Stonewall (50 page)

13
. For more on the Society for Human Rights and the Veterans Benevolent Association, see Jonathan Katz,
Gay American History
(2nd ed., Meridian, 1992), and (for the Society) Jonathan Ned Katz,
Gay/Lesbian Almanac
(Harper & Row, 1983).

According to Jim Kepner, whose encyclopedic knowledge is unparalleled, the Sons of Hamidy was “a
projected
organization in 1942–44, starting in Rhinelander, Wise.… My Rhinelander pen pal, Wally Jordan, wrote to me & others that SOH had previous incarnations in the 1880's & 1930's, each time falling victim to ‘bitch fights.' He said the organization was led by important people like ‘Senators and Generals,' but there is no evidence for these earlier incarnations.… Years later, he wrote me that SOH, like the Legion of the Damned, was simply a wish of his—LOD being his camp term for a few gay servicemen he met at bars in Cooledge & Holbrook, AZ.… It was never an organization. I
wrote the original of the account of SOH which appeared in [Dorr] Legg's
Homosexuals Today, 1956
—but Dorr, with no personal knowledge of SOH, altered what I wrote to make it seem that SOH had real existence.” (Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992.)

14
. Jim Skaggs, “Committee on Unity Reports,”
Vector
, March 1968.

15
. The quotes in this and the following two paragraphs are from Leitsch to Elver Barker, May 27, 1966, IGIC Papers, NYPL; Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992; Gunnison, “REPORT—July 20, 1967,” Gunnison Papers; and Kelley and Roland Keith to “Members of the Conference” [NACHO San Francisco, Aug. 25–27, 1966], Kelley Papers.

16
.
The Advocate
, vol. 1, no. 1 (September 1967). Stephen Donaldson also referred to “a miraculous spirit of good will” at the Washington conference, though he acknowledged as well a certain amount of “acidity” (Donaldson, “The Fine Art of Compromise,” Kelley Papers). Gunnison's official tally of accredited organizations came to twenty-eight (from twelve cities), but not all those accredited actually sent delegates (Gunnison, “ACCREDITED ORGANIZATIONS—June 22, 1967.” Gunnison Papers).

17
. Arthur Warner (“Austen Wade”) to Leitsch, July 26, 1967; Leitsch to Warner, Aug. 1, 1967; Leitsch to Homophile Clearinghouse, Feb. 7, 1968; Leitsch to Randy Wicker, Feb. 20, 1968—all in IGIC Papers, NYPL; Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992. Leitsch leaned at one point toward forming an association with new homophile groups in Cincinnati and Phoenix, at another toward forming a statewide Mattachine Society of New York. What he was aiming for, he wrote his loyal lieutenant, Arthur Warner, was to ensure that participants be “carefully screened and selected to sift out social clubs, profiteers, vanity groups and the like.” By 1970, Leitsch was trying to enlist the wealthy gay businessman Jack Campbell in his ongoing efforts to form an “affiliation of like-minded groups who can work together in harmony.” He assured Campbell that the groups would be handpicked, and would avoid the “fighting and jockeying for power, and … back-stabbing”—“Some of us are too mature and too serious for that crap”—characteristic of other regional and national associations (Leitsch to Campbell, March 2, 1970, IGIC Papers, NYPL).

18
. Typed minutes of the Aug. 16–18, 1967, NACHO conference, Kelley Papers; Kelley was not the secretary—he had been ill and unable to attend. Jerome Stevens, “A Model Program?” n.d., Gunnison Papers. Jim Kepner has listed some of the other groups denied admission: “Vancouver's ASK because they got an application in late (months before the conference); the National League for Social Understanding because they dabbled in occultism (which would bring us all into disrepute); the National Legal Defense Fund because it was initially a conference committee, later separately incorporated … etc” (Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992).

19
. Virginia O. Roak, “Report on the Third North American Homophile Conference 17–19 August 1967,”
The Ladder
, January 1968.

20
. Gunnison, “An Introduction to the Homophile Movement,” Gunnison Papers.

21
. Del Martin, “The Lesbian's Majority Status,”
The Ladder
, June 1967; Gunnison to Donn Teal, n.d., Kelley Papers. According to Jim Kepner, Martin “did make
a loud withdrawal later, insisting that lesbians had little to gain in the homophile movement” (Kepner to Duberman, April 29, 1992).

22
. Gunnison to Jim Skaggs (SIR chair), Nov. 5, 1967. Kelley Papers.

23
. Typed minutes of the Aug. 16–18, 1967, NACHO Conference, Kelley Papers. A “Unity Committee” was also established, with seven members each from the Eastern, Western, and Midwestern regions (Craig Rodwell was one of the Eastern representatives). The committee was empowered “to study the question of stronger national cooperation and influence through a possible federation of all interested homophile organizations.” It functioned, sporadically and inefficiently, over the next two years. (“Committee on Unity Reports,” n.d. IGIC Papers, NYPL.)

24
. The “militant-sentimental” quote is from
The Gay Crusaders
, Kay Tobin and Randy Wicker, eds. (Paperback Library, 1972), p. 66.

25
. The press release and ads are courtesy of Rodwell. Some of the meeting notes, and a statement of purpose, are in the IGIC Papers, NYPL. Craig's sensitivity to sexism was apparent in 1966 when he became vice president of MSNY. The nominating committee (of which Craig was a member) had originally presented Renée Cafiero for the post. But when a conservative opposition slate developed, it was thought unwise to present a ticket of three women and two men, and so Cafiero withdrew in favor of Craig. He told her at the time that he would later resign the position and recommend her appointment—and he did so, effective January 1, 1967 (Rodwell to Board of Directors, MSNY, Dec. 7, 1966. IGIC Papers, NYPL).

26
. Harriet Van Home, “Enough of All This,”
New York Post
, April 9, 1969.

1969

1
. Gitlin,
The Sixties
(Bantam, 1987), pp. 343–44.
See Gitlin, passim
, for more details on all of the developments and incidents described in this section.

2
. For Laurence and Whittington: D'Emilio,
Sexual Politics
, pp. 230—31;
San Francisco Chronicle
, April 10, 1969. For comparable confrontations in L.A., especially around the police action in Wilmington against a bar called PATCH II, see John Hammond's interview with Morris Kight, “A Quarter Century of Liberation—Plus,”
New York Native
, Feb. 18, 1991; and Jim Kepner,
Our Movement Before Stonewall
(IGLA, 1989), p. 14. Kepner reports that when patrons of PATCH II protested against being fag-bashed, the police response was “We aren't interested in protecting cocksuckers!” In response, Lee Glaze and forty other gay men (including Troy Perry) protested in front of the Harbor Police Station.

3
. D'Emilio,
Sexual Politics
, pp. 229–30; interviews with Gunnison. (A curious sidelight: Rita Laporte had grown up with Foster Gunnison at Gypsy Trail; the two had lost track of each other as adults until they met again years later at a NACHO national planning conference.)

4
. This account of the league and its action against the Columbia Medical School panel is from D'Emilio,
Sexual Politics
, pp. 209–210, 216; and Robert A. Martin (“Stephen Donaldson”), “Student Homophile League: Founder's
Retrospect,”
Gay Books Bulletin
, no. 9, Spring/Summer 1983, pp. 30–33.

5
. Alice Echols,
Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975
(University of Minnesota Press, 1989), p. 60. I have relied heavily on Echols, along with my interviews with Jay, for the discussion of radical feminism and the Red-stockings.

6
. Echols,
Daring to Be Bad
, pp. 92–96.

7
. Interviews with Fouratt; also, Abe Peck,
Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press
(Pantheon, 1985), pp. 169–70.

8
. Peck,
Uncovering the Sixties
, pp. 176–77.

9
. Randy Wicker was also fed up with Leitsch's leadership. He accused Leitsch of “spending the major part of your time writing a book [never completed] & entertaining your new lover,” and withdrew from any further financial support of MSNY (Wicker to Leitsch, Feb. 11, 1968. IGIC Papers, NYPL). In response, Leitsch asked, “When, and if, I leave who else will you find who will work night and day, live and sleep Mattachine, and put up with all of the shit one has to take around here?” (Leitsch to Wicker, Feb. 20, 1969. IGIC Papers, NYPL.)

10
. Interview with Chuck Shaheen, Nov. 20, 1991. Nor did Stonewall even have an ice machine; the staff used to buy huge quantities, several times a night, from Smiler's Deli.

11
. Shaheen (interview, Nov. 20, 1991) confirms that Murphy was “very involved with the procurement of young boys” (though
not
at Stonewall), and that, as part of his job as bouncer and doorman, he would be told to beat up certain people. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt (interview May 2, 1992) remembers seeing a young Puerto Rican, regarded as one of Murphy's lovers, being whisked off the sidewalk into a waiting car and never being seen again; the rumor was that he had cheated on Murphy or stolen from him. Yet Shaheen liked Murphy, and thought of him as a “perfect gentleman.” And Lanigan-Schmidt talked compassionately of how the need to survive drove Murphy to reprehensible behavior.

Bob Kohler (who at the time owned a talent agency and hung out at Stonewall) confirms that Murphy “was a police informer” (interview with Kohler, Aug. 20, 1990). In an interview given on the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall riot, Murphy additionally identified himself as having until recently (1979) been “an undercover agent, specializing in gay bars and corruption, for the New York State Select Committee on Crime” (Harold Pickett, “I Like to Call It an Uprising,”
Gay Community News
, June 23, 1979). Bebe Scarpi confirms that Murphy “set people up to be mugged and robbed” (phone interview with Scarpi, Aug. 22, 1990). For the police beating later administered to Murphy, see p. 219.

12
. Interview with Sascha L., August 26, 1991. Sascha is currently (1992) the doorman at a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village.

13
. Chris Davis interview with Murphy, n.d. (1987?), tape courtesy Davis. My Nov. 15, 1991 interview with Joe Tish (the drag performer) and my Nov. 20, 1991 interview with Chuck Shaheen, confirm Murphy's saint/sinner reputation. Murphy died, aged sixty-three, on Feb. 28, 1989, and New York City's Heritage of Pride designated him the honorary grand marshal for the twentieth-anniversary march that June. The printed 1989 Heritage program led off with “A Tribute to the ‘Mayor of Christopher Street.'” Later in life, Murphy did do outstanding charitable work on behalf of the retarded.

Among the many positive comments on the Stonewall are Dick Kanon's “It was the best place we ever had”
(New York Post
, July 8, 1969); and Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt's “Here the consciousness of knowing you ‘belonged' nestled into that warm feeling of finally being
HOME
.… We loved the Stonewall.” (“Mother Stonewall and the Golden Rats,” courtesy Lanigan-Schmidt.)

14
. Interview with Ivan Valentin, July 5, 1991; interview with Sascha L., Aug. 26,-1991. It should be added, however, that Ivan, too, has been described as having been sometimes involved in “shady dealings.”

15
. Interviews with Sascha L. (Aug. 26, 1991) and Shaheen (Nov. 20, 1991). Shaheen and Sascha disagree in part on the ownership of some of the bars. I have accepted Shaheen on the Stonewall (Sascha has it owned by the Gambino family) because he knew its operations intimately; and I have accepted Sascha on Washington Square (Shaheen has both it and the Gold Bug owned by the Gambino family) because he knew the operations of those two establishments far better than Shaheen did.

Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt (interview May 2, 1992) went frequently to the Tenth of Always and said that so many young kids hung out there (partly because of Murphy's presence), that from his own perspective as a Catholic kid from New Jersey, it had the air of nothing so much as “a surreal Catholic Youth dance.”

16
. Interviews with Sascha L. (Aug. 26, 1991) and Shaheen (Nov. 20, 1991).

17
. Interview with Chuck Shaheen, Nov. 20, 1991. Some details, though irregularly reliable, about the Stonewall Inn's history prior to its incarnation as a gay bar, can be found in Larry Boxx, “Remembering Stonewall,”
Bay Area Reporter
, June 22, 1989 (also printed, with some slight variations, in
Long Beach/Stonewall 20
—
1989)
, and Mark Haile, “The Truth about Stonewall,”
BLK
, June 1989.

18
. Interview with Shaheen, Nov. 20, 1991.

19
. The details in this and the next four paragraphs are from my interview with Shaheen, Nov. 20, 1991. Before he met Tony, Shaheen had worked in the coat-check room at the One-Two-Three, an after-hours club on University Place between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets.

20
. Interview with Ryder Fitzgerald (assistant to “T.L.R.,” the electrician), May 5, 1992.

21
. Not every police precinct in New York was corrupt. It was part of Mafia lore never to open a gay club on the East Side above Fifty-ninth Street, because the police there couldn't be bought. And when Fat Tony, disregarding that advice, later opened an East Side gay club, it lasted exactly one night; the police not only raided and closed the place but, atypically, arrested everyone on the premises.

22
. The information in this and the next four paragraphs is from my interview with Sascha L., Aug. 26, 1991. Many of the Mafia figures described in this section are still alive, and wherever that is the case, Sascha L. and Chuck Shaheen have asked me—for their protection and mine—to use pseudonyms.