1 8 5 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25703/archive/files/4557c80d68c0119e678e73f86dea5116.mp3?Expires=1782345600&Signature=qiXFfNlyiJXiBx%7E43MWAIdDQYYyfNHod2btY5JXXiuYkqnUKl-phAAQo7MLun7TsWt3I5RWsZ7hRS82hDFOk9YhXjuEt4Q7Af7tmlPTZrsIXAhoukNIjADDuQnxGYnGd329WRh1qNJi5vKoFID1zZJjbSKOVo0YI4OE40AMdMFbc68hW03g61O89VcCnV6iLPna-TmWS9L9tgIs5wQpPrJxkLAExBbYG3-1wNReG7OtuVCotCWwBOLDxM2P4D8F8km9qc3338h-bbJNaN1Yyza85a-UCaF3tvTf0JYtmy9bSGLIYpG39SibOVFt9XiTD7IH2D7g%7E9wpT5fxn4kKyOg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM e8fa60d251c865c529768d9342534f66 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Stonewall Legacy: Activism and Identity - Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Stonewall Rebellion and the Emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement Description An account of the resource The Stonewall "Activism and Identity" oral history interviews were undertaken to document and archive the voices of those involved in the LGBT rights movement and to engage the public in the history of the movement. Those who would like to contribute to the conversation should submit a contributor form with your thoughts and indicate whether you would like to be interviewed, send a written response or submit an image or document supporting the topic. All of the above may be published on the site in the future pending review. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived NA Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Michael Bettinger, John D'Emilio, Bruce Monroe, Felice Picano, Mark Segal, Martha Shelley,Wendell Walker, Rich Wandel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright, Christopher Gioia, 2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital Recordings Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NA Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher Gioia Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Felice Picano Location The location of the interview Via Telephone: Los Angeles and New York Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP3 Digital Recording Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound CG: To begin with Felice, maybe you can tell me about where you grew up your background and what you do. FP: Living in the West Village, from 1967, the fall of 1967 until the fall of 1995 when I moved to California, I was a long time Villager. Before that I was living for about seven years in the East Village while I went to college. I went to the City University of New York, Queens College while it was still a very small school. There were fewer people in my college than in my high school, a very small college. And I was living on the east side at that point and spending time in the old Greenwich Village south of Washington Square, and I was quite familiar with the area. It was my home. I grew up on Long Island and spent most of my summers in New England. Both of my parents are from Rhode Island, rural Rhode Island. My father came to New York City when he was a very young child. My mother remained in Providence Rhode Island where she was a professional and pro-am sportswoman. CG: Oh interesting. FP: So those are my links, by the time I was a child we were living in Hollis, Queens and after that, just before I moved into Manhattan we lived in sort of suburban New York in an area called Twin Ponds right next door to Valley Stream. CG: And what did you study at Queens College? FP: I actually studied art. (Chuckles) I was supposed to be an artist. CG: Oh really?! FP: And friends of mine were in the literature department and they all wanted to be filmmakers. CG: Mmhmm FP: And so to hang out with them I took literature as a minor. Never had a writing course aside from English 101. CG: And you do identify now, mainly as an author so maybe talk a little bit about your work… FP: I started writing in the 1960’s. I’m self taught and my many journals and notebooks are at the Beinecke Library at Yale University and also my journals from 1968 to 1988, so when I need to refresh my memory I go to my journals, although you know sometimes one lies to one self in one’s journals at least about personal stuff. About public events it’s usually pretty accurate. Because I’m not emotionally invested then, for the most part. My first three books were mainstream psychological thrillers. My third book was a book of gay poetry. I had been publishing gay poetry and even doing readings around New York and San Francisco including one with Allen Ginsberg at Hunter College. He had invited me. Then my fourth novel was a gay thriller, extremely controversial and sensational at the time, which uh turned into a best seller and was the first gay themed book to be picked up by the book of the month club and it became an international bestseller. Shortly after that I felt I was a gay author. I wanted to just write about gay life. Shortly after that I joined with Andrew Holleran, George Whitmore, Edmund White, Christopher Cox, Robert Ferro and Michael Grumley and we formed a group, the first openly gay writing group in the world called the Violet Quill Club. Robert Ferro named us. We existed for about four or five years and had a large influence on Christopher Street Magazine, The Advocate, various magazines and we pressured a lot of mainstream magazines and newspapers to cover gay and lesbian literature. I started my own press, an openly gay press, the Seahorse Press. It’s named after the seahorse because the seahorse is one the few creatures in nature where the male actually gives birth. And so I wanted it to reflect gay men being artistic and creative. Several years later I joined forces with several other small gay presses to form the Gay Presses of New York which existed from 1981 to 1994. Our first title in that press was Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy, CG: Oh really! FP: …so we were in the black from literally our very first day. And from Gay Presses of New York we ended up publishing writers from all over the country, and actually from Europe too. Also we ended up publishing lesbian writers in some number also. CG: Thanks, that’s a great overview. As an author, a storyteller, what role do you think personal stories play as part of the construction of historical record? FP: Well I think personal stories are very important and one of the things I have been doing over the last ten years is that I have been editing and encouraging and getting published works of mainly non- fiction, but also some fictionalized accounts, by people my age or older who are not actually writers, from all over the country but who had stories to tell which are otherwise going to vanish because there’s no kind of mechanism for getting their stories told. CG: I’ll just interject that your age group is mid sixties? FP: I’m 72, Oh yeah, I’m an old guy even though people tell me I don’t look it but yeah I’m actually 72 years old so I’m dealing with people from 65- 85. So yeah, people are dying. My idea is to get their material out and whenever I talk in front of a group I especially try to exhort some of the women to get their history down because that’s vanishing much more quickly than some of the men’s history and there is a lot that’s not being done. I mean the whole history of the women’s music movement in the 70’s? Nobody’s written about that. The heavy dyke bars of the 50’s and 60’s are just being mentioned, but nobody’s written about that. There’s just so much material that is still out there. When I wrote one book, the connection between storytelling and history was interesting. In 1995 I published a novel titled “Like People in History” and I chose that title very specifically because it was the story of two gay cousins over a period of thirty years. And one of the things I was trying to show was that in fact gay men and women were in American history and world history. Especially American history throughout our lives and that we were active and influential. People asked me after that, well how much of this book is true and how much of it is fiction and what I told them is 100% of it is true and about 80% is autobiographical. I had taken a lot of stories of people who are no longer alive by 1995, stories, anecdotes, jokes that they had told me and I put it in the book. So there’s some sort of a mixture back and forth between fiction and nonfiction. CG: Concerning Stonewall Inn and the Village, tell me what you remember about the place prior to the rebellion? What was it like? FP: Ok it was not a major bar by any means and it was not a particularly popular bar and it was a bar that was often changing personnel. Right around the corner was Julius’ which is still there, which was the post collegiate bar um and that was the most popular gay bar in the ah Greenwich Village and New York for a long time. Most people associated there but it was so crowded and so social um and so filled with your friends that if you found somebody interesting and you sorta wanted to feel them up and feel them out before you took them home you’d take them around the corner to the Stonewall and slow dance in the dark and figure out what you wanted. Right? CG: Interesting, yeah so… FP: Yeah really! So you were, it was a place that was part of the mainstream bar scene in a way… It was a part of the mainstream but it wasn’t that much … it wasn’t anything. CG: Yeah FP: It was also known to be a bar that was operated by some combination of the police and the Mafia which is what I wrote about when I wrote “The Lure” in 1979-- that they would open up their own bars, Julius’ and even the 9th Circle had been opened up … CG: Since you mention you had been to Stonewall, any particular story you would like to share? FP: No, I have no particular story about Stonewall at all. CG: Ok, FP: I really don’t, before it happened, it was not a place I went in, except like I said to slow dancing, figure it out… It was a very, very mixed club. There were um lesbians in it who didn’t go to the Duchess -- which was a very heavy dyke bar on the south side of Sheridan Square. So it was nearby, so you know younger women that didn’t want to go there um would go to this one. And there were, it became by the time the incident happened, a place for trannies and for people who were not quite street people but almost, and sometimes the hustler boys who would hang out in front of it in the park in Sheridan Square would go in too. So it had this very, very mixed vibe and, and I was always hearing that it was closing down, that it was going bankrupt. CG: Perpetually in danger. FP: Right. Exactly. CG: Regarding the first night of the riots. Do you have any specific recollections? FP: Yeah I was across the street at a party and went to the party and there was nothing happening… It was a warm very balmy June night in New York. It was a Saturday night, there were a lot of people out and about. It was an ordinary night. And I went to this party and I left the party extra late because I picked up the bartender and so I had to leave when he left (laughs) which was at the end of the party when everybody else was either gone or under the table (laughs) When we walked out, we saw the result of the whole . . . of the riot, and we were quite astounded I must say. And we were immediately ushered by police outside of the area. CG: So it really was already cordoned off. FP: It was already cordoned off and there were these black marias, I guess they were expecting more arrests, there were two or three big black buses. There were two cars on fire. There was one johnny pump completely broken off, there was a Volkswagen upside down, the johnny pump had a taxi cab smashed against it, it was spouting water into the air. There were all these black hoses running all over Sheridan Square itself and there were saw-horses and a lot of police. CG: Do you think those hoses were used to control the crowd? FP: I think they were fire hoses, they were for the fires. And it looked like a bomb had gone off or a meteor hit. We had no idea. And as we got to the edge of the crowd -- and this had to be like 2:30 or 3 in the morning -- people started telling us there had been a riot at Stonewall and we went through the crowd and picked up whatever it was, all the information that we could get, which was already then half true or half not. And the bar itself was boarded up at that time, you know there is this great big picture window in the front which was completely boarded up and the door was gone and completely boarded up already by that point. CG: And so, did you think that was going to be the end of it or that it wasn’t going to be that consequential? What was the feeling? FP: It took us a few, you know we were stoned and high (laughs) obviously! You know it took us a while to figure out what the hell was going on. CG: Right right, FP: So we went home, fucked, went to sleep, but here’s the thing, I was awakened the next morning by a friend of mine, Douglas Brashears, the least political person I know and he was the one that said it, he knew we had been at that party and he asked if I had been involved in it, if I had been arrested. When I told him what I saw he said “the queens are revolting.” And you know the guy I was with, we went to a very late brunch in the Village, and all of the stuff was up and people were gathering already. CG: Really? FP: So that was, and then I saw Marty Robinson and Vito Russo and some other friends of mine who were hanging around and they said “We’re protesting, will you sign this, and will you do that?” and I guess that was the foundation of Gay Liberation Front. CG: Really, so it really did have consequences almost over night. FP: Ya know, the next day. The next day already there was activity on the street. There were people yelling at the cops who were still there, and there were a lot of people gathering. A lot of people had heard about it you know a lot of people would come down to the Village to hang around on a summer Sunday anyway. All of those people were there and they were pissed off. And the mood was really angry and pissed off. Let’s organize now. CG: I guess there was- a lot of it was the timing over a summer weekend and then word of mouth… FP: I mean I got a call from Doug, really I mean of all people, so the word had gotten around by 10 o’clock Sunday morning because he woke me up. CG: Yeah yeah FP: So there was that and I think that the other thing that’s really hard to explain to people is that there was an established gay community there, when I came back from Europe in 1967. When I left the year before that there really wasn’t a gay community but when I came back there was. CG: Yeah. FP: So there really was a gay community there. There was one in San Francisco. There was one in LA. There was one in Boston and in other cities. So it already, in that time frame, was I think very important, because there already was a community. So it wasn’t a spark happening where there wasn’t any tinder. There was plenty of tinder to go up. CG: As you mentioned that San Francisco and LA already had communities that were already developed. Do you think that Stonewall and the mythology that evolved around the uprising was a particularly New York phenomenon? FP: No I don’t think it was a particularly New York phenomenon, I think it could have happened in San Francisco just as easily. CG: Mhmm FP: I think it could have happened in West Hollywood just as easily. CG: I just wondered if that network, that network that reached everyone by 10 am the next morning, that connectivity was somehow stronger in New York? FP: Maybe -- my friend George called it “Queen Control. (Laughter) Something would happen and the queens would get on the phone and it would go all around. So he called it queen control and people would call up and say this is queen control calling and you didn’t even ask who it was and they would start giving you information, right? Right? So queen control definitely existed in New York City and I think it might have existed elsewhere in San Francisco and in LA too but people were not as pissed off. CG: So you would say perhaps the police were more abusive in New York? FP: Well you know the World’s Fair had a lot to do with it. The 1963 World’s Fair because it meant that the mayor at the time, Mayor Wagner, wanted to clean up the city which was the stupidest idea anybody ever had. So all of the gay bar closings began in that period, 1963 and just continued. So they had been going on most of that decade. CG: Right FP: In an organized fashion, where I don’t think it had been happening in an organized fashion in other cities. CG: You have pretty clearly stated this already, but can you characterize for me the impact you think Stonewall had on the Gay Liberation Front. CG: Direct, direct, you know, the next day you had people doing that and on Monday there were already protests and lines of people marching with signs at every subway station in the Village. CG: Wow. FP: “ What do we want, Gay rights, when do we want ‘em now.” People with fog horns, sign up here, Gay Liberation Front, oppose the man, blah blah blah, and that happened all the next week. CG: And so this term Gay Liberation Front, was that newly coined? Or was that… It was named after the Viet Cong Liberation Front. And one of the reasons why that group ended and was superseded by the Gay Activists Alliance was that it was really a very sixties hippie movement. You know they wanted in their by-laws that we would support the people of North Viet Nam, and that we would legalize drugs and every other god damned thing. And so people said let’s get more focused. And then Gay Activist Alliance began. CG: So had the Gay Liberation Front existed before that summer… FP: No, no, it happened right there at those subway stations. There were 3 lines that converge in that area and all of them had protests that week. So there were seven or eight subway stations. And I know that I went to several of them that week. My friends asked us to take signs to make sure people had signs. Me and my friends went with signs to give protesters. CG: I was going to ask you, I have this sense that there were other um gay liberation groups that weren’t quite as, they weren’t protesting in the streets. So how do you see their influence if any on the growth of this… FP: The other thing we haven’t talked about is the fact that there were at least two generations involved in all of this and the Stonewall movement and the Gay Liberation Front were all done by people my age for the most part, with very few older people and that the older gay people who were established in the community were all closeted, really opposed us and fought us for many years. So but there really was a big generational gap, so but we came from a generation that had fought for women’s rights, and against the war in Viet Nam, many of us had been involved in the marches on Washington and the marches down in the south for Civil Rights so we were already used to all this stuff and they, that generation which has been called the silent generation, weren’t. They were afraid. They were a fearful group. And ya know and it was the few voices from that period the very, very brave voices from that period, people like Frank Kameny and um Harry Hay, the founder of the Mattachine Society, they were very, very brave people but they were very few and they got no support from their generation. CG: Mm, yeah, FP: So I really do think you have to see this as part of the baby boom or post war generation which was already very adept and active in political action and the fact that we, many of us were um the majority of us were college educated and had been in all these actions before meant that we were able to organize very quickly and very efficiently. CG: Right I see that. FP: People say to me, you know, especially this was during the 25th anniversary- well you know Stonewall was a diverse and colorful rainbow thing. I told them no, it wasn’t. I said maybe the original riot was, but all the organizing was 90% men, 95% white, 95% college educated and if they weren’t, the movement wouldn’t have gotten started as quickly or organized as well as it did. Unfortunately that’s the truth, that’s how it happened, and the fact that soon they were backed up by white gay men with money made it even more important. These are factors that a lot of the Queer community doesn’t want to accept but they happen to be historical facts, the way I remember it. CG: Yes I mean, FP: You know you would go to a fundraiser, plunk down your $25, and next week there would be an action somewhere. It was really very simple it was very simple cause and effect. Laughs. CG: So do you feel like there was this subculture that existed in the sixties, do you feel that it grew out of those earlier movements, that previous generation, did the growth of that group help build the foundation… FP: I know exactly what you’re saying, I’m trying to explain it. The scene used to be, before I went to Europe, I’m using that as a point because as I say when I went there was gay people in the Village when I came back there was a community. And one way I can explain that is by geography. Greenwich Ave. from St Vincent’s Hospital down to Jefferson Square Library and Sixth Avenue, that was the hangout of the gay and lesbian community before I left and that was the entire reach of it, pretty much, right? CG: Right? FP: When I came back not only were gays there, but further north and all along Christopher Street and south and along the west side was the gay hangout. Also before I went, a year before I went there were a couple of articles in Life magazine or Look magazine about gay the homosexual life which was mostly in Greenwich Village along Greenwich Ave. and there were people who called themselves “Third-Sexers.” Now these were not transgender or T.V. or any thing like that. They were men in their twenties and thirties who dressed and looked almost like women but never like women. They would wear Capri pants and pedal pushers and maybe ballet slippers, they wore their hair in a kind of Gina Lolabrigida cut, fluffy sweaters. We called them mohair sweater queens. (Laughs) CG: Mmhmmm FP: In pastel colors right? They weren’t guys, none of the gays or most of us wouldn’t go near them and they mostly had straight or bisexual boyfriends or closeted boyfriends. That was what that era was like and when I took a look at that, I said I will have nothing to do with this. No interest in this whatsoever. Went to Europe, came out there, did a bunch of stuff there, came back and the scene was different, much more to my liking and those sweater boys were gone, they were in one bar. They hung out in one bar after that. So that’s the difference. There really was an entire, I think presenting it style wise I think I can give you an idea of what the actual thinking was that was taking place CG: Yeah, well… FP: You know there might have been people sitting in their apartments saying this bullshit has got to stop we don’t want to be like these guy-girls over here. CG: So it sounds like you’re saying that this reflects a general movement within mainstream culture of the sixties to be more open, free, all those concepts that were coming out, so by the time you returned in 1967 it was a different world already. FP: Yes it was significantly different. CG: So you would definitely see it as a- that the ability of the community to organize and to mobilize and all those things are interrelated with the broader social movements of the time. FP: Absolutely, without a doubt, I think without a doubt. I mean um that’s the people who rioted, the people who protested, the people who knew about or read about or said I want to be part of it. CG: So back to the actual riots, you mentioned the first night but the story is that it continued for a couple of nights that even that Sunday night there was more… FP: There was a lot of activity there. Well you know it attracted angry people. CG: Right FP: You know it was no doubt that was going to happen. CG: Did you start to see... FP: You know the bar raid thing had been simmering for years CG: Uhuh FP: Now it happened to be in a central place and it attracted all the people who wanted to have a say. CG: And did you see over the course of those few nights that the media paid attention… FP: You’ve seen the articles that were written right? CG: Some of them FP: Well it was “Queens Throw Hissy Fit” CG: What? FP: That was the headline for the Daily Mirror, “Queens Throw Hissy fit” CG: (Laughs) Oh I haven’t seen that one. FP: It was completely disparaging. You know it wasn’t the media reporting. CG: It was tabloid. FP: It was totally tabloid. (But it was also one of New York three biggest newspapers) When it was reported -so the media was not interested in it at all. Once they got their tabloid stuff they had no interest whatsoever and you know when GLF or GAA started doing media events we had to contact gay people within the media. You know, people we knew, dated, fucked with, to cover it and often they covered it without the consent of their papers. CG: Right FP: But came back with interesting stories and so they got published. Right and then as the movement-I think there were two great moments. One was the mock marriage down at city hall, do you know about that? (Laughs) CG: No please tell… FP: I can’t remember the year maybe 1970 or 1971, I don’t know whose idea it was it was probably Marty’s idea. He arranged for us to go down to City Hall. It was somebody’s very funny idea to dress a guy as a girl and girl as a guy and get them down to city hall and to get them married. (Laughter) So they got out their licenses and got down to city hall and the marriage clerk was completely nonplussed and did not know what to do, right? And so the media attended that and it was in all the papers and it was a funny idea. The next thing that happened was maybe five or six months after that. I remember spending two nights stamping all these dollar bills with these pink stamps we had made that said “gay money.” (Chuckles) And they had somebody who went down there to the American, no the New York, Stock Exchange and in the middle of this whole thing, got up on the podium and starting throwing this money. CG: What does gay money buy you? FP: It was a couple hundred dollars of dollar bills. With pink lips and inside it said “gay money.” And they just threw all this money and that sure made all the papers, even the Wall Street Journal, and so they got the idea that gay money was being spent and they better be aware of it. So there were a series of actions that grew out of this and then there was the first gay march which went up Fifth Avenue which was completely illegal. There was no permit for it. CG: And when was that? 1970? FP: 1970, yeah June of 1970 a year to the day. And there were about 150 to 200 marchers. There weren’t a lot of us! (Laughter) There were not a lot of us I can tell you that! CG: But that’s pretty significant for the first year. FP: Yeah, yeah it was a big deal, but one of the things was that people had talked about it a lot and there were people along the parade route. So spottily along the route people who were in windows or on balconies hanging out signs saying “gay rights now”. There was a lot of spotty support and also the police were completely nonplussed. (Laughs) They had no idea what to do, ya know, um so it was really kind a curious. But these actions started gaining more and more velocity and the other thing was they got more and more publicity within the community, “Where were you?” “I was at the first gay march.” Stuff like that so it started gain traction. CG: And people were probably hungry for that, to have that collective goal or experience. It was social. FP: Very social. And I think it was one of the ideas, I don’t remember who expressed it I think it was Karla Jay. We don’t want to lose our identity as gay people, this is Karla, a friend of mine who was in the GLF, GAA -we don’t want to lose our identity by becoming political we want to be both. And I think we kept true to that. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 55 minutes Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 16bit/44.1kHz Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview NA Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Felice Picano Interview Subject The topic of the resource Stonewall Rebellion and the Gay Liberation Movement Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 2016 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Felice Picano Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Digital Recording Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Felice Picano, a gay author and memoirist who lived through and participated in the early gay liberation movement, shares his memories about Stonewall Inn, the West Village and Gay culture in the sixties. He provides insights into the riots and their impact as the spark for a protest movement that would become a national gay liberation movement. We discuss the changes that occurred and the evolution of the gay community and the enduring influence these early events have on the development of LGBT identity. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived NA Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This recording and transcript is provided for education and research purposes and should not be altered in any way. All Rights reserved, Christopher Gioia (interviewer) with permission from subject. Relation A related resource NA Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Felice Picano 2 MP3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA Christopher Street Felice Picano Gay Activists Alliance Gay bars Gay Liberation Gay Liberation Front Gay nightlife Sheridan Square Stonewall Stonewall Inn Stonewall Rebellion West Village https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25703/archive/files/af6fc6f7f4110684f8bddb44ed32906b.mp3?Expires=1782345600&Signature=Nk012CyS55g%7ECaxgczFHUYc1IkO8t2Nj2rnujR901nq19Idr2Z0DKCIkcnqLvpia%7EoJOBKmTj2c43Mbr2kU8Plwp6-nlI-fuAVZgKQDSjV5lPBOO8hs0RYzl7-H6z-nod-DQyEiSd30y4nkLSTUnZXLgZ-UWZmvU7VwkPDiKJYDBZz2Vq41XW1JE%7EM9F6f7qMaupaeBeP12K8UqptaGrMUtDzGW0lxOj5BMy7rtYK8sQ8OH%7EjirVbo2Ljb8y7A5KQ5O12czH7FHQhwZ9wU9kTsncmiCGzhSq64Gs9rf1rp3wMRgWTRQyinOli9fremstRhoq%7E88AV4arjoSEaXOCQg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM dc519088b6b99cc0a139ef63f03a57c6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Stonewall Legacy: Activism and Identity - Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Stonewall Rebellion and the Emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement Description An account of the resource The Stonewall "Activism and Identity" oral history interviews were undertaken to document and archive the voices of those involved in the LGBT rights movement and to engage the public in the history of the movement. Those who would like to contribute to the conversation should submit a contributor form with your thoughts and indicate whether you would like to be interviewed, send a written response or submit an image or document supporting the topic. All of the above may be published on the site in the future pending review. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived NA Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Michael Bettinger, John D'Emilio, Bruce Monroe, Felice Picano, Mark Segal, Martha Shelley,Wendell Walker, Rich Wandel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright, Christopher Gioia, 2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital Recordings Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NA Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher Gioia Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John D'Emilio Location The location of the interview Via Telephone, Chicago and New York Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound CG: To begin tell us about your background and what you do. JD: I grew up in New York City, born in 1948, a big extended Italian family - all of my grandparents were immigrants. I grew up in the Bronx actually; I went to this very special boys high school in Manhattan starting in 1962. It’s a Jesuit school that you got into by competitive exams only, Catholic boys from the whole metropolitan area of New York, and it was probably one of the most profound things that ever happened to me because we got treated like serious intellectual kids by teachers who really cared about us and it got me in Manhattan as a teenager where I had barely left the Bronx before that, barely left my neighborhood. And it was in my years at Regis high school where I, in the mid sixties, started feeling gay things so that it initiated, you might say, a pre Stonewall, pre gay liberation coming out. And in terms of my life, I went to graduate school in the 70s to do history and at a certain point early on got involved in gay activism and at a point the doing history and the gay activism became entwined with each other and that’s what I’ve done for the last 40 years; I move back and forth between teaching and doing research and publishing LGBT history and also being involved in the movement, in activist advocacy organizations of one sort or another. CG: As a historian, what role do you think personal stories play as part of the construction of historical record? JD: They’re really important and in a lot of ways vital and in some ways even more so now than fifty or sixty years ago. Printed records are most likely to be produced by people of privilege, whether it be primarily economic and class privilege which also is closely related to racial privilege, and if you’re wanting to write about ordinary folks and community life and what it was like to be this or that or the other thing, the only way you’re going to do it and succeed with an on the ground social history and community history is if you have stories to supplement the documents that you find and then it takes thoughtfulness how one evaluates the stories that people tell. Memory is unreliable in some cases but, but if we didn’t collect personal stories and take them seriously there are all kinds of history that would never get written. It’s very important and it has to be used smartly and critically and thoughtfully. CG: Concerning the Village and the Stonewall Inn, tell me what you remember about the place prior to the rebellion? What was it like? JD: My first discoveries of gay life came in the form of street cruising on the Upper East Side because that was a part of Manhattan that I knew, that’s where movie theaters were, in the 50’s, the east 50’s, and as a teenager I began to notice that there were guys who, something told me, were what I was. The first time I went to the Village was in the fall of 1967. A guy I had met on the waiting line for tickets to the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, which was kind of like an outdoor gay community center in and of itself in those days because there were so many gay men who were waiting to get standing room tickets to the Opera, anyway this guy Jim, who was a bit older, he was in his late twenties, I was 19 - a sophomore in college, he took me under wing for a little bit. He brought me to the Village for the first time and it was the first time I ever went into a gay bar, and the gay bar of all things was Julius, which is a famous gay bar in New York where (I didn’t know this in 1967) activists the year before had challenged state laws around serving gay people in bars. So that’s when I first experienced the Village and then in the spring of ‘68 I met somebody, a guy named Billy who was a graduate student at Columbia and about ten years older than me - I was still 19 - and he lived in the village, he lived at a building at the corner of West 10th Street and Greenwich Ave. which was literally one block from where Christopher Street started, and Billy introduced me to life in the Village. Today it would seem like nothing but in 1968 it seemed to me like a whole gay world. We would literally sit, lean on park cars on the corner by his apartment building and sit there and watch gay men go by for hours and it was the most exciting thing I had ever seen! And one of the bits of discovery in the Village in ‘68 and ‘69 through Billy is that he did take me to the Stonewall, a couple of times. This was before the Stonewall riots occurred so it would have been sometime between the fall of 68 and the spring of 69 and the drinking age in NY was 18 at that time so it was totally legal for me to go into a bar and be served, and the thing is - (laughter) at this point I have only been in Julius’ once, still hadn’t been to any other gay bar - I’m a person who never liked gay bars because I always felt completely awkward in them. It’s like, how do you approach a person who you don’t know and half the people there are drunk. Anyway we go to Stonewall and of course the thing that was immediately apparent to me - besides the fact that it was, unlike Julius where there were a lot of people but it was conversation, and it was kind of quiet, Stonewall was wildly noisy and they have go-go boys who were dancing up on a platform wearing kind of nothing, you know a g-string, or just underpants, and it seemed very exciting to see and experience something like that! (laughs) As I say, we went twice and that was my experience of Stonewall, of the bar. CG: It is funny because when I read some historical accounts that talk about Stonewall and they mention rather matter of factly that there were gogo boys because it doesn’t seem that outlandish, since the forty years that have transpired, but it must have been at the time… JD: For me in 1968, I had never seen anything like it, or even imagined anything like it, so it was like oh my god! What’s going on here?! And yeah, it created, it helped create and sustain this atmosphere with noise and people were dancing. There were two rooms in the Stonewall. You walked in and you were in the bar and then you got to the back of the bar and you turned left and you were in this other room where there was also dancing. CG: And um do you have any specific recollections about the first night of the riots? JD: Well I wasn’t in New York City when they happened, I was with Billy, we were travelling in Europe that summer - one of these Europe on five dollar a day summer trips. We rented a car and were driving all around and this is really so ironic really, I learned about the Stonewall riots toward the end of the summer, when we were in Paris, so this might have been late August, maybe late August 69 and we stumbled upon, total coincidence and accident, we stumbled upon a copy of the Village Voice in Paris and it was the copy of the Village Voice, that - I can’t remember now if they covered it for one week or two - but it was a copy of the Village Voice that had a big story about the Stonewall riot and the fighting back and I can remember Billy and I reading this and thinking “oh my god, that is amazing.” Who could believe that this is happening? “I wonder what it will mean?” But it’s sort of funny I learned about the Stonewall riots about 4000 miles away from where the Stonewall riots occurred. CG: And what do you think about the sources you cited when you wrote about Stonewall do you feel like they that the Times and Voice, that their overage, I mean they were obviously limited but how would you characterize them? JD: Well, you know, I haven’t looked at them in a while. I mean, talk about memory - like who knows whether what I am saying now is accurate – but my memory is that the Times reporting was more detached than the Village Voice reporting. The Voice reporting was, well, it was the Village Voice. It was almost like it was on the scene. It was more dramatic, it was more in the middle of it, it was a more radical paper, it was more exciting. The Times, my memory of it was they were reporting on this very unusual incident that occurred in the Village but they are not necessarily reading a lot into it. CG: Do you think that Stonewall and the mythology that has evolved around the uprising could have happened anywhere else in the country or is it a particularly New York phenomenon? JD: Well it is certainly not a New York phenomenon in the sense of a bar raid and at that period in time people starting to respond to police action, because in San Francisco especially there were lots of responses in the 1960s from clergy, responses from homeless youth and street queens responding and stuff like that, so in some ways that kind of event is not unique. But I think what made it a particularly New York phenomenon and a unique phenomenon, and those two things are not necessarily the same, is that unlike today, in this world of electronic media, New York was the media capital of the United States in a way that it’s really hard to appreciate almost fifty years later. And so New York stories and New York press carried more weight and got paid more attention to. An example of this which goes back to before Stonewall is in 1963 the New York Times had this major cover story on homosexuality and this new gay world or new gay life and over the next two to four years newspapers around the country imitate that article by doing their own expose of their gay community. You know if Denver had written the article in 1963 it would not have meant anything beyond Denver. CG: Right JD: And so Stonewall, I mean New York is significant because of that. It just gave it a sort of media significance - it would be noticed. But the other thing that was significant about New York is that in the context of the sixties and the escalating protests and all that is that New York is a very important center of protest in the late sixties. It’s not just Washington D.C., but Washington D.C. and New York in terms of big protests and as a result these new radical gay activists that are responding to Stonewall in New York are more likely to be seen and encountered by other gay people at black power demonstrations and anti war demonstrations of one kind or another in New York and in other Northeastern cities. It was a place and a time. CG: Right JD: …and I think those two things go together. It was a place and a time that made it more likely that Stonewall would become symbolic and what it meant, what it could mean, spread. CG: Yeah it’s interesting in another interview they discussed kind of a gay network -so not only were there kind of um media networks and counter culture network but he describes also a gay communication network where people would spread the word -there was word of mouth and it was organized in a sense and I wonder if you feel like that was going on too in other cities… JD: Well, well I mean there’s a very developed gay world in large American cities in the late sixties. It’s true in Chicago, which doesn’t get written about as much as other places, CG: That’s true JD: …a really well developed network and I am talking here primarily gay male social network but one of the things that isn’t appreciated in the writing about Stonewall is that there is a very big gap in the years after Stonewall and into the seventies between that traditional gay social world and the world of gay liberation and gay and lesbian activism. They are not really the same. There is some overlap of course. There are some people who are bar folks who somehow become activist but they are a different world so they don’t actually overlap that much, because as you move into the seventies, the public face, the public figure is the gay clone. The gay clone is almost never a gay activist. He’s just a different version of the gay guy who went to bars in the sixties. It’s just now he doesn’t have to worry as much about being gay and about being arrested because those crazy gay liberationists, which he is not, have actually succeeded in limiting police harassment. So yes there are great gay networks but they are social networks, and those social networks and the gay liberation movement are not intertwined. CG: Um that leads a little bit to this other question that I had. Which was um the impact of Stonewall on the creation of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), do you think that it was the defining moment or part of an equation… JD: It’s the response of individuals who were either there or who heard about it in succeeding nights to come together and create something called GLF. There were also more militant groups forming in Los Angeles and San Francisco as well, independently of Stonewall and the Gay Liberation front. The very name of it takes on significant new connotations and meaning and it spreads, awareness of it starts to spread fairly quickly through networks of activists, not so much networks of gay people. Networks of activists in which some of those activists are gay people, and now they are becoming gay liberationist because of Stonewall and what Stonewall means to them. Of course what’s really the thing that makes Stonewall so significant is less the Stonewall uprising, the Stonewall riots, the Stonewall rebellion, than the fact that a decision was made to commemorate Stonewall with a march the following year. Otherwise Stonewall could have ended up being one event among many. But it’s the fact that it becomes this excuse for a march that becomes then, you know, it’s like an historical equivalent of St. Patrick’s Day marches, and it creates visibility and community and politicization in a way such that nothing else compares with it. CG: And as a side note did the other cities sort of push back about that or did it catch on- JD: Well there are marches held in three cities in 1970 and after that there are more marches held every year. Every year the number of cities that commemorate Stonewall, or you don’t even have to say commemorate Stonewall, that have gay pride marches grows and actually one of the interesting things, especially as time moves on, about the gay marches - they’re not called gay or marches any more but pride parades by and large - but an amazing number of people don’t know what the parade is about. They just come out for it but they are very unaware of Stonewall. CG: That’s interesting because I wanted to ask about LGBT identity, I wonder then if formation of an LGBT identity that reaches beyond individual communities to the whole- how does the initial uprising factor in if they are not event remembered? Is there something else that they create, I mean it created a movement but the individual acts get lost … JD: What Stonewall does, what Stonewall precipitates or provokes, even if Stonewall is not remembered by all of the people who are affected by it, is that it creates, it launches really what becomes a militant grassroots mass movement which hadn’t existed before, there had been activism for almost a generation before but you could hardly claim that there was in any way mass activism, like the biggest pre-Stonewall demonstration might have had several dozen people. They didn’t involve a thousand or two thousand people. So Stonewall provoked, became the spark, that helps create the mass movement that then grows in different ways and takes lots of different directions…So even though change is in the offing, something was needed to make the jump, to make the leap and Stonewall is the thing that did it. CG: You describe in some of the things you have written the earlier groups such as the Mattachine Society or the Daughters of Bilitis um that were active for fifteen years before, or more, before Stonewall. Do you think, maybe you can just tell me a bit of what role you feel they played in the overall movement. JD: The earlier efforts created more visibility, they helped to create the environment for some additional media coverage even if the coverage remained within the framework of illness and deviance and stuff like that. It was by the mid sixties - the voices of gay people are actually starting to appear in important media outlets, not with any regularity or frequency but they are starting to appear. The dialogue with the medical profession began before Stonewall so I think that it is no accident that the first really big victory in the post Stonewall era, the elimination of homosexuality from the DSM as a form of mental illness in 1973, it’s no accident that that’s the first big victory because there was work being done on that beforehand. So, yes, it was important. Movements aren’t magical, they evolve and they grow under different circumstances. So that activism made a difference, but what that activism was never able to do was to create a mass movement. It always remained a relatively small number of people who were fairly isolated from the larger community. CG: I have this overarching question about um subcultures that become mainstream -do you think it was just a matter of time for it to become accepted or was it a confluence of all these things? JD: No, it’s not just a matter of time because that makes it sound like it’s inevitably going to happen but it only happens because people make decisions to act and because circumstances or a larger set of conditions come together that increase the likelihood that people are going to act. In the case of the US, the emergence of gay liberation and a radical lesbian feminism is so, so bound up with the larger trajectory of the 1960s in which the norm, for a significant part of the younger generation - not everybody because the sixties also created the Reaganite movement and the conservatism that we are living with today - but for a significant part of that generation of young people, young adults in the 1960’s, there was a deep, deep questioning of authority and of the way things were and at a certain point that extends to questioning the received common wisdom about homosexuality and about what it is and what it means. And then it took people making the decision and taking the risk. It’s interesting because the people by and large taking the risk are young people who feel alienated from the mainstream values of the society. They don’t care if they get arrested on demonstrations because that’s what you do, they don’t care if they get rejected by the military for being gay because they are against the war in Vietnam. Who wants to go into the military? They have a freedom to show their gayness that an older generation and many in their own generation don’t feel like they have. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP3 Digital Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 35 minutes Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 16bit/ 44.1kHz Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview NA Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource John D'Emilio Interview Subject The topic of the resource Stonewall Rebellion and the Gay Liberation movement. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 2016 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource John D'Emilio Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Digital Recording Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Historian John D’Emilio shares his memories of growing up in New York City in the 1960’s and being introduced to the “gay world” of the Village, including visits to The Stonewall Inn in 1968. John’s experiences reflect his upbringing and his background from an immigrant family that lived in the Bronx. His thoughts and insights are shaped by his education and study of history. John sees the significance of the Stonewall riots as wrapped up in the specific place and time, that is New York City in the late 1960’s- the media and culture capital of the world and an important locus of the protest movements and anti-establishment culture of the era. The event itself, the actual uprising has less impact in the creation of the movement than the decision by activists to commemorate the event in a protest march the following year. The Stonewall uprising is characterized as the spark that ignites a grass roots movement that builds upon the limited efforts of previous gay rights activism in the early sixties and succeeds in creating lasting victories in the quest for equality. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived NA Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This recording and transcript is provided for education and research purposes and should not be altered in any way. All Rights reserved, Christopher Gioia (interviewer) with permission from subject. Relation A related resource NA Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context John D'Emilio 2 MP3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA GAA Gay Activists Alliance Gay bars Gay Liberation Gay Liberation Front Gay nightlife Stonewall Stonewall Inn Stonewall Rebellion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25703/archive/files/1da1bf8b6ce98c614d383b6a2104afa9.mp3?Expires=1782345600&Signature=LKkJVqNWaJYHhX7Fvuz2-KZjItPgUeLvb0zrm7ZzMbr3wlC0ieb02iX41sbdD%7ETohAo5GzNaWaubNf4eTGtPy-7bjNr-AnFbRmSG83viZEFzuy0qUfKsJKVindqaHNABaULRhHqwkuZCuEaue1DDuaVcOeq146Oi-qGfBHAepnzAp53XSyA8NUj1Aq8JxvaunfzEN%7EvZr3xquJ21EcKX5xNkhR1aKl027klu6ZVyPEUWR17hstMPvbKsfB-uJq5rmwjoSSW-%7E3nU7oSdHbLqyr-aqQIiFMlQPuzRxQTbOUt5vBQkPmJYQG-P4OmRRQWxp9lFIcLr5DhlPwe3YXcDWA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 0029bcb0c6d4b1a49edeea06076cd5f1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Stonewall Legacy: Activism and Identity - Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Stonewall Rebellion and the Emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement Description An account of the resource The Stonewall "Activism and Identity" oral history interviews were undertaken to document and archive the voices of those involved in the LGBT rights movement and to engage the public in the history of the movement. Those who would like to contribute to the conversation should submit a contributor form with your thoughts and indicate whether you would like to be interviewed, send a written response or submit an image or document supporting the topic. All of the above may be published on the site in the future pending review. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived NA Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Michael Bettinger, John D'Emilio, Bruce Monroe, Felice Picano, Mark Segal, Martha Shelley,Wendell Walker, Rich Wandel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright, Christopher Gioia, 2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital Recordings Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NA Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher Gioia Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Martha Shelley Location The location of the interview Via Telephone: New York and Portland, OR. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Martha Shelley Interview CG To begin with why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and your background. MS Ok, if you have any questions about specific details feel free to ask. CG Absolutely. MS Let see, I was born in Brooklyn in 1943 and raised in Brooklyn till my family moved to the Bronx when I went to high school, uh and first time, I mean I had thoughts about women. I joined the first all women’s judo class when I was seventeen and had to lie about my age to get in, you were supposed to be 18. There I was wrestling on the judo mats with other women! And then one night I went over- one of the women in the judo class invited me over to her place in Newark (we both went to City College at the time) and uh we hung out in her living room after dinner and after a short amount of time our lips were locked. We didn’t do very much, but when I went home I realized what that meant for me, it was very different from when I kissed boys and I thought this is what I am this is who I am. And for feeling like this the way I felt about her I would go through the fires of hell, no question. At that point I was 18 and you know how dramatic kids can get. CG Right MS Then uh (I’m trying to remember what year that was) probably 1962, um I left home after making a failed attempt in the fall of 62. I finally succeeded in moving out when I was uh lets see, that was April of 1963 when I moved out and uh still continued to have relations with men and women because of the pressures of the time CG Right MS I went to work at Harlem welfare center. I graduated college at age 21 (and I was putting myself through college going at night working during the day) and went to work at Barnard College as a secretary there. And I went to work for a woman who was called the general secretary, Jean Palmer. CG Right MS Ok And I did not know that she was lovers with the woman who was the head of Catherine Gibbs secretarial school. They were both passionately interested in women’s education. chuckles MS I had already joined Daughters before I went to work at Barnard in the fall of 1968. CG I’m just curious prior to Daughter’s of Bilitis and prior to your job at Barnard that was um around the time when a lot of the articles were written about homosexual sub culture, do you recall reading those and did you identify as part of that community? MS Well, CG In the early sixties, there had been… MS No, no I didn’t. What happened was I found a book, it was one of these pulp paperbacks or maybe it was just about the homosexual in America or something and in the back they had a list of gay organizations. And I saw that Daughters of Bilitis had a chapter in New York City and I thought that’s what I need because I had gone to the bars and was an absolute dud in the bars. I could not connect with anyone. I didn’t know how to dress right. I wasn’t clearly butch or femme I was good at talking. I’m still good at talking. Laughter MS I wasn’t good at the kind of things you need to be successful in bars. Being that kind of cute and whatever it was, anyway it didn’t work for me. So I though if I go to Daughter’s of Bilitis I can meet people and actually talk to them. You couldn’t actually talk in bars, you drank and there was noise. If there was a back room to go dancing you could do that and I remember one dreadful evening at a bar I went in and I sat down and tried to strike up a conversation with a woman who looked like a flight attendant or something and she looked at me and saw immediately that I was Jewish and started talking to the woman on the other side of me and the two of them started singing “Deutschland Uber Alles.” CG Wow MS And I left there immediately. It was very clear. They hated my guts and I hated theirs. CG Wow. MS So, uh anyway I was actually successful at meeting people at Daughter’s of Bilitis. I’m trying to remember what year I joined, maybe it was 1967 fall of 67. Yeah I’m pretty sure of that because then in 68 was all of the uh, riots in Chicago and by then I was already lovers with this woman I met at a dance at Daughters of Bilitis. And the two of us were outraged at the police riots and actually when, (before I was working at Barnard), um let’s see, before that, when I was working in Harlem there was the assassination of Martin Luther King and I was getting pretty radicalized with all that was going on, ya know Harlem went up in flames after Martin Luther King was assassinated and I was there when it happened. I mean, obviously being white I wasn’t fool enough to be standing out on the street. Laughs CG Yeah MS Uh and I had already been on numerous anti war marches in Washington demonstrations in New York and by the time of the Stonewall Riot I was very well politicized in terms of race stuff, the women’s movement, all of that and of course gay stuff because I had become the spokesperson for Daughters of Bilitis. While I was at Barnard this one woman who was basically running the show at D.O.B. asked if I would be willing to do public speaking. I said sure, I mean what was I? I was a dinky secretary at the time. I didn’t have a career that was worth losing. I could always find some other clerical job and I was young and willing to do stuff like that and I think if I had been older I would have been more timid. And… CG And so… MS Oh CG No, Ok finish your thought MS …one day I had done a radio program- I went to colleges I went to abnormal psych classes and explained to people why we weren’t abnormal just different, and that went fine, and I was asked to do this radio program. It was on WOR radio and was called the sexual revolution. So I went in and did the interview with this guy who I thought was a real jerk, and I went home with a headache from talking to him. The next morning I go into work and my boss says, “Guess what! WOR radio was here last night and he interviewed the students at the new co-ed dormitory. I just must stay up to listen to that program.” And I thought, “Oh shit, I’m going to be on that program.” Chuckles MS She will hear my dulcet tones talking about Daughters of Bilitis. End of the day I went up to Ms. Palmer and said, “I have something to tell you. I’m going to be on that program.” And she said, “Well, hurry up dear, I have to go to the opera.” Laughs MS And I told her I’m going to be on the program and she says, “oh what for?” And I said I’m representing the Daughters of Bilitis. And she says, “What’s that? And I gritted my teeth and said, “A civil rights organization… for lesbians.” And then she gave me a big wink and said, “That’s wonderful dear. I’m so glad you young people are fighting for all these causes. Now help me on with my coat.” Laughter. MS That’s how I figured out she was gay. CG But she never actually discussed it. MS No, but at one point I had lost something and I went- and I had for some reason went to her apartment, and there she was with her lover, I mean I didn’t see them doing anything … CG Right MS …but they were clearly living together. It was very obvious. CG Yeah, and as a member of Daughters of Bilitis, and as you also mentioned- participating in other protests and things, did you find that those other groups or organizers of those groups, were accepting of the gay civil rights organizations? I mean, how integral were they in the broader social movement? MS I don’t think anyone was paying attention. I mean the anti war stuff? Nobody talked about it. People were dying, people were getting killed with napalm and stuff and we were at war and young people like my brother--he was going to be sent over there. He managed to get out of it, but that’s another story. Our brothers, our relatives were getting killed and that really was the big issue, so nobody really was talking about the gay issue in that context. I wasn’t involved in the civil rights movement per se, because when the freedom rides were happening down south I was I think in middle school or early high school. I was too young to go (laughs). By the time I had left home, that was over and other things were happening like the Viet Nam war. CG In terms of what you would characterize as the gay community was it, did you spend time in the village, or because you were not a fan of the bars did you not see it as your hangout or neighborhood? MS Uh no it wasn’t the hangout that way, my hangout was really the Daughters of Bilitis. There was another thing while I was at Barnard there was an organization known as the Student Homophile League and um Steven Donaldson was—his real name was Bob Martin—was the leader there and I remember once, a bunch of us went and marched against the war joining a student group. I was a secretary not a student and I joined the thing anyway. And we marched, we joined an anti-war march and the straight students in the march were very uncomfortable with us. They did not like us. We upset them. CG Right So that, I was kind of getting at. There was a division there. There was a bit of division there despite a common cause. MS Right CG I want to fast forward a little but because I do want to focus on Stonewall and I know you have a kind of - have, you have an interesting story about the night or the weekend of the riots, so can you tell me um- Well, do you have any recollections about the Stonewall Inn? MS No, none. I had never been in the Stonewall Inn. It was a men’s bar. CG Right, right. MS It never would have occurred to me to go in there. I mean I never went into the women’s bars that often. CG Right MS So the night that I passed by the riot I was just giving these two women from Boston a tour of Greenwich village and showing them different places. And I saw these young people rioting and I thought that it was an anti war riot. And they were throwing things at the cops. Well that seemed perfectly normal. Laughter MS I mean I had been in situations like that. I had taken a vacation in February and gone to Berkeley and got caught up in a student anti war riot with cops chasing students at UC Berkeley when I was just visiting. CG Yeah. MS It didn’t occur to me that what I was seeing was a gay thing. CG Can you describe to me what you saw because there is so little documentation from eyewitnesses. What night was it that you came across it, was it Saturday? MS Saturday night… CG Yeah MS June 28th 1969. And what I saw was young white guys, I did not see women, I know they say there was at least one there. I didn’t see anybody in drag I just saw these white guys throwing things at cops. CG And were they already there with like protest signs, because I know by the second or third… MS No, that came later. CG Mmhmm MS Ok so after I said goodnight to the ladies from Boston at the place where they were spending the night which was at the home of people who were running the organization who were in the closet. CG For Daughters, Daughters of Bilitis was the organization MS Right. And ok and then I took the subway north and was planning to get the bus to NJ because the woman I was lovers with lived in New Jersey and when I got to the George Washington Bridge, the buses going across to NJ had shut down and so I just walked across the bridge and then hitchhiked. Some guy picked me up and dropped me off at my lover’s house. He was a doctor and he wasn’t able to sleep. It was too hot. He had just finished his shift. CG Those were… MS So anyway the next day was Sunday and we had a Daughters of Bilitis meeting and I went to the meeting and we talked about I forget what and then Monday I read about the riots in the newspaper and I thought that was what it was about. I read about the Stonewall Riot in some small article in the New York Times or the New York Post I don’t remember which and I immediately called well, she’s dead so it won’t make any difference, her real name was Jean Powers and she was the uh person who was getting out the newsletter and organizing meetings. I called her and said we have to have a protest march. She told me to call the head of the Mattachine Society and she said if they’re interested we could jointly sponsor it. CG Right MS So I called Dick Leitsch who was the head of the Mattachine Society. He said they were having a meeting at Town Hall to discuss all of these things and what it meant for the gay community and come to the meeting and put my proposal out and that’s what I did. MS There were about 400 gay guys and there was Madeline Cervantes who was the one straight female member of Mattachine. Uh I think the nasty term for her would be fag hag, you know she’d hang around with gay guys and champion their causes. And I don’t know what her personal life was like because I never really got to know her and then there was me, the only other woman in the room. CG Right MS So I put my hand up and proposed this thing and Dick Leitsch who was at the podium said how many people are interested. I remember I was sitting right next to Bob Kohler. Do you have information about him? CG No I don’t. MS Well, Bob Kohler. At the time I think he was 41 [he was actually 43] and I was 25. He had a little dog and he used to walk around Greenwich Village and he was very concerned about the young gay guys who had been thrown out by their families who were making their living prostituting themselves struggling to survive, you know not having enough to eat. MS So that was his concern he joined the group that started the march and Marty Robinson did and a few other people whose names I don’t remember. And uh we met we agreed to meet at the headquarters of Mattachine. [It was a summer afternoon] and we were uh drinking beer and I was a little intoxicated. Not terribly but sufficiently. And that was when the name Gay Liberation Front came up. Now there are people who were present who say that I came up with that name. I don’t remember doing that. All I remember is when that name came up I started pounding on the table with my hand and shouting, “That’s it, that’s it! We’re the Gay Liberation Front!” Laughter MS And there was one of those pop tops from a beer can sitting on the table and I slammed my hand onto it and my hand was bleeding. So that’s what I re… CG So everybody took it seriously at that point. Laughter MS Whether I really came up with that name or not I don’t know but I definitely was wildly enthusiastic about it. Laughter MS So the noise reached Dick Leitsch who’s in the next room and he comes running in and he says (he’s very upset) we’re starting another gay organization in his headquarters right under his nose. Which is going to drain away his membership. And so of course we lied through our teeth and said, “no, no, no that’s the name of our committee. We’re not starting a new organization.” We knew damn well we were starting a new organization! Laughs MS And so my next assignment was to go call the police and find out if we needed a permit for the march. The last people on earth I wanted to call were the police, well after the FBI. Laughs MS They were even further down the list. So I called them up without saying who I was or what the organization was and I said do you need a permit for a march and they said only if you have sound equipment. MS And I thought we don’t need sound equipment. We weren’t expecting a lot of people and I had been leading chants at a strike for a union I belonged to and I knew my voice would carry, you know, at least down the block. So we put an ad in the Village Voice, which was jointly sponsored by Mattachine and DOB and we had our protest march. Which was just about a month after the Stonewall Riot. CG Ok MS And by then we already had the nucleus of the GLF. Somebody called us and said we have space at Alternate U. Some of the people who were the members of socialist organizations and were in the closet about their gayness because the socialist organization said they didn’t want their organizations smeared with homosexuality, uh joined those of us who were radicals within the gay movement and of course the more uh straight laced shall we say gay people didn’t want their organizations besmirched by communism or socialism or any kind of political radicalism. They just wanted to present this image of gay people as just a little bit different who wanted... CG Hello, Martha? Hello. Hello. Alright… MS The more conservative gay organizations just wanted to present gay people as just like everybody else, we just wanted a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and you know regular jobs and to be let alone to live our lives just like any other suburban couple or urban couple. That is the image that Mattachine and DOB wanted to present. And we were the people who didn’t fit into those groups so we formed our own. At this point what I want to say is the important thing about Stonewall is not that there were riots, I think there had been a couple of riots, gay riots in California prior to this CG Mhmm MS And they didn’t go anywhere because nobody organized afterwards. What was the important thing about the Stonewall Riot is that out of it came organizations and demonstrations and alliances with other groups like the Black Panthers and Young Lords of Spanish Harlem and of course women’s liberation groups. CG Right that raises something I’ve been fascinated by. Um, do you think its somehow tied to NY as the center of all this activity and um you know it really couldn’t have happened in LA for instance or San Francisco because as you just mentioned all those organizations are really, were centered in NY. MS Well the old ones were centered in NY, Black Panthers came out of Oakland California and was all over the country. CG That’s right MS And they at first were reluctant to align with us they had a lot male chauvinism and it made them extremely uncomfortable but eventually they came around. And the Young Lords didn’t have any problem, right away we made alliances with them Peace movement groups varied the uh, oh lets see I remember at one point there was a big peace march and Gay Liberation Front participated. I think it was down Fifth Avenue in NY and Pete Hamill, who was an excellent reporter for the NY Post at the time, wrote about the march and then he made a remark about the “slim-waisted creeps of the Gay Liberation Front.” CG Ew, yeah MS Yeah, creep. The creep was Pete Hamill at that point. CG Yeah Laughs MS And then there was the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). I don’t know what the Communist Party’s take was because I didn’t have a anything really to do with them, but the SWP had a reputation of moving in on other radical groups, taking them over, getting their own members elected to offices, and then draining the treasuries. So they were kind of a parasitic group and they were very uptight about gayness—you know you couldn’t be openly gay and be a member of the SWP. Well one time later on, I was a part of the demonstration that took over a welfare center, an abandoned welfare center on East 5th St. in New York City. This was New Year’s Eve 1970. We’d taken it over right under the nose of the police because the police precinct was right across the street from the abandoned welfare center. We were there a few days and then were arrested and hauled into the precinct. The leaders of that women’s liberation group negotiated with the city and got a firehouse that was also unused. They rented it from the city for a dollar a year to use as a women’s center so we had an organization there. The SWP decided that they wanted to take over the group. So they had their people running for office. They wouldn’t just come in as members [of an organization they were targeting]—they would run for office and be in charge and be the treasurer and president. I got involved with some other people and we went there and I proposed that anyone who was an active member of a political party could not be an officer in this organization. The SWP women were incensed and said that was discrimination. I said, “No its not. Anyone who is an active member of the Democratic Party, the Republicans, or the Communists—you know not just signed up as a registered voter but anyone who is an active officer in those organizations can’t be an active officer in our group. If you think that’s discriminatory, how about the fact that gay people can’t be open in your organization? Y you discriminate against us. So the next year when they had their annual convention they changed their policy about gay people. CG Wow MS But it took a kick in the slats for them to do that. CG Yeah! Laughter MS So anything else you wanted to ask about? CG Yes. MS There’s so much. CG Yeah, actually I wanted to ask, in other interviews you expressed a feeling that the GLF got a little bit distanced from or less focused on gay rights, and were you involved in the transition to gay activists alliance, or? MS No, no I was not, I was not interested at that point in electoral politics. And really a lot of the stuff they were doing and really part of it was I just got bored of the whole idea and didn’t think much of politicians and was more into the kind of stuff that GLF was doing. Radical action and working together with other radical groups we did things like demonstrating at the Women’s house of Detention to free Angela Davis when she was there—to free other prisoners—that was the kind of thing I was interested in. CG And do you recall the first CSLD parade and can you tell a little bit about that? MS Was that the one where we marched up 5th Avenue. CG Yeah, 1970 on the anniversary… MS Yeah, I had a good time! CG Yeah, Laughs CG So was that a more of a Mattachine event? That was organized by… MS No, no, I don’t know who organized it but it definitely wasn’t Mattachine. Probably a whole number of different people. I remember going there and wearing our tee shirts and holding banners. CG And by the time the parade reached Central Park, the accounts I’ve read are there were thousands of people. Did you march up Fifth Avenue or did you just meet them in the park? MS No I marched up. CG And what was the response? MS Pedestrians? CG Yes, MS No problem, I don’t remember any problem there were just so many of us. Ya know every march I’ve been to, every Gay pride parade you will see some people standing on the sidelines holding big signs that say “You’re going to hell” “God hates fags” that kind of thing. CG Right MS There’s always a very small group of religious, hateful religious nuts, but they are the minority. Most people will stand by eating their ice cream enjoying the spectacle. CG Right, right. And the police too were standing by. There was no confrontations or anything. MS No, no. CG And do you recall before Stonewall, I know you weren’t, you didn’t spend a lot of time in the night life of the village but do you have a recollection of there being a lot of abuse and police discrimination? MS Personally? No, I was never in a bar that got raided, I mean I heard about that sort of thing and I knew it went on and if you had any sense you’d stay away from and that was something to be scared about but I was never harassed by the police. I never had that personal experience CG In terms of, I’m thinking… broadly… MS I take that back in a different way. CG What’s that? MS Is it okay to talk about that sort of thing after Stonewall? CG Yes, sure I’d like to hear that. MS Ok this is somewhat different, this is after Stonewall and after I had joined the women’s take over of Rat newspaper. CG Ok MS I was living on the lower east side in some, what the person who had rented the apartment or who passed the apartment on to me called a squalorific slum apartment. It really was one of these places with a bathtub in the kitchen and a toilet down the hall that you shared with other people. And one day I was coming home and this little old Ukranian lady that lived one flight down from said that she wanted to let me know that the FBI had been there asking questions about me and she said, “I didn’t tell them nothing.” She knew about police abuse. That was why she had left Ukraine. She was a refugee from Stalinism. So we had some kind words together. And so I knew that the FBI were looking at all of us and part of the reason was that RAT newspaper the uh some of the women that worked on there, one of them was Jane Alpert- were involved with bombing stuff. There were a group of women who contributed an article who were a part of Weather Underground. So anyone who was involved with RAT newspaper was going to be on their radar. CG Exactly yeah, MS And then at one point the FBI… this guy had to be—w at do you call the kind of person who tries to agitate people or entrap people into being violent? Someone who would go to a demonstration.. CG An agitator? MS Not only an agitator there’s a word for it and I can’t think of it now. And he asked me to come to his apartment he had some idea some political ideas and I went up. I didn’t think anything and then he started talking about plans, he had this 22 rifle and about making poison and poisoning people and this, that and the other and all the alarm bells went off in my head. “FBI Agent! FBI Agent!” Clearly not a member of the FBI, you know a sworn officer, but one of these people who they pay money to entrap people. And I said let me think about that and got the hell out of there fast. Laughter CG Well so, um as the movement progressed, you know you talked about Daughters of Bilitis and Mattachine having this idea or wanting to foster this idea of gays as that tad bit different than the rest of us or the rest of the world. So it’s kind of um, how do you see that evolution that happened? Basically, everyone became a little more radicalized in the early seventies with the Liberation movement and then it seems to almost have gone back to that idea of we’re just the same as you. MS Right. CG How do you feel about that? Laughs MS Well I think that’s true a lot of times in the course of history. We’re not outside of history, outside of the spirit of the time. There wouldn’t have been the Gay Liberation Front if we hadn’t had the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the anti war movement. All of that movement, all of the ideas that came out of that movement led to the gay movement becoming radicalized, not the early homophile movement, but the radicalization. That changed after the Viet Nam war ended. The whole country became less radical to a certain extent and a lot of gay people and other radicals went into other things like environmentalism and other stuff but the organized gay movement, human rights campaign and so on were able to do what they’re doing because I think the majority of people want to live quiet lives. This woman who was a friend, she died I don’t know how many years ago, she was originally from Germany and married a Chinese man during the second world war, you can imagine the courage that took. If the Nazis had known about it they would have thrown both of then into concentration camps. And so she had to have this secret marriage and at the end of the war went with him to China, and ended up coming to America. What she told me was for all the places that she lived everyone pretty much wants the same things; a roof over their head, enough to eat, and a decent education for their children. I think that is probably true of most people whether they are gay or black or anybody- they don’t want to be beaten, raped, thrown out of their jobs etc. and if they had the opportunity they’d have quieter lives, not necessarily being rich, but comfortable, the house, the job the three squares. They’re happy with that. They’ll only get up and fight when there is a reason to, when they are being oppressed. And you know I look back at my life and I still would go out there, I would go on anti war marches except that my wife has some serious health issues and I have to stay the hell out of jail at this point so I’m there to take care of her, but—and we have a house. We even have a white picket fence. We put it up because the dogs were pooping in our front yard, so its there to keep the dogs out! Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP3 Digital Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) approximately 40 minutes. Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 16bit/ 44.1 kHz Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview NA Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Martha Shelley Interview Subject The topic of the resource Martha Shelley discusses the Gay liberation movement before and after Stonewall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Via Telephone: New York and Portland, OR. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 30, 2016 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Martha Shelley Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Digital recording Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource Martha Shelley is an activist, writer and poet (as well as an English teacher in a "former life" as she explains). Martha was a member of the Daughter's of Bilitis, an early homophile organization for lesbians. At the time of the Stonewall Rebellion, Martha was a vocal representative of DOB and subsequently became influential in the creation of the Gay Liberation Front, the radical activist organization that grew out of the aftermath of the Stonewall rebellion. Martha's insights and memories provide first hand observations and details about the grass roots movement that helped to establish equal rights for the LGBT community. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This recording and transcript is provided for education and research purposes and should not be altered in any way. All Rights reserved, Christopher Gioia (interviewer) with permission from subject. Relation A related resource NA Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Martha Shelley MP3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA Daughters of Bilitis Gay bars Gay Liberation Gay Liberation Front Gay nightlife Mattachine Society Stonewall Inn Stonewall Rebellion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25703/archive/files/d0dfb27aa036becbe671c5a9f34eef0e.mp3?Expires=1782345600&Signature=mm4-qQKJW11Svp0CYo75WdccR17hxhKbVql8tFSnKG6wJlym-j39Hd9Ei8X9TnYB3WIU4fJyHLqu2qh-qYCon0D2W6W1luQoqSXwmOP3DtoJvdRkuBAKUorgSzZ3%7EZQfuHUVGbxVAwTjs2PbeUlkcblfDT80o8GeyQortRyi-N2B1pg2vTIpYRJv6on2102K0ZInBRXPw6-mwjn9BjZ7P4GL6EYP%7EIvgoUabimDQVKl7riMasQ0frloPezH-9zJb6c6X-bV435sCzBI6jqt7RgPjcYtcZgRzLc9fwCKAPXzHXU9XSBghuKbCBRac47ly5bohWjbZEMC6XJj8MKMm4A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM a4a2ef8b9d2c99095995723a12919f92 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Stonewall Legacy: Activism and Identity - Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Stonewall Rebellion and the Emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement Description An account of the resource The Stonewall "Activism and Identity" oral history interviews were undertaken to document and archive the voices of those involved in the LGBT rights movement and to engage the public in the history of the movement. Those who would like to contribute to the conversation should submit a contributor form with your thoughts and indicate whether you would like to be interviewed, send a written response or submit an image or document supporting the topic. All of the above may be published on the site in the future pending review. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived NA Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Michael Bettinger, John D'Emilio, Bruce Monroe, Felice Picano, Mark Segal, Martha Shelley,Wendell Walker, Rich Wandel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright, Christopher Gioia, 2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital Recordings Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NA Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher Gioia Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Wendell Walker Location The location of the interview New York City Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Wendell Walker Interview CG: I’m talking with Wendell Walker on November 17, 2016. Wendell can you tell me just a little bit about yourself to introduce yourself? WW: My name is Wendell Walker. I’m originally from Mississippi--rural Mississippi, and I grew up there -- got into some issues --racial issues, in Mississippi. (This) doesn't directly relate to this (our topic) --but I was actually evacuated from Mississippi for having a relationship with an African American girl, and had to leave Mississippi overnight to protect my life -- and then went to Indiana for Univer -- DePauw University in Indiana -- to college and that is really when I started thinking about myself as a gay person, at that time. CG: And what do you do now? WW: Now I’m a Deputy Director at the Museum of the Moving Image here in New York. CG: So of course we’re here to talk about New York post Stonewall. Tell me about your relationship-- to your coming to New York and what it was like. WW: Well I graduated in 1977; actually I technically graduated n August of 1977 in Brattleboro, VT. My final credit was language (he, he), and then right after that I moved to New York. It was actually Labor Day in September that I arrived here. I… and I came here thinking I had an internship at a gallery called Tribal Arts gallery. My intent was to do an internship there. I had studied – I -- my major was studio art, my minor was traditional African art, and I intended to do graduate work in traditional African art, and back in those days traditional African art was considered anthropology. It was not part of art history yet -- but, so, I was an anthropology person -- sort of art and anthropology -- and I had come here for this internship and I had intended to be here for a year working with the Tribal Arts gallery and then do graduate work -- and came here and the internship fell apart and I ended up getting a job at another gallery, and that got me involved -- that gallery was a traditional African art gallery but also showed contemporary art along with the traditional African art… and that got me involved in contemporary art, and one thing led to another and I never left. [Laughter] And… (um), series of different jobs -- literally one leading to the next and here I am today. But alongside all that was the --I won’t say the birth of the gay rights movement but the -- the manifestation of it in the city here. CG: What year was that? WW: Well '77 was the year that I moved here, September of 77 -- and as I mentioned to you before that -- in the University, really in the University is really when I guess I sort of acknowledged to myself and people around me that I was a gay person -- and co-founded along with two other individuals-- a discussion group at DePauw University. Nothing like that had ever been done before. And it was called the Androgyny Discussion Group and we got together and talked about gender, and gender roles and what they meant, and and we talked about gay issues and what it meant to be in the -- a relationship of same sex couple, same sex couples and all that sort of stuff. Then we also -- that was sort of when I became more aware -- and sort of thinking about in the political sense -- and I had heard about Stonewall at that point but I didn’t really know very much about it. I just had heard that there was this event that had happened in New York. It was really when I moved to New York and got to know people here and… ya know, New York was a very different place then, 1977. It was severe economic problems, very high crime rate and living in the East Village back then -- it was a very different world than it is now and -- but there was a, you know, there was a very active gay scene back, in the city back then. Many bars and after hours clubs and all that. Of course I dove into all that. And then there -- it was through that time there -- I learned more about Stonewall and the buildup. CG: I’m kinda curious, when people, when people brought that topic up what was it --how was it perceived? WW: Well it was, it was -- was more like storytelling, you know? It was just like… you know, there were all -- there were many different stories about it -- and most of them exaggerated, you know, what actually happened -- and you know there’s a lot of hearsay about it. Nothing -- it hadn’t really been documented at that point. It was a lot of people’s memories and of course there were a lot of people around then who had been a part of it. CG: Right. WW: I used to hangout at Julius’ at 10th Street and Waverly in the West Village, which was right around the corner from where it happened, and there were a lot of older people there that, you know, the old guys -- and you'd hear stories from them about it. I never thought about -- and maybe that’s just me, but I don’t think people thought of it as a political thing at all then. It was more like, (um)… something people were really proud of-- that it that it happened. It was, it had a certain bit of… (um) like, ya know “and we showed them” or something. There was a little attitude with it. I don’t think it… I don’t remember anybody talking about it as an agenda or something about laws being passed or any -- and it just wasn’t involved… CG: Or symbolic of anything yet? WW: It was more like we’d had enough and the queens got up and came back at em. You know? And there was lots of jokes about it and you know at the same time -- you know the people that took part in it were considered brave, notorious people but they, but they -- it was a different context. I think the (um)… when the tenth anniversary march on Washington happened I went to that with Leon, my partner, and that was, that was a whole different awakening because suddenly it was um… Stonewall became a landmark event after that in a way -- cause it was the idea of marking it with a tenth year anniversary. But that was the first big, I don’t know, I think there were other marches and things in Washington before that, but that was the first sort of national thing that was organized in that way. CG: What year was that? In -- oh 69, 79… WW: 69, 79 yeah, yeah… CG: So, but when you came here in 77-- just curious -- or maybe in 78, cause you came in August. Was there a pride march? Do you remember a pride march? WW: I don’t remember a pride march. I don’t know if there was -- well I came in September, so my first pride march would have been… CG: The next year. WW: In June of '78, I guess. I don’t remember one if there was, and it may have just--I mean the city was a very different place then of course we… CG: You may not have… WW: Didn’t have text messaging and Facebook and it may have happened and I didn’t even know about it. CG; Right, but the next year you did, so how did that, how did you become aware of the march on Washington? WW: Well I mean when that happened-- the bars put up -- there was an effort to make that happen you know? Also the layout of the-- the layout wasn’t different, but you know the East Village was a high crime area. There wasn’t any nightlife here or anything, it was all on the --the gay nightlife was all in the West Village. There were clubs allover the city back then but it was mostly the West Village. And like I said I used to hangout at Julius’. I live on Tenth Street. I’d walk down Tenth Street and go there. I think that was probably where I first heard about the march on Washington. CG: I’m just curious, had you ever been to the Oscar Wilde Memorial bookstore? WW: Yeah absolutely! CG: You did, really? WW: Yeah, I loved it. Yeah, you know, I would go there and look around even if I didn’t buy anything because it was just so cool that that existed. [Laughs] CG: So tell me about the march. Something, anything you remember about it. WW: Well, I remember going there and being there -- and amazed by the number of people there -- and the fact that we were all in Washington--that we were all visible, publicly visible, identifying ourselves openly in the public with you know --with press and pictures being taken-- as gay people marching and I remember that was a big deal. I mean for me it really changed my perspective on it, brought -- it brought the political element into my way of thinking about it cause I -- it made me aware of -- it wasn’t that I wasn’t aware of the legal issues, I mean obviously this group that I had been -- was involved in in college was that—we, we touched on those issues. But I think it was what made me a little more politically motivated in a way too… realizing that the importance of electing the right people and what those people could do in -- and of course back then nothing was talked about openly in the way that it is done now, so you had to sort of read between the lines about who, who would be supportive. And you know the --they didn’t come out. Politicians didn’t come out publicly and announce that they were in favor of gay rights issues. But you could sort of read between the lines. I remember Pat Schroder from Colorado. I think she was around in that era, she was someone you knew who was a supporter even though she didn’t come out and say things about it. But all that changed, I think -- or started changing after that march. CG: What about Koch? Do you remember? WW: Yeah CG: His, I mean there were some controversies. WW: And rumors. I mean he-- he, he was very adamant publicly: I’m not gay! And he --he didn’t -- I don’t remember him doing anything as mayor that went one way or the other. CG: I think he did -- he did sign something into law, but I’d have to look it up to tell you exactly what and when, what year. It may not have been until later (Clears throat). WW: I mean -- I remember David Dinkins as being the first mayor I thought of as really -- I thought of as really supportive of me as a gay citizen of New York. Its not that he did anything, but he talked about it. CG: Right, he was more open-- yeah, he was more accepting in my memory and I remember it too because I was here then -- he had raised a very diverse, you know… WW: And then of course there was Elizabeth Holtzman who ran for the senate and everybody thought, assumed she was a lesbian. To my knowledge she’s never come out. I don’t know if she is or not. She ran for the senate in 1980 and I got very, very involved in that. We were in her campaign headquarters, like daily. Like (haha) doing mailings for her. Stuffin envelopes and I was a poll watcher during 1980 also… But that kind of activism came out of that march. That was what got me motivated about stuff, when I did that march in '79. CG: Now the march in '79 was actually -- was probably after Harvey Milk was assassinated too, right? WW: Yeah, I don’t remember -- what was the date? I don’t remember. I’m not remembering the sequence of that… CG: But that might have actually fueled that that march, you know? That large effort. WW: Maybe, yeah, but it was -- but it was before then -- when was he assassinated? CG: It was 79 and I think it was May of 79? But I’m not good with dates either. [laughs] WW: You know its funny, I never though about that. I wonder… CG: I mean, that could have really had an impact on that, on the -- the effort to really… WW: Yeah. CG: I mean you were mentioning that they actually organized a train? Tell me about the train? WW: Yeah! They had a train. There was an Amtrak train that was chartered that was for the march so we -- and it was like a gay train! [Laughter] WW: And like I mentioned before, Al Franken was on it. But, yeah it was -- everybody was very serious to go down and it was a party coming back. You could not get into a bathroom anywhere on the train! [Laughter] WW: But that was also a big deal-- having this train that was --I think it had a sign that was on the side of it. I think so. It was it was a big deal. CG: So, but the West Village -- I mean you mentioned that the East Village was kind of like a, you know, it was the ghetto-- well it was like a dead zone in a way… WW: Yeah, yeah. CG: I mean-- but the West Village by then was already like the center of gay life. So what was it like in the late seventies? I mean… WW: Oh it was bars everywhere, nightlife, after-hours clubs and of course there was the piers down on the water -- you know the dilapidated piers --that was the back room for the neighborhood, basically. And you know, again, the city was very different then, you know, it sort of felt like no rules applied. CG: Did you have fear of the police though at that point? WW: It was more fear of mugging and being robbed. You didn’t… CG: So there really wasn’t any longer any organized effort to raid bars? WW: I don’t remember being aware of police even back then, you know? Police were in cars, you know? They-- you never saw police on the streets. You know, all that changed with David Dinkins. David Dinkins created community policing --and Guiliani came in and took credit for it, but its actually David Dinkins that did that. And that was really, from my perspective -- that’s what brought police out on the street and got them involved in their community and the neighborhood and really changed the way it all functions. But back in those days I don’t remember being aware of police officers in New York. You could kinda do what you wanted and others could do to you what they wanted and that was a part of the whole crime thing cause, you know, it was -- and that whole thing changed, there was always a risque element to nightlife back then whatever you did-- whatever club you went to -- getting there was some risk -- the meat packing district was, was not at all what it is now with the Whitney there. It was a very different world and the Mine Shaft and all those sort of places and -- but you know the streets were dangerous. But that was -- I guess in a way, I mean -- I didn't think about it back then, but that was part of the thrill of it. It was all risqué. Getting there was risky and what you did when you got here was risky, so there was this whole flavor to all of that that I think was very present throughout the city. I mean not-- you know what I’m saying? Not just in the gay community -- but in general our society was more -- I mean you know, there was not only the gay bath houses but there was the straight one -- the straight bath house on the Upper West Side. Plato’s Retreat, I think… CG: Yeah, Plato’s retreat… WW: And I remember when my sister came to visit once and went there. She couldn’t resist. She had to see it, ya know? [Laughter] WW: So it was very different in many ways. I mean we’ve become so much more controlled in a way, ya know? And I think there are good and bad things in that but -- I think when you are thinking about all of this, its important to think about that context, right? Cause it… CG: Yeah its interesting that … WW: While there were more -- while we have laws now that protect us against certain things --and there were laws that prevented other things back then, but they didn’t really enforce them. [Laughs] CG: Exactly. WW: Of course I think it's also important to think about what was going on with the women’s issues in the seventies and how much that played in to this --ya know-- I used to work at the First Women’s Bank, which was on 57th street between Park and Lexington. The First Women’s Bank was the first institution in this country to offer equal credit to women. That was in the mid-seventies I think -- that the laws changed. In the period of Jimmy Carter’s presidency the laws changed. But a woman, you know, who… her husband died, she didn’t have any credit. The credit was all with the men -- and you know there’s not a direct connection to the mindset then --but that’s part of the environment that all of this is happening in -- and I think that’s very important-- to think about that context of it. CG: Yup. WW: Yeah. CG: But overall when you think about -- think about, after your involvement in the march and -- (um) so what, what -- if you can articulate a meaning or how you feel about what, what you feel Stonewall represents to the Gay rights movement –- the LGBT liberation movement. WW: I think what’s happened is -- we’ve used it in a very good way to make us aware of our situation over the years. And I think that started with that -- for me it started with that march in '79. But I think that started with a lot of people then -- and there was something about that landmark -- ten years and here we are. I mean Jimmy Carter was president then and -- Jimmy Carter was a fairly progressive person for that era in many ways. I mean he’s not thought of as that now -- that much looking back on him but -- you know, he was very unpopular of course, at the same time he did among certain people… CG: I found that he was more unpopular than I realized because of his southern Baptist kind of -- you know, people thought of him kind of in a way I never thought of because I wasn’t old enough at the time. But, yeah. WW: But I don’t know if he ever said anything? I don’t remember him even saying anything about gay issues or anything. CG: One way or the other, right? WW: But I was confident that he was a supporter. I somehow knew that, and I think -- you know, his four years, you know it was after Watergate and he comes into office -- he makes… he brought a different tone in. I think that was also instrumental somehow -- and the things that happened during that period -- and you know when Reagan came in it was such a graphic contrast to him. I think that also was a big motivating factor in this. You know, suddenly there was… I mean Stonewall happened then there’s Reagan. I mean Stonewall, the tenth anniversary, that gathering happened, and then Reagan. I don’t know, a lot happened then and then AIDS came into the picture and the way Reagan didn’t handle it and denied it. And I feel like it started with that tenth anniversary up until the end of the Reagan term -- that’s when all of this --the movement was born really --but it was-- was fed, it was fed on that legend… CG: Well it was a different movement -- was born in the eighties I think, right? Completely different agenda I think. WW: But it was all fed out of that energy that came out of Stonewall. I think… I think that was the landmark that was already referred back to. What happened that night, what happened with the raid on that bar and everything. That was always the reference point --that was what you always looked back to and the fact that our community fought back that night. And that’s what gave the energy to deal with these things -- and yeah they all took different turns and obviously they’re going to take different turns now [laughs] because we have different issues now. We’re gonna have different issues. We have the right to marry but what are they going to do to that right now that we have this crazy person in as president? So I mean the --whatever the movement is -- the group that you are a part of has to adapt to that, but Stonewall was that moment that we can all look back to when it came to life, when it came -- when it came to --to people actually taking action and I think that’s what’s so amazing about it. CG: And its interesting the -- well bringing it up to the current election I see so many people activated in a way that I’ve never seen before. And it -- when I started this project I had no idea the correlations or the similarities that would develop, you know, to the period that I’m studying. It's kind of remarkable to see the turning point happening again. Well anyway… thank you so much for sharing your stories. WW: I just remembered the other amazing thing about this. I had a great aunt. Her name was Helen Tippy -- and she was --she graduated --she’s said to have been the first women to graduate at the top of the class -- of the class (not just the women but of the class) from Stanford University law school in the teens. She was one of the few women that was there, even. She became-- she was very interested in the labor movement and at that time, the women’s right to vote, of course. And she got involved with the Mother Jones movement. Mother Jones had basically retired at that point, but Mother Jones was still alive and somehow she got to know Mother Jones a little bit, and became the lawyer for the movement and met another woman named Frieda Ryker. Frieda was an activist who was Russian -- a Russian Jew who had left Russia after the revolution and had come to this country and gotten involved in the labor movement. They [Helen and Frieda] met at a demonstration in Chicago in the twenties and became lovers --and were together throughout their lives. And so growing up, Helen and Frieda were my aunts. And --in the seventies, when I moved to New York, they -- and Frieda had a -- I think she was a niece -- and they used to come to New York [and stay with Frieda's niece]. And they, they -- after their activities in the twenties, Helen had become a lawyer in the labor department and they lived in Washington most of their lives, but when they retired they lived in Florida -- but they used to come to New York once a year. And -- I think it was around the same -- I don’t remember the exact year, you know -- this visit when they came here -- it was after the Stonewall (march) and… they came to New York and met Leon and I -- and Leon is African American –so, we were, we got together with them and went to the Guggenheim --and we were walking around, walking down the ramp to -- [in] the Guggenheim and Leon and Freida were in front and Helen and I were walking together -- and she was just telling how amazing it was for her to be standing here with me, her openly gay, you know, nephew -- great nephew with his African American partner -- openly walking through the Guggenheim talking about it. And also she talked about Stonewall and what that meant for her and you know that through their lives -- what they had gone through -- their relationship in the twenties -- and here they are in New York City with this gay couple and that they could now be an open couple and that this was now a political issue and it was -- that was just so amazing for them. Just -- you know --for what they had been through with their lives. So, so, amazing. CG: Yeah. WW: Anyway… CG: Yeah, no its -- incredible to think about the difference -- how everyone lived just below the surface… WW: Yeah, yeah, yeah… CG: …probably until just about 1967 or 8, there really was no way to acknowledge or be open about it. WW: Yeah, but think about what that meant for somebody like them who, since the 1920’s had had this relationship that was secret and that they had to hide and then something like that happens. What that, I mean --the perspective on that -- I mean, I don’t know how you even go there, how you grasp what that meant for them. CG: Right, but I think --this is the thing I’ve come to realize in the last month --its that, think about -- think about it Wendell -- think about how much we hide still… WW: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, you’re right CG: I mean just to make it easier… WW: Just like that little Facebook conversation the other day. Yeah, yeah… CG: …just to make it easier for everybody else we hide just below the surface. WW: That’s right, that’s right. CG: And it’s not even acknowledged. We make accommodations every single day. Anyway… [Laughter] CG: Thank you. WW: I think that’s all for now! Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP3 digital recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 27 minutes Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 16 bit/ 44.1 kHz Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview NA Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wendell Walker Interview Subject The topic of the resource Oral history concerning gay life in NYC in the late seventies. Description An account of the resource An interview with Wendell Walker concerning the gay liberation movement, the 10 year anniversary of Stonewall, march on Washington and other topics related to the experience of being gay in New York City. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 17, 2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 digital recording Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Interview Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived NA Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Wendell Walker Relation A related resource NA Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Walker MP3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This recording and transcript is provided for education and research purposes and should not be altered in any way. All Rights reserved, Christopher Gioia (interviewer) with permission from subject. Gay bars Gay Liberation Gay nightlife Julius' Stonewall Stonewall Rebellion Stonewall Tenth Anniversary march https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25703/archive/files/7d98168a0c98a50b4a35dd10953a8bec.mp3?Expires=1782345600&Signature=dK9d5i1wzQ%7ExF0PApiOqWLFoET4aqKBvANphCgDvM5qqwcO8%7E5xQ7NWC7fhjRNdUr-S3w-j1V9qe%7E6B94FBC6ZKCWDWPt5A1hGAW8wEavZ6cNeSJjr-4hZVbqTqxA37sPjwqWIkDIMXU6elvDhb2uOgPFmNuFyxCYLQfJ224vrZIyj9RiHyzun2ZBkZiHC4EBUZ12QNGJrp8Ghlge1x055DzEtaDVSr9qLVTVWYAvHR-gyBT-WjLNw6uU-RJcYLKJznYZ84ZT6uURBsOd%7E-X29g3QZ%7ELCQWkA3%7ErC%7EWqCXeBctQSi7s5sbFeTdEC5xH6zbmgMP2OK%7E030-cS1G8QOw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f4e4a34d4f5e0a40f644d41edf7ec5a0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Stonewall Legacy: Activism and Identity - Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Stonewall Rebellion and the Emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement Description An account of the resource The Stonewall "Activism and Identity" oral history interviews were undertaken to document and archive the voices of those involved in the LGBT rights movement and to engage the public in the history of the movement. Those who would like to contribute to the conversation should submit a contributor form with your thoughts and indicate whether you would like to be interviewed, send a written response or submit an image or document supporting the topic. All of the above may be published on the site in the future pending review. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived NA Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Michael Bettinger, John D'Emilio, Bruce Monroe, Felice Picano, Mark Segal, Martha Shelley,Wendell Walker, Rich Wandel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright, Christopher Gioia, 2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Digital Recordings Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context NA Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Christopher Gioia Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Mark Segal Location The location of the interview Via telephone: New York and Philadelphia Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Mark Segal Interview CG: So, I’m talking with Mark Segal today and to begin with, Mark well, just to let you know, I have about five questions so you can spend as little or as much as you like on each of them, but to begin, if you can just tell me a little bit about yourself… your background. MS: Background-- let’s see, I was brought up in Philadelphia-- at 18 moved to New York. That was May 10th 1969. When in New York I happened to meet Marty Robinson who was a member or was involved in some way shape or form in Mattachine. But his feeling was that the organization was too slow and too old, using old techniques and we had to become more radicalized in some sections. So therefore he felt that for gay liberation to uh fight and get more people empowered he created a group called the gay action group or the action group. Um I became a member of that along with Jim Owles um and Michael, who’s name I can’t remember right now who still… Michael Laverty. CG: Right. MS: Who later went on to find be one of the founders of Lambda legal. Um and we as the action group did one laughter we-- according to Michael and I don’t have a memory of this we had one or two meetings which accomplished nothing ah but were known for one very small action which was the night of Stonewall Marty somehow showed up with chalk later during the evening uh and had us writing on the walls and along the streets “tomorrow night Stonewall” which resulted of course in the following three nights of protest and speeches outside of stonewall which brought the birth of Gay Liberation Front. CG: Wow, great. So when you created the gay action group that was earlier in 1969? MS: Not me. That was Marty! I was just a member I didn’t… CG: No I’m saying… MS: know what I was doing. I was 18 years old um… CG: but that was 1969 though right? That he began that… MS: Correct. CG: Ok interesting yeah. So um so you kind of dove right in but if you can step back a few steps and tell me what you remember about the stonewall Inn or what it was like if you had actually been to the bar before the event. MS: Oh yeah well as an 18 year old, when you moved to, many people like myself who were living outside of New York um thought there were no gay people living anywhere else because in 1969 basically we were invisible. You didn’t see us on TV, you didn’t see us on the radio, you didn’t see us in magazines. You basically didn’t see us in books if you saw us in books, those books might have been maybe in your public library. Remember there was no internet, there were no cell phones. If you wanted information you had to go to your library or read your local newspaper, radio station or TV and we were absent from all of the above. Any books you might have found in the library usually would have been very negative about us. Um therefore people like me weren’t, as we were growing up were very deeply in the closet and people like me who went to New York did so because we didn’t want to be. We didn’t understand the reasoning behind that. I can speak for me and for me only; I didn’t think there was something wrong with me and I didn’t understand why the rest of the world thought there was something wrong with me! So meeting Marty ah and him -- him explaining to me how we needed to fight back against oppression rang a bell! And also rang a bell in me because I come from a family that has deep roots in fighting back from my grandmother who ah basically left Ukraine because of the pogroms, to becoming a suffragette, to joining the civil rights movement. She took me to my first civil rights demonstration when I was 13 years old so I had an affinity for the idea of fighting back and understanding oppression. So when Marty talked to me it rang true to me immediately. And You got to to remember it was the counterculture 1960s and what was happening then was women’s liberation, black liberation, um it was the high benchmark for the civil rights movements all at one time, plus the counterculture hippie influence so uh – and the people in Mattachine were people who wore dresses and suits and ties and we were the type of people who wore ripped jeans and ripped tee shirts so they didn’t speak to us. And Marty said we need ted to do something new and we weren’t sure what that was but we were -- and the idea of the action group was to discover and find what that was. Later that became… or thanks to the Stonewall and thanks to those actions GLF answered those questions. GLF probably… as I’ve said on a a number of occasions and I mentioned in my memoirs, was probably the most important LGBT organization in the history of the gay rights struggle because it did two things. First, it said we were going to define ourselves and no longer allow society to define us. And when we defined ourselves we were going to tell the masses (society) who we were rather than allow them to put their images on us. Whereas the military and police thought of us as criminals, the medical industry thought of us as psychologically damaged, churches thought of us as immoral. We fought against every single bit of that and we did it from the beginning. Um and at the same time we would during our meetings, discuss who we were, and try to figure it out we were discussing what was masculine what was feminine what were we like as men and women who just happened to be LGBT. That was the first thing we did which was extremely revolutionary. The Second thing that we did was create what we now call the LGBT community. CG: Right MS: That’s sort of a surprising thing that I don’t think anyone’s put into context before. Um LGBT community didn’t exist before Gay Liberation Front founded it. And what I mean by that is if you take a look at what LGBT community what LGBT life was like before GLF what you had was several gay organizations in major cities around the country being run by two or three people. And maybe they would have meetings where 10 or 20 people would show up. Um then there were the few gay bars that existed then there was maybe a newsletter and public places where gay people met. That was the extent of it. What GLF did which was totally revolutionary was we brought our community out in the streets. There was not a weeknight or a weekend night that we, meaning myself and others, were not out on Christopher street handing out leaflets. Those leaflets said come to meetings, those leaflets were medical alerts, they were alerts of the police, they were legal alerts and when we found there was a problem, when the police acted up we demonstrated against the police. We demonstrated against Village Voice. We were organized and we were public, we were no longer going to be in the closet. This was an almost a daily activity and so creating that -- on top of that we also realized there were other parts of our community that weren’t being served and we were going to serve them. So we created the nation’s first trans organization. Everyone knows the names of Sylvia and Marsha but they might no know the name of STAR, which was Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries, which was a cell or committee inside Gay Liberation Front. And some people might not realize we created the first gay youth organization gay youth NY was part of GLF We also created the first gay community center in America which was on Fourth street in NY Um and at the end of all of that we joined with Craig Rodwell who created the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee and held what now is considered the first Gay Pride March. And that’s where you find where the culmination of everything comes together. Which as I mentioned to you earlier up until 1969, the most public organization or --demonstrations were those marches in Philadelphia held by Mattachine every July fourth from 65-69. CG: Right July Fourth. MS: If you look at those photos you will note that there’s not more than 100 people in those photos, mostly forty is what I counted. Most of those photos were taken by Kay Lahusen by the way um, Hah, that was a premiere demonstration once a year so you take that and then you look at the first gay pride which we helped create, Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee and you look at the New York Times reporting of that and it states that that the crowd was anywhere from between five and fifteen thousand. CG: Yup yeah. (Laughter) MS: Not bad for one year! Um we took a community that literally had a gay rights struggle out of 100 gay people -- I use that figure from either that march or the two or three people in each major city around the country who were parts of Daughters of Bilitis, Mattachine -- or incorporator of all those organizations. Of all those brave people that existed before GLF and realized that we took it and made a huge advancement in one year and not only were we one of those important organizations because we were trying to figure out who we were and what we were doing and not having any road map we were also probably the most dysfunctional organization that ever existed in the gay community. And by the away I’m very proud of that dysfunction because the results it brought were magnificent. CG: Yeah, yeah. No, definitely and I would say that you know, there continues to be dysfunction in various organizations. But you’re right. I mean that… MS: It worked at that time. CG: …that sort of um – you might want to call it a zeitgeist or something like that -- an immediate and powerful, right, um, reaction? So I did want to see some or hear some specifics… MS: How about your first question?! (Laughs) CG: Yeah, yeah, some specifics, I mean just briefly if you can tell me about your memories of the Stonewall Inn before that night, if you’d been inside and what kind of place was it ? MS: Oh ok, as an 18 year old being in New York trying to escape being in the closet, I wanted to, like everybody else, immerse myself in my community and other people like me. I had no idea there was a complete group of people who got together who were just like me. So what I discovered was that they hung out basically on Christopher Street. And there were several clubs, bars around that area and if you were eighteen the way you socialized was every night you walked up and down Christopher Street and you slowly picked up friends and you got to know them and you’d sit on a step here or there and you’d talk and you’d joke and then your friends would walk up and down the street with you and then you would pop into a club and of course one of the clubs you always popped into was Stonewall. Especially if you were young, if you were a runaway, if you were trans, if you were new to the city and if you were an older man looking for a younger man to be very honest, that’s where you went. And you went there to party and you would go in there two or three times a night. I mean you would pop in and out of there literally. CG: Yeah, yeah interesting. MS: I mean I often hear people talk about the doorman and pol… it wasn’t as tight as people say. (laughter) I read about it and it sounds like a speakeasy from the nineteen twenties. It was a lot more open than that. CG: Yeah so, so I know you were there that evening either inside or at Christopher Park, do you have any specific recollections about that night before, you know… MS: Yes, yes, I do… uh …first you gotta remember I had only been in New York for about six weeks. And so I was new to all of that. I mean within six weeks I really immersed myself in it. I was on Christopher Street every night if not in Stonewall every night. So -- I don’t even remember if they were open every night. But I am sixty-six now and the memories are what they are for a sixty-six year old, but that night is very clear for anybody who was there I remember being in the bar. I remember the lights flashing. I remember asking somebody [I don’t remember who] “what does that mean?” And someone said “Oh were just going to be raided!” And everybody who was a regular there took that very nonchalant. They were just used to it cause that was part of what life was like for gay people at that point. Me on the other hand had never been through a raid. I tried to look nonchalant but I gotta tell you its not --[laughs] I was very nervous. Now I look like the guy next door. So the first thing the police did when they came through the door was they harassed the queens as much as they could. They extorted money from the people who looked like they had decent jobs and then they started carding people to let people out. I look like the, as I said, I look like the boy next door. They had no use for me. They couldn’t get money out of me. They didn’t care about people like me. So I was one of the first to be let out. Um and I was curious of course so I went across the street to watch all this. And at one point Marty came up and said, “what’s going on?” And I said, “Oh, it’s a raid.” Trying to act nonchalant again. Uh and he said oh basically, “Oh another raid this has to end.” He went and got chalk and came back and made a suggestion but that was later in the evening. As people were coming out they started forming a semi circle around the door and that eventually and as the police let out more and more people at one point the only people left in the bar or most of the people left in the bar were the people that worked there and the police. At which point people just started throwing things at the door. Um, ah [sigh] that’s basically when people started breaking things, running up and down the street. Some windows were broken. People took things out of the windows. My funniest recollection of it is someone put a dress on the Sheridan statue in Sheridan Square. [Laughs] MS: Um and personally the best recollection, somewhere during the middle of this… [sigh] this circus of amazing colors and lights and people running I’m just looking at the door and saying to myself somewhere thanks to my grandmother who taught me this, um “African Americans can fight for their rights, Latinos can fight for their rights, women can fight for their rights, what about us?” And I think it was -- and all of that was in a second an instant maybe-- I decided at that point um that’s what I’d be doing the rest of my life -- and there wasn’t anything, any job description, or I didn’t even know what that meant. I just thought I’d end up being poor, um you know-- a vagrant fighting for gay liberation whatever that might be. I had no idea even what that meant. I don’t think any of us did. But thanks to people like Martha Shelley thanks to people who, in the next four nights helped to create Gay Liberation Front, we began to build that. And I was lucky enough to be a part of that. Um, so when people today ask me what University I went to my stock answer is I went to GLF. It taught me what I needed to know to further what I believed in my whole life. CG: Yeah uh so then I mean it really was a sort of self-actualization, self-realization moment in your life. Yeah, yeah. MS: Oh absolutely, absolutely. CG: So I’m gonna segue, yeah go ahead… MS: My, my total action was lock stock and barrel, was writing on the walls and streets. I didn’t throw anything I didn’t fight anybody. I think I would have been too frightened to do something like that to be honest. CG: Right. MS: I think of myself as a simple, if there is such a thing, soldier that night CG: Yeah. MS: Doing what I was told to do by people who seemed to know what they were doing. CG: Right, right, um so I want to segue a little bit just to, since you’re on that topic almost already… of what does it-- you know overall, obviously you just explained what it means to you in terms of like, it was that birth of consciousness around the liberation-- that concept of liberation. But if you can, try to put into words what the Stonewall event means to you now, in retrospect. MS: [Sigh] Its very difficult. I find myself in a unique position um because unlike other people that were there that evening I’ve had a constant involvement in the gay community which has never ceased from that day forward. Where others might have taken a break now and then I’ve been doing it now for forty seven years. On top of that I moved back to Philadelphia eventually in 1971 and I didn’t get involved with all the squabbles in the NY community about stonewall and I kept silent about a lot for many years, with the exception of talking to my friends Jerry Hoose, Jim Fourratt or Perry Brass. Um I didn’t make my views public because I didn’t want to get in the squabble that they were all in. I didn’t live in New York. I didn’t think it was fair of me to be involved and I didn’t want to take sides. CG: Mhmm. MS: And what I would like to say now very (laughs) clearly… it was a riot. MS: Nobody was taking notes on what was happening nobody was doing attendance records. And that seems to be what everybody seems to be fighting about. Um and I think everybody’s memories are different and I accept practically or I think that everybody should accept all those memories and put them all together and you’ll get a picture of what it was really like because we each have our own perspective. CG:Exactly, exactly. MS: But Jerry, do you know who Jerry Hoose is? CG: No, no I don’t. I think I’ve heard the name… MS: Again one of the founders of Gay Liberation Front he lived on Christopher Street. Um I knew Jerry before Stonewall he had become one of my good friends. He and Doug Carver were probably the closest people I –they’re both gone now-- closest to at that point and uh Jerry and I through the years talked about it uh, he’s one of the few people in New York I would talk to about it . But interestingly enough he and I would disagree on it. Bob Kohler and I and jerry would all disagree on it. Everybody who had some involvement had a different view of it and I find that not surprising to say the least especially since we’re all, since the rest of the world has made it an image that none of us seem to-- can agree matches what we saw. I think when you’re involved in something you loose a little objectivity so that’s why -- and being a journalist I understand that to some extent uh, so I try to be as unbiased as possible. And that’s why I give what happened to me and what my feelings were and I don’t want to give other peoples feelings because that’s stealing from them and their views and I think their just as valid as mine are. CG: Yeah, yeah absolutely. Yeah no, and I love hearing the different viewpoints and the different accounts too because its, its to me it just, I recognize that everyone, like you said everyone’s perspective is going to be different and everyone’s memory is going to focus on -- your memory focuses on a different aspect --everyone has a personal… what were you going to say? MS: And we’re clouded by time. CG: Exactly. MS: Um, What I can tell you is the most interesting aspect to me right now is I’m coming to terms and still attempting to come to terms with its historical significance that story of to know that I was part of something that was historic. To know that I was part of something historic was very difficult to contemplate um and I remember when the most important part of that for me was of course President Obama making it, making that point in his second inauguration speech. And almost like magic, the moment I saw that I Skype’d Jerry Hoose and he and I looked at each other through our computers and just started crying. And the way I described that in the book was that cry was washing away both our years of feeling we were the bastard children of civil rights struggles round the world. And that’s what Obama said. He said that our movement was equal to the women’s rights movement, the civil rights movement and we had always felt like the bastard step child. CG: Yea, yeah MS: And that’s what that meant to me and that is a total separate thing from the way the LGBT community looks at Stonewall. I mean that way is the way the rest of society looks at Stonewall. How our community looks at Stonewall is totally different. So there’s different perspectives of how the world sees it and how the LGBT community sees it. And therefore each of us who were there are dealing with all those emotions and we’re dealing with how other people view it and how we view it and so when someone asks us about it-- we try [at least I do] to give them the best concept I can and no matter what I say its not going to match what their feelings or their image of it is. Um… CG: Yeah MS: I hope that answers your question! CG: Yeah no, it does it actually even begins to answer what usually is my last question which is: what does Stonewall represent to the community in terms of identity. And I think you hit on something there too that it – there’s sort of a sense of people’s hopes, you know are tied up in it too, you know? So the idea that someone like Marsha Johnson or someone um like Sylvia Rivera were um you know such, such important factors in what took place or in what took place after or in the creation of GLF or their participation becomes… MS: Can I touch that for a minute? CG: Yeah. MS: Cause that’s very important. So, some of my fellow GLF people have stated uh that Marsha and Sylvia were not there. Umm, now as I said to you, no one was taking attendance. Now, and I cannot remember whether or not they were there or not. But I don’t think it really matters. For one very simple reason um regardless of if they were there or not what they did in Gay liberation Front and what everybody did in Gay Liberation Front… CG: Right, right. MS: throughout the next year and a half is probably more important than Stonewall… CG: Right. MS: …and I know that might shock people to hear that but that’s where self identity came from… CG: Yes. MS: That’s where community came from… CG: Yes MS: That’s where the first trans organization came from and it was Sylvia and Marsha who did that as part of GLF. CG: Right. MS: And if they had, I mean there was no organizing done at that first night of Stonewall… CG: Right. MS: It was all after that and that evolved into GLF and that created everything that we have today. CG: Exactly, yeah so right I mean it wasn’t like… MS: I don’t need to… CG: People mis-under… MS: Argue whether they were there or not, yes they were there. Absolutely. [Laughter] CG: Exactly, yeah um you know cause they became-- whether they were there or not, its kind of almost irrelevant. Right? Because as you’re saying, I mean its interesting to hear too it was a little-- it was chaos. It’s hard… MS: It was a riot! You’re not taking attendance! [Laughter] CG: Its hard to get a pin-- to get a handle though on what really transpired and I don’t think I’m gonna have any allusions that I’m gonna-- that any body can do that. MS: People ask me, because I was in the gay militants, there was all this factual stuff that I was there and people keep saying to me,“ok who was there? You tell me, was that person there?” and my reaction to that is: I had only been in New York for six weeks I was just beginning to know people. How would I know? CG: Yeah, yeah and also in a crowd…. MS: I mean Jerry Hoose-- you might-- although he’s not here anymore, Jerry might have been able to answer that. CG: And also, standing in a crowd of 300 people, you know, what’s your vantage point going to be? Its going to be your immediate… MS: And that’s a myth. CG: Oh? MS: Ok, There you go. CG: What? MS: That’s a perfect example of why any of us who were there, when we tell our story it doesn’t always meet the expectation of the audience we speak before. CG: Ok. MS: So let’s take a look at the bar and by the numbers… CG: Yes. MS: This is kind of important. So if you take a look at the numbers of people that could -- could fit in the bar if it was absolutely packed that night --what somewhere between 3 and 500 I would guess at the most? Ok, so a lot of those people were what I would call suit and tie guys. They weren’t wearing suits and ties inside the bar but those kinds of guys that had a good job during the day. So any time-- the minute they got out of the bar they ran. The only people who stayed on the streets were people like me who didn’t have jobs, a place to live, the people who were the bottom of the LGBT community basically um and that wasn’t three hundred. CG: Right, right. Ok. MS: It was a lot… CG: Less. MS: Lower than that. My assumption of it would be 1 to 150 but that’s an old, old memory. And I wouldn’t even take my guess at that. CG: Ok yeah, I mean its still a big, a sizeable crowd nevertheless. MS: Yeah CG: So um if you want to um just wrap up if -- I don’t know if there any remarks you want to make about the legacy of you know the movement, maybe really just talk a little bit about the legacy of GLF, although you did talk about it initially. It um… MS: I think one of the issues that rings home for me very true-- as GLF became very successful in motivating our community for change and liberation or revolution (whatever word you want to use) other people thought, “oh this is going to be popular maybe I’ll get involved.” And then those people at one point decided we in GLF were going a little too far by trying to include ourselves with --and this goes back to what today is. We wanted to include all other movements as part of our movement and be interlocked with the women’s movement, the black movement the Latino movement, so we started to be supportive and work with black and brown people, with women’s groups and eventually that got to be a little too much for the people I call… the people that wear those shirts with the polo players and the alligator on them. [Laughter] MS: Uh they didn’t want us to be involved. They wanted to show the part of our community that wasn’t trans, that wasn’t young people, wasn’t working class. They wanted to show an image of middle class men and women who were just like the guy next door and hence came Gay Activists Alliance and later to be succeeded by the Human Rights Campaign… I’m sorry the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force which was founded by Bruce Voeller. Um and they were going to be the most professional and they were the first uh, pay for gay in the country. CG: But I… MS: And so, where are we at today? Today we are again fighting that same exact thing. When I spoke at the committee that was organizing the Democratic National Committee here a bunch of young gay people who are part of the organizing (literally putting the Democratic National Convention together here in Philadelphia) and for Gay Pride I spoke to that whole group-- and it wasn’t just gay people-- it was that whole Democratic National Committee, um but a gay woman, using the question and answer section, an African American out woman said, “you know I’m sort of torn. I want to work with Black Lives Matter yet I want to be a gay activist.” And I looked at her and I said, “why cant you do both?” CG: Do both. Yeah. MS: I think that would be great. You can bring liberation to both groups of people. To non people of color in the gay rights struggle you can show them how important you are and how empowering that would be if we had African Americans-- a larger portion in that struggle, and in the Black Lives Matter you can make them realize how important inclusion is of LGBT people. CG: Exactly. MS: It’s a wonder-- the cross over is wonderful! CG: Exact… yeah we really need to focus on this one word… MS: Inclusion. CG: No I was thinking… MS: Diversity and inclusion are two of the most powerful words. They existed from 1969 to 1971 and then our community once again reverted. CG: I was also thinking of solidarity. MS: Yes. CG: I sent an email to my professor and he always closes with, each email with “Solidarity”. You know? MS: And he’s right, one of -- one of the funnier things for me and -- and writing the memoirs brought back a lot of memories and the research was sort of a surprise, and one of the things that amazes me to this date, uh is people in my area think of me as an establishment business type. That delights me to no end because my positions have never changed. They-- my political positions are still the same. Um but, so when someone does that and I look at them and I go do you realize I marched with The Black Panthers? And they’re like totally perplexed. It’s like the dog who hears a sound and doesn’t understand and tilts its head. [Laughs ] CG: Yes, don’t judge a book by the cover right? MS: Correct. CG: Well Mark, thank you, I know you are a busy man and I actually have something as well… MS: Do I get to see a sample of this thing that you’re doing some time? CG: Yes absolutely! Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 35 minutes Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 16 bit/44.1 kHz Time Summary A summary of an interview given for different time stamps throughout the interview NA Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mark Segal Interview Subject The topic of the resource First hand account of the night of the Stonewall rebellion and the genesis of the Gay Liberation Front. Description An account of the resource Mark Segal, journalist and the founder of Philadelphia Gay News discusses the night of the Stonewall riot and the creation of the Gay Liberation Front as it relates to the broader gay rights movement. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Gioia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived NA Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Christopher Gioia Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mark Segal Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This recording and transcript is provided for education and research purposes and should not be altered in any way. All Rights reserved, Christopher Gioia (interviewer) with permission from subject. Relation A related resource NA Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Digital Recording Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant NA GAA Gay Activists Alliance Gay bars Gay Liberation Front Mark Segal Stonewall Stonewall Inn Stonewall Rebellion