Photo by Danny Fulgencio
A Dallas gay-rights pioneer who lived in Lakewood for almost 40 years could receive significant recognition in Oak Cliff, where he served as CEO of AIDS Services of Dallas for 32 years.
Three Dallas City Council members are proposing to install sign-toppers honoring Don Maison on Marsalis Avenue, between Colorado Boulevard and Sabine Street.
Maison, who died in February at age 74, was among the men who in 1979 began standing up against the Dallas Police Department’s raids of gay bar the Village Station.
A civil-right attorney, he defended Dallasites against charges of “public lewdness” and won. That opened the door in the 1980s for the Resource Center to work toward what we would now call sensitivity training for police.
AIDS Services of Dallas took up residence in a three-story apartment building on Marsalis in 1987.
“When Maison first started in 1989, he faced hostility from demonstrators who protested the nonprofit’s entry into the neighborhood with placards that read, ‘No gays/AIDS colonies,’ the Advocate wrote in 2019. “The post office wouldn’t deliver mail to its address.”
Mayor Pro-Tem Chad West and Council members Omar Narvaez and Gay Willis filed a memorandum to install the sign-toppers, and a public hearing is on the City Council agenda Wednesday.
Neighbors can sign up to speak on the proposal until 5 p.m. today, June 7.
