Catchword: zap

Filed under: English, Slang

Part of speech: n.

Quotation: Following the 1969 Stonewall riots, as the nascent gay rights movement became increasingly combative, a gay Philadelphia teenager initiated his own guerrilla war aimed at television, including the CBS Evening News. Mark Segal, 19, became angry when he and a male friend were thrown out of a television dance program in 1972 after the program’s host saw them dancing together. A few days later, Segal barged into the studio of Philadelphia’s WPVI during its evening newscast. Startled studio personnel wrestled him to the floor and called the police. Segal became a walking terror with his “zaps,” as they were called. In 1973, his targets included The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Mike Douglas Show. He and a friend staged their last and most notorious zap when they posed as college students and obtained passes for the CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite.

Article or document title:
“How Do You Turn Walter Cronkite Into a Friend of Gay Rights? Zap Him.” (URL)

Author:
Edward Alwood

Article, document, publication, web site:
Washington Post

Date of publication:
July 26, 2009

This catchword has yet to be researched.