 Attending the Southern California Labor School, he met many of the men who would later become some of the first members of the Mattachine Society, whose initial five members were all union activists.Bayard Rustin, an openly gay man and a principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, later became the first executive secretary of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.Another openly gay man, Tom Kahn wrote speeches for and served as assistant to AFL-CIO presidents George Meany and Lane Kirkland, as well as head of the AFL-CIO's International Affairs Department from 1986 until his death in 1992.