I was beaten by police at Sydney’s first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
I knew from the moment that our happy crowd of revellers decided to continue from Hyde Park to Kings Cross that it could all end badly.
We marched up William Street chanting “stop police attacks on gays, women and blacks” as more police paddy wagons started heading to the Cross. I stopped counting them at about 40.
It looked so bad that I stopped to phone a lawyer.
On Darlinghurst Road, a crowd cheered us all the way to the El Alamein Fountain, but the police were determined to knock us over. A senior officer gave us one minute to disperse or we would be arrested.
We told him we were turning around to walk quietly out of the Cross. We did, but soon enough the police attack started.
I was about 10 rows from the front. I saw the searchlight on the paddy wagon and bodies flying through the air.
Peter Murphy (left) being arrested by a plainclothes Special Branch police officer at the Australian Open golf tournament in Sydney in 1975. Peter was protesting against golfer Gary Player, who supported the South African apartheid regime. Source: Supplied
Our people fought back in the street, others joined in, and I realised that some kind of history was happening before my eyes.
'I thought I would die'
It took ages before the wagon was driven to Darlinghurst Police Station. I was told to wait while the others were taken inside, then I was taken to a back room full of gym equipment.
The huge sergeant started screaming in my face, cursing me endlessly and bashing me in the head with his fists, taking care to strike above the hairline.
I realised that some kind of history was happening before my eyes.
He punched me around three walls, knocked me to the ground with a blow to the abdomen, and heavily kicked my lower left leg.
I was pissing and sh**ting myself and started convulsing.
I thought I would die.
Then the other police officer calmly said: “stop”. And he immediately stopped, before I was dragged out to an empty cell.
I was so badly hurt that it took about three years for me to feel physically whole.
My body endlessly remembered the trauma. Deep inside I had this sense that somehow I had done something to deserve this.
I had to put that demon to rest.
I drew on all my stubbornness to reject the effort of that police sergeant to destroy me. I decided I had to persist with my determination to help make a better society, that Mardi Gras was the right idea, and that it was right to take action.
Peter Murphy has been assaulted by police after attending a protest. He says he never got over it. Source: Supplied
Full of 'wild emotion' and pride
Ten years later I did a radio interview about that first Mardi Gras. The first question triggered a massive emotional collapse and the interview had to be abandoned.
On the 20th anniversary, in 1998, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras decided to celebrate the 78ers.
At the launch of the festival program at the Botanical Gardens, the organisers thanked about 200 of us 78ers who had gathered.
Again I was thrown by wild emotion, so proud that our idea of a street party had turned into the fabulous profound community celebration it is.
I also realised that this was the first time I'd ever heard someone thank us.
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