Dramatization of the Birth of the NGMC

Winston returned with a carton of Pall-Mall filterless cigarettes and we left for the airport. He told me he was pleased with how our meetings in New York had gone and was very excited about the march. On the plane back, he talked about ways we could build the conference, all the while a cigarette hung from his mouth as the previous one still smoked in the ashtray. I heard considerable coughing from the other passengers as the fuselage became a smoke-filled back room.

By the time we arrived in Champaign, I had decided not to re-enroll at the University in the fall, but rather devote myself entirely to the National Gay Mobilizing Committee for a March on Washington. Once the conference and march were huge successes, I could convince a dean to give me credit for the effort. After all, my major was Gay Studies.

Although I kept this decision to myself, Winston and I had already discussed how we needed a nominal head who was not part of the YSA and who was to be enrolled as a student come fall, so they could reserve meeting rooms. Although he and Matthew would spend three weeks summering in Europe, Roger Hamilton agreed to continue in the tradition of “El Stooge” and be the nominal head of the organization and take on the very real responsibility of hosting the conference, itself.

Roger laughed. “Honey, I’ll be the hostess with the most-ess.”

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At the next meeting of the Young Socialist Alliance, also held at Winston and Seth’s place, having Roger’s name as leader proved tactically critical.

I read my report to the local from an index card, so it would come out exactly as planned.

"A new campus organization, The National Gay Mobilizing Committee for a March on Washington, was recently formed by the president of the local Gay Liberation Front: Roger Hamilton. The NGMC is calling for a nationwide November conference in Champaign-Urbana, the purpose of which is to organize a march on Washington for lesbian and gay rights. I am, along with Comrade Winston Stanfield, monitoring the progress of the organization."

Neither Denise Canterbury nor Bob Sitka even batted an eye.

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The NGMC registered as a student organization and the first order of business was to find an office to handle what we expected to be considerable correspondence. Unlike meeting rooms, offices were hard to get. So when Roger requested one for the National Gay Mobilizing Committee, I didn’t hold out much hope. But fortune was going our way. A makeshift office in one corner of the student government room, on the second floor of the Illini Union, had been abandoned by a now defunct anti-war organization, so he made the request before they got around to disassembling it.

The office was made from four foot high hinged fiberboard wrapped around a big gray desk. Above the fiberboard was two more feet of wavy green translucent plastic, allowing for a modicum of privacy. The whole assembly was anchored to the cinderblock walls with two by fours, giving it the fortitude to withstand the opening and closing of a nice wooden door with a clear glass window.

On the desk was a black phone. Long distance calls were billed to the organization monthly.

Our wooden door opened just a few feet from one of the permanent offices. It was the office of the Iranian Student Organization. As soon as the little room was ours, I began to decorate. As I put up gay posters and banners, several Iranian students watched and whispered to each other in Farsi. “Hello,” I said. They nodded, rushed back into the office and shut the door.

When I finished decorating, I met Winston downstairs, sitting at one of his usual tables in the Commons, and told him about my exchange. "I'm sure they don’t know what to think," Winston said, slurping on his soda. "In their minds they associate homosexuality with western decadence and western decadence with the Shah."

"But we've marched in their demonstrations, yelling 'Shah is a murderer, down with the Shah'," I said.

"Exactly," replied Winston. "That’s why they are probably confused. Most of them tend to be ideological Maoists, so this is a good education for them."