“It’s rare to find a collection of essays so rich and compelling, its contributors sharing the journeys that frequently took them into regions unknown but eventually led them back home – to themselves, their loved ones, and their communities…” Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., director, Institute for Southern Studies, University of South Carolina.
This quote is from the back cover of Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home, an anthology of the first-person stories of a few (21) organizers of the LGBTQ movement in South Carolina from the HIV-AIDS pandemic in the 1980s through marriage equality in 2014. I had the privilege of collecting, editing, and securing a publisher for their voices, a labor of love for me for four years from 2013 – 2017.
During the month of June which we celebrate as Pride month, I encourage anyone who hasn’t had an opportunity to meet these trailblazers (Jim Blanton, Candace Chellew, Matt Chisling, Michael Haigler, Harriet Hancock, Deborah Hawkins, Dick Hubbard, Linda Ketner, Ed Madden and Bert Easter, Alvin McEwen, Sheila Morris, Pat Patterson and Patti O’Furniture, Jim and Warren Redman-Gress, Nekki Shutt, Tony Snell-Rodriquez, Carole Stoneking, Tom Summers, Matt Tischler, and Teresa Williams) to go to Amazon or directly to the USC Press for a read that will make you proud.
June is our official LGBTQ Pride Month, and I’m resurrecting this post from May, 2014 to honor a man whose life – and death – continues to speak to us through his celebrated legacy. Lest we forget…
Today, May 22, 2014 would have been Harvey Milk’s 84th. birthday. Instead, his life was tragically shortened by five bullets to his head in his office at San Francisco’s City Hall in 1978 at the age of 48. Harvey was one of the first openly gay elected LGBTQ officials in the entire USA when, on his third try, he was elected to the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco in 1977. Eleven months later he was murdered by a former board colleague who believed the growing gay movement threatened traditional values.
His life and death have served as an ongoing inspiration to the LGBTQ community in America and around the world.
Harvey Milk Postage Stamp Issue
You’ve got to give them hope. If a bullet should enter my brain,
let that bullet destroy every closet door.
On this day in 2014 Harvey Milk was honored by his country with the issuance of a forever postage stamp bearing his image and the colors that symbolize the movement. Thirty-six years after his death the bullets to his brain destroyed many closet doors.
When I bought 100 stamps this afternoon at the Post Office, the young woman said to me, You are the first person to buy these Harvey Milk stamps. And I said, You don’t know how thrilled I am to have them.
How appropriate on this coming Memorial Day to remember an American hero who died for his hopes of equality and justice.
Closet doors have opened at warp speed since Harvey’s time. He would be amazed, as I am continually, that nineteen states and Washington, D.C. have legalized same-sex marriage. The number of LGBTQ elected officials has grown exponentially at local, state and federal levels with the support of many organizations including The Victory Fund which has as its mission the appointment and election of members of our own community in order to take a seat at the tables of political power.
Harvey Milk and others like him made possible an event that kicked closet doors open for hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ persons and underscored the perseverance of a community determined to make its mark on the country. We would not go away.
Flag for March on Washington
with two wrist bands and rings from the March
(Memorabilia courtesy of Dick Hubbard and the late Freddie Mullis)
On April 25, 1993 the largest march in the movement’s history was held in Washington, D.C., and the gays and lesbians came running out of their closets to participate. You simply had to be there to take it all in. Wow. We were inspired, empowered. For many of us the closet doors would never be shut again – except from the outside.
I have a long list of heroes I will remember this Memorial Day weekend, but today I salute Harvey Milk – an ordinary man who committed outrageous acts of courage in his everyday rebellions.
I owe you.
**********************
On June 26, 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage, legalized it in all fifty states. I believe Harvey Milk would have been very proud – I know Pretty and I were.
Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.
“An emotional President Joe Biden marked the 100th anniversary of the massacre that destroyed a thriving Black community in Tulsa, declaring Tuesday that he had ‘come to fill the silence’ about one of the nation’s darkest — and long suppressed — moments of racial violence.
‘Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous, they cannot be buried, no matter how hard people try,’ Biden said. ‘Only with truth can come healing.’
Biden’s commemoration of the deaths of hundreds of Black people killed by a white mob a century ago came amid the current national reckoning on racial justice.” —— Jonathan Lemire and Darlene Superville in the AP
Neither my American history class in West Columbia, Texas in 1963 nor my American history lectures at the University of Texas in Austin in 1966 mentioned the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. “Just because history is silent, ” President Biden said today, “does not mean that it did not take place.”
Today we as a nation have an opportunity to acknowledge an oppressive silence about an unspeakable horror that created a generational deprivation of justice and equality which should be the rights of every American. We must not only admit the betrayal but also support actions to make amends to those survivors of the Massacre, their descendants, their home town.
I believe as individuals we also have an opportunity, an obligation, to speak truth to our families, friends and elected officials at all levels of government about the importance of equal treatment for everyone regardless of our differences. Nelson Mandela said:
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
May that be our truth.
Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.
Our good friends Nekki (with monkey on shoulder) and Francie contacted Randy at Travel Unlimited who made the arrangements for Pretty and me to celebrate not only our birthdays but also our vaccinated selves with a little rest and relaxation in the Dominican Republic which is adjacent to Haiti on the island of Hispaniola – in case anyone is interested in geography.
In July, 2014 Pretty and I flew from South Carolina to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. The trip was a mixed bag of fun and frustration for me for several reasons: tropical heat with few air conditioners for very spoiled gringos, hills within the city that seemed higher to climb every day, the realization that my knees were beginning to rebel as I tried to keep up with Pretty who is one of the world’s foremost explorers in foreign lands – and is fourteen years younger than I am. We met wonderful people, though, and brought home a new game for us called Mexican Train that we both loved. Thankfully, it’s played with dominoes and can be played while seated.
What neither Pretty nor I realized at the time was we wouldn’t be taking another trip that required jet planes until May, 2021. This past week we visited Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, yet another tropical climate more than 1,300 miles from our home in South Carolina, a place where the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea meet. My laptop didn’t make the trip with me, the weather was perfect and, although I didn’t try parasailing, I was entertained by those who did.
breakfast, beach, discussing lunch, margaritas, lunch,
pool, discussing dinner, Presidente cerveza and margaritas,
dinner, wine, sequence, spades —- repeat the next day
Pretty made friends with margaritas again –
as Nekki supervised pool recreation
I was amazed at the warmth, the genuine friendliness, the kindness of the people we met at the all-inclusive resort. I, too, was cynical and skeptical of their care for us at first as being more concerned with our American dollars than for our having a memorable visit to their country. I know that tourism is very important to the Dominican economy. Yet, I felt the culture’s respect for their elders – my white hair was treated with a dignity I don’t receive here at home where senior citizens may be ignored or considered a liability while youth is celebrated with a fervent passion.
When we came home to South Carolina this week, the news stories were very much as we left them with the exception of the Republican Party’s removal of a woman who had served as Chair of the House Republican Conference in the 116th. Congress. Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) was removed for her unwillingness to participate in the “war against the Constitution…and the unraveling of democracy” which took place when the Party refused to accept the 2020 election results. I have never been a fan of anyone whose last name is Cheney, but I admire her for her truth telling which has come with a remarkably high price.
As one of the vicissitudes of life that my daddy claimed would intervene in the best laid plans of mice and men, I had traveled in a jet plane without incident to another country only to have a rough landing on the asphalt of a road near our home as I walked my dog Charly on Friday, the 14th. Not even the 13th.
As I bent to be a good neighbor to retrieve Charly’s deposit onto the grass of a very pristine yard we walked pass every day, Charly noticed a car passing by and jerked the leash from my hands which, in turn, jerked me to the pavement. High drama ensued, but two Good Samaritan women in separate cars stopped to rescue me. They called 911, an EMS vehicle picked me up and took me to the ER of our Lexington County Hospital. One of the women took Charly, who was horrified by my inability to get up and continue our walk, home. The other woman sat down next to me on the grass of the pristine yard. We had a lovely chat.
All’s well that ends well, right? The cat scan in the hospital revealed no fractures or bleeding, released me on my own recognizance with a list of instructions for the elderly in how to prevent falls. I have now read the instructions and find no mention of being careful when retrieving dog poop.
My face resembles Rocky’s face after a boxing match, my bionic knees are now blue with a tinge of black, but my good spirits refreshed by my vacation remain. And the concern of my granddaughter for my “boo-boo?” moved me to tears. I am the luckiest Nana today.
Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.
P.S. One of the women who rescued me stopped by our home that night of my accident and brought us a lovely plant in a gorgeous pot. I was touched twice by her kindness that day.
With apologies to composer Jimmy Van Heusen, lyricist Sammy Cohn, arranger Nelson Riddle, singers Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore plus many others – and without anyone’s permission, sing along to their song Love and Marriage introduced in 1955 with my new lyrics. If you need a reminder of how the tune goes, ask Alexa or Siri or one of those wise women to play Love and Marriage by Frank Sinatra for you. They will happily oblige.
Burn Them Calories
Burn them calories, burn them calories,
Every time we walk we burn them calories.
Life was made for goood food, but food can be a bugger-roohoooo.
Burn them calories, burn them calories,
Every time we walk we burn them calories.
Walk a little faster and pounds will fall like alabaster.
Try, try, try to keep from walking, it’s a delusion.
Try, try, try and you will only come to this conclusion.
Burn them calories, burn them calories,
Every time we walk we burn them calories.
Life was made for goood food, but food can be a bugger-roohoooo.
**********
Now you see why I’m not a song writer.
Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated, and please stay tuned.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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