Quick Facts
Biography
Martin "Marty" Robinson (November 25, 1942 – March 19, 1992) was an American gay activist, founder of the Lavender Hill Mob.
Robinson had been a hippie and had dropped out of Brooklyn College and worked in construction. In late June 1969 he was a participant in the Stonewall Riot, which focused his activism on gay rights; on July 27 he led the first Christopher Street Liberation March. He was a member of the Mattachine Action Committee and co-founded the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance later that year, and subsequently ACT-UP, the National Gay Task Force and GLAAD.
On June 24, 1970, with his partner Tom Doerr and three others, he was arrested at a GAA sit-in at the Republican State Committee; they became known as the Rockefeller Five. In 1986 he left GLAAD and founded the Lavender Hill Mob because he felt existing pressure groups were not sufficiently radical to effect policy change required by the AIDS crisis. He is credited with developing political "zaps", chaotic and theatrical interventions intended to attract the attention of the press.
Robinson died of AIDS in March 1992. An archive of his papers is held by the New York City GLBT Center.