History

San Francisco Hosts Largest Display of AIDS Memorial Quilt in a Decade

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AIDS Memorial Quilt

The National AIDS Memorial will mark the 35th anniversary of the AIDS Memorial Quilt with an historic outdoor display in Golden Gate Park that will feature nearly 3,000 hand-stitched panels of the Quilt.

The free public event will take place on June 11 & 12 from 10 am – 5 pm each day in Robin Williams Meadow and in the National AIDS Memorial Grove. Expected to draw thousands of people, the display will be the largest display of the Quilt in over a decade and the largest-ever in San Francisco history.

“This year’s historic community display will be a beautiful celebration of life and a recognition of the power of the Quilt today as a teaching tool for health and social justice,” said National AIDS Memorial CEO John Cunningham. “The Quilt is an important reminder that the HIV/AIDS crisis is still not over and there is much work to be done, particularly in communities of color, where HIV is on the rise in many parts of the country.” 

The two-day 35th Anniversary event, presented by Gilead Sciences, will feature 350 12’x12′ blocks of the Quilt laid out on the ground, each consisting of eight 3’x 6′ individually sewn panels that honor and remember the names and stories of loved ones lost to AIDS. Visitors will be able to walk through the display to experience each panel, remember the names, and see first-hand the stories sewn into each of them. Featured Quilt blocks will include many of the original panels made during the darkest days of the pandemic and panels made in recent years, a solemn reminder that the AIDS crisis is still not over.

“The Quilt remains an important symbol of hope, activism and remembrance that reaches millions of people each year, opening hearts and minds,” said Alex Kalomparis, Senior Vice President, Gilead Sciences, a long-time partner of the Quilt and its programs. The company provided a $2.4 million grant to the National AIDS Memorial in 2019 to relocate the Quilt from Atlanta back to San Francisco. “Through community displays such as this, the Quilt is connecting the story of HIV/AIDS to the issues faced by many people today, touching their lives in a very personal, compelling way.”

An opening ceremony and traditional Quilt unfolding will start at 9:30 am on the 11th, followed by the continuous reading of names of lives lost to AIDS aloud by volunteers, dignitaries, and the public on both days. There will be panel-making workshops, community information booths, stories behind the Quilt, displays of memorabilia, and the ability for the public to share their personal Quilt stories. Volunteer opportunities and community/corporate partnerships are available. The public is also invited to bring new panels that can be displayed in a special area to become part of the Quilt.  

More than 100 new panels will be seen for the first time at the San Francisco display. Many of them were made through the Memorial’s Call My Name panel-making program, which helps raise greater awareness about the impact of HIV/AIDS in communities of color, particularly in the South, where HIV rates are on the rise today. Panel-making workshops are organized around the country, working with church groups, quilting guilds and AIDS service organizations to continue the Quilt’s 35-year legacy of bringing people together and to serve as a catalyst for education and action by pulling the thread from then to now for justice. 

“The AIDS Quilt has always been an important part of Glide Memorial Church and many Black churches around the country. Throughout the years, we have made panels and displayed them from the pulpit as a backdrop to worship, with parishioners calling, singing, and preaching their names,” said Marvin White, Minister of Celebration at Glide. “We are honored to be a community partner of this historic display, to celebrate their lives and to share their stories so future generations always remember.” 

According to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, while new HIV infections in the U.S. fell about 8% from 2015 to 2019, Black and Latino communities — particularly gay and bisexual men within those groups — continue to be disproportionately affected. In 2019, 26% of new HIV infections were among Black gay and bisexual men, 23% among Latino gay and bisexual men, and 45% among gay and bisexual men under the age of 35. African American and Hispanics/Latinos account for the largest increases in new HIV diagnoses, 42% and 27% respectively. Disparities also persist among women. Black women’s HIV infection rate is 11 times that of white women and four times that of Latina women. Racism, HIV stigma, homophobia, poverty, and barriers to health care continue to drive these disparities.

The first panels of the Quilt were created in June of 1987 when a group of strangers, led by gay rights activist Cleve Jones, gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would forget. This meeting of devoted friends, lovers and activists would serve as the foundation for The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.  Each panel made was the size of a human grave and they saw the Quilt as an activist tool to push the government into taking action to end the epidemic.

“What started as a protest to demand action turned into a national movement that served as a wake-up call to the nation that thousands upon thousands of people were dying,” said Jones.  “Today, the Quilt is just as relevant and even more important, particularly in the wake of Covid-19, and the fact that the struggles we face today that result from health and social inequities are the issues we will face again in the future if we don’t learn from the lessons of the past.”

That year, the nearly 2,000 panels of the Quilt traveled to Washington, D.C. for its first display on the National Mall.  It then traveled to several cities, including a large display at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to raise funds for AIDS service organizations.

Today, the Quilt, considered the largest community arts project in the world, is under the stewardship of the National AIDS Memorial and has surpassed 50,000 individually sewn panels with more than 110,000 names stitched into its 54 tons of fabric. The Quilt continues to connect the history of the AIDS pandemic to the ongoing fight against stigma and prejudice through hundreds of community displays around the country and educational programs that reach millions of people each year. In 2021, an outdoor Quilt display system was constructed in the National AIDS Memorial Grove, located in Golden Gate Park, which allows for regular outdoor displays.

“Golden Gate Park has long been a place where history is made and where people come together for change, to heal and express themselves,” said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. “The National AIDS Memorial is an important part of that history, and we are honored to be part of this event that will bring thousands of people to our beloved park to honor a national treasure.”

A special web page at www.aidsmemorial.org has been created for the public to plan their visit to see the display that will be updated regularly with the latest details and information about this historic event.

SOURCE The National AIDS Memorial

‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ recreates a historic interview with a man living with AIDS

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In the Eyes of Tammy Faye

By Mark King

At the height of their 1980s popularity, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were television evangelist royalty, hosting multiple shows and raking in cash from their on-air collection plates. Tammy Faye, however, also had an expansive view of love and acceptance, despite her conservative Christian roots.

She proved it in 1985 when she had a gay man living with AIDS, Steve Pieters, as a guest on her show, Tammy’s House Party. The interview is recreated in the new film The Eyes of Tammy Faye, about the rise and fall of the Bakkers. It premieres September 17 and stars Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye and Andrew Garfield as Jim.

Pieters spoke with POZ magazine about the original interview, which is available on YouTube, and the new film.

It’s amazing that of all the events in Tammy Faye’s life, the filmmakers chose to include her interview with you.

I’m thrilled that they did. I’m touched and honored.

The film The Eyes of Tammy Faye recreates the original Steve Pieters interview

Tammy Faye Bakker interviews Steve Pieters on her show Tammy’s House Party in 1985.YouTube

It’s ironic that the gay man they found was also a theologian and pastor.

Yes. I was a pastor at the time with [the LGBTQ-affirming] Metropolitan Community Church [MCC], and I had been speaking about living with AIDS for two years or more. I made sure the interview went out live so they couldn’t edit it. It was a kick.

But it was a conservative environment. When did you realize it was friendly ground?

Tammy’s producer had been very friendly. She reassured me that Tammy was proud and excited to be the first to give an affirming interview to a gay man with AIDS.

You also kept bringing the topic back to your faith. When she asked you if you had given women “a chance,” you said God loves you the way you are.

I did that quite deliberately. She had said [before we went on air] that “we don’t talk about Jesus” on this show. And then, of course, we ended up talking about Jesus a lot.

It’s also surprising, frankly, that the person living with AIDS who did that interview in 1985 is still alive to talk about it.

I know! I got sick in 1982 and was diagnosed with GRID [gay-related immunodeficiency, a diagnosis used prior to the discovery of HIV]. They told me I had eight months left to live.

There’s no rhyme or reason to it, is there? Who was empowered, who fought hard, who lived, who died, in those early years.

Yes, absolutely. When I think about all those amazing people who were killed…

What was the initial response from folks to your interview?

Not much. It wasn’t until 1987, when the Reverend Troy Perry played the interview at a general conference for MCC and 1,000 people stood up and cheered, that I got much of a response.

I was so shocked. After that, I traveled for 12 years all over the world, and they always wanted me to show that interview at church events. Everyone wanted to see it.

The trailer for The Eyes of Tammy Faye gives viewers the impression that she was really going rogue with her interview with you. It didn’t please the conservatives in power. She wasn’t sticking to the political script of homosexuals being a threat to Christianity and democracy.

Absolutely. I don’t know if it was because she had a good heart or because she wanted to be known as someone who did something radical. I don’t know. But I’m told this was not the first time she had talked to a gay man.

The new film explores the mystery of Tammy Faye, meaning whether she was just playing a role or whether she was, in fact, an innocent who loved the Lord. If her constant cheerfulness and loving attitude was a persona, she never, ever dropped it.

I know she treated me like a real human being. She was very compassionate. It seemed very sincere.

Her son, Jay Bakker, and I have talked the last couple of years, and he tells me that my interview changed her, and it changed the whole family.

After that interview, she decided that she had a calling to minister to the LGBT community.

She started taking her kids to MCC services and to Pride parades and to hospices to meet people with AIDS who were sick and dying. Jay said it completely changed their attitudes and her direction in ministry.

Was Jim Bakker involved in any of this?

Jay Bakker tells me that his father was all for having the interview done.

They did decide, though, that it should be broadcast on Tammy’s House Party, rather than on their flagship show, The PTL Club [PTL stood for “praise the Lord”]. They thought it would go better if it were on her show.

Now, all of these decades later, the notoriety of doing this interview is all going to come up again. There’s an actor, Randy Havens, playing you in a major Hollywood film. How does that make you feel?

I’m thrilled about it. I got a note from the producer saying that her interview with me figures very prominently in the plot.

Did the producers of the film approach you beforehand to ask your thoughts, then and now, about the interview? Did you even know that the film was happening?

No. I was on Jay Bakker’s podcast, Loosen The Bible Belt, and he told me about the movie.

He said that the actress Jessica Chastain, who plays Tammy Faye, told him that the interview was central to the plot. Jessica decided to do the film because of that interview in the plot.

The producers apparently thought that I was no longer living. Because the interview is on YouTube, I’m considered to be a historic figure, so they don’t have to ask my permission to do it. I wasn’t even aware of it until after the film was in the can.

The film The Eyes of Tammy Faye recreates the original Steve Pieters interview

Steve Pieters Courtesy of Steve Pieters

What are your apprehensions?

There is a little bit of fear in me that this is what’s going to be the lead in my obituary.

This interview and now this film is what I’m going to be remembered for, not that I survived AIDS or was a director of AIDS ministries but that I was that gay pastor with AIDS who did that interview. Which is OK, I could be remembered for a lot worse.

To have represented a community so well on a national television show that became kind of infamous? That’s a great lead for anyone’s obituary. And the interview eventually became your calling card. Look at all the great work you were able to do as a result of that moment. It accelerated your career in advocacy as well as your ministry.

It definitely raised my profile. And I’ve had people over the years come up to me and say that that interview saved their life or that they never realized they could be gay and Christian. I had one person tell me that he was seriously contemplating suicide, and the interview changed his mind.

It is a fascinating slice of HIV/AIDS history. It deserves to be remembered. And for what it meant for representation of people living with HIV and the marvelous work it helped you do and for the lives it changed, it deserves to be the lead in your obituary—if that turns out to be the case.

That’s true. It was a big deal. And I didn’t even know it at the time.

Meeting at Larry Kramer’s House as a Pandemic Began

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AIDS Activist Andy Humm

Positive Thoughts
40 Years Ago: Meeting at Larry Kramer’s House as a Pandemic Began
By Andy Humm

Something was killing us gay men in 1981 and no one knew what was causing it. That summer there was one alarming article about it in The New York Times on July 3 (“RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS”) based on a CDC report and two articles by out gay Dr. Larry Mass in the gay New York Native, including “CANCER IN THE GAY COMMUNITY.” While there were many gay groups in those days none of us stepped up to coordinate a community-wide response whether through a sense that health authorities would address it (ha!) as they did with Legionnaire’s Disease in 1976 or fear that a community that had just officially ditched the mental illness label in 1973 would now be linked with a deadly physical malady.

It took Larry Kramer, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (for Women in Love), to bring us together. These cases hit his friends in the Fire Island fast lane hard. I only knew him as the author of the secret-spilling novel Faggots that had been condemned in gay movement circles.

Larry had also written an op-ed piece in the Times after the assassination of Harvey Milk in 1978 praising gay political muscle in San Francisco and condemning his hometown: “We are not ready for our rights in New York. We have not earned them. We have not fought for them.” (“Fuck him,” I thought at the time as a spokesperson for the 50-group Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights that campaigned for our gay rights bill. We had the votes for it in Manhattan — a much larger place than San Francisco — in 1971 when the Gay Activists Alliance first conceived it. But Queens was then Archie Bunker territory. And Staten Island? Fuhgeddaboudit. Who is this guy who has never been to one of our meetings?)

But when Larry wanted to get things moving, he called everyone he knew — friend and foe — and many who he did not. So as one of the “gay leaders” he looked down on, I got invited to a packed gathering at his Washington Square apartment on August 11, 1981, to hear from the doctor quoted in the Times, Alvin Friedman-Kien. Larry wanted us to raise money for research since none was forthcoming from government.

If all you know about this was Larry’s dramatization of it in the HBO version of The Normal Heart you don’t know what happened. (It is not in his searing stage version.) On HBO, a doctor is explaining what she is seeing with gay patients and flippant gay men are shouting, “C’mon, honey. I have an orgy to get to.”

As Larry later wrote more about the devastation of AIDS, he was indeed vilified by some for being “anti-sex” for saying things like, “Just stop fucking!” But at that gathering 40 years ago we listened intently, respectfully, and full of dread as the soft-spoken Dr. Friedman-Kien described the devastation he was seeing in his practice and hearing from other physicians treating gay men. You could have heard a pin drop.

We did not know what was causing clusters of deadly pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and the disfiguring purple lesions of Kaposi’s Sarcoma, an otherwise slow-moving cancer mainly of older Mediterranean men. We knew the gay patients were immunosuppressed but not why. Recreational drug use? Multiple STIs from multiple partners? There was even speculation about a viral agent — a prospect too frightening to contemplate with its attendant threat of quarantine. But the conclusive identification of HIV as cause would not come until three years later. We needed research.

If memory serves, Larry passed the hat at that gathering. I recall going back to Dignity, the gay Catholic group I still belonged to, and reproducing Dr. Mass’s article for our 300 members. At the next board meeting we voted for a $1,000 donation to this research effort — a very large sum in those days in a community with very little tradition of philanthropy. Most gay people were afraid to write checks to gay causes lest it expose them in a deeply homophobic culture.

Larry himself reportedly went to Fire Island and stood on the dock with a tin can to collect money for the effort and netted a total of $60. He did organize his friends into forming the Gay Men’s Health Crisis — but that would not be incorporated until 1982 to provide services and education that the government was not. He wanted GMHC to be much more aggressive in its advocacy to the point that he got removed from the board — a turn of events well-portrayed in his play, The Normal Heart.

Why wasn’t our response quick and intense? Some of it was denial and fear. You can see that now in the early lack of response to the devastating COVID pandemic today. The reports out of Wuhan in the early winter of 2019-20 ought to have put a worldwide public health response into action immediately. But we dithered and wished it away instead. (I have a copy of the New Yorker magazine a month before the city was locked down and there is not one word about COVID.)

In 1981, this was hitting us when we were still “pre-teenage” as a movement. It had only been 12 years since the Stonewall Rebellion and while that had sparked an explosion in gay activism, we were still a relatively powerless, underfunded, and mostly volunteer movement. Most gay people were not out — they just hoped to be left alone. I wrote for the gay New York City News back then and it was months before the health crisis became a regular subject. We did step up the fight for gay rights because without civil rights how were we to get the system to respond to our health crisis?

The Times and other mainstream media ignored it. There was no national TV news feature on it until Joe Lovett’s piece on ABC’s 20/20 in 1983 — the same year Michael Callen and Richard Berkowitz published “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic” based on the limited knowledge we had then and when GMHC was able to fill Madison Square Garden for a celebrity-studded circus benefit. Dr. Mass did keep writing about it for the Native but had an article (“The Most Important New Public Health Problem in the United States”) rejected by the Village Voice.

We did pass the city gay rights bill in 1986 and I went into AIDS education for youth at the Hetrick-Martin Institute. By 1987 though — impatient with the community’s response to “the plague” — Kramer gave the speech that led to the formation of ACT UP. Activism — fueled by desperate, dying people — got into high gear. But it would not be until 1995 that effective treatments were developed, by which time millions had died and millions more had been infected.

Politicians and human beings in general are loathe to admit they have a plague in their midst. That’s how they get out of control. The question about so many challenges we now face — from the pandemic to climate change — is when we are going to trade some short-term comfort for long-term survival. Those meetings need to be convened everywhere — from dinner tables to town halls to Congress.

Andy Humm, a gay activist since 1974, has been co-host with Ann Northrop of the weekly national GAY USA television show since 1985. This column is a project of TheBody, Plus, Positively Aware, POZ and Q Syndicate, the LGBTQ+ wire service. Visit their websites – http://thebody.com, http://hivplusmag.com, http://positivelyaware.com and http://poz.com – for the latest updates on HIV/AIDS.

Upstairs Inferno: The Deadly 1973 Gay Bar Arson

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Upstairs Inferno

Watch Upstairs Inferno now on Amazon Prime

On June 24, 1973, an arsonist set fire to the Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar located on the edge of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana. The fire ultimately killed 32 people and severely injured countless others. Some bodies were never identified. One-third of the New Orleans chapter of the Metropolitan Community Church were killed in the blaze, including two clergy. The primary suspect was never charged with the crime. The tragedy did not stop at the loss of lives. There were also the delayed injuries: lost jobs, fear, public ridicule and severed families. The devastation was compounded by the homophobic reactions and utter lack of concern by the general public, government and religious leaders. The fire permanently altered lives and was the root of many lifelong struggles. Despite the staggering historical significance, few people know about the tragedy.

With unique access (on-camera interviews from survivors, witnesses and friends/families of victims) and a fresh perspective (incorporating long lost artifacts, newsreel footage and photographs that haven’t been seen in decades), Upstairs Inferno vividly examines this oft-forgotten story and is considered the most authoratative film about the tragedy and its aftermath.

Narrated by New Orleans own New York Times best-selling author Christopher Rice, Upstairs Inferno (96 min) is a mesmerizing mix of crime drama and human connections that captures the heartbreaking feelings of unconditional love and overwhelming loss. An unsettling snapshot of what was, until the early hours of June 12, 2016, the deadliest single event to affect the gay community in American history, Upstairs Inferno gets inside the hearts and minds of a handful of vibrant people who experienced one of the most important and underreported moments in LGBT History.

“While Upstairs Inferno recounts a historic event that occurred in the U.S., its underlying message crosses cultural boundaries”, Director Robert L. Camina emphasizes. “It’s easier for people to hate and fear things they don’t understand. No matter your background or how you identify, in the end, we are more alike than we are different. I think Upstairs Inferno reminds of us that.”

“We made the film hoping audiences would walk away from it with a renewed call for compassion: Compassion for those unlike us. Compassion for those who are hurting. Compassion for those in need. Because there definitely wasn’t a lot of compassion when the deadly arson occurred.”

“Sadly, a lot has happened in the world since the film premiered and we began spreading the message of compassion and the impact of hate”, Camina continues. “It sickens me that mass murders have become so common. I think Upstair Inferno’s message is as timely as ever: the power of family, friends and forgiveness in the shadow of immense pain. Hopefully, by the Up Stairs Lounge Arson survivors sharing their stories, it can provide strength to others in need.”

“Over five years ago, when I decided to tell this long overdue story, I didn’t want to make a film that was simply a stagnant exposition of facts. I wanted to humanize the story and put faces on the tragedy. I wanted to honor the victims and all those impacted by the tragedy, giving them the respect and dignity they were denied so many years ago”, Camina continues.

“As we observe the 45th Anniversary of the deadly arson, I’m grateful that Upstairs Inferno is now accessible to audiences around the world via streaming platforms, because the victims, their loved ones and their stories should never be forgotten again.”

Watch Upstairs Inferno now on Amazon Prime

CHRISTOPHER RICE (Narrator) Famed New Orleanian and New York Times best selling author provides UPSTAIRS INFERNO with a thought provoking, pitch perfect narration, sensitively complimenting the film’s emotionally raw interviews. He is the head writer and an executive producer of THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES, a television show based on the bestselling novels by his mother, Anne Rice. Together they penned RAMSES THE DAMNED: THE PASSION OF CLEOPATRA, a sequel to her bestselling novel THE MUMMY OR RAMSES THE DAMNED. His most recent novel, BONE MUSIC, was released in early 2018. Much of his writing is heavily influenced by the years he and his Mom lived in New Orleans. Rice considers New Orleans his hometown.

ROBERT L. CAMINA (Writer/Director/Producer) wrote, directed and produced several short films before premiering his first full length documentary, RAID OF THE RAINBOW LOUNGE (2012) to sold out audiences, rave reviews and a media frenzy. RAID OF THE RAINBOW LOUNGE recounts the widely publicized and controversial June 28, 2009 police raid of a Fort Worth, Texas gay bar that resulted in multiple arrests and serious injuries. The raid occurred on the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Inn raid. The film, narrated by TV icon Meredith Baxter, screened during 33 mainstream and LGBT film festivals across the world. The film won 11 awards including 8 BEST Film Awards. The film also received attention from the Office of the White House, Department of Justice and a division of the U.S. State Department. In 2015, Camina premiered his second full length documentary, UPSTAIRS INFERNO. Camina is honored that BOTH documentaries received invitations to screen at the Library of Congress. Camina also takes pride in being a public speaker, concentrating on LGBT history and LGBT rights.

Watch Upstairs Inferno now on Amazon Prime

The LGBT History of the Congresional Cemetery

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LGBT History of the Congressional Cemetery

History comes to life in Congressional Cemetery.  The creak and clang of the wrought iron gate signal your arrival into the early decade of our national heritage.   Surrounding you are the men and women who shaped the new capital and gave substance to the new national – congress member and trade-workers, diplomats and domestic workers, explorers and architects, soldiers and musicians.

Congressional Cemetery, currently led by gay President Paul K. Williams, is believed to be the world’s only cemetery with a LGBT Section.  Although earlier LGBT burials are located in historic Congressional Cemetery, the LGBT corner began in 1988 with Leonard Matlovich.  In the 1980s and 1900s, when the AIDS crisis gripped the LGBT Community, HCC was one of the few cemeteries in the nation that would inter AIDS victims.  The cemetery’s policy of encouraging interesting, unique, and poignant headstones and inscriptions has led to efforts to educate future LGBT individuals of the struggles their forbears experiences.  The Congressional Cemetery is an active cemetery with many members of the LGBT community currently buying plots, and is the future site of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit LGBT Veterans Memorial.

Here are some of the many LGBT individuals remembered in this cemetery:

1. Cliff Anchor (1936-2000)

Born in Waterloo, England, Anchor immigrated to Canada at age 17 and changed his name to Michael Erickson.  He became a U.S. citizen in 1966.  In the early 1960s, Anchor moved to San Francisco to work in radio and began KRJB-FM radio in Monte Rio, CA, the first station in the country to air the National Gay Network News.  Anchor joined the California National Guard in 1973, reaching the rank of Lt. Colonel.  In 1979, he met his friend Leonard Matlovich and moved to Guerneville, CA.  Anchor joined the California National Guard in 1973, reaching the rank of Lt. Colonel.  In 1979, he met his friend Leonard Matlovich and moved to Guerneville, California.  Anchor came out and reclaimed his birth name in 1988.  He was an advocated for gay rights within the U.S. Military, worked with AVER and San Francisco’s gay Alexander Hamilton American Legion Post 448, and was featured in the books One Million Strong and Conduct Unbecoming.  While a memorial bench is placed in the Congressional Cemetery, it is not believed that Anchor’s remains are interred here.

2. Peter Doyle (1843-1907)

Peter Doyle, a veteran of the Confederate Army, is believed by historians to have been the greatest love of gay American poet Walt Whitman.  Doyle and Whitman met in Washington, D.C. on the horse-drawn streetcar for which Doyle was the conductor.  Doyle later recalled, “we were familiar at once – I put my hand on his knee – we understood.  He did not get out at the end of the trip – in fact he went all the way back with me.”

Doyle and Whitman exchanged several letters and postcards.  In his notebooks, Whitman referred to Doyle using the code “16.4” a reference to the numerical order of Doyle’s initials.  Whitman wrote in one letter to him, “I will imagine you with your arm around my neck saying Good night, Walte – & me – Good night, Pete.”

3. Ken Dresser (1938-1995)

Ken Dresser was considered by many to be one of the best large-scale graphic designers in the world.  He was best known for his work with Disney, including Spectromagic, the Main Street Electric Parade, and Epcot’s Electric Water Pageant.  Dresser also worked with Dennis Despie as part of the company Select Productions, which was involved with such events as presidential inaugurations and Super Bowl half-time shows.  Dresser event wrote an an episode of “Homocide” in 1973.

4. Charles Fowler (1931-1995)

Charles Fowler was an arts educator, writer, and director of National Cultural Resources.  He was a guest professor at several American universities and consistently urged teachers to experience their work with students as creative encounters: alive, inventive, and filled with mutual discovery.  Fowler served as editor of the Music Educators Journal from 1964 to 1971.  He donated his papers to the University of Maryland, stating “I was not satisfied as a teacher with merely passing on the culture.  I wanted a role in creating it.  The classroom is not just a place for learning about yesterday, but a laboratory for inventing tomorrow.”

5. John Frey (1929-1997) & Peter Morris (1929-2010)

John Frey and Peter Morris met at the piano bar/restaurant called the Chicken Hut on H Street near Lafayette Park, the then-most popular establishment for gay males, while students at Catholic University.  Frey was a Fulbright Scholar, a professor of Romance Languages at George Washington University, and author of books on Victor Hugo and Emile Zola.  Morris was an expert French cook and on the Board of Directors of the gay Catholic organization Dignity, for which he coauthored a community cookbook.  They utilized their monument for frequent picnics, and encouraged others to do so after their death.

6. Barbara Gittings (1932-2008) and Kay Tobin Lahusen (1930-)

Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen were partners in life and activism for 46 years.  Gittings was known as the mother of the modern gay rights movement for her tireless work that included founding the New York chapter of the Daughers of Bilitis, the first US lesbian rights organization, in 2958, editing its pioneering magazine, The Ladder, between 1963 and 1966, leading the first gay caucus of a national professional organization, the American Library Association, and creating the first widely distributed bibliography of gay-positive books, and helping convince the American Pschiatric Association that homosexuality was not a mental illness.  Together they participated in several of the earliest gay rights demonstrations, and were especially close to Frank Kameny as evidenced by inclusion of his famous slogan “Gay is Good” on their memorial bench.  Lahusen was the first out photojournalist, documenting many of those historic events, cofounded New York’s Gay Activist Alliance, wrote for a number of gay periodicals, and authored 1972’s The Gay Crusaders, the first book profiling movement leaders.

7. Henry A. Gordon (1947-1993)

Henry Gordon held a degree in sociology from The George Washington University, a master’s degree in sociology from the University of North Carolina, and a doctorate in the same discipline from the University of Maryland.  He worked for Radio Free Europe, spending a year as a public opinion researcher in Munich, for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1978 -1983 and for the U.S. Department of Education beginning in 1984 as a statistician in the department’s National Center for Education Statistics, where he worked with information regarding the Office of Civil Rights.  Gordon was a member of both the American Sociological Association and the Association of Applied Sociology.

8. Dandridge Featherston Hering (1924-2012)

Dandridge Featherston Hering graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1947 and subsequently served 20 years in the US Army.  He, along with his partner of 43 years, Joel Leenaars (1935-), was a member of one of San Francisco’s earliest gay rights groups, the Society for Individual Rights.  Hering and Leenaars were founding members of the earliest known gay boat club, San Francisco’s Barbary Coast Boating Club, and Hering was also a member of Service Academy Gay & Lesbian Alumni, and Knights Out, the association of gay West Point Graduates.

9. Franklin E. Kameny (1925-2011)

Franklin Kameny was known as the father of the modern gay rights movement.  Friend and fellow activist Kay Lahusen (#6) once said, “We all did a lot, but all roads led to Frank.  He was behind everything.”  in 1957, after his sexuality was discovered, Kameny was fired from his job at a US Army Map Service astronomer.  He became the first known gay person to legally fight his dismissal by the federal government when he appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to review his case.  Kameny was a cofounder of the Mattachine Society of Washington, the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club.  He led the first gay rights protests at the White House, Pentagon, State Department, Civil Service Commission, and Independence Hall, was the first openly gay congressional candidate, was involved in the declassification of homosexuality as a mental illness, and was involved in Leonard Matlovich’s case against the military ban on gay service members.  He often said he most wanted to be remembers for coining the then-unprecedented slogan “Gay is Good” in 1968; something many other gays then either did not believe themselves or were unwilling to publicly declare.

10. Leonard Matlovich (1943-1988) 

Leonard Matlovich was an Air Force Vietnam War veteran, and recipient of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.  In 1975, the Technical Sergeant purposely outed himself to challenge the military’s banon gay service.  He became the first named gay person on the cover of a mainstream magazine, and the first living gay subject of a made-for-TV movie.  Though his lawsuit failed to end the ban, the court ordered his reinstatement in 1980 after the Air Force refused to explain why he should not be retained under a then-possible exception policy.  Knowing they would create another reason to discharge him, and having become a movement leader against Anita Bryant and others, he accepted a settlement instead.  In addition to beginning a national discussion on gay rights, his case resulted in a new Pentagon policy that those kicked out simply for being gay should receive an Honorable discharge, and inspired subsequent lawsuits and countless people to come out.  Before his death in 1988, he attempted to create a memorial to Harvey Milk in Historic Congressional Cemetery, forced Northwest Airlines to reverse its ban on passengers with AIDS, and was arrested in front of San Francisco’s Federal Building and the White House protesting the Reagan Administration’s response to AIDS.  He designed his gravestone as a memorial to all gay veterans, and its internationally known epitaph was repeatedly quoted in the long battle to end the ban.  His presence here led directly to others choosing Historic Congressional Cemetery, and his gravesite has been the site of numerous events in addition to ban protests including Veterans Day observances, the DC Front Runners Annual Pride Run, and the marriage of Gay Iraq veteran Stephen Snyder-Hill infamously “‘booed’ during a 2011 Republican presidential primary debate, and his partner Josh.

11. William Boyce Mueller (1942-1993)

William Boyce Mueller was a grandson of Boy Scouts of America founder William D. Boyce.  The Boy Scouts were infamous for their ban on gay scouts and leaders.  Mueller was involved in the 1991 founding of the Forgotten Scouts, the first lobby organization dedicated to ending the ban.  He said, “I don’t think my grandfather would have wanted me excluded from Scouting just because of my sexual orientation.  My grandfather would not have tolerated discrimination.  He founded the Boy Scouts for all boys, not just for some.  I realized that if people like me don’t take a stand, the world isn’t going to change.

12. Frank O’Reilly (1921-2001)

Frank O’Reilly was a World War II Veteran who held a Ph.D. in International Relations.  O’Reilly wrote as a music critic for The Washington Times, contributed to Musical America magazine and American Record Guide, and was a founder of the Charles Ives Centennial Festival and the American Chopin Foundation, the sponsor of an annual Chopin piano competition.    He once said, “During my eventfull lifeetime the only honest and truthful ending of the Pledge of Allegiance was “with Liberty and Justice for SOME.”

13. Thomas “Gator” Swann (1958-)

Thomas “Gator” Swann is a Marine Corps veteran who has worked for civil rights and political causes since 1972.  He is legally blind, due to AIDS, fought against the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy and works for AIDS awareness.  Swann won a discrimination lawsuit against the US Navy that now protects gay civilian employees of the military and helped create the first memorial dedicated to LGBT veterans, located in Desert Memorial Park near Palm Springs, California.  On the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau Nazi Concentration camp, he organized a wreath laying ceremony at Congressional Cemetery involving the military unit that liberated Dachau.  His nickname is based on his love for the University of Florida Gators.  A Roman Catholic, he was blessed by Pope John Paul II.  Swann is still living and is an LGBT Activist.

14. Emanuel “Butch” Ziegler (1951-2009)

Emanuel “Butch” Ziegler (1951-2009) worked as an elementary school teacher in Bel Air, MD for 12 years before joining his friend John Heikel as a co-owner of a teleprompting company, Capitol Prompting Service.  Thanks to Ziegler’s work ethic and ability to put clients at ease, he became of the most popular prompters in the nation.  The company has served Heads of State, major coproprations, and others in the Washington, DC metro area for over 30 years.