Jeff Graubart: A Conspiracy Unraveled, My 17 Day Urbana Sit-in, March, 1976

Under Construction

The Cast - Major players identified. Actual historical figures on left.

Jeff Graubart, Member Gay Rights Action Coalition, Narrator	Dave Rosen
Hiram Paley, Mayor of Urbana	Manny Singer
Toby Schneiter, Member Gay Rights Action Coalition	Ellen Schrader
Nancy Davis, Member Gay Rights Action Coalition	Samantha Darwin
Reid Smith, Gay Illini Supporter	Simon Sawyer
John Petersen, I-Progressive Urbana Alderman	Joel Sandberg
Bill Bland, Mayor of Champaign	Bill Young
Duane Eckerty, Urbana City Clerk	Wayne Picardy

Years ago, I cried watching the movie Ragtime as Coalhouse Walker Jr. replayed the scenes from my life. To preserve his dignity when some racist firefighters wrecked his car, he ultimately gave his own life.

When the Urbana cop said, "No faggot can bring charges against a real man without defaming his character," like Coalhouse Walker, I tried to get justice and failed. With each failure, those words stole a fresh piece of my soul. I continued to sink deeper into the pit of drug addiction, mental instability and desperation. Those words came to symbolize my reason for being.

Between Larry Gulian's sabotage of the march on Washington conference and my obsession with the Urbana cop, I spent two years in Chicago's gay political community, unleashing my rage. Readers of The Quest for Brian can decide whether I was more hero or villian. Ultimately, I tried to escape my demons and fled to my parent's house in California, but there was no way out, so I opted to return to Urbana and find justice or die trying.

This is the most embarassing and difficult-to-relive part of my life. My press release uses hyperbole such as "psychopathic vegetable" and "diseased ravaged mind." The sit-in in Urbana is the only part of my novel where the truth is weirder than the fiction and I toned down the mental illness, despite the reader's desire for sensationalism. It was too difficult to write. But the actual press releases and newspaper articles are included in this exhibit for the whole world to see.

Arrival in Urbana

Dramatization of Arrival at the Urbana City Building^[1] Newspaper accounts, days later, have City Attorney Franks allowing me to stay in the foyer and getting me bathroom priviledges in the police station, but that is incorrect. He became the fall guy for the mayor when the political firestorm erupted.

When I heard that Urbana had passed the gay rights bill a year earlier, albeit a watered down version, I almost decided to return home victorious. But there was still questions of who was the Urbana cop and why the grand jury cover-up.

Press Release Initiating the Sit-in

Demonstrator Awaits Justice

At Home in City Hall

Dramatization of At Home In City Hall^[2]

Days in City Hall

Dramatization of Statute of Limitations^[3]

Dramatization of Reid Smith and the Gay Illini^[4]

Dramatization of GRAC Demonstration^[5] Reggie plays the role of Clarence Fletcher in earlier scenes from 1972 and 1973. In this dramatization, his role and story is purely fictional and a composite of another character.

Dramatization of Shower Break at Reid Smith's^[6]