When We Rise

by Cleve Jones

  Election day came, and on November 8, 1977, San Franciscans voted by district for the first time, and Harvey Bernard Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from District 5.

  Contrary to the legend, Harvey was not the first gay person elected to public office in the United States.

  Nancy Wechsler came out as a lesbian after being elected to the Ann Arbor, Michigan, city council in 1972.

  Two years later, Kathy Kozachenko won her race for Ann Arbor City Council, becoming the first openly gay or lesbian candidate in the United States to win public office.

  In 1974, Elaine Noble became the first openly gay or lesbian candidate to win a state-level office when she was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

  Allan Spear, an out gay man, was also elected to his first of many terms in the Minnesota State Senate in 1974.

  So Harvey was not the first. But he was the first openly gay or lesbian candidate to be elected in California, and his election happened during a time where it would receive more media coverage (thank you, Anita Bryant) than those of his remarkable predecessors. Associated Press and UPI covered his election and the news went worldwide. Harvey became the national spokesperson we had not yet seen in our still-young movement. On Castro Street, we had quite a party.

  Marvin was getting ready to move to New York, which was not a surprise but made me sad nonetheless, although I saw the truth of what he said, “You’re not losing a roommate in San Francisco, you’re gaining a place to stay in Manhattan.”

  Scott, however, had given up on learning German sufficiently to live a normal life there and decided to move to San Francisco and take up hair and makeup. He tried to pretend that this was a new interest, but I remembered all the issues of Vogue over the years and just laughed.

  Scott and Marvin met, and they immediately became friends forever just as I had predicted. It was wonderful to see my friends meeting each other and the circles widening.

  Scott enrolled in the Marinello School of Beauty on Powell Street to learn how to cut hair. He moved in with our friends Lisa Heft and Johnny Bonk.

  Marvin found a studio on the first floor of a big building in Manhattan, on West 86th at Amsterdam. He also acquired an enormously fat tabby cat named Evelyn and began doing children’s theater with the Prince Street Players, the pioneering family theater company founded by Jim Eiler in 1965. Marvin was cast in Alice in Wonderland as the White Rabbit. He loved it. “Oh my ears and whiskers!” (With just a hint of Liza.)

  I moved in with Eric Garber at 593-A Castro Street, just a few buildings north of 19th Street and almost next door to Harvey and Scott’s Castro Camera and their apartment above the store. I don’t remember how Eric and I met, but we became fast friends and were perfect roommates. Eric was short, one of those strawberry blond types with blond hair and reddish beard. He had a small belly and a wide smile and was one of the smartest and kindest people I have ever known. He had the main bedroom in the front, and there was a living room, kitchen, small bathroom, and a back porch that had been converted to a laundry room and a tiny extra room with just enough space for a double bed mattress on the floor and little else. This became my home. The walls had no insulation and on windy nights the damp air whistled through, but I did my best to keep that bed warm and had a lot of help from my friends. Another advantage to the thin walls was that every now and then, in the early morning with the city silent, I could smell the sea and hear the foghorns as I huddled beneath my layers of flannel sheets and wool blankets.

  Eric and I were leading crazy lives and barely working but somehow we paid the bills, kept the place reasonably clean, and never once quarreled. We’d play Patti Smith and Gil Scott-Heron on the stereo, sprawl out on the floor with pizza, smoke pot, and read to each other. We also shared an appreciation for the new genre of Women’s Music. We loved Holly Near, Margie Adam, Meg Christian, Casselberry and Dupree, and Sweet Honey in the Rock and bought probably every album released by Olivia Records (a women-owned recording label that would later be transformed into a women-only cruise company).

  Who could resist songs with lyrics like “Here come the leaping lesbians”?

  We covered every square inch of the walls with political posters from revolutionary struggles around the world. We built bookshelves of brick and board where Eric’s history and science fiction shared space with my novels and biographies. We shared the stereo and a phone line and began to throw parties. I soon met our neighbor; his flat was on the same floor as ours, in the front, facing out to Castro Street. He was so cute, short, and butch, with a dazzling smile and baseball biceps. Sometimes when it was very cold, I’d wrap a blanket around me and walk down the hall to knock on his door. He was usually willing to warm me up.

  Eric was working with a young lesbian named Lyn Paleo to create an annotated bibliography of alternative sexuality in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. When it was published he walked into the kitchen with the hardcover edition of Uranian Worlds, and we all burst into applause and tears. It was a sweet victory not just for Lyn and Eric, but for the community as well.

  Eric was part of a small group of people who were discovering the lost history of gay people. Later, their efforts would lead to the creation of history projects, museums, and libraries. Between his historians and my activists, there was always someone camped out on the living room floor, or sharing Eric’s bed or mine.

  Every morning, I’d walk the two blocks down Castro Street to Market to catch the M-Ocean View streetcar out to SF State. It took less than a half hour, but the west side of town always felt like a different city. It still does.

  On Muni’s M cars, and the K line to City College, hundreds of young gay men and lesbians met each other every day on their way to study film, theater, anthropology, sociology, psychology, dance, political science, creative writing, music, and fine arts. I don’t think there was a single business or economics major among us.

  We all lived within walking distance of each other, or a quick bus ride at most. We could walk to the Castro Theatre, the Roxie, the gay bars on Haight Street, or to the library at Civic Center, or to the Stud and the leather bars down on Folsom or the little gay center at 32 Page Street. It became a cauldron of gay creative energy, from which would emerge some of the greatest ideas and most extraordinary leaders of our movement. Chronicling it all were the photographers, including Danny Nicoletta, Guy Cory, Efren Ramirez, and the ubiquitous Rink, who looked a bit like Charlie Chaplin and showed up at everything.

  I saw Harvey at one of the parties following his election in November 1977 and he greeted me warmly. We made small talk for a few minutes, then he put his arm over my shoulder and maneuvered us to a private corner.

  “You know Anita Bryant is coming to California, don’t you?” Harvey looked grim.

  “Yeah, I’ve been following this Briggs guy she enlisted,” I responded. I’d already begun clipping news stories about State Senator John Briggs of Fullerton, right in the middle of right-wing Orange County.

  Harvey said, “This guy is trouble. He’s going to get his initiative on the ballot and if we lose, thousands of gay men and lesbians are going to lose their jobs.”

  I knew Harvey was right. Picking up on the “Save our Children” slogan of Anita Bryant in Dade County, Senator Briggs was proposing to ban gay and lesbian people and our allies from working in any capacity in any California public school. It was an obvious, cynical attempt to exploit the public’s fears of child abusers, despite overwhelming statistical evidence that gay people were no more likely to abuse children than straight people. But far too many were eager to believe that all gay people were out to “recruit” the innocent, apple-cheeked children of middle-class America.

  “I know, Harvey, it’s scary.”

  He looked at me gravely from those dark eyes with the shadows beneath and smiled just a bit.

  “No, Cleve, It’s just what we need. We can’t win in Florida yet, or almost anywhere else in the world. But we could win here.
We needed to bring this fight to California, and now it is on its way. You start now. Organize the students. Start with SF State and City College, then find our kids on every campus in the state and get them ready. It will take them a year to get this on the ballot. We must be ready by then. Don’t wait, start now.”

  “Harvey, do you really think we can stop him? I mean, here in the city we could win, I think, but statewide, do you honestly believe we can win?”

  He shrugged. “Even if we lose, having the debate moves us forward, just by requiring people to think about the issue. The more they think about it, the more progress we make. And we have to get everyone to come out of their closets.” He smiled. “If we all come out, we will win. Once people understand that they have gay friends and family members and coworkers and neighbors, they won’t fear us, they won’t hate us, and they won’t vote against us. That’s how we win. Everyone must come out.”

  I’d been out of the closet for five years, but now I had my marching orders.

  CHAPTER 16

  Building the Army

  ON JANUARY 8, 1978, HARVEY MILK WAS SWORN IN AS A MEMBER OF the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco. He walked from Castro Street to City Hall with about a hundred of his supporters and campaign volunteers, holding hands with his boyfriend Jack Lira. I’d like to say that I was there, but I missed the event entirely, having spent most of the previous night getting well fucked by a long-haired waiter at the New York City Deli named David Weissman. We’d been seeing each other off and on for a few months and I was too lazy and reluctant to leave our warm bed that chilly and damp morning, even as history was being made.

  Classes resumed at SF State and I took some film classes, but after I showed Harvey a short Super 8 project I’d made, he informed me gravely that I had absolutely no talent and should change my major to political science. It stung a bit but confirmed what I already suspected: I was not going to be a famous film director.

  Following Harvey’s instructions, I began organizing students, first at SF State and City College and then across the state. I had joined the gay student association at State and also spent a lot of time at the mostly lesbian Women’s Center on campus. I got to know Sally Gearhart and some of the other feminist faculty. Sally rose to prominence in the gay and lesbian community following the release of Word Is Out in 1977. This documentary, which consisted of interviews with 26 lesbians and gay men, was originated by Peter Adair and launched the film career of documentarian Rob Epstein, who would go on to win two Academy Awards. There were many deeply moving and sometimes funny moments in the film but Sally was one of the most moving subjects, very articulate and powerful. We all saw Word Is Out when it premiered at the Castro Theatre.

  My fellow student organizers and I began traveling up and down the state, seeking out gay and lesbian student organizations in the University of California system as well as at the state and community colleges. Eventually we formed the California Campus Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Rights, with representatives from about thirty campuses.

  Members of the tiny Socialist Workers Party supported us in this effort, a fact that was controversial to some. To my mind, though, it wasn’t like we had allies just lining up to help us; Republicans hated us and the Democrats were only marginally better. We began to hear stories from around the country of campaigns, such as Anita Bryant’s campaign in Dade County, to roll back the very limited rights we had thus far won through local nondiscrimination ordinances in only a few cities and towns.

  An organizer named Hank Wilson took me out for a beer one evening, and we talked about John Briggs and the fight that loomed ahead. Hank was a schoolteacher and directly threatened by the proposed ban on gay teachers and school workers. He hung out with Howard Wallace and Claude Wynne and was also close friends with Tom Ammiano, a militant gay rights advocate, comedian, and teacher who had been among those featured in Word Is Out.

  Tall, broad-shouldered, and self-effacing, Hank talked over beers about the need for us to clearly define the Castro neighborhood, not only as a place for gay people to live but as a place where we would gather at times of crisis. “There’s big fights coming, and we’re going to lose most of them at first. We need every gay person in the Bay Area to know that whenever we’re under attack, whenever we’re defeated, we should gather here on Castro Street.”

  Hank was one of the founders of the Butterfly Brigade, an organization of volunteers armed with whistles, tear gas, and walkie-talkies that patrolled the Castro and adjacent blocks late at night, particularly after the bars closed, to confront the “fag bashers” who would drive into the neighborhood to attack, beat, and sometimes kill. I joined the Brigade and spent many a cold night walking up and down the streets watching out for trouble. Randy Alfred, a reporter for KSAN radio, was also a founder of the Brigade, and his flask of “Butterfly Blood,” a sweet mix of liquors, often warmed us up on cold and foggy nights.

  We started to collect names and telephone numbers to build a “telephone tree” to mobilize our growing army of activists. I would call ten people; they would each call ten people, who would each call ten more, and so on. Eventually we would be able to turn out thousands of people in just hours during times of crisis.

  Hank also said we needed a new symbol for our movement and community. In 1974, an international gay congress meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, declared the Greek letter lambda to be the global symbol of the movement. Originally used by the Gay Activist Alliance of New York in 1970, the lambda was supposed to signify unity, but I never really understood why. Some lesbians had adopted the labrys, a double-bladed axe, as their symbol. Both the lambda and the labrys were seen on posters, T-shirts, and buttons, and sometimes used in jewelry. The problem with both, though, was that their meaning or origin remained obscure to most.

  There was less difficulty explaining another symbol adopted by the early movement: the pink triangle. Assigned to homosexuals in the Nazi death camps, the pink triangle was a vivid reminder of the persecution of gay people, but many disliked it precisely because of its horrible origins. “We need a positive and unifying symbol that encompasses all of us,” said Hank. I agreed and so did many of my friends, but no one could come up with an idea that worked.

  Meanwhile, I stayed busy organizing on campuses and also helped establish Committees Against the Briggs Initiative. The first one, Bay Area Committee Against the Briggs Initiative (BACABI), included most of the left-wing gay and lesbian activists in San Francisco. Meetings were small at first but grew rapidly as people began to understand the threat. Soon similar committees were established in several Northern California counties. As with the campus groups, the Socialist Workers Party was active in BACABI. Some of the more moderate activists, including many with aspirations within the Democratic Party, took issue with the Socialist presence. Harvey didn’t seem to care, and I thought it was just a case of good old-fashioned red-baiting. At any rate, we were too busy to pay attention.

  Harvey took to the board of supervisors like a duck to water. He immediately began work to draft legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. His self-deprecating humor and prankish nature made him very popular with the media, to the chagrin of some of his less charismatic colleagues. He clashed often with board president Dianne Feinstein and championed the causes of renters and working people, lashing out against large corporations and real estate developers. District elections had brought not only an openly gay man to office but also an African American woman named Ella Hill Hutch, a Chinese American activist named Gordon Lau, and Carol Ruth Silver, a single mother. The board was beginning to look a bit more like the citizens it represented. But not all the newcomers to the board were liberals. Voters in District 8 elected a former police officer named Dan White from the Visitacion Valley neighborhood. He campaigned on a pledge to drive “social deviants” from San Francisco and would be the sole vote against the Gay Rights Ordinance that Harvey and Carol Ruth Silver introduced and that was signed by
Mayor Moscone.

  Harvey also introduced the “pooper scooper” law that sought to reduce one of the great annoyances of city living: stepping in dog shit. With typical media savvy, Harvey held his press conference announcing the legislation in shit-covered Duboce Park, where he “accidentally” stepped in a pile he’d located earlier. The photo of him mugging and pointing at the bottom of his shoe went far and wide.

  That spring, Hank and I saw an opportunity to ratchet up the momentum building against the Briggs Initiative as well as a chance to strengthen gay people’s sense of the Castro as “our turf.” A referendum vote had been scheduled in St. Paul, Minnesota, to repeal a limited gay rights bill that had been enacted the year before by St. Paul’s liberal city council.

  We made posters and handed out flyers letting people know about the April 25 vote and asking them to gather at Castro and Market at 8 p.m. if we lost the election. We were in touch with activists in St. Paul and got the results soon after the polls closed: the ordinance was repealed by a 2 to 1 margin. We activated the telephone tree, calling everyone we knew, who called everyone they knew: “We’ve lost St. Paul; march tonight!”

  The city was in the process of building a subway system, and the major intersections along Market Street were dominated by large blue plywood constructions over the excavations that would become metro stops. The large boxlike structures were about 4 feet tall and created what would become stages for speakers at rallies and for comedians and street musicians.

  At 7:30 p.m. Hank and I met up at the Twin Peaks bar on the corner of Castro and Market and watched in amazement as hundreds, then thousands of pissed-off protesters streamed into the intersection. By 8:00 p.m. we had enough people to block Castro and Market Streets, all lanes in both directions. Of course we hadn’t applied for a permit, so the police were caught completely off guard. By the time officers arrived, all they could do was watch as the crowd took to the streets, many carrying signs we’d made saying Stop the Briggs Initiative.