Dramatization of Trip to New York
After breakfast, we said goodbye to my grandparents and I led Winston through the New York subway system on route to the East Village. We walked the final blocks to the address that had been scribbled on a piece of paper, ending up on Twelfth Street near Second Avenue at the apartment of YSA member Zach Doubleday.
I rang the buzzer and the door buzzed back in response. After pushing it open into a hallway shrouded in peeling gray paint, the two of us entered and took the central staircase to the second floor, where Zach was waiting by his apartment door, smiling pleasantly, dressed in running shorts and a New York Yankees tee-shirt. Zach Doubleday was a well-proportioned man with a thinning head of blond hair, not bad looking. He had one of those timeless looks where you couldn’t guess his exact age, but Winston told me earlier he was twenty-seven. Zach and I introduced ourselves at the doorway then the three of us went inside his apartment which was tiny and long—an eight by twelve kitchen at the front, a narrow hallway with a bath, and an eight by twelve bedroom at the rear. Standing by the front window was a tall attractive man with dark hair, who was dividing his attention between us and some teenagers playing basketball across the street.
"This is comrade Austin O'Rourke," said Zach and we introduced ourselves to Austin, who reluctantly pulled himself away from the basketball game.
"So you comrades have come in from the uncivilized frontier," joked Austin.
"Yes sirree," I said, "We left the one room school house, hitched up the wagons and here we are in New York."
"You have to forgive Austin," said Zach. "He thinks the civilized world ends at the Hudson River: what we call a New York chauvinist."
"Doesn't it?" said Austin. "We are the birthplace of the movement. The Stonewall Riots happened here in Greenwich Village four years ago. We have the largest and most militant gay organizations and the largest locals of the YSA and SWP in the world. Not to mention the largest buildings in the world and the greatest culture."
I laughed. "I love New York, too. Every time I’m here, I go to the site of the Stonewall Inn and genuflect."
“I was there,” said Austin, suddenly with a far off look in his eyes.
“The Stonewall?” I asked.
“Don’t get him started,” said Zach, laughing. “He’ll tell you how he threw the first stone.”
“Everyone was throwing pennies,” bragged Austin. “I decided it was time to raise the stakes.”
They both started laughing at me because I was standing there with my mouth open, staring as though I had seen the face of God. I became embarrassed and Zach came to my rescue. "Last I looked, it was a bagel shop,” he said. “‘Bagels and Board,’ or something like that."
“You must tell us all about it over some beers,” Winston said to Austin who happily agreed. "You realize," continued Winston as he lit a cigarette, "that tiny Ann Arbor has beat New York to the punch with the first gay rights bill in the country."
"And," I added, "It looks very likely that Urbana will come in second… I hope." I crossed my fingers.
"Regardless," replied Austin. "There is no way a march on Washington is going to happen unless New York is behind the idea. Not just behind it, but the central leadership must be located in New York."
"I don't doubt it," I said. "Our goal is to generate interest in the idea, build a grass roots organizational framework, and start the ball rolling. We want to hold a conference this fall in Champaign-Urbana. It's centrally located and well…that's where we happen to live."
"Not a bad idea," said Austin. "A march on Washington would reinvigorate the movement. Now that the war is coming to an end, the militancy, even in New York, is starting to fade." Suddenly Austin, with two fingers to his lips, whistled loudly out the open window.
“The real hot one make a basket?” asked Zach.
“He looks up here and smiles when I whistle at his basket…baskets” bragged a smirking Austin. “He knows what I’m about.”
“You’ll get us beat up,” said Zach, half-serious. Then Zach turned back to us. “I wanted to say before we were interrupted”—He smiled at Austin—“that we have to contend with a lot of Democrats in the Gay Activist Alliance, or GAA as we call it here. Most of them feel that the way to gay liberation is by electing liberals to the city council. Meanwhile, Intro 472, our civil rights ordinance, is stuck in committee and unless we can organize mass demonstrations, it will stay there for a long time."
"We just got pushed into committee in Urbana, although it’s supposed to come up for a vote again in July. Our problem isn't the Democrats in the organization. Winston and I have built the Champaign-Urbana Gay Liberation Front into a militant organization. We hold a demonstration about once a month. We have a new problem in Champaign-Urbana. It's the fundamentalists. Just as we were on the brink of victory, they came out of the woodwork."
"We have that problem, too," said Austin. "Not the fundies, there aren't too many of them in New York, but the Roman Catholics, the policemen and firemen's unions, are presenting the greatest opposition."
"I used to think that we were our own worst enemies," I said. "That once gay people accepted themselves, came out and demanded rights, we would win them just like that." I snapped my fingers. "Now that we are succeeding on that count, a new enemy is rearing its ugly head."
"The bourgeoisie," began Winston, getting our attention, "will always rely on the self-hating aspect of an oppressed minority as the first line of defense in maintaining their interests. Once the slaves revolt, as it were, new troops must be mobilized. As gays become increasingly convinced of their own self-worth, we can expect a further growth in the religious right-wing."
"A march on Washington will draw the religious bigots out of the woodwork," said Austin. "That is when the Democrats will show their true color—yellow." We all laughed.
“In Illinois, as Winston mentioned on the phone,” I said, “we are mobilizing a massive march on the state capital, Springfield, for a gay rights bill. It’s designed so the march will come several weeks before the conference. We intend to focus the energy from the Springfield March into a large base for the conference for a Washington March.”
“Nothing you do will be of any use,” said Austin, “unless you have a base here in New York.”
"What needs to happen here in New York,” said Winston, “is that someone needs to go to GAA and float around the idea of this conference to plan for a march on Washington.”
"Once they hear you guys are from Bum Fuck, Illinois," said Austin, "they won't even pay attention to anything you have to say."
“Not us,” I said. “Like you said, you guys are the ones who need to build an organization here in New York.”
"I think everybody here is forgetting one very major point,” said Zach. “The Party hasn't given its OK to this thing. The National Executive Committee hasn't even heard about it. Have you even told Chicago about the Springfield march?” I looked sheepishly at Winston for support, but got none.
Remember,” added Austin, “that there is a huge faction that does not believe in any intervention in the gay liberation movement."
"A huge faction?" I asked, looking again to Winston this time for a refutation.
"A minority faction” stressed Winston. Then he mumbled: "although it isn’t altogether small."
"Austin and I and another comrade," said Zach, "are assigned to work in GAA. Even this has some comrades up in arms because they feel that three people in a…” Zach made quotation marks with his fingers, “peripheral organization is a serious waste of resources. Can you imagine what they would say if we started building a conference for a march on Washington without NEC approval?"
"We would simply be expelled," said Austin.
"Certainly you can see the problem,” I said confidently. “The Party won’t approve unless there is a grass roots movement. There won’t be such a movement unless we do something and we can’t do anything unless the Party approves."
“We would be expelled,” said Austin. “Not you! The Party considers Champaign-Urbana a remote outpost. If you organize the convention they’ll observe from a distance—without taking disciplinary action.”
“Listen, Dave,” said Zach. “The gay comrades in New York see a march on Washington as essential. But at this point it is impossible for us to take a leadership position. For the time being, our actions must be discreet.”
We talked well into the night. Zach vetoed ordering a New York-style pizza and insisted on dining out. Austin told us that Zach was the only connoisseur of fine food and wine in the YSA or the Party. “You’ll fit in well in the bureaucratic elite,” I told him and Winston took it seriously and explained there would be no degeneration of the state in a permanent revolution. We all laughed—the things communists think are funny! We ended up at some restaurant with hot dinner rolls and spent more money than I had planned on spending. Winston wasn’t too drained of funds because after dinner he sprang for a case of beer, and ended up drinking most of it himself. Austin told us of his adventures in the Stonewall riots. To hear him tell it, the gay liberation movement was the direct result of his intervention. Nevertheless, I was suitably impressed by his melding of fact and bullshit. It was after 2 a.m. when a not-so-sober Winston and I took a late night subway back to my grandparent’s place on the Upper West Side.
The next evening, we met again, this time at the weekly meeting of the Gay Activist Alliance, in a large converted firehouse.
I was nervous about speaking. These were the people who defined gay liberation. Emerging shortly after Stonewall from New York’s version of Gloria McMaster and Doc Willow’s consciousness-raising sessions, they were Winston and me times one hundred. Their demonstrations were already appearing in our fledgling history texts. As I told my grandmother, I marched with them in the Rockefeller demonstrations. It was their lambda tee-shirts on the gay delegates at the 1972 Democratic convention that filled me with awe. I planned my words carefully, needing to convince these heroes of our movement to support a conference for a march on Washington in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. For all it mattered, I could have been telling them to come to Outer Mongolia.
The reaction was as Austin O’Rourke had predicted, only worse. Those who spoke from the hundred or so members of GAA were of two minds, both opposed to the conference, save the four or five people who actually thought it was a good idea. One side thought a conference for a March on Washington would be a good idea, if New York were in charge. I felt like saying, “Well then do it,” but any sort of accord was hopeless, since the other half of GAA members thought it was a horrible idea, no matter who was in charge.
A woman stood up and shouted, “This is all part of a plan by the Socialist Workers Party to take over the gay movement.”
Shades of the Bloomington IGLA conference, I thought, and wished that there was a modicum of truth in what she was saying. At least, then we would have a base.
Bruce Voeller, the President of GAA, who looked like a Viking with his flowing blond hair, blond moustache and beard, was firmly in the latter group. “Demonstrations are passé,” he said. “If we attempted this ridiculous spectacle in Washington, it would certainly offend our friends in the Democratic Party.”
“We’re only calling for a conference to discuss the issue,” I replied.
“How dare you in Champaign-Urbana call such a conference,” retorted one of the New York chauvinists who actually supported a march.
Austin O’Rourke was sitting in the back, laughing quietly, seeing his predictions come true. Zach spoke and tried to ease some of the tensions, but someone yelled “YSA stooge” at him and he started fumbling. Winston got up and began to pace along the fire house wall and this diverted some attention simply because it was Winston pacing.
When the question was called, I was surprised to see that the conference got the support of a third of the membership, considering all the negative speeches. Most of those who voted yes had stayed silent during the posturing of the political types. I felt let down by my New York heroes and hoped Garret Gray was having better success in Chicago.
Nonetheless, Zach seemed pleased with the result. “At least GAA is aware of the conference. The leadership is thinking about it and I sensed some degree of interest.”
When the meeting ended, I wandered around the firehouse, dejected by the vote but impressed with the spaciousness of the organization’s three-story headquarters. I ran into a guy who looked like a cuter, cuddly version of Winston. I would have found him quite sexy, were it not for the resemblance. He introduced himself as Steve Endean.
“I’m glad you came and talked about a march,” he said. “We need to focus our attention on Washington. Do you realize how different things would be if among all the thousands who lobby congressmen for this or that special interest was just one person lobbying for our interests?”
“I don’t think one person could make that much of a difference without a mass movement behind him.” I didn’t want to appear too critical since he was a supporter of the Urbana conference.
“We need a movement and a person,” he replied. “That’s why I’m so glad you’re here talking about a march. I’ve been raising funds here in New York,” he preened, “so I could become that person.” He pulled the self-promotion off with confidence.
“Tell me you’ll head up the conference building in New York,” I said. His confidence was contagious.
“I’ll consider it,” he said with a wink and a smile.
Later, Winston, Zach, Austin and I joined two other gay YSA comrades at a Chinese restaurant on Mott Street, where legend had it Ho Chi Min had worked as a busboy. Over dinner, Zach and Austin expressed concern that Steve Endean was too much of a self-promoter to effectively build the conference.
“Besides,” said Austin, “he’s too into lobbying and the Democratic Party to be effective.”
“I’ll try and find somebody,” said Zach, “who’s independent of both the YSA and the Democrats and can serve as New York coordinator.”
I was saddened that they didn’t want to work closely with Steve. His confidence seemed to be just what we needed. Or was I blinded because I found him attractive.
We switched from drinking Chinese tea to drinking alcohol when we adjourned to Uncle Charlie’s South, a lively gay bar in midtown. Despite the noise, we managed to toast our new national organization, the first of its kind since Stonewall, and christened it, The National Gay Mobilizing Committee for a March on Washington. The name was right out of the name book of the Socialist Workers Party. We were prodding the SWP to get involved.
