“Stay in the fight” is what she’d told me with her last bit of strength, because she knew that the fight was fast approaching, and that it was worthy.
“Fight for my life,” she said. And I promised I would. For a promise is a sacred thing.
Yes, I’m an optimist, just like my mom, but neither of us was a fool. From new laws and innovations to tough conversations, compromises, and paradigm-shifting storytelling, I know it’s going to take great efforts to create what’s needed to make this life more livable for folks like my mom, for me, and for all of us infinitely varied human creatures. And in that noble pursuit, so much will be broken and go terribly wrong, and it will require all of our attention to repair it. Because a life like my mom’s isn’t easy; it demands courage, vigilance, and damn hard work. But it is joyful, meaningful labor, and if you feel called to it, then as my uncle James would have told my mom, “Get yer tail in the fight, darlin’ ”—in any way you can. Big and small. Let’s fight for our lives like that little Southern girl from the poorest city in America who couldn’t take a single step but refused to believe she was too different to have it all. Hers was a life I was honored to witness and share, whose challenges I tried my best to rise to, and whose love I most certainly felt. But now, well…I can’t keep her all to myself anymore. Because I made a promise when my mother asked that a life like hers be fought for, and thus shared. And a promise is a sacred thing. So now, it’s my great honor to be a man of my word and to fight for that life, and to do so by your side—because now her life is yours.
A BEGINNING
Epilogue
On May 6, 2017, surrounded by family, Dustin Lance Black and Thomas Robert Daley legally wed at Bovey Castle in Devon, England.
On June 27, 2018, their first child, Robert Ray Black-Daley, was born in Southern California. He’s so damn cute.
Lance’s cousin Debbie flew in from Texarkana unannounced to attend Robbie Ray’s birth. When asked why she didn’t call ahead, she shot back, “ ’Cause you mighta said ‘no,’ and this is what families do.”
One week later, the happy new parents asked Ryan Elizalde to extend his protective care to Robbie Ray as his godfather. Ryan cried, and then said yes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, thank you, Mom, wherever you’re flying tonight. Beyond what can be found on this book’s pages, I’m deeply grateful for your keeping, stashing, hiding, and preserving anything you felt might hold some meaning from your life and ours—all of the sacred objects you rightly guessed might remind and inspire, particularly those that tell the stories of your most painful days, the occasions you never wanted to waste a moment of our living reliving, but that you must have known I would one day discover and put to use. I’ve tried my very best.
A big thank-you to my little brother, Todd Black, for reading early drafts, and sharing laughter and tears as you helped me fill in the blanks. To Ryan Elizalde, for digging out and poring through old photos, journals, and one rather dramatic manifesto to help clarify dusty memories. Your care and protection have again proven boundless. To Jeff Bisch, for making the time for long phone interviews at odd hours and answering every question, even when I tiptoed into some highly personal territory.
To my family treasures—Aunt Martha, Uncle Don, Aunt Nan, Aunt Mary, and my cousins Debbie, Sandy, and Lynn—thank you for facing the tears that inevitably rode sidecar with your favorite Anne and Lance humdingers, hardships, and humiliations. Debbie, Sandy, and Nan, thank you for letting me monopolize so many hours of your London visits/vacations with such probing. Lynn, thank you for reading this book, chewing me out, forgiving me, and letting me go to print without editing “one damn word” out of our family story. I love you all.
To my own personal heroes, Chad Griffin, Adam Umhoefer, Larry Gross, and Troy Williams, thank you for answering my political and LGBTQ movement questions, and for helping me refine this book’s account of our shared LGBTQ equality work and history. More important, thank you for your tireless efforts in the struggle for LGBTQ equality. There is no doubt that you’ve all made lives more livable for LGBTQ people in Utah, the United States, and beyond.
To my agent, Joe Cohen, who felt it was about time I write this book. Thank you for introducing me to my superstar book agent at CAA, Cait Hoyt. Cait, you’ve proven to be a trusty navigator and sunshine on the cloudiest days (most every day here in London). You’re also a damn good ball-breaker—particularly when I’ve proven too shy still to bust the balls that needed it. If my high school physics teacher was right and nothing moves without an outside force getting it going, well, you’ve been my prime mover. Thank you.
Tim, oh, Tim O’Connell. Perhaps it was the sugar high from all of the caramel corn I wolfed down just before our very first meeting, but you made me laugh from the get-go…sometimes with you, sometimes directly at you. I immediately fell for your spirit and felt sure you wouldn’t let me lose the humor and heart in the shadows of my past. Thank you for your patience and willingness to talk through the same old ideas a thousand times on long international calls, and for doing so all over again a day, a week, or even months later. You’re my favorite brand of nerd, and I am so grateful to have you as my editor.
Anna Kaufman, some may call you an editorial assistant, but we all know who holds the real power over there. Thank you for all of your keen insights, but also for the emails you wrote to Tim (emails he most certainly wasn’t supposed to share with me). Know that your kind words, written behind my back, kept me typing on the days I was ready to throw in the towel.
Ellen Feldman, you brilliant production editor, you make me feel so very foolish when you highlight all of my countless mistakes. I suppose it would be wise to secretly accept your corrections and pretend that I’m as flawless as you make me appear, but, alas, I’ve just admitted your rescue work in writing. So, to hell with it: Ellen, you and your proofreaders Chuck Thompson and Bert Yaeger are my not-so-secret weapons. Thank you for seeing through what I wrote down to what I meant to write and leading me to the well.
A big thank-you to text designer Iris Weinstein for making all of my decidedly Texan words and phrases look so damn sophisticated. And to Jon Gray, who made the journey to my home when a busted knee and a newborn had me grounded, thank you for going through a hundred photos, childhood drawings, and enduring a thousand more stories as you created a cover that is both striking and deeply meaningful to me.
And, of course, to the woman who has to put up with me each and every day, and in person: Tumi Belo, thank you for running our little office so well that I ran out of excuses to avoid my writing responsibilities.
As I look to the future, I’d like to acknowledge our Knopf marketers, Julianne Clancy and Emily Wilkerson, as well as Knopf’s publicity team, Erinn B. Hartmann and Nimra Chohan, and my own publicist, Marisa Martins. I’m excited, and also a bit terrified, to share this very personal story with the world. But under your guidance, I know I have far less to fear. Mostly I’m looking forward to taking those of you who join our book tour to my favorite Texas BBQ spots. Leave all diets at home.
To anyone I didn’t explicitly name in this book but who may think it’s you I was talking about, know that I made a decision early on not to criticize anyone by name who works and fights for a more creative and/or just and equal world…no matter how much I may disagree with the path chosen to achieve such goals. I believe it takes opposing forces with similar dreams, working together, but often at odds, to see our equality reached and our curiosities realized. I admire and sincerely thank you all…even as you are likely cursing my name all over again.
Finally, as my mom taught me to do, I’ve saved the best for last. I feel so unbelievably lucky to be able to thank my family: my husband, Tom, and our son, Robbie Ray. Tom, at our wedding you said in your vows that you would try to find the value in my sensitivity. This project has most certainly revealed new sensitivities and tested that vow. My tears, ruminations, i
nsecurities, and insomnia must have seemed less than “valuable” on at least one occasion, but you always listened, coached, encouraged, and/or ordered us frozen yogurt. You are my best friend, my loving husband, and the greatest partner-in-crime a man could ever ask for. And to our precious Robbie Ray, thank you for the opportunity to pay my family’s lessons and traditions forward…and for taking all of those long midmorning naps. Without those, I would never have completed my final pass. I can’t wait for you to read this book one day and meet your strong, beautiful Grandma Anne. She would have loved you to bits and pieces, and somewhere out there, I promise you, she’s doing just that. And a promise is a sacred thing, Robbie.
PHOTO CAPTIONS AND CREDITS
Captions to be read clockwise from top left
PART I
1. STILL WATER
Cokie holding Don, with Victor, Josie, Faye, Buddy, and Billy Ray in Lake Providence, Louisiana, 1942
Rose Anna with chickens on her parents’ Lake Providence tenant farm, 1948
Rose Anna with Cokie at a Vicksburg, Mississippi, Baptist church, 1951
Rose Anna walking on a Lake Providence road, 1950
2. SAFETY’S SOUND
Cokie and Anna outside a Warm Springs, Georgia, hotel room on Christmas morning, 1955
Neighbors visiting Anna at home in Lake Providence, 1956
3. OUR SUFFERING
Anne’s March of Dimes portrait, 1958
Anne with neighbors back home in Lake Providence, 1959
Nan, Anne, and Mary in Lake Providence, 1962
Anne, Martha, and Cokie, 1961
4. A BODY IN MOTION
Anne in her marching band uniform, 1965
Anne in her prom dress, 1966
Anne with Raul at home in Lake Providence after their wedding, 1969
5. BEDROCK
Marcus, Lance, and Anne, 1975
Lance and Marcus with Anne’s yellow Chevy Malibu Classic in Texas, 1979
Anne’s sisters Josie, Mary, Martha, and Nan, sister-in-law Faye, and sister Faye, with Anne, 1980
Marcus, Raul, Anne, Lance, and Todd in El Paso, Texas, 1979
6. GRAND THEFT AUTO
Marcus, Todd, and Lance in San Antonio, Texas, 1980
A green-eyed neighbor with a cocker spaniel, 1980
7. CAN’T WALK, CAN’T TALK
The Jingle Bell Band (Lance on far left), 1980
8. BULL BY THE HORNS
Merrill, Marcus, Lance, Anne, and Todd in San Antonio’s Olan Mills Portrait Studio, 1982
Lance on a cow near Dallas, 1982
Anne, Todd, Marcus, and Lance in San Antonio, 1983
9. HUNGRY DEVILS
Lance in his Kitty Hawk Junior High football uniform, 1987
Marcus with his punk band postcards, 1987
10. DELIVERANCE
Jeff Bisch in his army uniform, San Antonio, 1987
Jeff takes a photo of Anne in her laboratory, 1987
Anne in Fort Sam Houston’s Brooke Army Medical Center laboratory, 1987
PART II
11. WEST OF HOME AND EAST OF EDEN
Jeff, Anne, Lance, Todd, and Marcus in Monterey, California, 1988
Ryan and Lance visiting Big Sur, 1991
Ryan photographing Lance in Big Sur, 1992
12. SECRET SOMETHINGS
Ryan and Lance in their Los Angeles apartment, 1994
Lance with his UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television acceptance letter, 1994
13. ALLEMANDE LEFT
Marcus, Todd, Lance, and Anne at a Wildwood, New Jersey, hotel, 1994
Ryan and Lance, 1996
14. QUEEN OF THE MA’AMS
The hospital commander awarding Anne a commendation, 1993
Anne with her laboratory team, 1993
15. XMAS DOWN
Anne and Lance, Christmas morning in Manassas Park, 1995
16. HUNGRY JACKALS
Lance and an Arriflex at UCLA’s film school, 1996
Cell for the first Hungry Jackal Productions credit, 1996
17. SPINNING YARN
Lance and Anne in Los Angeles, 1996
Jason and Lance shooting a short film, 1998
18. MILK CALLS
Lance writing Milk at night in his Hollywood Hills bungalow, 2007
Sean Penn, Gus Van Sant, and Lance at the Milk premiere in San Francisco, 2008 (ERIC CHARBONNEAU)
19. CATACLYSM
Cleve, Jeff, Anne, Todd, Lance, Drew, Allison, and Ryan before the Oscars, 2009
Lance on the Academy Awards stage, 2009 (PHOTO BY KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES)
Lance speaking at the Meet in the Middle protest against Prop 8 in Fresno, California, 2009 (GARY CLARK)
20. SCOTUS HIATUS
Lance speaks at American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) rally, 2013 (COURTESY OF AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR EQUAL RIGHTS (AFER))
Lance, Ted Olson, David Boies, and Chad Griffin at AFER rally, 2013 (COURTESY OF AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR EQUAL RIGHTS (AFER))
The Los Angeles cast of “8”: The Play, 2012 (PHOTO BY JASON MERRITT/GETTY IMAGES FOR AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR EQUAL RIGHTS)
Adam Umhoefer, Lance, and Cleve Jones at the Supreme Court, 2013
21. VIRGINIA ROADS
Marcus at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., 2010
PART III
22. OUR AMERICAS
Lance as grand marshal of Salt Lake City Pride with Troy Williams (driving) and Mormons Building Bridges, 2012 (SCOTT SOMMERDORF/THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE)
Todd, Lance, Tricia Douret, Nan, and James at Aunt Josie’s wake, Texarkana, Texas, 2012
Mosley the truck makes it to a Venice, California, restoration garage, 2013
23. MAMA’S BOY
Anne and Lance in Salinas, 1987
Anne and Lance at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, 2006
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dustin Lance Black is a filmmaker and social activist, best known for writing the Academy Award–winning screenplay of the Harvey Milk biopic Milk and for his part in overturning California’s discriminatory Proposition 8. He divides his time between London and Texas.
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