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

A good summary of the events from the Wigwam demonstration to the start of the sit-in. Currently disagrees with the novel on the role of the second cop, but the novel will be modified in the 5th draft. Poor spelling and much hyperbole, but otherwise accurate.

Demonstrator Awaits Justice

Good article by Pat Wingert, now Washington correspondent for Newsweek

At Home in City Hall

Dramatization of At Home In City Hall^[2]

The conversations are mostly fictional although I believe they accurately reflect what might have been said by the people mentioned. The man and woman who brought me the mattress are composites of several people. I identify them as coming from the Earthworks Collective and later news articles identify them as coming from Gemini House, a substance abuse center. One of those involved in providing assistance was Terry Cosgrove, now president and CEO of Personal PAC. He was a good friend of Reid Smith, who appears shortly and is a major character in the novel. The people who brought me food are fictional composites. There was no suspicious man with a potentially poison tuna casserole, but there were a few instances of food I felt better throwing away.

Days in City Hall

Dramatization of Statute of Limitations^[3]

An accurate synthesis of several conversations of several conversations held at this time. According to all news reports at the time, including a later press release from the Gay Rights Action Coalition, I allowed the social worker to take me to Mercy Hospital for an evaluation, but I have no recollection of this.

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

There are some inconsistencies between this account and the Gay Rights Action Coalition press release. Apparently, I met with Reid Smith on March 6th, the day after the Gay Illini meeting with Mayor Bland, not March 10th as depicted in the novel. The press release reported a March 10th emergency meeting between GRAC and the Gay Illini calling for a grand jury investigation indicating there was less hostility from the Gay Illini over my sit-in than in the dramatization. A news story from 1977 when the Champaign gay rights bill finally passed showed Bland's public statements on gay rights were less supportive than those he gave to the Gay Illini, although he did cast the tie-breaking vote.

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]