Stonewall (48 page)

9
. Interviews with Heide, 1990 and 1991. John Dodd had a distinguished later career in lighting; see Michael Smith's obituary in
The Village Voice
, Aug. 6, 1991. The Warhol quote is from Victor Bockris,
The Life and Death of Andy Warhol
(Bantam, 1990), p. 157.

10
. The
Salute
article is reprinted in Martin Duberman,
About Time: Exploring the Gay Past
, 2nd ed. (Meridian, 1991), pp. 163–68. For the scene in the mid-sixties, see James Miller, “The Detective,”
Life
, Dec. 3, 1965. Though the information and quotations in this section come almost entirely from my series of interviews with Sylvia Rivera in 1990 and 1991, I am indebted to Steven Watson's 1979 interview with her (tapes courtesy.Watson) for some of the material relating to the Rivera-Johnson relationship.

THE EARLY SIXTIES

1
. I am indebted to Jim Kepner (Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992) for some of the details in this paragraph. For more on Gerber, see Jonathan Katz,
Gay American History
(Meridian, 1992), and Jonathan Ned Katz,
Gay/Lesbian Almanac
(Harper & Row, 1983). Gerber's essay, “In Defense of Homosexuality,” written under the pseudonym “Parisex,” is reprinted in Martin Duberman,
About Time
, 2nd ed. (Meridian, 1991), pp. 145–48.

For more detail on the other subjects in these introductory pages, see: on the World War II experience, Allan Bérubé,
Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two
(Plume, 1991); on the founding of Mattachine, John D'Emilio,
Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970
(University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 57–74, and Stuart Timmons,
The Trouble with Harry Hay
(Alyson, 1990), pp. 139–72; on the origins and early years of DOB, D'Emilio,
Sexual Politics
, pp. 101–107.

2
. I am grateful to Jim Kepner (Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992) for the analogy to Freemasons (which is more accurate than the Communist-party analogy often made).

3
. According to Jim Kepner (Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992),
ONE
, which was led until 1960 (when Kepner left) by Kepner, Dorr Legg, and Don Slater, continued to adhere to the notion that gays were a legitimate minority. Another West Coast group, SIR, organized in 1964, took up that same view “in practical
ways,” though the “minority” theory was “stridently opposed by [Franklin] Kameny & most Eastern leaders.” As to the reference in the next paragraph to
ONE
, Kepner has pointed out that philosophically the magazine stood in much the same relation to Mattachine as the NAACP did to the Urban League: “Mattachine and DOB leaders accepted that comparison, regarding
ONE
& the NAACP as too pushy or strident.”

4
. Jim Kepner,
Our Movement Before Stonewall
(International Gay and Lesbian Archives [IGLA], 1989).

5
. Hal Call, one of the conservative leaders of Mattachine San Francisco, inflated that city's membership rolls by soliciting small donations in bars and making the donors “members”; he then got them to sign over proxies to him, which he used to maintain control of the organization. According to Kepner,
ONE
magazine had twelve hundred subscribers by 1960, about four hundred of them classified as “members” because they gave donations beyond the magazine's subscription price. By the mid-sixties,
ONE
was averaging 2,300 copies sold per issue, far outdistancing
Mattachine Review
or
The Ladder
. ONE also began to expand organizationally, setting up chapters in other cities. Today ONE of Long Beach, now an independent group, is larger than the parent organization, which is today called ONE Incorporated (Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992).

6
. For this section, the following sources were especially useful: Barry Miles,
Ginsberg: A Biography
(Simon and Schuster, 1989), pp. 252–53 (Monk); Eric Garber, “A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem,” in Duberman, et al.,
Hidden from History
, pp. 318–31 (Harlem rent parties); Ira L. Jeffries, “Strange Fruit of the Purple Manor,”
NYQ
, Feb. 23, 1992 (house parties); Audre Lorde,
Zami
, pp. 217–18 (food).

7
. George Chauncey, Jr., and Lisa Kennedy, “Time on Two Crosses: An Interview with Bayard Rustin,”
The Village Voice
, June 30, 1987.

THE MID-SIXTIES

1
.  For this section, the following sources (along with my interviews with Foster Gunnison, Jr.) have been central:
The New York Times
, Dec. 17, 1963, reprinted in its entirety in Duberman,
About Time
, 2nd ed. (Meridian, 1991), pp. 238–42. (For my own public quarrels with Bieber and Socarides, see Duberman,
Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey
(Plume, 1992), pp. 64–66, 267–69; D'Emilio,
Sexual Politics
, especially, chapter 8 (1962–65 growth), pp. 150–160 (Kameny; Wicker), pp. 190–92 (SIR); Todd Gitlin,
The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
(Bantam, 1987), p. 129 (Connor); Beth Hughes, “San Francisco's Own Stonewall,”
San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle
, June 4, 1989 (Wolden; Mcllvenna).

2
. For examples of surveillance by government agents of homophile activities, see this book,
passim. Observation Post
(CCNY campus paper), Oct. 16, 1963 (for Wicker speech).

3
. Cory's pioneering book, published in 1951, pleaded for an end to persecution and described gays as a legitimate minority group; it became something of a bible for the homophile movement. “Donald Webster Cory” was in fact a pseudonym for Edward Sagarin, who later became a professor of sociology and whose views
shifted so decisively over the years that he ended up as a defender of the psychiatric model of homosexuality as sickness, an antagonist to any kind of gay militancy, and a purported convert to heterosexuality.

4
. Kameny to Hodges, March 15, 1964, International Gay Information Center Papers (henceforth IGIC Papers), NYPL: “the word
homopbile
is coming into increasing currency.” “Homophile” was preferred to “homosexual” because it deemphasized the stereotypical association of homosexuality with sex. (Toby Marotta,
The Politics of Homosexuality
[Houghton Mifflin, 1981], pp. 11–12.)

5
. By 1965 New York Mattachine had become disaffected from ECHO, its president, Dick Leitsch, furious at (among other things) never having been reimbursed for the cost of transcribing the 1965 ECHO conference proceedings. In trying to coax the transcripts out of Leitsch (to no avail), Foster personally pledged a hundred dollars toward a total cost of some three hundred dollars. But by then Leitsch was saying that “ECHO is almost a dirty word around here,” and when ERCHO (the Eastern Regional Conference, an offshoot of The North American Conference of Homopile Organizations, known as NACHO) failed in 1968 to pass resolutions of thanks to MSNY for its accomplishments (having thanked just about every other group), Leitsch was made angrier still. (Gunnison to Leitsch, Jan. 22, 26, 1967 [misdated 1968]; Leitsch to Gunnison, Jan. 23, Feb. 6, 1968—all in IGIC Papers, NYPL.)

6
. Kameny to Leitsch, July 12 (students), 17, 1965. IGIC Papers, NYPL.

7
. Inman to Robert Q. Achzehner, June 8, 1967; Gunnison to Inman, March 22, 1966—both in Gunnison Papers; see also D'Emilio,
Sexual Politics
, pp. 123, 152, 161–62. Inman initially called the Florida group The Atheneum Society. He “abolished” Florida Mattachine in early 1967.

The account that follows of Foster's initial involvement and his friendship with Inman derives from my interviews and from material in the Gunnison Papers, especially: Gunnison to Inman, Oct. 11, 19, Nov. 18, Dec. 21, 1965; March 9, 22, April 5, 1966;
Viewpoint
(Florida Mattachine), March, April, 1966; Inman to Kameny, Dec. 21, 1965; Inman to Clark Polak, April 7, 1966.

As an example of Inman's outspokenness, he admonished Frank Kameny, whom he hugely admired, “When pinned down, you either lash out at those who disagree, or you attempt to totally subjugate those who do agree” (Inman to Kameny, Dec. 21, 1965). Nichols and Inman, like Kameny, were, in the context of the homophile movement, militants; in the context of our own day, that militancy seems circumscribed. As late as 1965, for example, Jack Nichols was writing
against
those “who are unbalanced enough to have demonstrations—before the question of sickness had been laid to rest.… [The] experts can tell us whether or not we are sick. Let them decide.…” (“Warren Adkins” [Jack Nichols] to Dick Leitsch, April 1, 1965. IGIC Papers, NYPL.) Nichols insists, however, that this letter was meant as “a joke”—as evinced by its April 1 date. In support of that contention, see D'Emilio,
Sexual Politics
, p. 163 for a 1963 statement by Nichols in which he clearly rejects the medical model. Richard Inman, for his part, helped in 1965 to organize, in conjunction with the South Florida Psychiatric Society, a program of free counseling for teenagers who “want to get out of the gay life.” (Elver A. Barker to Adkins and Inman, May 23, 1966. IGIC Papers, NYPL.)

8
.
Leitsch himself credits Craig with bringing him into Mattachine (interview with Leitsch in the gay paper
Equal Time
, Oct. 12–26, 1990).

For the following account of developments within the New York and San Francisco homophile movements, I have relied heavily on the extensive Leitsch correspondence in the IGIC Papers, NYPL; see also D'Emilio,
Sexual Politics
, pp. 163–64, 168–73, 185–86; Beth Hughes, “San Francisco's Own Stonewall”
San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle
, June 4, 1989; Stuart Timmons,
The Trouble with Harry Hay
(Alyson, 1990), pp. 214–20 (L.A. rift).

9
. Leitsch to Kameny, “Sunday” (July 1965), IGIC Papers, NYPL; Wicker to Duberman, Oct. 10, 1993.

10
. Leitsch to Robert S. Walker (treasurer, Council on Religion and the Homosexual), Jan. 6, 1965; Leitsch to Elver Barker, May 27, 1966 (IGIC Papers, NYPL); Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992. Whereas much of the male pornography of the mid-sixties was on the order of muscular, toga-clad, ill-at-ease “Roman soldiers,” the models in
DRUM
were more straightforwardly erotic.

11
. Inman to Leitsch, Oct. 2, 1965; Beardemphl to Leitsch, Oct. 11, 1965; Leitsch to Wiesbauer, Oct. 21, 1965; Leitsch to Kameny, July 25, 1965 (“silly”); Leitsch to Emma Van Cott (DOB “cooperation”)—all in IGIC Papers, NYPL.

12
. No doubt they [the other leaders] “mean well,” Leitsch acidly wrote one supporter, but “so, undoubtedly, did Adolf Hitler … their effectiveness is eliminated by massive egos” (meant in contrast, apparently, to Leitsch's own). He quoted with satisfaction Craig's characterization of Polak as “the homosexual's Adam Clayton Powell,” scorned Shirley Willer's “constant reactionary tactics,” and described his opponents within MSNY and the breakaway West Side Discussion Group as a bunch of “old aunties.” (Leitsch to Elver Barker, aka Karl B. Harding, May 27, 1966. [Barker was the effective, modest leader of Denver Mattachine]); Leitsch to
CLEARING HOUSE Newsletter
, Nov. 3, 1967; Robert Hinton to Inman, March 7, 1966; Leitsch to Polak, March 23, 1965 (“old aunties”); Polak to Leitsch, June 4, 1965—all in IGIC Papers, NYPL. The following year, Leitsch insisted that
Playboy
separate MSNY clearly from Polak's Janus Society. (Leitsch to Carol Rubel, Oct. 23, 1967.)

13
. Leitsch to Elver Barker, May 27, 1966; Leitsch to Donald S. Hostetter (SLA chairman), July 6, 1965; Leitsch to the editor,
Suffolk County News
, Nov. 8, 1965; Leitsch to Henry diSuvero (New York Civil Liberties Union), Sept. 12, 1966; Leitsch to Sanford D. Garelik (chief inspector, N.Y. Police Dept.), Oct. 11, 1966—all in IGIC Papers, NYPL.

14
. Leitsch to John V. Lindsay, May 13, 1966; Leitsch to Evander Smith, May 13, 1966. IGIC Papers, NYPL.

15
. Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992; Beth Hughes, “San Francisco's Own Stonewall.”
San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle
, June 4, 1989. Kepner's letter includes information on several small-scale demonstrations in regard to inclusion in the armed forces; he opposed the demonstrations, “feeling that it was time for us to join the growing peace movement instead of asking for a fair share of the killing—even though I wasn't a committed dove.” Mattachine in San Francisco had by this time pretty much become a front for the varied commercial operations of longtime activist Hal Call, including an “adult” book store that served as an entryway to a sex club where porn films, many of them
also made by Call, were shown. In Los Angeles, a bitter battle for internal control of ONE, Inc., had resulted by April 1965 in two separate organizations, both claiming to be the true church, with the insurgents' magazine,
Tangents
, quickly outstripping the earlier
ONE
magazine. In both cities, the older homophile organizations were being bypassed by newer, more militant groups: the Southern California Council on Religion and the Homosexual, and PRIDE, whose newsletter had evolved, by September 1967, into
The Advocate
. As for Daughters of Bilitis, it remained, on
both
coasts, wedded to polite quietism. The most vocal dissenter from that policy was Barbara Gittings, who had become editor of
The Ladder
in late 1962, and who, along with her lover, Kay “Tobin” (Lahusen), became active allies of Kameny's in ECHO.

16
.
Viewpoint
(Florida Mattachine), June 1966. Richard Inman, too, had been arrested—twice in 1954—for “simply being in a gay bar”; both times he put up a $250 bond and was not prosecuted (Inman to Hodges, March 12, 1965. IGIC Papers, NYPL). For the account of the 1965 demonstrations and, subsequently, of the 1965–1968 Reminders, the following (along with my interviews) were most important: the Mattachine Society Papers in IGIC Papers, NYPL; Vito Russo interview with Barbara Gittings, Channel L (TV, NYC), Feb. 27, 1983 (tape courtesy of Russo); advertisement for Second Annual Reminder, courtesy Rodwell; Bureau of Special Services agents' reports, May 25 (twice), Aug. 17, 1966 (courtesy Scherker Estate). An agent was also present when Craig helped to organize a demonstration in front of the United Nations in response to press reports that the Cuban government had put homosexuals in labor camps. The agent reported placards that read, among others,
SEX IN ANY FORM IS GOOD
, and
SEX IS
A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT
, and he added that he had overheard several bystanders say that the demonstration was “a disgrace” (agent's report, dated April 18, 1965 [courtesy Scherker Estate]).