Much of history is hidden, especially for groups outside the mainstream of dominant culture. Remembering LGBT History is devoted to the recovery of LGBT history, and it welcomes anyone interested in the subject.
It is LGBT Pride Month, and soon we will be celebrating the 44th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which even the President has commemorated
in a high-profile way. But something else happened this month--something that, from the start, has not gotten nearly as much attention as Stonewall. I wouldn't have even remembered it today had I not seen it pop up in my Facebook newsfeed. And yet it's something that deserves all the remembering it can get. I'm talking about the arson at the UpStairs gay bar in New Orleans' French Quarter on this date in 1973. Today marks the 40th anniversary of what was and remains the single largest massacre of gay people in our country's history.
This has already been written about here at Daily Kos, back in 2008, by latest outrage. Normally, that might deter me from writing about the same subject, but I feel this needs to be written again. And again. And again after that. As a Ph.D. student specializing in this particular area of history, I hadn't even heard about this tragedy until I heard somebody read a paper on it at the last American Historical Association meeting, which took place in New Orleans. This is not a story very well-covered. And so, I'm writing about it, even though just doing the necessary reading for this diary has been quite emotionally draining. Follow me below the fold.
NOTE: Most of the information in this diary is taken from Dudley Clendinen's and Adam Nagourney's book Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, which I would recommend especially for this story, which they tell much better than I can tell you here.
Also, WARNING: There is a very graphic picture portraying death below the fold. Just to make sure you're not caught off-guard.
The firebombing of black churches, of course, occupies a horrific place in southern and African American history. This method of violence and intimidation was also visited upon the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), the national gay church founded by Rev. Troy Perry. Even the MCC's national headquarters in Los Angeles was burned to the ground in 1973, in addition to another MCC church. The small congregation of New Orleans' MCC would meet a similar--but certainly more tragic--fate the same year.
First, a little New Orleans context. Outside of the bar culture, gay organizing in the city was sparse. You might have a different impression given New Orleans' reputation, but the only real gay organization that existed in the city in 1973 was the Gay Students Union at Tulane University. And then there was the MCC. The MCC was an important institution in New Orleans gay history in that it filled a certain organizational void and brought many different gays and lesbians together under one roof.
That roof was a small theater room in the UpStairs bar (so named because it was, well, upstairs--which is relevant in this story). More often, the room was used for drag performances, but it also saw its share of sermons. As for what they thought of worshiping in a bar? Rev. Perry summed it up:
We didn't care. If Jesus could turn water into wine, hell, we could worship in a bar.
After church on Sunday, some congregation members would return to the bar in the afternoon to drink and dance. Sunday, June 24, was no exception. That afternoon, about 125 people were crammed into the bar for a free-beer special. When the special ended at 7:00, 40 to 60 people (mostly men, but a couple of women) remained, drinking, dancing, and enjoying each other's company. Something some in New Orleans just couldn't bear the thought of. That night, they were singing the song "United We Stand" by Brotherhood of Man:
United we stand, divided we fall--
And if our backs should ever be against the wall,
We'll be together--
Together--you and I.
Meanwhile, the buzzer that indicated a cab had arrived rang. The bartender--confused because he had not called for a cab--told another man to open the door and tell the cab to leave. When he opened the second-floor door to the wooden stairway outside, the fire that somebody had set on the stairway swept in and began to consume the building. The lighting immediately failed. The entire building was plunged into burning and darkness, causing panic and chaos as people tried to find a way out of the building.
Although the New Orleans Fire Department responded promptly, the scene from the street was one of utter horror. Several people jumped from the upstairs windows, some to their deaths below. As dying screams emerged from the building, Bill Larson--the pastor of the church--struggled to get out of a window. However, something was holding him back. Those gathered on the street watched as flames completely consumed him and his life ended. This picture was taken and appeared in news wires after the blaze:
In all, 32 people died as a result of the fire. Among the dead were George Mitchell and Louis Broussard, who were lovers. Mitchell escaped into the street, only to see that Broussard did not make it. He ran back into the building. After the fire had been put out, they were found, lying together. Luther Boggs died in the hospital weeks later, after being informed in his hospital bed that he had been fired from his job as a teacher.
The death toll made it one of the worst tragedies in New Orleans history and certainly the largest mass murder of gay people in American history.
Which, of course, meant that it could not be covered adequately in the media, which did not report about gay people unless they were being raided by the police or arrested in parks. Although there was no way to avoid covering one of the most deadly fires in the city's history, almost no mention of "gay" or "homosexual" was made in the mainstream press. Except, Major Henry Morris, the New Orleans chief of detectives, was quoted as saying (with regard to identifying the victims):
We don't even know these papers [found on the bodies of the victims] belonged to the people we found them on. Some thieves hung out there, and you know this was a queer bar.
Of course, those familiar with UpStairs knew it was a gay bar, and many were not shy about expressing their sheer glee at the deaths of 32 gay men and lesbians. Gay activist Morty Manford, who flew into New Orleans after he heard the news, told somebody at the airport that "the tragedy" brought him to the city. The man responded:
What tragedy? I don't know of any tragedy. Only some faggots got burned.
No elected public officials and no political body except for the Young Democrats of Louisiana State University offered any statements of condolence. The fire was reported, everybody knew it was a crime against "faggots," and that was it.
Churches were also resistant to the idea of holding a prayer service the day after the tragedy. Finally, Rev. William Richardson of St. George's Episcopal Church approved the service, after which he was reprimanded by his superiors.
Nor would most churches in the French Quarter offer their facilities for a service of mourning slated for July 1. A Unitarian church (of course) offered to house the service, but it was not in the French Quarter, where Rev. Perry felt the service needed to be held. Eventually, somebody suggested St. Mark's United Methodist Church, whose African-American minister preached to a white congregation. Without hesitation, the minister agreed. The day of the service, the Methodist bishop of Louisiana, Bishop Finis Crutchfield, arrived and had this to say to Rev. Perry:
This is not a renegade pastor in this church. He had my blessing to do this. Some of the men who died in that fire were friends of mine.
Bishop Crutchfield was closeted and, after serving as the president of the Council of Bishops, he died of AIDS in Houston in 1987.
It was a small church, and it was full. Rev. Perry ended the service with the following:
Those human beings, our friends who died so horribly, have dignity now. It doesn't matter what un-knowledgeable people have stooped to say, our friends will have respect because they are forever in our hearts. I can almost feel their presence. If they could speak, they would tell us to hold our heads up high.
The congregation then sang that song the people who had died in the fire were singing that night.
Rev. Perry informed the congregation that there were cameras outside and that anybody wishing not to be identified should exit through the back door. One person exclaimed, "No!" Another followed. Another voice began singing those lyrics again, and the entire crowd exited through the front doors singing.
United we stand, divided we fall--
And if our backs should ever be against the wall,
We'll be together--
Together--you and I.
The arsonist, unsurprisingly, was never arrested.
May what happened 40 years ago always be remembered. This story, perhaps more than any I've written for Remembering LGBT History, shows why recovering our history, which has been intentionally and systematically tossed to the side, is important.