9th Street Journal: “As Durham prepares for the city’s annual Pride parade on Sept. 27, an official commemoration of the very first gay rights march in the state is in the works.
The new historical marker will recognize a 1981 Durham protest called Our Day Out that is considered North Carolina’s first Pride March. It will be the first N.C. historical marker to recognize the roots of the state’s Pride celebrations….
The 1981 march was spurred by a hate crime that killed a Mebane man. On April 12, 1981, men wielding large sticks attacked sunbathers at a stretch of Little River known to be frequented by gay men. Four men were injured. Mark DeMarais, Darrel Jones and Jerry Michael Penny recovered, while Ronald Antonevitch succumbed to his injuries and died on April 15, 1981. …
“On my Facebook page, for the past 10 years or so, on the anniversary of the event, I generally post the event and all the clippings and stuff that I saved from the papers. And so eventually it got to be known again. And that’s a really good thing, because, I mean, truly, no one even remembered it after about 15 years.” “