965, Mr. Nichols organized and led the first homosexual demonstration of a federal building, the White House. Other federal buildings were to follow. On July 4, 1965, Mr. Nichols participated in the first demonstration of Independence Hall, carrying the same lead sign that he had in front of the People’s House.

Mr. Nichols organized the first East Coast ecumenical conference on homosexuality, which later evolved into the Washington Area Council on Religion and the Homosexual, meeting at American University. And on March 7, 1967, Mr. Nichols was interviewed by Mike Wallace in the first nationally televised network (CBS) documentary on homosexuality.

Mr. Nichols wrote four books, beginning with 1975’s Men’s Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity, and ending with 2004’s Tomcat Chronicles: Erotic Adventures of a Gay Liberation Pioneer. He co-authored two additional books.

Mr. Nichols spent 40 years as a groundbreaking gay journalist, writing the influential columns, “The Homosexual Citizen,” and “The Homosexual Anarchist,” as well as editing the first gay weekly newspaper, GAY. During the last ten years of his life, Mr. Nichols served as the editorial columnist for the Florida-based online journal, GayToday, and contributed essays to numerous other newspapers on a wide-range of issues.

One of several persons recognized in the documentary, “The Gay Pioneers,” Mr. Nichols was honored for his lifetime of achievement, along with several others, at the Rainbow History Project’s “Heroes of Pride” dinner in Washington, D.C., June 5, 2005. He was also honored as a Grand Marshall by New York City’s Heritage of Pride Parade