You may have seen signs proclaiming, Fight the H8 and End the War on Love. You may have even attended the 10,000-person protest at City Hall last Saturday. But you may not know it was organized by one of our own.

On November 10, NYU Junior Carrie Harrington, and her girlfriend, NYU Alumna Dani Ryan saw that there was a nationwide protest campaign. They found the event on Facebook and volunteered to help. “After Prop 8 passed, my girlfriend and I, like so many gay and equality-minded individuals across the nation, were shocked and devastated,” she said. “It was then we realized we had to be part of the fight for our rights.” However, when joining the event, they found it was being organized by a high school student from Connecticut, planning on gathering in front of City Hall with some friends. By this point the small group of friends had escalated to 500 people.

Harrington and Ryan stepped up. In one week they had to set up a full-scale protest. With the help of three other college students, they had to get approval from the city, find people to speak and money to fund the protest, which was quickly becoming a massive event.

Writing press releases, calling media outlets, printing flyers and chalking sidewalks took up most of their time and contacting speaker most of their effort yet the night before they were still $3,000 short for the sound system. Somehow they pulled it off.

For Harrington one of the hardest parts was the criticism and negativity they received. “It was also difficult taking negative criticism from old gay activists who told us we couldn’t do something of this magnitude,” she said, “Telling us that we couldn’t get politicians at this short of notice, or that having speakers at all was grandstanding and it should just be about the people attending. It was hard, but we knew that we were a new generation of activists, and we had to do it in the context of what drives the new generation.”

For NYU student Daniela Cuevas, the speakers at the protest were very important. “It’s more than gay rights,” Cuevas said, “It’s civil rights.” Kate Shindle, Miss America 1998, was of particular impact to her because although she is not a member of the LGBT community she stood up and spoke about the importance to fight for these basic civil rights.

Photo: Flickr courtesy of maxintosh