When We Rise

by Cleve Jones

  The NAMES Project was taken over by a woman named Julie Rhoads. I trusted her initially, but that trust was tested sorely when she moved the Quilt to her hometown of Atlanta and out of the Castro neighborhood where it had been nurtured for so many years. She closed down many of our most effective programs, shuttered most of the chapters, and announced her intention to build a museum to house the Quilt. “Don’t you think that’s a bit like trying to build the Holocaust Museum in 1939?” I asked. I went to the board of directors with my concerns. The new board president was an interior decorator from New Hampshire. Not a single member of the board was HIV-positive. They fired me.

  It was scary to be out of work but I was recruited to run the Los Angeles Shanti Project, trying to resuscitate their support programs, which had been created when AIDS was still an immediate death sentence. I didn’t realize how much debt the organization was carrying, and soon understood the funding from the county and the City of West Hollywood was going to be discontinued as the smaller AIDS-related agencies were forced to merge to save costs. The roof leaked so badly we had to cover our desks and computers with plastic whenever it rained. I lasted only eight months and hated every moment.

  In a last-ditch effort to raise money to keep the doors open, we planned a party at a local club for my 50th birthday. There were large numbers of NAMES Project supporters and donors in LA, and our volunteers spent days addressing the invitations to every list we could get our hands on. I was pessimistic but tried to keep a game face. The morning of the event, I was looking for a file in the volunteer coordinator’s office. Behind his desk I found the boxes of invitations. They had not been mailed.

  I got in my car and drove back to Palm Springs so defeated and humiliated I had to pull over to the side of the road repeatedly to cry and slam my hands against the steering wheel. It was 2004; I was 50 years old and completely useless.

  CHAPTER 32

  A New World

  AIDS CHANGED EVERYTHING ABOUT OUR LIVES.

  It brought gay men and lesbians closer as lesbians volunteered to care for the sick and stepped into leadership positions when gay men died. It forced us to raise enormous sums of money and to build sophisticated social infrastructure. AIDS service provider organizations all over the country routinely raised and spent millions of dollars every year. Before AIDS, the notion of an LGBT community was just that, a notion. But AIDS proved us. AIDS forced people, many of us, out of the closet. It’s hard to hide when you’ve got purple lesions on your face or are caring for your partner of many years as he dies. Many parents learned their sons were gay at the same moment they learned that he had AIDS.

  AIDS created a militancy and political power that first expressed itself in the powerful street theater of ACT UP and continued to a new generation with Queer Nation, Housing Works, and Health GAP.

  AIDS forced religious denominations to grapple with their responsibility to congregants with AIDS and their families. Pastors and preachers in the black churches had to face what they’d known, but never spoken of, about the members of their choirs. On Indian reservations, in inner cities, across the rural plains, families of all colors and ethnicities learned that they too had gay children.

  AIDS also changed the way we viewed marriage. Long seen as unattainable and “just a piece of paper,” marriage was now understood as a vital, even life-saving right. We looked around us, at the lives we were living. We saw the loving partners caring night and day for their dying lovers; dressing the wounds, emptying the bedpans, changing the IV lines. We saw their devotion and said, What do you mean this isn’t a real marriage? Fuck you. This is exactly what real marriage looks like.

  In November 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that same-sex couples could begin marrying in May 2004. President Bush, in his State of the Union address, suggested that a constitutional amendment might be necessary to maintain “traditional marriage.” The issue had already proved very useful to the Republican Party, which used it to galvanize conservative Christian voters in dozens of states. Ken Mehlman, a closeted gay man who was field director of the 2000 Bush/Cheney campaign, promoted state constitutional bans on same-sex marriage and civil unions. During his tenure as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2005 to 2007, more states adopted the bans. Eventually, thirty-one states would enact such prohibitions.

  San Francisco’s youthful new mayor, Gavin Newsom, and city attorney Dennis Herrera decided that the California state constitution’s equal protection clause gave them the authority to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The marriages began on February 13, 2004, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Among the first to obtain marriage licenses were Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.

  I was spending time in San Francisco with my sister Elizabeth, who had just given birth to one baby girl and adopted another, and I witnessed the people who came to San Francisco from all over the country and around the world to be married under the ornate City Hall rotunda that Harvey Milk had so loved. Thousands of couples waited patiently in line, often in the rain, to have their relationships recognized. The images of these couples were broadcast around the world. The marriages continued for four months before the California Supreme Court shut them down and ruled the marriages invalid. That ruling began a long legal process that would culminate four years later.

  Republican strategists like Mehlman, who was now running President Bush’s reelection campaign, were grateful for Mayor Newsom’s bold move and knew that the controversy it generated would result in more state bans and increase voter turnout among social conservatives.

  The Democrats were furious, as were the leaders of almost every major LGBT organization in the country. Dianne Feinstein blasted Newsom, as did gay Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank.

  George W. Bush was reelected, defeating John Kerry in a close election. Many Democrats accused Newsom of contributing to the defeat.

  A few more states enacted bans on same-sex marriage as the legal proceedings in California inched forward.

  One afternoon in 2005 while visiting my sister I got a call from a young union organizer in San Francisco named Kelly Duggan. She’d been given my number by Lisa Jaicks, who ran boycotts for the hotel workers of UNITE HERE Local 2. I knew Lisa’s father Agar, who had run the SF Democratic County Central Committee for years. Back in Birmingham, Michigan, my father had gone to school with Agar’s wife and sister-in-law, who were nieces of Eleanor Roosevelt.

  Local 2 was in a dispute with the downtown Hilton Hotel and organized a boycott to get conference business and individual travelers to take their money elsewhere. One of the organizations that refused to honor the boycott was the National Minority AIDS Council. Its founder, Paul Kawata, whom I had known for decades, still ran NMAC. Union organizers called him repeatedly but he did not respond. I wrote an editorial for the Bay Area Reporter, entitled “NMAC Crosses the Line,” criticizing them for crossing the UNITE HERE picket line and pointing out the sad irony that an agency whose stated mission was to fight AIDS and improve access to health care in minority communities was failing to support the low-wage minority and immigrant workers represented by the union that was fighting for the same access to health care.

  The editorial was well received and I wrote another for San Francisco’s progressive weekly, The Bay Guardian, about why all San Franciscans had a stake in the outcome of the hotel workers’ struggle.

  I was invited to Washington, DC, to meet the president of the UNITE HERE International Union, John Wilhelm. I also met one of the union’s key organizers, a skinny guy named Dave Glaser who lived with his wife and two sons in Berkeley. I liked Dave immediately and was fascinated by his description of the strategies the union was implementing to take on the giant multinational corporations, hedge funds, and venture capitalists who were buying up all the hotels. Dave was very smart, patient with my ignorance, and hilariously funny.

  I showed the union leaders all the LGBT newspapers and magazines, full of advertising from all the major hotel chain
s. The LGBT travel industry was already valued in billions of dollars. I also pointed out that there were large numbers of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workers throughout the hospitality industry. John Wilhelm hired me to build coalitions between the LGBT community and UNITE HERE. I had found a new home, this time in the labor movement. I needed a name for this campaign to get LGBT travelers and event planners to use hotels with union contracts. On the phone with Gilbert Baker, the creator of the rainbow flag, one night, he came up with the perfect slogan for my new effort: “Sleep with the Right People.”

  I was living part time with friends in San Francisco and part time in my home in Palm Springs, where a young man named Damon Intrabartolo and a young woman named Kristin Hanngi visited me one afternoon around the end of 2005. He was a composer and arranger who had worked with some big names in film and had an off-Broadway musical that was something of a hit, called bare. She was an up-and-coming new director who had won several awards. I couldn’t imagine what they wanted from me. They both expressed surprise that I was still alive, which I thought was an odd way to start a conversation.

  It turned out that they wanted to create a musical theater piece, a “rock opera” about my friendship with Harvey Milk.

  They had already done some research, Damon had some tunes in his head, and they were thrilled when I opened up boxes of loose photographs from three decades and dumped them on the living room floor.

  Damon began writing music and came over to visit several times, but I had the feeling that Kristin was moving on. After several weeks, Damon told me that he was having trouble focusing on the music and wanted to bring in a friend to help him with the book.

  The following weekend he showed up with his friend, a blond guy in his late twenties named Dustin Lance Black. Lance and Damon and I walked around the Warm Sands neighborhood, watching the boys and men cruising around the gay resorts. I had come to find Damon somewhat obnoxious but Lance seemed very thoughtful and I was impressed by how much he knew about Harvey Milk. I worried that Harvey was being forgotten, and I began most of my college lectures by asking the students if they recognized his name. Each year fewer hands were raised. I was also disturbed by the new generation of young LGBT people. They seemed apathetic and unconcerned about politics. They didn’t want to talk about AIDS and seemed content to go to clubs, get high, and shop. I asked Lance what it was like to be part of a generation with no purpose. Usually quick with his answers, he had no response.

  Lance and I drove up to San Francisco to research Harvey’s life and I introduced him to the surviving members of Harvey’s inner circle, including Anne Kronenberg, Jim Rivaldo, Michael Wong, and Harvey’s speechwriter, Frank Robinson.

  That summer I traveled to Toronto on a mission from UNITE HERE. The union’s contracts with scores of major hotels across North America were expiring that year, and strike votes were scheduled in multiple cities in July and August. When I realized that our members in Toronto had scheduled a strike authorization vote for the first week of August I was very concerned, as the 2006 International AIDS Conference was set to open August 13, bringing tens of thousands of HIV/AIDS researchers, activists, and patients to Toronto. Every room in every hotel was already booked. If we struck, it would force delegates to cross union picket lines to get to their rooms, and those images would be broadcast around the world. I was not going to let that happen.

  I started spending time in Toronto, meeting first with the workers from the hotels. Wendi Walsh, one of the union’s best organizers, set up the meeting. She was excited but we were both nervous. At first some of the workers were hesitant. Local 75’s members came from many different countries, especially the Caribbean and East Africa. Many were devout Christians; many were Muslims. Here I was, this gay guy from San Francisco, asking them to think about the consequences of striking during the International AIDS Conference. After all, from the workers’ perspective, the situation enhanced their bargaining position.

  We soon learned that the housekeepers in the hotels were frightened by the prospect of cleaning the rooms of people with AIDS. Housekeepers routinely endure the responsibility of cleaning up messes that would make most people cringe. They regularly encounter grossly soiled bed sheets, used syringes, and filthy bathrooms. None of their employers had bothered to educate them about HIV. I reached out to the local LGBT community leaders, sponsors of the Conference and public health officials to organize a series of trainings for the hotels’ housekeeping staffs. Out of this grew a partnership that became more important as the conference approached and the strike loomed. It was front-page news: would the union strike during the International AIDS Conference? Encouraged by union leaders, more and more of our rank-and-file members came out as LGBT or spoke openly of LGBT family members. Many shared stories of the pandemic’s impact on their homelands.

  Two days before the Conference opened, hundreds of UNITE HERE Local 75 members announced that they had voted overwhelmingly to authorize the strike but would postpone the walkout in solidarity with people with AIDS and the global struggle against the pandemic. It was the lead story on every news broadcast and front-page headlines in the papers the next morning.

  Local 75 members across Toronto went to work the next day wearing union buttons with red ribbons to show their allegiance to the union, and their support for people with AIDS. Management at the Delta Chelsea Hotel suspended some eighty workers for wearing the buttons. When word reached the convention floor, delegates from all over the world walked out to join the hotel workers’ protest march. The suspensions were rescinded and eventually the workers got their contracts.

  On the flight back to California I was tired physically but my spirits were buoyed. I had been useful. The victory belonged to the workers—scrappy room attendants from Jamaica, parking valets from Eritrea, groundskeepers from India—and all would receive better pay, work in safer conditions, and be treated with greater respect because of our efforts.

  Back in California, Damon became more erratic, and we realized that he was losing his shit. I suspected he was on meth. The project fell apart and Lance and I met for drinks.

  “I’ve always wanted to write a screenplay about Harvey,” he said. “It’s a shame to not use all this material.” Lance, a former Mormon, was now one of the writers of the HBO show Big Love, about a polygamous Mormon community. I was a fan of the show and began to think that maybe, just maybe, I’d live long enough to see Harvey’s story on the big screen.

  Gus Van Sant had visited me a few times in Palm Springs and we spoke occasionally by phone. I’d told him about the “angels” that were visiting me and were so eager to learn about Harvey and to tell his story.

  Lance finished the first draft of his screenplay in early spring of 2007. When I read it, I thought it was brilliant. Despite minor historical errors, I could hear Harvey’s voice in every line. I called Gus and asked if we could come visit.

  “Is this about the rock opera?”

  “No, Gus, it’s a new screenplay written by a guy named Dustin Lance Black.”

  “I think I’ve met him. Is he a blond kid?”

  I took Lance to see Gus at his home in the Hollywood Hills. I was prepared to help the conversation move forward but I didn’t need to say a word; they just started talking about how to tell the story. I just sat back, smoked a cigarette, and listened as these two very brilliant gay men from two very different generations started to figure out the film they would make. As Lance drove us down the hill back to his place I said, “It’s going to happen.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Making Milk

  SEAN PENN TOOK A DEEP DRAG OFF HIS AMERICAN SPIRIT CIGARETTE, exhaled, and looked over at me. “Can I ask you some questions?”

  We were standing on the sidewalk in front of Incanto, a trendy restaurant made famous by chef Chris Cosentino of Iron Chef America fame. Inside, a group of Harvey Milk’s friends—survivors of late ’70s San Francisco—were Sean’s guests for dinner. We were all excited by the opportunity to share
our stories of Harvey with the man who would portray him on screen. It had only been a few months since Gus agreed to direct and Sean had agreed to take on the role.

  “Sean, you can ask me anything you want,” I replied, wondering what would come next.

  “You know, Cleve, I don’t really know that much about gay people.”

  I resisted the impulse to burst out with, “But you married Madonna!”

  “It’s OK, Sean, ask me anything.”

  He took another deep draw on his cigarette. “So what’s your nigga?”

  I was confused. What did he just say? Did he just use the one word no white person is allowed to say under any circumstances? I said, “Excuse me?”

  “What’s your nigga?” he repeated and now I was concerned, thinking, Please don’t turn out to be an asshole.

  “I’m sorry, Sean, I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

  “What’s your nigga? You know, like when you hear black guys greeting each other.”

  Ah. “Are you asking me what is the homosexual equivalent of black youth referring to each other as ‘nigga’?”

  Penn nodded. I considered the question and responded, “Well, that would be ‘girl.’”

  “Girl?” He took another long drag.

  “Yes, but say it more like it’s spelled with a u. Gurl.”

  “Gurl.”

  “Guurl. And move your head around a little when you say it.”

  Penn exhaled a plume of smoke, wobbled his head a bit, and said, “Guuurl.” I just about choked.

  Meeting Emile Hirsch was a weird moment. It’s a strange experience to meet a talented and handsome young actor who is going to become you for a potential audience numbering in the millions. But I had seen several of his films and was very pleased that Gus picked Emile.