Craig Howell, a native Washingtonian and longtime Gay activist,
described the efforts from the late 1970s into the early 1980s
to lobby the newly-formed U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council

for a proper commemoration of the Gay victims of Nazi persecution.

There was considerable resistance to any such inclusion

at the time, both from those who believed the Holocaust Museum
should only memorialize the attempted genocide

of European Jewry and from those who were openly homophobic.

The initial report from  President Jimmy Carter's
Holocaust Memorial Committee made no mention
of the Nazis' systematic efforts to eradicate Germany's gay community,
brushing aside appeals from the National Gay Task Force
(now the National LGBTQ Task Force).

When NGTF then abandoned its campaign,
the Gay Activists Alliance of Washington (now GLAA) picked up the banner.
first under Tom Chorlton and then under Mr. Howell.

Mr. Howell described how that challenge was successfully met,
ultimately underlying the April 1983 decision by Council Chairman, Elie Wiesel
that the story of the gay victims would be an integral part of the Museum

and its on-going educational mission.

Mr. Howell also summarized what is now known on the subject,

as scholarship over the last four decades
has continued to grow and evolve.