Ken Davis was born in the wilds of Tamworth, in north-central New South Wales (NSW). Now based in Wollongong, he became a socialist at the age of fourteen, inspired by his mother’s communist politics and by Sydney’s radical social movements of the 1960s and ’70s.

Ken participated in the historic moratorium marches against the Vietnam War. While still in school, he joined the Socialist Youth Alliance, a Trotskyist group at the heart of the period’s radicalism. As a teenager, caught between conservative, Menzies-era Australia and burgeoning radical movements, Ken soon became aware of his sexuality — and the need to fight for gay and lesbian liberation. Later, he joined the movements against colonialism in Palestine and apartheid in South Africa.

Ken wasn’t just a participant in history — he was part of making it. In 1978, in an open and militant celebration of lesbian and gay liberation, Ken led hundreds in a parade past Sydney’s law courts. This march went down in history as the first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Ken has participated in every annual Mardi Gras since. He now serves as the co-chair of the First Mardi Gras Committee, a collective of veterans from the 1978 march.