Dramatization of first GLF meeting after drag arrests

Normally, the Gay Liberation Front had its meetings on the second floor of the Illini Union, which featured a large number of meeting rooms of various sizes. We tried to anticipate the size of the meeting when the reservation was made, but that did not always work out. So two days later, at the next meeting of the GLF, there were about fifty of us crowded into a room for twenty. Gloria droned on from a table in front. "…people…shit…people…people…consciousness…Harold McClintock feels they have a good chance to beat this case altogether." This might or might-not have been the end of her speech, but someone started to applaud to break the monotony and everyone joined in. Doc Willow, who shared the dais with Gloria, smiled approvingly, and then self-consciously moved his thumb, covered with blue-ink under the table.

I glanced around at the people present and realized that this was the biggest meeting of the Gay Liberation Front we had ever had. Seeing all those angry faces crowded into that tiny room made me ecstatic. There were even some local gays, the Crystal Room crowd, who were probably seeing the inside of the Illini Union for the first time. And there was Darryl Greenwood at his first Gay Liberation meeting. His short dark curly kink accentuated his egghead. A shy, intellectual, engineering student. No sign of Deidre beneath the façade. Paola came fighting mad. She sat beside and fawned over James Fisher who was surprisingly upbeat and there with Skip. Steve, Fenton and Roger also were there. Winston and Seth were at the side of the room, away from the seats. Winston was smoking and pacing in a small space miraculously created from the parting of the crowd. Seth was leaning against the wall, also smoking, and talking to a chubby young man with alabaster-white skin, and ultra-light blond facial hair, holding up his oversized pants by a belt loop.

I had forgotten everything but Gloria’s last statement, the applauded one. I raised my hand and asked, "What about the law, itself?"

"Harold said that the constitutionality of the law, itself, could be challenged," she replied. "But that would require mutual agreement from the three people arrested. It could be a long process through the appeals."

Darryl raised his hand, nervously. "I would fight the law, but Tina and Wendy just want the whole thing over with. They would die if their names got into the paper. They just want to pay the fine and be done with it."

"You mean plead guilty!" I interrupted. "We can't allow such a thing."

"You have no say in the matter," Doc yelled back from his presidential table. "It's up to the people arrested. Their feelings are all that count. You cannot use other people to further your own agenda." He was so upset that he waved the hand with the blue thumb without reserve.

"If we don't sacrifice now, we will never win equality," I shouted.

Winston Stanfield raised his hand and Gloria called on him. He walked to the front, puffing away. "Each of us,” he said followed by a long drag on his Pall Mall, “is at our own point of personal liberation. We must support the wishes of each individual caught up in the struggle in order to create a sense of empowerment that will lead to equality." This brought applause from the crowd, including Doc and Gloria. "In this case," he continued, "it seems fairly clear-cut. We separate Darryl’s case from the other two. Those two plead guilty and we launch a campaign of protest, informational pickets, petitions, teach-ins, etc. as Darryl's case works its way through the courts." The crowd was silent. Just a few of us applauded. The overweight guy raised his right fist and whistled. He did not dare to let go of his pants.

Darryl spoke up. "I don't want to plead guilty, but I'm not sure I want this kind of attention either."

Doc looked at Darryl and spoke. "You should only do what you feel comfortable doing. Remember, just by not pleading guilty, there is an increased risk of jail time."

Gloria fingered her frizzy hair and the drone in her voice reminded me of a dirge: "I think the greatest lesson we have learned is that we live in a fascist state. We are all victims of the racist, sexist, imperialist and homophobic pigs who will crush any and all of us to meet their greedy objectives." She then looked at me. “Those who would use their white privilege to push their middle-class views on a black man are no better.”

I opened my mouth in outrage. Darryl seemed as miffed as I was and looked at me confused. Before I could say anything, Paola shouted, "So you're just going to sit back and let this happen?" She was applauded and I joined in.

"I'm not going to add to the suffering of police victims," Gloria snapped back. "Darryl will talk with Harold and they will decide what's best. It's important that all of us support them, whatever that decision might be." She glanced over at Winston, as if to show the crowd that she and Winston were both on the same page. It was not uncommon for both of us to claim him as an ally. "Now, let’s move on to the next order of business."

"Wait a minute!" I yelled. "What about the demonstrations that Winston talked about? We could still do a demonstration, independent of the court action." My comments reignited Winston’s pacing in ever smaller space that was filling in with the crowd. It appeared his motions reestablished some perimeters.

"The press would jump on any demonstration at this time and connect it to the people on trial,” said a lumber-jack of a woman from the consciousness-raising session whose soft-spoken manner belied her appearance. “That would not bode well for the victims." She received some applause, but Paola, Steve and I saw cowardice masquerading as concern and booed.

Doc yelled out, "Let's not have any of that here."

I raised my hand and Gloria reluctantly acknowledged me. "The rest of you can sit back and wallow in your self pity,” I said, “but I'm going to the next meeting of the Champaign City Council and ask them to repeal the law." Paola, Steve, Fenton and Roger all applauded.

"That's pretty stupid," said Doc. "Those people are all right-wing businessmen who made the laws in the first place. If you do anything, it will be tied to the trials. If you threaten their class interest without the people behind you, they're likely to pass laws that are even worse."

Marc Faucet was a short cherubic guy sitting on the other side of the room from me. I had a fling with Marc the previous year, but now I wasn’t sure what I had seen in him. "We have it pretty good here,” he said. “Never once have the police raided the Crystal Room. They never bother the drag queens going into the bar. If Dave has his way and riles up the city council, the police will raid us as revenge. And let me tell you, as a person who has heard it intimately from the horse’s mouth, that's exactly what he wants. Dave wants the police to raid our bar so we'll have a Stonewall."

Everybody looked to me for a rebuttal, but I just sat there witless. He spoke the truth. All I could think to say was, "It's a free country and I'm going to the city council whether you like it or not." A chorus of boos followed and this time Doc did not chastise the noisemakers. He joined them.

Once the noise abated, Winston stepped outside his pacing perimeter in order to be noticed and was recognized by Doc. "Individual action does not lead to victory, in and of itself,” he said, as he lit a fresh cigarette and paced down the aisle to the front of the room, “but can spark a movement. If Mr. Rosen is hell-bent on going to the city council, there is nothing we can do or say that can stop him. He might, in fact, learn a valuable lesson in the process and the same goes for the rest of us." Heads nodded as though a wise man had spoken.