Southern Exposure Is Striking out in Some New Directions

A JOURNAL OF POLITICS & CULTURE $5.00 VOL. XVI NO. 3

?h.,olimageoserwilkt4,WMPmrola*Ver ABOUT As our new logo and the cover photo of a former Ms. Gay THE COVER Charleston suggest, Southern Exposure is striking out in some new directions. Each issue will contain lively layouts, new fiction, a strong dose of humor, and an in-depth cover section that goes beyond what daily newspapers and other magazines have to offcr. IOU, AL 01-1 .01013,$3,173.133 Vol XVI 0.3 55D0 One thing that hasn't changed is our longstanding commitment to grassroots organizing and social change. But now, we are working to expose a broader range of readers to our unique blend of hard-hitting reporting and cultural diversity. You can help. Send us the names of friends who might like to hear about Southern Cover Section Editor: Jim Baxter Exposure. Write a letter with your comments, criticisms, and ideas to The Last Word. Managing Editor: Eric Bates Mail news clips and other information to Southern News Roundup and Dateline. P.O. Box 531, Durham, NC 27702. Design: Jacob Roquet Write to: Southern Exposure,

Cover Photo: Greg Day Editorial Intern: Jacob Cooley

Circulation: Sharon Ugochukwu Special thanks to: Len Stanley, Sally Gregory, The Gay Magazine For David Cecelski, Linda Ironside, Kay Alexander, Wells Eddleman, Tobi Lippin, Barry Yeoman, Sue Snedden, Steve Hoffius, Allan Troxler, Mab Segrest, John D'Emilio, Grattan Baldwin, Ron The Whole amily. . . . Lambe. Cover section donors: Nan IIunter, Carl Ander- son, Steven Schewel, Susan Schewel, John Clum, Charlie Williams, Mary Benedetto, Andy Miller, Ron Lambe, Nell Campbell, Faith Gay, Pat Inman, and an anonymous fairy godmother. Institute for Southern Studies Board of Direc- tors: Cindy Arnold, Julian Bond, Marilyn Butler, David Cecelski, N. Jerold Cohen, Robert Ilinton, Kenneth Johnson, Rev. Jim Lewis, Alan McGre- gor, Tema Okun, Jim Overton, Joe Pfister, Dimi Stephen, Sue Thrasher. Executive Director: Meredith Emmett Research Director: Bob Hall Development Director: Tandy Solomon Southern Finance Project: Tom Schlesinger

Fall Issue: Copyright 1988, Institute for Southem Studies, 604 W. Chapel lull Street, Durham, NC 27701. The Institute for Southern Studies is a nonprofit, publicly supported corporation working for progressive change in the region. In addition to publishing Southern Exposure, the Institute sponsors a variety of research, education, and organizing programs. At the center of each is an emphasis on (1) builiding effective grassroots organizations with strong local leadership and well-informed strategies; (2) providing the information, ideas, and historical understanding of Southern social struggles necessary for long-term fundamental change; and (3) nourishing communication and understanding among the diverse cultural groups in the South. Southern Exposure is published quarterly by the P.O. Box 1475, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008 212-627-2120 Institute for Southem Studies. Annual subscriptions are $16 for individuals and $20 for libraries $27 for 12 issues of CHRISTOPHER STREET and institutions. Southern Exposure is indexed M 1_1 Check or Money Order enclosed. USA funds only. H VISA El Mastercard Alternative Press Index, The American Humanities Index, and Access: The Supplementary Index to Account # Periodicals. Address all editorial and subscription Exp. Date Signature correspondence to Southern Exposure, P.O. Box 531, Durham, NC 27702. Second-class postage is paid at Durham, NC 27702 and additional offices. Name ISSN: 0146:809X. Post Office No. 053470. Address POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 with address changes to Southern Exposure, P.O. Box 531, City/State/Zip SE Durham, NC 27702. Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery of first issues. Fall 1988 Mint Juleps, Wisteria, and Queers vol. XVI, No. 3

FEATURES

8 Southern Highways, Nuclear Byways By Wells Eddleman The feds want to truck radiocative waste across the South. Is it too late to stop them?

13 Censored By Jacob Cooley The Supreme Court says principals can censor school papers, but Southern students fight for a free press.

55 Can't Budget A special section on West Virginia and Louisiana, the two states hardest hit by hard times.

COVER SECTION

20 The Myrtle Beach Bitch By Allan Berube A gay paper in the wartime South.

24 We're Looking for a Few Good Women By Deirdre Lutz Two Southern lesbians who battled the U.S. Marines.

26 Off Base, Home Free By Don King Brandy Alexander runs the only bar in the country that's off - limits to soldiers.

30 Boys Will Be Girls By Jere Real A Southern tradition of playing dress - up has made drag shows more popular in Nashville than New York.

33 Faerie Culture By Barry Yeoman Pagan ritual, country living, and a little magic.

36 Lesbian Land By Janelle Lavelle Women-only communities are spreading across the South.

39 Rabbit Interview by Allan Troxler Family, sex, and race — on ancestral ground.

45 No More Back Seat By Peg Byron Civil rights activist Bayard Rustin refused to move gay pride to the back of the bus.

46 Who the Enemy Isn't By Gary Kaupman From Agfhan Hounds to equal rights

48 "We Will Do the Hokey - Pokey" By Mab Segrest Building a new Southern Freedom Movement

DEPARTMENTS

2 Dateline: The South Compiled by Jacob Cooley

4 Southern News Roundup

50 Fiction: A River of Names By Dorothy Allison 64 The Last Word

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 1

DATELINE: THE SOUTH

HENDERSON, Texas (June 4) — CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (June to court to demand district elections of Local residents built a shanty town called 13) — G. Richard Howard, a city council members. White voters say "Tent City" to dramatize the chronic former engineer at the Ten- the current at-large elections give blacks housing shortage in East Texas, where an unfair advantage. The case is sched- two or three families are often crowded = nessee Valley Authority uled to go to the Supreme Court this fall. into one-bedroom dwellings. The = Nuclear Plant, filed a lawsuit demonstration coincided with actions =charging the utility with NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (June 24) — U.S. District Judge Walter E. nationwide protesting the lack of =wrongful discharge. Howard Hoffman, 81, said he has a constitutional affordable housing. — was fired after he complained right to belong to two all-white country MARTIN, Tenn. (June 6) — -=- about safety problems at the clubs. "I don't know of any crime to University of Tennessee students reactor. belong," he said. "It's not discriminatory picketed to protest Governor Ned in any sense of the word." A ruling McWhcrther's appointment of Bentley (June 17) — The Tennessee Hoffman issued in the 1950s helped end Beard to the student scat on the UT board Valley Authority admitted it is public school segregation in Virginia. of trustees. Beard, a family friend and having trouble restarting its neighbor of the governor, lost the student DALLAS, Texas (July 2) —Thc Unit 2 reactor, which was Dallas Gay Alliance and the ACLU filed election for the seat by 24 votes, but the suit against Parkland Memorial Hospital governor is not bound by law to appoint closed June 9 after safety and the University of Texas Southwest- the student who wins the election. flaws caused it to automati- = cally shut down five times in ern Medical Center, saying the two CHARLESTON, W.Va. (June 6) hospitals have failed to provide adequate — Catholic church officials backed one month. The reactor had care for AIDS patients. Parkland limits down from their threat to expel two just undergone 33 months of the number of hospital beds available to Charleston nuns who support women's — extensive repairs. people with AIDS. right to abortions. The sisters were among 30 priests and nuns who signed a hunger strike today after the federal 1984 ad in the New York Times saying "a government promised to review their diversity of opinion exists among cases and begin interviewing prisoners committed Catholics" on the issue of approved for release. abortion. POMPANO BEACH, Fla. (June 15) — Police looked on as city workers bulldozed the "trash" at a squatters camp and hauled it off to the county landfill. Ronnie McDowell and other "Tree People" who lived on the vacant lot returned to find all their possessions ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (July gone. All McDowell owned were a pair 17) —A Ku Klux Klan rally ended of blue jeans, a toothbrush, some seconds after it began as an angry mob Colgate toothpaste, and an oil painting of 150 protestors hurling dirt and orange of a ship. Pompano Beach has no shelter traffic pylons rushed the seven Klans- for the homeless. men. The Klansmen were immediately escorted out of town. SAN ANTONIO, Texas (June 17) BATON ROUGE, La. (June 8) — — The Reverend Jerry Vines became the ATLANTA, Ga. (July 17) — Louisiana became the latest of six tenth fundamentalist in a row to be Disabled residents rallied at the Grey- Southern states to attempt to outlaw elected president of the Southern hound bus terminal to protest company bumper stickers carrying any of six Baptists, the nation's largest Protestant policies requiring them to travel with a offensive words printed larger than one- denomination. The 32,727 "messengers" companion and to bring a note from their eighth inch. The state house approved at the annual convention also attacked a doctor. None of Greyhound's 3,700 the bill 84 to 14 and sent it to the state variety of modern evils they believe are buses are wheelchair accessible. The senate. Such laws have been struck causing "an erosion of moral sanity" — protest was the third against company down by courts in Alabama, Florida, including abortion, drug abuse, and the policies in two months. New Age movement. Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia SUMTER, S.C. (July 22) —Four MARKS VILLE, La. (June 14) — BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (June 17) residents were acquitted on charges of Forty-four Cuban refugees in the — A federal judge today ruled that white disobeying police after they tried to Avoyelles County Jail ended a nine-day voters in this black-majority city can go block trucks carrying hazardous waste to

2 SUMMER 1988 the GSX landfill last March. The plant OXFORD, Miss. (Aug. 4) — The SAVANNAH RIVER, S.C. (Aug. recently requested a permit to hold 400 first black fraternity house on the 19) —A committee monitoring the safety times the volume of toxic waste as Love University of Mississippi's historically of the Savannah River Nuclear Plant Canal. white fraternity row was burned down advised the plant to shut down its P by an arsonist. Undeterred, the Phi Beta reactor after it failed repeatedly to Sigma fraternity found another house, respond to power increases. The reactor and a guard was stationed at the new site was restarted August 4 after a four-month until it opened on schedule this fall. shutdown. The committee noted an HEMPHILL, Texas (Aug. 6) — identical situation at a Russian reactor More than 500 blacks marched to plagued by power loss ... Chernobyl. protest the acquittal of three law AMERICUS, Ga. (Aug. 27) — enforcement officials charged with the Associate Professor Allen Towery filed beating death of Loyle Garner, a black suit today after Georgia Southwestern truck driver. It was the first civil rights College suspended him without pay for demonstration in the town's history. calling 18-year-old Ginevra Dennis a FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (Aug. 13) "black bitch." Dennis had asked to — Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. was withdraw from Towcry's freshman the youngest American naval com- English class. A state board of regents mander in history when he ordered the panel cleared Towery on a charge of spraying of the deadly pesticide Agent racism by a four to one vote. Jaqueline Orange on the Mekong Delta to destroy Willis, the only black panelist, dissented jungles harboring Vietnamese soldiers. from the finding. WADLEY, Ga. (July 27) — Mayor His son, Elmo R. Zumwalt III, an officer B.A. Johnson, who in 1985 issued a ATLANTA, Ga. (Aug. 30) —The exposed to the defoliant during the war, shoot-to-kill order against stray dogs, Center for Disease Control reported that died of cancer today. Both men worked today ordered police to "shoot to stop" carpet workers in five north Georgia to gain government assistance to youths fighting in the city park. He told counties develop leukemia three times veterans exposed to Agent Orange. more often than other residents. The officers to shoot teenagers below the waist to end the violence. SWEETWATER, Tenn. (Aug. 14) counties manufacture 60 percent of the — The state announced plans to open nation's carpets. The CDC has no plans to WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. (July 28) Tennessee Meiji Gakuin, the first high study whether the high death rate from — Archaeologists are racing to study school in the nation fully accredited by leukemia stems from long-term exposure eight giant wooden shipwrecks exposed the Japanese government. Many Japa- to textile chemicals. by the drought-stricken Mississippi River nese students say they have trouble Readers are encouraged to submit before the water level rises again. Three competing in Japanese schools after news items to Dateline. Please send original of the ships date from the Civil War, and studying in the U.S. Tennessee is home clippings or photocopies and give name and metal dinner plates and ceramic dishes to 61 Japanese corporations, second date of publication. have been found aboard a 100-year-old only to California. passenger steamboat that sank sometime between 1910 and 1920. Illustrations by Steven Cragg MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Aug. 4) — A judge ordered 14 IS YOUR CARTOON CHARACTER black legislators, including state ADDICTED To DRUGS? NAACP President Thomas CHECK YOUR ANIMATED CREATIONS F R Reed, to stand trial for trespass- THE BEHAVIORAL TENDENC.\ ES ILLUSTRATED BELOW. ing. The lawmakers attempted to remove the Confederate Flag COCAINE LSD H ROIN HELIUM from the state Capitol on Feb. 2, contending the flag is a symbol of racism and oppression.

JACKSON, Miss. (June 10) — The Reverend Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, proclaimed his outrage over a Mighty Mouse cartoon that depicted the animated hero sniffing fragrant flowers which the Reverend assumed to be cocaine. "In my mind and in the mind of THE SOONER, WE CLEAN UP THE DRUG anyone who watches the cartoon, it's FROBLEMS OF FloTIVRAL ANIMATED CHAKP\CT - R cocaine," he said. Mighty Mouse denies all charges. THE Soc*IQ7, \NE CAR 13EGII\I ViORKII\IGoc Ol)K DRUG 19 .oEt -ri-,3. TH,5 P,D 5Pot45000 fri -n4E ArnR.KAN FAmtiO ASSOcIATIoN

SOUTIIERN EXPOSURE 3

SOUTHERN NEWS ROUNDUP

Photo by John Spragens, Jr times of economic change." JOB BOOM DOES In the overall rankings, workers in the South fared worse than LITTLE FOR WORKERS in any other region. Seven Southern states ranked among The South is still the worst area in the the bottom 10 in the survey — nation for workers despite the region's Kentucky (41), West Virginia widespread economic development, ac- (42), South Carolina (43), Ala- cording to a new study by the Southern bama (44), Louisiana (49), Ar- Labor Institute. kansas (50), and Mississippi Entitled The Climate for Workers in (51). Per capita income in those the United States, the report paints a states remains below $12,000 a bleak picture of wage earners in the year. South. The region's 13 states ranked last Only Virginia ranked among or next-to-last among all 50 states and the top half overall; it is the only the District of Columbia in earnings and Southern state where per capita income, worker protections, workplace income exceeds the national av- conditions, and quality of life. Workers erage of $15,340. in the region fared only slightly better in Among the other findings: the category of job opportunities. Job Opportunities. The em- "This report examines how economic ployment outlook in the region is climates and conditions in the states af- sharply divided. North Carolina, fect most workers, not simply the man- Virginia, Georgia, and Florida all agement of companies," said Ken ranked among the top 15, while Johnson, Institute director. "The true test West Virginia, Louisiana, Mis- of economic conditions is how working sissippi, Arkansas, and Kentucky people and their families — the vast ma- placed among the bottom 10. SOUTHERN WORKERS EARN LESS AND HAVE LESS jority of citizens — are doing in these Texas experienced the sharpest PROTECTION ON THE JOB THAN THEIR COUNTERPARTS IN job loss, losing 66,400 jobs last OTHER REGIONS OF THE COUNTRY. year alone. INCOME IN THE SOUTH Earnings and Income. The South Live records in the nation. continues to offer the lowest manufactur- Quality of Life. Poor health care and 1987 per-capita personal income, and ing wages of any region in the country poor education combined to give the national rank. and only average retail and service sector South the worst quality-of-life rating of PER-CAPITA wages. Median income for families of any region in the country. Eight of the INCOME RANK four ranged from a national low of bottom 10 states in this category were Virginia $16,322 11 $26,763 in Mississippi to $34,602 in Southern, with Georgia placing last. U.S. Average $15,340 Georgia, the state closest to the national The report concluded: "All workers Florida $15,241 20 average. still have reasons to find the South a dis- Workplace Conditions. Almost every appointing, poor place to work... . They Georgia $14,098 28 Southern state falls below the national suffer low earnings. Generally, they face Texas $13,764 33 average for the percentage of blacks and meager benefits if unemployed or dis- N. Carolina $13,155 35 women in better-paying, high-skilled abled. Most Southern states offer them jobs. In South Carolina, only 17.6 per- the least protection in the workplace, tax Tennessee $12,738 38 cent of black workers are in higher occu- them heavily and deliver the least in re- 42 Kentucky $11,950 pations, and in Arkansas fewer than one turn; moreover, while living costs may 43 S. Carolina $11,858 in four women hold such positions. be lower, the poorest quality of life is Alabama $11,780 45 Worker Protection. No Southern state found in the South." Louisiana $11,362 47 offers a minimum wage above the na- The Institute is a project of the South- Arkansas $11,343 48 tional average, and six guarantee no ern Regional Council, a non-profit public minimum wage at all. The region also interest group. For a copy of the report W. Virginia $10,959 50 lags far behind most others in passing write SRC, 60 Walton Street NW, At- Mississippi $10,204 51 laws to protect workers, with Mississippi lanta, GA 30303. SOURCE: Southern Labor InsUtute and Alabama tying for the worst legisla-

4 FALL 1988 transfer to new facilities, Mack officials first dragged their feet and then chose to UAW FOLLOWS MACK ignore the transfer agreement. DEVIANT COPS ASK TO SOUTH CAROLINA In what has become a bitter dispute DEVIANT QUESTIONS marked by excessive litigation, the union Mack Trucks, unable to extract major had to go to arbitration and then return to All Mcryll Black wanted was a job contract concessions from the United court before Mack agreed to honor the with the Prince William County Police Auto Workers (UAW), closed the main transfer language. Even so, Allentown Department in Manassas, Virginia. What assembly plant in its long-time home of workers were given an unusually short she got instead was a lie detector test full Allentown, Pennsylvania late last year time to decide on the transfer. Those who of lurid questions about her sex life. and headed South. Induced by a $16.9- did move South were greeted at the train- When Black applied for the job last million package of tax breaks and the ing center by armed guards and police. It spring, she was wired to a polygraph ma- lure of low wages, the nation's number- looked, said one transferee, as if "some- chine. Then a male interviewer asked, five truck manufacturer opened a new one had taken a hostage." "Have you ever had sex with a dog?" non-union assembly plant in Winnsboro, Mack workers from South Carolina "I laughed at it," said Black, a 35- South Carolina last fall. testified at the NLRB hearing that the year-old mother of two. "If I didn't laugh According to company officials, the company had warned them to stay away at it, I probably would have punched him new plant is a state-of-the-art facility, from transferees. One Mack worker re- out across the table, I was so shocked." utilizing production teams and auto- ported she was told not to go to the bath- Black stopped laughing, however, as mated parts storage and retrieval. Mack room alone because Allentown workers the questions continued. Are you homo- CEO John Curcio called the facility "a might attack her. sexual? Have you ever participated in an cornerstone of Mack's strategy to regain Allentown workers accustomed to orgy? Engaged in oral sex? Masturbated the leadership position in the North having rules and procedures spelled out in public? Does your husband have American heavy truck market." in their contract also discovered that homosexual tendencies? Have you ever Yet behind the shiny new exterior of there appear to be no consistent em- seen him touch another man's sex or- the plant and the glowing statements of ployee policies at the new facility. Lionel gans? Mack officials, the reality of this new Aselton, head of human resources at Black was also asked to describe her Southern plant may not be so squeaky Winnsboro, testified that although each sexual fantasies in detail. Most of the clean. Start-up was marred by a lack of employee was given a company hand- questions were asked while the poly- parts and coordination, and the plant was book, the section on rules and policies graph machine was off. soon surrounded by a sea of 1,250 unfin- was simply left blank. After the exam Black felt humiliated, ished trucks. Although the backlog has Consequently, individual managers almost raped. "I went out to the car and been greatly reduced, the problems are have been making up ad hoc rules which just sat for about 10 or 15 minutes. I was far from over in Winnsboro. the NLRB charges have been used to fire so stunned. I felt wrung out." Mack workers describe high-tech union supporters. As NLRB staff attor- Similar accounts of sexual harass- equipment that still doesn't work and ney Patricia Timmins noted, "Mack did ment were given by 10 other women who labor relations that are far from the team everything it could to prevent UAW applied for county jobs as dog wardens, concept touted by company officials. members from transferring, and then be- typists, dispatchers, or prison guards They also cite the 31 workers who have gan searching for excuses to fire them." over the past two years. None of the been fired by the company as evidence of Although the dispute is likely to re- women was hired. just how poor the labor-management cli- main in the courts for some time, UAW Now, with the help of the American mate is. officials remain confident that South Civil Liberties Union, Black and the The National Labor Relations Board Carolina workers will join the union. other women are demanding a state in- ruled that the company fired 14 of the Despite company predictions of trouble, vestigation. But county officials say workers for union activities. NLRB hear- to date there has not been a single re- sexually explicit questions are necessary ings resumed in Winnsboro on Septem- ported incident between transferees and to determine whether an employee could ber 13 and are expected to last through South Carolinians. be blackmailed. October. "The South Carolinians have come to A dog warden? A typist? Black- Central to these problems are Mack's realize that we are people just like them," mailed? "We're interested in things they continuing efforts to escape the UAW said one Allentown worker. "People with are involved in that could be used to get master agreement covering other Mack kids, mortgages, and bills to pay. All them to purge the records or not file workers, who earn almost double the Mack's money and imagination just charges against someone who has broken wages offered in Winnsboro. Although couldn't keep us apart." the law," said then-Police Chief George the contract with UAW Local 677 guar- Owens. "It's the same for police officers, anteed Allentown workers the right to —Tom Juravich dispatchers, clerk-typists who enter rec-

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 5 ords in the computer and dog wardens been arrested before for similar inci- comet for the Jews." who have the responsibility of writing dents. "The military has wanted to clamp Recently, a new method of dating tickets for violations." down on us for some time," he said. antiquities called the accelerator mass Welch himself was arrested on Father's spectrometry technique showed that Day when he attempted to make a citi- wood found with the relic is between 12 zen's arrest of the Cape Canaveral base and 19 centuries old, making it the oldest BUSTING GRANNY ON commander "for endangering the Old World find in North America. MOTHER'S DAY planet." J. Huston McCulloch of the Institute Florida peace organizers say they are for the Study of American Cultures in When 150 Florida residents decided uncertain why Judge Haddad sentenced Columbus, Georgia, believes that the to celebrate Mother's Day by staging a the women so severely for a non-violent stone is part of a tablet brought to what is peace demonstration at the Kennedy political protest. The American Civil now Tennessee by Jews fleeing military Space Center, the military decided to get Liberties Union has recognized the defeat after a naval battle. tough. Private security officers arrested women as political prisoners. McCulloch said that during war five women for trespassing on May 8 as against Rome between 66 A.D. and 70 they protested military involvement in A.D., many Jews set out from Judea hop- the space program. RELIC DATE PUTS ing to find land across the Atlantic. He The arrested women were members theorized that the newly-arrived Jews of Cape Action Community, a Florida JEWS HERE BEFORE intermarried with the Cherokee. "They group that organizes demonstrations and COLUMBUS were buried Indian style — so they investigates military wrongdoing in Bre- weren't just massacred on the river," he yard County, home to Cape Canaveral As children, most of us were taught said. "They were apparently treated as Air Force Station, Patrick Air Force that the Vikings were the first outsiders distinguished strangers." Base, and the space center. to visit the American continent, centuries At their trial, Judge Peter Haddad before Columbus made his historic voy- sentenced the women severely. Dorothy age. But now, archaeologists say that the Smith and Peg McIntire — both 79-year- inscription on a small stone relic found in BLACKS WIN FIRST old grandmothers — were fined $600 an East Tennessee Indian burial mound VOTE IN 156-YEAR each. Willa Elam was sentenced to one suggests that ancient Jews may have ar- year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Wendy rived in the South as early as 70 A.D. HISTORY OF TOWN Loomis received nine months in jail and The inscribed stone was found in Blacks have always held a majority in a $1,000 fine, and Karen Morian was 1889 by the Smithsonian Mound Survey the small town of Lexington, Missis- sentenced to six months in jail. In addi- Project at the junction of Bat Creek and sippi. Yet it took three years of commu- tion, the court is threatening to charge the the Little Tennessee River. For decades it nity organizing and legal action before women approximately $9,000 to pay for was believed to be a Cherokee artifact. they were able to elect the first black the cost of their own arrest. But in 1971, Semitic language expert council members in the 156-year history Jim Welch, a local resident who was Cyrus H. Gordan identified the writing of the town. also involved in the Mother's Day ac- on the stone as Hebrew script from the On July 12, candidate David Rule tion, said many of the protestors had Paleo-Hebrew alphabet reading, "A beat Richard Spencer by 56 votes, and Larry Edwards defeated long-time in- cumbent Jack Farmer by 42 votes. The key to both victories was new voting dis- "GCN is simply the most tricts which recognized the black major- interesting publication for ity, and voter registration which more lesbians & gay men in this than tripled the black vote. country." — Sue Hyde The battle for new voting districts Nat'l Gay & Lesbian Task Force began in 1985, when a community group Sodomy Law Repeal Project called Citizens for Fair and Progressive COMMU UI Government sued the city for systemati- cally creating voting wards that under- NEWS represented blacks. The group demanded that officials conduct a special census to S ince 1973, Gay Community News has been the determine the city's population and number of eligible voters. only national newsweekly covering lesbian & gay life & Leroy Johnson, vice president of a liberation. Subscribe now & see how our feminist, local group called the Rural Organizing and Cultural Center, said that the con- anti-racist perspective puts us on the cutting edge of struction of low-income housing outside sexual politics & community journalism. the city limits was one of several factors which had contributed to population 1 year, $33; 6 months, $20; 6 months, low income, $12 changes in Lexington. "We knew we had to find out how the GCN Subscriptions, 62 Berkeley St. Dept. SE, Boston, MA 02116

6 FALL 1988 housing had affected the black community," Johnson said. "We also knew there were hundreds of white people listed on the voter registration books that were dead or had left the city." City officials claimed 2,826 people lived within the city limits. The final census count put the population of Lexing- ton at 2,212. U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, the only black federal judge in Missis- sippi, ordered city officials to present a redistricting plan that adequately repre- sents the black majority. After rejecting three city plans, the court accepted one that reflects black majorities in three of Lexington's four wards. With a special election slated for July 12, community groups began a massive voter registration drive to encourage blacks to take advantage of the new voting districts. In 1985, only 180 blacks were registered to vote in Lexington. By the time the election was held this year, 625 blacks were registered to vote. Rule and Edwards were sworn in on August 29.

—Anna Sochocky

CITIZENS FORCE CITY TO REMOVE KLAN NAME FROM PARK It's not every day someone tries to name a city park after a Klansman — but that's exactly what the city council of Photo by Rich Addicks Stone Mountain, Georgia decided to do KKK IMPERIAL WIZARD E. BILL FITZGERALD WAS ONE OF 100 PEOPLE LOCKED OUT OF STONE last summer. On July 12, council mem- MOUNTAIN CITY HALL AS THE COUNCIL VOTED ON THE PARK NAME. bers voted unanimously to name a local athletic park after James Venable, 83, Venable requested that the council a small marker at the park recognizing attorney, former mayor of Stone Moun- choose another name. In a letter to Venable. tain, and one-time Imperial Wizard of the Mayor Jane Rhodes, Venable said, "I The compromise satisfied no one. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. love Stone Mountain and all of its citi- "It's an insult to all veterans — black, Venable donated the land for the park zens and would not want to see any con- white, and Jewish — to have his name during his tenure as mayor of Stone troversy or conflict occur." Venable associated with the park," said NAACP Mountain in the 1940s. But the decision claimed he had never expected his name Vice President Coleman Seward. "It's a to name the park after him provoked a to be associated with the park. disgrace." tidal wave of opposition from civil rights But days later, Venable wrote the Venable — who goes by "emperor," activists. NAACP President Pat Jones or- mayor again, this time urging the council the highest rank in his Klan group — ganized a boycott of Stone Mountain to keep his name on the park. If the city also expressed outrage over the decision. businesses and threatened to picket the didn't, Venable said, he would erect a 12- "My own race is weak-kneed," he said. park until the council rescinded its deci- foot illuminated sign on land he owns "Someday they will regret this." sion. next to the park which would read: "This Stuart Lewengrub of the Anti-Defa- land was donated 30 years ago by James News departments compiled by Jacob Cooley. mation League of B'nai B'rith com- R. Venable, an old Klansman." Readers are encouraged to submit news mented that "the racism that has been his On August 2, council chambers were items to Southern News Roundup. Please [Venable's] trademark makes the naming packed and 100 more citizens waited send original clips or photocopies with name of any public facility after him so inap- outside while council members decided propriate." what to do. In the end, the council voted and date, or articles of no more than 300 After four days of controversy, to call the land "Veterans Park" and place words.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 7 Southern Highways,

Here, in a nut- ceeds in opening the shell, is what the federal Nuclearnation's first under- government plans to do ground nuclear waste with the plutonium waste dump near Carlsbad left over from its nuclear Caverns National Park bomb factories in South in New Mexico. Carolina and Tennessee: DOE officials say First, put the waste in the nuclear shipments plastic bags. Like garbage bags. Then Fort Worth. Drive it all the way to the could start before the end of the year if twist the bags shut. Next, put the bags in salt beds of New Mexico. And then bury the military salt mine, known as the 55-gallon steel drums, put the drums in it. Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), newly-designed casks, load the casks That's the plan. Thousands of barrels opens on schedule this fall. onto tractor trailers, and truck the casks filled with plutonium-contaminated Although citizens have had little say 2,000 miles across eight Southern states. waste will soon be trucked thousands of in the plan, the proposed defense ship- No guards, no special routes. Basically miles across the South each year, if the ments have already come under fire from stick to the interstate highways, drive the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sue- Southerners who don't think much of the stuff right past Atlanta and Memphis, idea of holding a 2,000-mile funeral pro- Nashville and Birmingham, Dallas and By Wells Eddleman cession for nuclear wastes destined for 8 FALL 1988 burial in a New Mexico graveyard. 20 through Georgia, Alabama, Missis- PACT casks. If the casks break, or leak, Critics — including noted scientists, sippi, Louisiana, and Texas. or explode, millions of citizens in large grassroots activists, and elected officials Jim Tollison, the DOE manager over- Southern cities could be exposed to po- — say they fear a major disaster in the seeing the TRUPACT casks being de- tentially lethal radiation. "The hazard of making. They say the DOE casks are un- signed to ship the military waste, insists this stuff is plutonium," said Dr. Marvin tested and unsafe, state and local officials that radiation from the shipments poses Resnikoff, a physicist with the New are unprepared for nuclear accidents no health threat to the public — assum- York-based Radioactive Waste Cam- along major Southern highways, and the ing, that is, that the casks don't leak. paign. "If there's a fire or other accident, WIPP site itself is already leaking. "Assuming no leaks, along the route you don't need much plutonium to get "Just because it's convenient for the with the hottest [most radioactive] ship- out to have a major catastrophe." nuclear industry to release radioactivity ments, the dose would be inconsequen- Dr. Neff agreed. "My point of view is to the environment doesn't mean we have tial to any member of the public," Tolli- very simple. There is no dose of ionizing to put up with this," said Dr. Jack Neff, son said. "If you would hug a drum for radiation that is 'safe.' Any dose can professor emeritus of molecular biology 15 minutes, the dose you'd get would be cause genetic damage in future genera- at Vanderbilt University. "I think you one chest X-ray. You can't even get that tions, or cancers in present generations." have to be terribly Neff added that conservative in medi- DOE standards only set cine and in protecting "maximum permissible ourselves and the Government radiation doses. That whole human gene officials doesn't say they're pool. If they can't do safe. That says, 'This is it without increasing want to an arbitrary limit we set radiation exposure, truck up.' Even with biologi- then they oughtn't to cal repair mechanisms, do it." radioactive every bit of ionizing ra- waste diation has the potential GO WEST, OLD to do damage." WASTE across the The opening of South. Is it HOW SAFE IS WIPP will launch the too late to SAFE? biggest wave of nu- So how safe are the clear waste shipments stop them? casks? The truth is, no in U.S. history. Ac- Photos courtesy DOE. one knows for sure. cording to DOE esti- Unlike containers used mates, at least 4,533 to transport irradiated trucks carrying almost 200,000 barrels of dose as this thing drives by, or even if fuel from commercial nuclear reactors, nuclear waste will traverse the South by you walked around it. The dose is very DOE containers for defense waste are the year 2013. minimal, not even worth mentioning. not usually subject to approval by the Aboard those trucks will be discarded The TRUPACT doesn't even contain Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). machinery, tools, rags, paper, clothes, shielding. Workers can just walk up and Instead, the DOE is generally allowed to gloves, sheet metal, glass, and dried carry these barrels." establish its own standards and certify its sludge — the radioactive byproducts of Still, accidents do happen — and as own casks. nuclear weapons production. Such the number of nuclear shipments in- Nevertheless, energy officials agreed wastes are called "transuranic" (TRU) creases over the years, so will the to submit the casks for NRC approval because they contain plutonium or other chances of a major mishap. DOE last year after angry citizens wrote scores radioactive elements heavier than ura- officials say they expect 25 accidents in of letters protesting the lack of oversight. nium. Most TRU wastes emit relatively the next 25 years, but they insist that "I believe the DOE threw up its hands low levels of radiation, but some remain none of the accidents will cause and agreed to NRC licensing when extremely dangerous for as long as "significant" radiation to leak from the Southerners got involved," said Janet 240,000 years. If inhaled, ingested, or TRUPACT casks. Hoyle, director of the Blue Ridge Envi- absorbed into the body through an open "We do not expect any significant ronmental Defense League in North wound, they can cause cancer, birth de- release of radioactive materials from Carolina. fects, permanent genetic damage, and transportation during the 25-year life- Generally, the standards DOE had set even death. time of WIPP," Tollison said. "We do for itself have proved to be considerably In the South, most of the waste will not expect, statistically, in that time, an lower than the safety levels demanded by come from nuclear bomb factories and accident severe enough to breach the the NRC — and the regulatory agency waste recycling centers at Oak Ridge, package." Although there will be acci- hasn't exactly established a reputation as Tennessee and Savannah River, South dents, he added, none "would require a particularly tough watch dog. One Carolina. From Tennessee, the waste will extensive cleanup." study done for the state of Nebraska, for most likely follow 1-40 west through Ar- When accidents do occur, then, the example, found at least 10 instances kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. From safety of the public and the environment where spent fuel casks self-certified by South Carolina it will probably follow I- will depend on the safety of the TRU- the DOE were unable to pass NRC mus-

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 9 ter. Reportedly, the energy department of waste. NRC certification may once lems with the new 0-rings at low tem- continued to use some of those casks af- again be hard to obtain, however, if ini- peratures. ter the NRC refused to certify them. tial tests are any indication. Designers "If we find a problem, we will find a In fact, the first design for the TRU- have given the new cask a second layer solution for it. We have to, or the damn PACT cask had two major flaws that of shielding required by the NRC and thing won't be certified." made NRC approval unlikely. First, it have removed outlets that would have Leon Lowery doesn't believe such contained only one layer of protective vented radioactive gas into the atmos- assurances. A Tennessee environmental- shielding instead of two. Second, it con- phere. Without the vents, however, those ist, Lowery has been working to tained outlets to permit con- strengthen laws governing tinuous venting of potentially nuclear waste transporta- explosive gases. tion. "Since the TRUPACT- "So what did DOE do?" 2 design isn't totally final- asked Caroline Petti, a Wash- ized yet, and testing is not ington lobbyist for the New complete, I don't see how Mexico-based Southwest Re- anyone can express search and Information Center. confidence in them," he "Did they try to upgrade the said. "It's impossible to design of the cask? No. They have confidence in a cask tried instead to get the stan- unless you have confidence dards lowered. DOE petitioned in the process by which it the Department of Transporta- was designed, built, and tion (DOT) to modify its regu- tested. The TRUPACT-2 lations to permit NRC process has been so haphaz- certification of the TRUPACT ard, and so pushed by design. Fortunately, public schedule, that you can't outrage was sufficient to con- have any confidence in it." Part of the problem, sci- vince DOT to reject DOE's THE WIPP DUMP CONTAINS 56 CAVERNS THE LENGTH OF FOOTBALL FIELDS. petition for the time being." entists say, is that NRC tests To their credit, Petti said, don't actually simulate true- DOE officials agreed to redesign the gases threaten to build up inside the cask to-life accident conditions. Dr. Neff, the TRUPACT container to meet NRC stan- and explode. Vanderbilt biologist, said government dards, eliminating the valves and vents According to Melinda Kassen of the tests only expose the casks to tempera- included in the original design. "The Environmental Defense Fund in Colo- tures of 1,475 degrees cask will be certified by the NRC or it rado, the redesigned cask has also devel- 410011111 1111 01111 won't be used," emphasized DOE oped faulty 0-ring seals similar to spokesman Dave Jackson. • es NI 1" 1" LITTLE RO Despite such assurances, DOE ARK. • • 10 11"" 411 officials don't deny OKLAHOMA that they 0 AMARILLO, CITY, OKLA. Fahrenheit. Propane and diesel et 111 fuel (which the casks may actu- would have 111 TEXAS preferred those that destroyed the space ally encounter on the highway) burn at lowering the shuttle Challenger in 1986. "The first temperatures approaching 3,000 degrees. standards set of 0-rings on TRUPACT-2 were not "Having met up with these DOE rather than sealing at very low temperatures," Kas- guys, they're about as tunnel-visioned upgrading the sen said. and hard-headed as I've ever seen," Neff cask's safety. Tollison, who worked on the NASA said. "They are not paying sufficient at- "We had a Apollo program before joining the en- tention to the safety of the casks. They very good de- WASTE ergy department staff, said the cask de- don't consider that any accident that they sign before, ISOLATION sign is being corrected. "We tested the PILOT PLANT 3.1 but it didn't 4.1. . ..0.1.mansm meet regula- IL 4 wow at ammus iCsi tions," said DALLAS, FT. WORTH, could imagine Tollison. "We TEXAS could change the design or change the 0-rings in TEXAS would result in the regulations. We changed the design be- the seals on loss of damaging amounts of cause we didn't have time to change the the TRUPACT cask at low temperatures, radioactive material to the environment." regulations." and we changed the 0-ring material to Neff maintains that the DOE "ought butyl rubber to maintain a leak-tight seal to test these casks to the limit, to the to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, which is worst possible accidents. This has not TEST TO THE MAX what the regulations require." been done. Don't use an arbitrary limit The new cask, known as TRUPACT- DOE spokesman Jackson said that — burn it with diesel fuel." 2, is 10 feet tall and will weigh 17,000 until the tests are over, "There simply is Asked about Neff's "test-to-the-max" pounds when loaded with 14 drums full no data that there are, or are not, prob- proposal, Tollison said the energy de-

10 FALL 1988 partment will do only the testing re- also said the DOE has done very little to night. In some cases, the trucks lacked quired by law. "We are going to meet the train or equip officials in any states along snow tires under winter driving condi- federal regulations," he said. "That's WIPP shipping routes. tions. what we're required to do, and that's Many Southerners also say the DOE There are no records of any accidents what we're going to do. Those regula- is not providing enough training. In fact, involving radiation leaks. According to tions have stood the test of time, and if in many states the department has sched- DOE spokesman Dave Jackson, "There they change, we're going to adjust to uled only one training session for emer- has never been an accident involving the meet them." gency response teams — hardly enough, transport of radioactive materials in which anyone has been harmed by the content. Ever. And I can COMING, READY OR prove it." NOT Melinda Kassen of the Questions about the safety Environmental Defense Fund of the casks aren't the only said the fact that there hasn't ones that remain unanswered. been a serious accident yet Environmentalists are also doesn't mean there won't be concerned about whether state one in the future. "We feel and local governments are the DOE is sitting where prepared for the possibility of NASA was in December accidents involving trucks 1985. 'Never had an acci- loaded with radioactive mili- dent.' Bragging on it. tary wastes. Youknow what happened." Again, the DOE maintains that all is well. According to THE END OF THE ROAD Tollison, the energy department will offer emergency As if transporting radio- training to every state the THE CASK DESIGNED TO HOLD THE WASTE HAS YET TO PASS FEDERAL SAFETY TESTS. active wastes 2,000 miles waste will pass through. "Train- across country weren't dan- ing will include radiation residents say, to teach local gerous enough, the safety of the WIPP site fire fighters and police itself has been called into question. A Na- officers how to respond to tional Academy of Sciences panel re- icaseguags 4•01111.0"181111114 OAK RIDGE, nuclear waste accidents. cently concluded that the DOE should NASHVILLE, TENN. "We're being the push- conduct further tests before dumping any TENN. EMPHIS, over of the Western world waste in New Mexico. The panel also TENN. on radioactive and hazardous waste," criticized the government for failing to protection and measurement," said Bob Guild, a lawyer who works on thoroughly study problems at the site. he said. "Save lives first." nuclear waste issues in Columbia, South WIPP consists of an enormous cavern A few months before shipments were Carolina. "We need to stiffen the back- dug into salt deposits 2,150 feet beneath scheduled to begin, however, most bone of some of these elected officials." the desert and big enough to hold 1.1 mil- Southern officials still didn't know Tim Johnson of the Campaign for a lion barrels of waste. The idea was that the when, where, or how much waste would Prosperous Georgia lives near a major radioactive military wastes would slum- be shipped through their states. Auburn WIPP transportation route. He ques- ber in the salt beds for tens of thousands of Mitchell of the Texas Nuclear Waste tioned the safety of transporting any nu- years, secure and dry beneath their protec- Programs Office said state agencies were clear waste by truck. "They'll be going tive geological blanket. The salt would still waiting to be briefed by the DOE in through heavily populated areas on their eventually corrode the barrels, but it August. "They're talking about com- way to less-populated areas. It doesn't mencing shipments next year," he said. IN um wow sum =CI se IN moo mom um Ca SAVANNAH 111111111111111.101111111 as 1111101111141111 ATLANTA, RIVER S.C. MINGHAM, BIR GA. JACKSON, ALA. would also contain the waste. MISS. make sense to ship waste In January, however, a group of 11 "It's something we want anywhere, especially through heavily independent scientists from New Mexico to get more specific information on. populated places like Atlanta." reported that water from cavern walls and We're looking forward to the briefing to DOE records show that department a ventilation shaft is leaking into the cav- get more specific information on quanti- trucks have been involved in a total of em and could effectively render the waste ties, routes, et cetera." 173 accidents since 1975,72 of them in dump useless. The highly corrosive brine Petti, of Southwest Research, said the South. According to Deadly Defense, could react with the barrels, the scientists previous accidents involving hazardous a citizen's guide to military waste land- said, allowing the wastes to leak into the wastes have shown that state and local fills published by the Radioactive Waste Pecos River or other major water supplies. emergency response teams are often ill- Campaign, all of the accidents were run- According to DOE documents obtained equipped, disorganized, and inade- of-the-mill — tired drivers, speeding, by the scientists, water is leaking into the quately trained to protect the public. She snow and ice, and deer on the highway at cavern at 1.5 gallons a minute, enough to

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 11 fill it in the 25-year life of the site. Engi- mountains behind Albuquerque that had don't even know if their site will hold it?" neers have so far been unable to stop the the warheads in them, if they'd have had asked one Southern congressional source. leaks. to pass the tests we had, they'd have Some lawmakers, like Democratic DOE officials say the leaks should not never got the door open," Forrest said. Rep. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, say delay dumping at the site. They call WIPP Not everyone who has lived in the Congress should withhold approval until an "experiment" and promise to remove area agrees with the mayor. Lois Fuller, the DOE trains and equips emergency re- all the waste from the cavern if anything an environmental activist in North Caro- sponse teams along waste transit routes, goes wrong in the first five years, even lina, spent her first 35 years in New Mex- builds by-passes around major population though they have no back-up plan for how ico and organized opposition to WIPP in centers, and proves that WIPP can meet to move the waste or where to take it if the 1970s. "We were very concerned federal limits on the amount of radiation trouble develops. about the transportation to WIPP," she that can be released into the air and water. "This approach defies common recalled. "We were concerned with all Activists like Caroline Petti say legislators sense," said Caroline Petti. "If DOE finds the logistics involved in creating some- should also establish an independent out after the fact that WIPP isn't safe, thing 2,000 miles away from where it safety board to oversee DOE operations at they'll have to retrieve the waste and ship would be stored." WIPP and other nuclear facilities. it back to the original storage sites. Trans- Tennessee activist Leon Lowery port corridor states will get it coming and stresses that citizens concerned about the A LEGISLATIVE ROADBLOCK going. It's in everybody's interest to es- environment should push their states to tablish whether WIPP is safe before load- The final roadblock WIPP must sur- pass stronger laws governing nuclear ing it up." mount is congressional approval: Con- waste transportation. "Whoever owns or is Such concerns don't bother local gress must give the final go-ahead before carrying the waste should pay the real cost WIPP supporters like Mayor Robert For- the DOE can begin waste shipments. of emergency training, equipment, and all rest of Carlsbad, New Mexico. To the Land withdrawal bills pending before the other costs of waste transportation," mayor, nuclear waste means money and both houses would transfer permanent Lowery said. He is lobbying for a Tennes- "good jobs" for an area fraught with low control of thousands of acres of federal see bill that would require the DOE to no- wages and high unemployment — an esti- land in New Mexico to the DOE. tify states of upcoming military waste mated $700 million and 685 jobs to date. Many senators and representatives shipments, pay a $1,000 fee per shipment, Besides, he said, WIPP is better than remain skeptical of the WIPP plan, and it and let states have a say in deciding what other government nuclear facilities. remains uncertain whether Congress will routes the waste will travel. "If the public knew what went on at transfer the land to the DOE. "Why are In the end, what happens on Southern Los Alamos, Rocky Flats, Sandia, those they trucking waste around when they highways will depend on how extensively citizens get involved in the controversy over what to do with radioactive military THE TIP wastes. So far, few citizens have actively OF THE The radio- thousands of shipments of high-level demonstrated against WIPP or the corpo- active bypro- commercial reactor waste to the MRS rations that stand to profit from the waste- NUCLEAR ducts of nu- in the South, and then from the MRS to transportation business; most of the oppo- ICEBERG clear weap- the high-level waste dump, plus ship- sition has focused on pressuring state and ons produc- ments from nuclear reactors direct to federal lawmakers to enact tougher con- tion on their the high-level dump," said Janet Hoyle trols on how nuclear wastes are handled. In way to WIPP are only a small part of of the Blue Ridge Environmental De- the meantime, the DOE is moving ahead the growing nuclear garbage heap in fense League in North Carolina. with its plans to truck nuclear weapons the U.S. Spent fuel rods—one of the The DOE has visited potential MRS wastes through hundreds of Southern com- deadliest and most radioactive forms sites in Kentucky, South Carolina, munities, even though few Southerners of nuclear waste — are being steadily North Carolina, Tennessee, Missis- have had a say in decisions that will di- stockpiled at commercial reactors sippi, and Alabama, but Congress has rectly affect their lives. across the country. Now, with a "per- started to think twice about the plan. "The greatest danger is to people being manent" waste dump in Nevada years Lawmakers ordered the DOE to recon- exposed along the transportation routes," away from completion, the U.S. De- sider the sites, and banned construction said Melinda Kassen of the Environmental partment of Energy is considering stor- on the MRS until construction begins Defense Fund. "We think the citizens ing the radioactive rods at one of 11 on the permanent site in Nevada. who'll be on the road with this waste "temporary" sites — all in the South. Nevertheless, many observers fear should have the chance to comment on it The sites, known as Monitored Re- the DOE will go through with the short- and make the DOE justify it." 0 trievable Storage (MRS) facilities, will term dumping in the South. "Once they Wells Eddleman is an energy and hold spent fuel rods from all over the build the MRS and once they get the environmental consultant in Durham, North country until the Nevada site is open waste there, the chances are it will be- Carolina. He has been active in nuclear waste for business. That means the nuclear come permanent by default," said Caro- issues for over a decade. waste will travel through the South at line Petti, lobbyist with the Southwest For more information about WIPP, contact least twice — once coming and once Research and Information Center. the Southwest Research and Information going — thus increasing the risk of "With the DOE, what starts out as tem- Center in New Mexico at (505)262-1862, or exposure to lethal radiation. porary often winds up being perma- write the U.S. Department of Energy, P.O. Box "Besides WIPP, we could have nent." — W.E. 2078, Carlsbad, New Mexico 88221.

12 FALL 1988 Richard Allen

By Jacob Cooley

Earlier this year the staff of the Devil's Advocate, the student newspaper at Stanton College Preparatory School in Jacksonville, Florida, researched and wrote a two-page section on teenage sexuality to coincide The Supreme Court says with Valentine's Day. They investigated the growing principals can censor school number of sexually-transmitted diseases among teenagers and quoted statistics on unplanned pregnancies papers, but Southern from Newsweek and Seventeen magazines. Despite the careful research, the articles never ap- students are fighting for peared in the paper. The school principal, Dr. Veron- freedom of the press. ica Valentine, deemed the stories "inappropriate for publication," saying they were too sexually explicit for seventh graders at the school. She invoked a school board policy that prohibits discussion of abortion, masturbation, and homosexuality in the school curriculum, even though none of the banned topics was mentioned in the Advocate. Dr. Valentine also criticized Ingrid Sloth, an English teacher and faculty advisor to the Advocate staff, for failing to submit the articles for approval prior to publication. Although no review policy existed at the time, Valentine said Sloth should have cleared the "controversial" articles with school officials.

SOUTI TERN EXPOSURE 13 Sloth and her staff were confused. THE WORD FROM ON HIGH a "valid educational purpose" to censor They felt their articles were well written newspapers that are produced as part of What happened to the students on the and researched and that there was no the school curriculum. What's more, they Advocate took place only a reason to exclude them from the paper, staff of the can also censor any other school-related few weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court especially since life-threatening dis- activity that is "not a forum for public ex- handed down a decision in Hazelwood eases like AIDS make it essential for pression," including student plays, art giving high students to discuss sex openly and hon- School District v. Kulmeier shows, science fairs, debates, research estly. As their censored introduction school administrators the right to censor projects, and even che,erleading squads. any articles they deem inappropriate for stated: "The Devil' s Advocate has In essence, the Hazelwood decision a student publication. In a 5-3 ruling, the elected to present the following articles says that the rights of public high school court upheld a 1983 move by the prin- on teen sex because Stanton students students are not the same as those of cipal of Hazlewood East High School in are not immune...." adults. The ruling has virtually stripped Anna-Liza Bella, the student who St. Louis to censor student articles on students of their First Amendment right to edited the section, said Valentine had teen pregnancy and divorce. free expression and given administrators It was the first time the court ever minimized the importance of the ar- total authority to censor any articles they ruled on a First Amendment case involv- ticles by censoring them. "There was a don't like. ing a school-sponsored newspaper — lot of work put into it, and I felt it was Censorship of school newspapers took and the Advocate case appears to be the not right for her to take it away." place long before Hazelwood, but it was Sloth and her students were also first indication of how some school prin- constantly being challenged and debated and sometimes overpow- ered by free-thinking students. In the South, students often took on the censors and won: V In 1985, student journalists fought back when the school board in Pat- rick County, Virginia censored an ad in the Devil's Advocate Cougar Review that urged Volume V. Number 5 Stanton College Preparatory School February 1988 Jacksonville, Florida students who were thinking about enlisting in the —von ‘ I n -414166Halhagir• military "to find out what you're getting into." The TEEN SEX: CONCERNS school board backed down when the ACLU RISKS called the censorship "a , AND CONSEQUENCES blatant violation of re-

Counseling provides some solutions Pregnancy rate of the U.S. Sexually transmitted diseases ... the mo quired constitutional stan- compared to other western nations dards." V In 1987 a district judge in Texas issued an injunction against Bryan High School after principal Jerry Kirby suspended student editor Karl Evans for distributing an alternative newspaper con- taining articles that criticized school officials. In an out-of-court settlement the school agreed to pay concerned by Valentine's stipulation cipals intend to use the ruling to censor Evans an undisclosed sum for the wrong- that future "controversial" articles must students. As a result, many students and ful suspension and to establish a written be approved by the principal before faculty advisors say they now fear a new policy for school publications. publication. Who had become the edi- wave of government-sanctioned censor- • Last year more than 80 high school tor? ship in public schools. students in Arlington, Virginia wore arm- "I didn't press (the issue) for fear of Until now, school officials could only bands and staged demonstrations when job security," Sloth commented. "But censor articles that would actually dis- Principal Mark Frankel censored a survey my staff will continue to seek out and rupt school activities or invade the rights about drugs and alcohol in the school research subjects that are important to of others. But under Hazelwood, officials yearbook. School officials finally gave in teenage students." only need what the Supreme Court called and agreed to form a publications board

14 FALL 1988 composed of students, faculty, and administrators to decide cases involving controversial articles. THE CENSORSHIP MONOPOLY Since the I lazelwood ruling, however, student journalists are discovering Censoring student newspapers is trict demanding their children be ex- that what the ACLU once called "blatant not the only way freedom of expression empt from studying Holt Basic Read- violations" are now considered legal. In- is being curtailed in public schools. In ing, a series of state-approved text- stances of censorship have exploded recent years, incidents of book censor- books used by eight million students across the nation — and the South has ship have also increased. Since 1983, nationwide. The group claims the not been immune. the number of book bannings has books are anti-American, anti-God, doubled nationwide as religious funda- anti-family, and promote "secular mentalists try to "remoralize" America humanism." A SHOOTING AND by censoring school textbooks and clas- A COVER-UP sic literature they deem unfit. LONGVIEW, Texas —Norma Although book bannings occur as Last February, less than a month after and Mel Gabler, full-time censors, frequently in the North as in the South, the Hazelwood ruling, high school stu- compile "hit lists" of anti-religious or such censorship sometimes makes it dents in Pinellas Park, Florida were pre- "un-American" texts in the largest impossible for students in isolated rural paring to print the Powder Horn Press textbook-buying state in the country. communities to read what they please. when gunfire broke out in the halls. Two Mel says, "When a student reads in a In some cases, entire communities are assistant principals had attempted to dis- math book that there are no absolutes, under the monopoly of censorship. arm two students carrying guns, and two suddenly every value he's been taught "Censorship only protects igno- shots had been fired. One shot injured is destroyed. And the next thing you rance," says Leanne Katz of the New Assistant Principal Nancy Blackwelder. know, the student turns to crime and York-based National Coalition Against The other killed Assistant Principal drugs." Censorship. "We must arm our young Richard Allen. people with tools for understanding and Students on the staff of the Powder ALEXANDER COUNTY, N.C. — thinking about problems. And we don't Horn Press worked all afternoon to A group called Citizens For Decency do this by shutting them off from ideas cover the shooting. They redid the front is boycotting stores that sell Vogue, or by discouraging critical thinking." page with a story and photo, designed a Mademoiselle, or Life magazines, Katz and others note that book ban- saying the publications contain anti- graphic for the back page, and raced the ning has enabled a small group of indi- family messages. paper to the printer by midnight. The viduals to suppress what students in paper was printed the next day, but when public schools are able to read, to learn, BAY COUNTY, Fla. — The local the students took the articles to Principal and ultimately to think. They also point Marilyn Hemminger for her approval, school board banned 64 books, in- out that to teach students that we have she forbid them to distribute the paper. cluding works by Shakespeare and the right to limit the expression of oth- Hemminger cited Pinellas Park Sophocles, deemed to contain explicit ers is to guarantee a plague of religious guidelines which state that anything ob- obscenities. The superintendent said or political book censorship in the fu- scene, libelous, or potentially disruptive he hopes to "restore Christian values" ture. —J.C. must be approved by the principal before to the school system. distribution. Five days later, she ordered students to reprint the first and last pages FLORENCE, S.C.—Webster' s CHARLESTON, S.C.—Calling Ninth Collegiate Dictionary was re- the best-selling novel to eliminate all coverage of the shooting. The Prince of moved from local schools because it Carol Jackson, spokeswoman for Pi- Tides "pornography," Baptist minister defined words some parents considered nellas Park schools, said the story was Elton Johnson Jr. demanded that the obscene. It was replaced with a diction- pulled even after local media had cov- county school board ban the book ary written at a fifth-grade reading ered the shooting because the back-page from an 11th grade class. The board level. graphic slightly misplaced the location passed a resolution urging teachers to of the surviving assistant principal. "Par- avoid readings "which most people CHURCH HILLS, Tenn.— ents know professional press and accept A would find abhorrent." group of parents sued their school dis- that it has errors," Jackson said, "but the school press is the official word." Jackson said officials killed the story to "calm the frenzy" in the school, add- like this," Early said. "Under the circum- Ironically, the front page of the cen- ing that it would have created too much stances, we felt this was the best thing to sored issue also featured extensive cov- chaos to allow the paper to be distributed do." She said students were told they erage of the Hazelwood ruling, including in the aftermath of the shooting. could appeal the decision, but were fore- reactions from students and professional Others disagreed. Susan Early, fac- warned that the school superintendent journalists. In an article headlined "Stu- ulty advisor to the Powder Horn Press, would back the principal. dent journalists denied rights in school," said the principal banned the article even The decision was never appealed. The Principal Marilyn Hemminger was though the students' coverage was more Power Horn Press was reprinted without quoted as saying that she "has never cen- precise than that of the professional any coverage of the shooting, and an im- sored an article." press. "We are not afraid to cover things portant viewpoint was censored.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 15 SEX AND SANTA CLAUS censor articles they don't like simply by student rights come up, students are al- deeming them "inappropriate." In Lex- ways represented in the discussion. Incidents of censorship like this one, ington, Kentucky, officials censored an Sherry Glass, the current student on following close on the heels of the Ha- editorial about sexual activity written by the school board, said that the seat en- zelwood ruling, have alarmed students a student at Lafayette High School. The sures a student voice in policy decisions. and their faculty advisors. The Student reason? According to Assistant Principal "It's important for students to have a say Press Law Center, a non-profit group in Robert Murray, the editorial gave the in the process that is there for them," she Washington, D.C. that fights for the impression that "students themselves, said. "Too often, students are excluded rights of student journalists, reported regardless of age, make the decision on from the decision-making process and receiving 500 phone calls in the first sex." school board members lose the student three weeks after the ruling. What issues are too sensitive for a perspective." The Dade County plan en- According to many observers, student publication? The court gave ex- ables the school to settle issues fairly by Ilazelwood sets student journalism back amples of potentially inappropriate top- including faculty, staff, administrators, almost 20 years. In effect, the ruling ics, including articles that question "the and students in the discussion. "I'm there weakens the standards established in the existence of Santa Claus in an elemen- to put the student voice back," Glass said. 1969 Supreme Court decision in Tinker tary school setting," or "speech that With students on the school board, V. Des Moines Independent Community might be reasonably perceived to advo- Dade County has developed a model policy that limits the power of officials to censor student newspapers. The county was also the only school system in the country to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the Hazelwood case supporting the rights of the student press. .BOB STAAKE Southern students like Glass are supported by teachers who also hope to keep Personally (comma) I applaud the Supreme Court for alive the enthusiasm and journalistic lib- their decision to uphold the censorship at Hazelwood High (period) Just because we students are taught the erties that were evident before the Hazel- fundamentals of democracy in high school (comma) that' s wood decision gave schools the legal right no reason to extend to us to censor. Ingrid Sloth, the advisor to the the same First Devil's Advocate, said the Supreme Court Amendment rights ruling made many educators realize that as an adult (period) they must fight for the rights of students. "The big reality that came home to us is that we are living in a very conservative community," Sloth commented. "As in- nocuous as these articles are getting every day, it's disconcerting to realize the politics of the whole thing." Nevertheless, educators and free speech advocates insist that the Hazelwood ruling has not killed high school journalism. Students are continuing to struggle to write openly about the 141I4D- MANAGING EDITOR issues that concern them, and to convince school administrators that students can never learn journalistic responsibility un- School District. In that case, the court cate drug or alcohol use, irresponsible less they are freed from the constant sex, or conduct otherwise inconsistent ruled that school administrators could threat of censorship. not suspend students who wore black with the 'shared values of a civilized so- "No school is required to censor as a armbands to protest the Vietnam War cial order." result of the Hazelwood decision," noted unless they could show the situation Shared social values? Inconsistent Mark Goodman, director of the Student would disrupt school activities. conduct? Free speech advocates say the Press Law Center. "Schools that want Alan Levine, a lawyer specializing in list is disconcerting because of its vague- high quality student publications and a student rights and co-author of the book ness and length. It opens many doors for vital educational environment will even- legal thought-monitoring and censorship The Rights of Students, said he expects tually realize that censorship prevents the student press to face more censorship in public schools. them from ever reaching those goals." 0 now. "Before I lazelwood school officials But there is hope. lacked the power to censor," he said. In Dade County, Florida, the fourth Jacob Cooley wrote this article as an Anti- Now, they have the legal ability to moni- largest school district in the nation, stu- och College intern at the Institute for Southern tor the voice of an entire student body. dents take part in a four-year-old pro- Studies. He is currently a student at the Uni- Part of the problem, advocates for gram that grants one high school student versity of Georgia. student rights say, is that the Supreme a non-voting seat on the school board. Court ruling allows school officials to That way, when issues of censorship or

16 FALL 1988 Mint SE Cover Section

Wisteria, Ethel and a friend of hers, a social worker, had adopted a girl who died of scarlet fever a few years later. When Ethel asked to bury the child in the family cemetery plot, the family refused. "A big controversy erupted," Milo recalled. "They made a whole big deal in those days about the family burial &Oueers ground. This girl wasn't part of the family, so I just figured that was the reason they didn't want her buried there." Then, a few months ago, Milo was talking with his father. The subject of his great- aunt came up in conversation, and Milo learned the truth behind the family legend. The social worker, it turns out, was a woman. Great-aunt IN 1564, THE FRENCH Ethel, it turns out, was a les- ARTIST JACQUES LE bian. MOYNE DE MORGUES "It was news to me, but it TRAVELED TO FLORIDA made perfect sense," Milo AND REPORTED THAT said. "I had come out to my INDIAN HERMAPHRO- father, so I guess he thought! DITES, "PARTAKING OF might be interested to know about my THE NATURE OF EACH SEX, ARE QUITE COMMON IN great-aunt. It just confirmed what! knew THESE PARTS." ilo Guthrie was only 10 years all along — that gays and lesbians are CONSIDERED "ODIOUS" BY M old when his great-aunt Ethel everywhere." OTHER INDIANS, THE Pilcher died, but he remembers her well. HERMAPHRODITES WERE Hers was an old and respected Virginia FORCED TO SERVE AS family, and great-aunt Ethel herself had uch stories are not uncommon "BEASTS OF BURDEN," been principal of the A.P. Hill School in among Southern families. We of- CARRYING PROVISIONS TO S Petersburg in the 1920s. That was why ten hear tales of an "odd" uncle who WAR AND FASHIONING the story about the little girl never made never married, a spinster aunt who lived STRETCHERS TO BEAR THE with a "friend," a great-grandmother SICK AND WOUNDED. any sense. Family legend had it that great-aunt who liked to drink and smoke and hunt

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 17 LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS sionary Francisco de Pareja took note of it in detailing questions priests should There have always been doctors, He served as governor, congressman, ask their penitents. Under questions "For lawyers, politicians, and other and senator from South Carolina, and Married and Single Women" he in- Southern prominent citizens who have his conservative theories formed the cluded, "Woman with woman, have you carefully concealed a gay private life cornerstone of pro-slavery arguments. acted as if you were a man?" Under behind their public image. In recent In 1826, when Hammond was 19 questions "For Sodomites" he included, years, historians Jonathan Katz and years old, he received two letters from "Have you had intercourse with another Martin Dubcrman have discovered Thomas Jefferson Withers, a 22-year- man?" two 19th-century U.S. Senators who old college friend who went on to The growing number of white settlers were homosexual. become one of the founders of the did not deter the original Southerners Senator William Rufus De Vane Confederacy. Withers wrote that he from the "devilish thing." In 1721, Jesuit King was a 57-year-old bachelor from wondered if Hammond had yet had explorer Pierre Francois Xavier de Char- Alabama when he met Pennsylvania "the extravagant delight of poking and levoix wrote of Indians in the Louisiana Senator James Buchanan in 1834. punching a writhing Bedfellow with area, "It must be confessed that effemi- From then on, the two were your long fleshen pole — the exquisite nacy and lewdness were carried to the inseparable until King's appointment touches of which I have often had the greatest excess in those parts; men were as U.S. minister to France. honor of feeling." seen to wear the dress of women without Their intimate relationship caused Withers continued: "Sir, you a blush, and to debase themselves so as barbed comments in Washington. roughen the downy Slumbers of your to perform those occupations which are Andrew Jackson Bedfellow — by most peculiar to the sex... . These ef- called King "Miss such hostile — feminate persons never marry, and aban- Nancy." Aaron furious lunges as don themselves to the most infamous Brown said King you are in the habit passions, for which cause they are held was Buchanan's of making at him in the most sovereign contempt." "better half- and — when he is least Nor did native Americans confine jokingly referred prepared for their passions to their own people. In his to the Senator defence against the 1830 autobiography, Kentucky settler from Alabama as crushing force of a John Tanner described an Indian man "she," "her," and Battering Ram." who was "one of those who make them- "Aunt Fancy." The letter is signed, selves women, and are called women by James Henry "With great respect the Indians... . She often offered herself Hammond was Jam the old Stud, to me, but not being discouraged by one considered a pillar Jeff." refusal, she repeated her disgusting ad- of the Old South. vances until I was almost driven from the lodge." Other Indians "only laughed at the embarrassment and shame which I evinced." Eventually, the Indian and chew tobacco. love freely since be- „ woman" gave up on Tanner and mar- The loves and pas- fore Europeans in- ried an Indian man with two wives. sions of these fore- vaded the continent. The "embarrassment and shame" of bears always go un- Indeed, records of the heterosexuals like Tanner quickly be- mentioned, unnamed. They were part of earliest white explorers clearly indicate came the dominant force that shaped the the family, we are told, but the silence that cross-dressing and homosexual mar- daily lives of lesbians and gays. In 1778, says something different, says they were riages were commonplace among native Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin somehow never fully understood, never Americans. was court-martialed for attempting to fully accepted, never, like the adopted "During the time that I was thus have sex with a fellow soldier. General daughter of a lesbian aunt, fullyfamily. among these people I saw a devilish George Washington approved the sen- In the process, the silence also ob- thing," the Spanish explorer Alvar tence "with abhorrence and detestation scures the daily lives of Southern gays Nunez Cabez de Vaca wrote of his cap- of such Infamous Crimes" and ordered and lesbians, conspires to place their ex- tivity among the Indians of Florida from Enslin "to be drummed out of Camp to- periences beyond the reach of memory. 1528 to 1536. "I saw one man married to morrow morning by all the Drummers The result is a hidden history of Southern another, and these are impotent, effemi- and Fifers in the Army never to return." homosexuals — a history that crosses all nate men and they go about dressed as Loving members of one's own sex boundaries of age, gender, race, religion, women, and do women's tasks, and was declared a crime in the new nation, politics, and economic class to include shoot with a bow, and carry great bur- and by 1880 the U.S. Census reported all Southerners who have dared to love dens ... and they are huskier than the that 63 people were in federal prison for members of their own sex. other men, and taller...... "crimes against nature." Thirty-five were As author Jonathan Katz demon- In Georgia and Florida, lesbianism from the South, seven each from Missis- strates in his Gay American History, was frequent enough among native sippi and Tennessee. Thirty-two were Southern men and women have dared to Americans in 1595 that the Spanish mis- black.

18 FALL 1988 Just as blacks struggled to create their own culture in a climate of violence and TWO AMAZONS IN THE UNION ARMY lynch law, Southern gays and lesbians of somewhat the worse for the experi- all races shaped their own lives under the General Philip Sheridan was lead- ences of the day before, but awaiting threat of life imprisonment, castration, ing Union troops in the Civil War in her fate contentedly smoking a cob- and electric shock "therapy." Almost 1862 when two female transvestites pipe... . Her features were very large, always, this meant concealing them- were discovered among his soldiers: and so coarse and masculine was her selves, their lovers, the most basic facts I was informed that there certainly general appearance that she would of their lives. Consider, for example, the were in the command two females, that readily have passed as a man.... case of George Greene, an upstanding in some mysterious manner had at- citizen of Ettrick, Virginia. He worked tached themselves to the services as Next day the "she dragoon" was soldiers; that one, an East Tennessee caught, and proved to be a rather pre- hard, married a widow at age 40, and woman, was a teamster in the division possessing young woman, and though remained faithful for 35 years. On the wagon-train and the other a private sol- necessarily bronzed and hardened by day he died, a St. Louis medical journal exposure, I doubt if, even with these reported in 1902, "the wife called in as- dier in a cavalry company temporarily marks of campaigning, she could have sistance to prepare the body, when de- attached to my headquarters for escort duty. While out on the foraging expedi- deceived as readily as did her compan- ceased was discovered to be a woman." tion these Amazons had secured a sup- ion. How the two got acquainted I Even though "George" was a woman ply of "apple-jack" by some means, got never learned, and though they had who had disguised herself as a man and very drunk, and on the return had fallen joined the army independently of each married another woman, the medical into Stone River and been nearly other, yet an intimacy had sprung up journal referred to her, without irony, as between them long before the mishaps "a well-known citizen of Ettrick." Per- drowned. After they had been fished of the foraging expedition. They both haps, history seems to suggest, hetero- from the water, in the process of resus- sexuals don't know their fellow citizens citation their sex was disclosed, though were forwarded to army headquarters, up to this time it appeared to be known and, when provided with clothing (or their own communities) as well as only to each other.... suited to their sex, sent back to Nash- they think. After some little search the East ville, and thence beyond our lines to Tennessee woman was found in camp, Louisville. aken together, such historical anec- T dotes reveal just how "hidden" lesbian and gay history has been—and just how much of heterosexual history has bians and gays. Simply to say, "I am, we Jr. banished civil rights activist Bayard been a masquerade, a way of dressing up are" is to be exposed to fear, hatred, and Rustin from the Southern Christian homosexuals to suit straight people. Like violence. Leadership Conference in part because the good citizens of Ettrick, heterosexual Yet, as the stories in this cover sec- Rustin openly declared his homosexual- society denies the very existence of les- tion of Southern Exposure show, South- ity, to a day when Jesse Jackson could ern lesbians and gays stand before the nation on prime-time have done more than sim- TV and call for gay and lesbian rights. ply declare their exis- Such a transition underscores how far tence. In the years since the movement has come in 25 years — World War II, they have and how far it has to go. It is no longer struggled to shape their enough to say "lam, we are." As activist own culture in the fullest and author Mab Segrest points out in her sense of the word. They article on page 48, the time has come to founded a gay newsletter draw on the rich culture of the region to on a South Carolina mili- build a Southern freedom movement that tary base in the midst of recognizes gay leadership. Freedom for war, staged campy theater lesbians and gays means creating a in small-town drag bars, Southern family that includes great-aunt created rural sanctuaries Ethel, that welcomes all our relations in the Ozarks and the Blue into the fold, that acknowledges each of Ridge, and kept alive a us for who we are. It means learning to tradition of storytelling talk freely about our bodies, our sex, our and bodacious humor. selves. It means freedom for everyone, They have also taken gay and straight. It means, ultimately, an active role in the civil granting ourselves an essential freedom rights movement, and in — the freedom to love. doing so have challenged the movement to expand. —The Editors It has moved from the day when Martin Luther King

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 19 The

World War II may have transformed ale gay life in the South more than any other event before the 1970s. The massive war 1WD mobilization threw millions of young men and women from all over the country onto the military bases that Beach sprang up almost overnight in every Southern state. The Army and Navy used these Southern bases to train recruits before shipping them overseas. Many young men crowded onto these bases soon discovered they were homosexual Bitch and began to meet other soldiers and sailors like themselves. In 1943, two GIs stationed at a South Carolina air base had met so many gay servicemen on other Southern bases that they decided to start a newsletter for their new friends. Because they were stationed at the Myrtle Beach Bombing Range, Soldiers in the they named their newsletter the Myrtle wartime South put Beach Bitch. Campy, patriotic, and naive, these young pioneers had no idea together one of the they had put together one of the first gay first gay papers in papers in the United States. They also weren't prepared for the high price the country. .Their they'd have to pay for their innocent project. reward was Two of the men associated with the federal prison. Myrtle Beach Bitch had their first reunion since the end of World War II during Christmas 1983 in San Francisco. Norman Sansom, a "subscriber," had told me about the Myrtle Beach Bitch and his war buddy Woodie Wilson, one of the editors, when I had interviewed him in 1981.Woodie, Norman, and! By Allan Berube talked all afternoon and into the early Photo courtesy Allan Berube evening. As Woodie talked, I began to realize ost histories of the gay that his story not only captured the spirit M movement and gay life in of gay life in the wartime South, but also America focus only on San Francisco, revealed some of the hidden origins of New York, Los Angeles, and other the gay press in America. Northern and West Coast cities. The South has an equally rich gay past, but it is often locked in the memories of men GIDDY, SWISHY, AND GAY and women who are only now feeling Like millions of other young safe enough to talk about the years Americans who served in World War II, before "gay liberation." Woodie enlisted in the Army Air Corps

20 FALL 1988 just before his 21st birthday in June Special Services was putting on called Bombing Range in South Carolina. A 1942. By the end of the summer he was "Private Maxie Reporting." "What we new unit was forming to go overseas, stationed at Keesler Field in Biloxi, actually auditioned for was the men's and he was assigned to be a clerk for the Mississippi, where he was trained as an chorus," Norman explained. "But they officers, taking care of all records for the airplane engine mechanic to service the found out that the show needed some squadron. new B-24 bombers. At Keesler Field, humor." So the three gay GIs — Woodie, "Well, who comes along who's the Woodie met a "gang" of gay GIs, the tall MP, and their new friend Norman chief clerk of the orderly room where we including one known as the "tall MP." — decided to put together a "specialty were working? The tall MP! We called Woodie remembered well the day he act," a comedy routine in drag. him Sister Kate by now because we had first met the tall MP. It was a hot The show also had a "Chorus of Girls" been the three sisters in the show. So Mississippi summer evening, and he was made up of local women from Savannah. from then on 'she' was Sister Kate. standing in a long line of men waiting to Ironically, it was the presence of these "Of course, we kept in touch with get into the War Department Theater to women in the cast that introduced the trio Norman from the moment we found catch the first-run Hollywood movies to gay life in Savannah. Since the cast had ourselves on the same base again. And that were the only entertainment on the to "rehearse into the night" and women that's when we formed the famous base. He passed the time by watching the were not permitted on the base, the Myrtle Beach Bitch ." MPs keep the men in line. soldiers were put up at the De Soto Hotel From Hunter Field, Norman was "And this very tall — over 6-foot-4 in town across from the Municipal transferred to Walterboro, South I'm sure — absolutely blonde young MP Auditorium. "That's how we found out Carolina. Right after his arrival, he got a comes up and he would swing his club that the bar was really the 'closeted' gay letter from his two friends in Myrtle and he'd say 'Get up, girls! Get up, girls! bar of Savannah. That's where we did our Beach. "They told me they were going to Get up, girls!' And obviously he was a drinking and had our fun." publish a newsletter to come out every gay fellow! He kept saying 'girls' to On opening night, Woodie recalled, it month because there were a lot of us whoever was standing in line. And there was the trio's drag number that brought gays in the Air Corps." would be lots of giggling in the line and a down the house. He pulled out a yellowed Woodie explained how he and the tall lot of horseplay like 'Oh what do YOU clipping from the MP came up with Photo courtesy Allan Berube want, you fairy!' But they kept him part Savannah Morning the idea to put out of the MP division on that base. News and read a the Myrtle Beach "So very carefully I started to talk to review of the act Bitch . "Sister him one night at the service club on the headlined, "Air Base Kate and I were base," Woodie continued. "And he Show Draws Big two people who introduced me to two or three other Crowd. Pvt. Maxie had lots of time on people. We all played cards together at Reporting Proves our hands. I had the service club when we had time off. Successful." met gays in how And suddenly I realized I had a fast "The 'female many fields by friendship with these guys who hung out trio,' who almost this time, like in the service club and particularly this stopped the show on Norman, that we MP. It wasn't sex — nobody wanted to the opening night, knew had gone off go to bed with anybody. They were just were again received to other places but guys who were giddy, swishy and gay. by a roar of we kept in touch. They didn't all like one another, but they ovation," the So we just started all knew one another. We were from all reviewer wrote. having a ball in the over the United States. And! began "Clad in clinging orderly room learning about places I had never been." evening dresses, the typing up these three drew howls things, and then from the audience, running them off THE FEMALE TRIO which mounted on the mimeo- In the spring of 1943, Woodie had to when they returned graph machine. Of leave his new gay "gang" and his "tall on roller skates for course we were MP." The Army transferred him first to an encore. Lyrics WOODIE WILSON (ABOVE) PUBUCIZES "PRIVATE busy all day long, Shepherd Field, Texas, then to Hunter sung by the three MAXIE REPORTING." NORMAN SANSOM (OPPO- and sometimes Field near Savannah, Georgia, where he were composed by SITE) DURING THE CREATION OF THE BITCH. into the evening, was assigned as a glider mechanic to a themselves. Private doing the rosters squadron preparing to ship off to Europe. Sansom was also make-up man for the and all the damned things you had to do But Woodie wasn't without friends men's chorus." to prepare to go overseas. We could for long. "Oddly enough," he said, "You certainly were!" Woodie teased come in at night if we wanted to do extra "guess who appeared again? The tall Norman, laughing his good-natured, work. So it was perfectly all right. MP, still in the Military Police, still campy laugh. "The Myrtle Beach Bitch might have swinging her little club around and as been issued five times in its life," Woodie went on. "I would say that the gay as pink ink!" And Hunter Field was THE GOSSIPY BITCH where Woodic met Norman. first one might have had three or four Woodie first saw Norman at an Woodie had to leave his friends again pages to it. I think we even did little audition for a musical variety show that when the Army sent him to Myrtle Beach crazy drawings. The second one might

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 21 have been four pages. Another one I can list. Only the people that we had met, THE STOCKADE remember was just one page. It was just a Kate and I. We sent out 10, 12 copies at mimeographed standard size piece of most." "But you can't go by those Woodie paused, trying to remember paper that was stapled together. numbers," Norman was quick to explain. precisely what happened on that day 40 "We wrote in it that Norman had "I know when I got mine I passed it on to years ago. "The first I knew about it, I gone to Walterboro, South Carolina. And somebody else whose name might have was called into the office by my adjutant, we mentioned 'Ray' that we'd met in been on it and maybe he mailed it to and he said, 'Have you ever heard of the Mississippi, and we wrote 'Miss Ray,' or somebody else. So it was recirculated. It Myrtle Beach Bitch?' And I stood at 'Martha Ray,' or whatever we called her. reached more than just 10 or 15 people." attention and I said, 'Yes, sir, I have.' He And this one went there, and doesn't "You never saved the Myrtle Beach said, 'Do you have any ideas about who everybody remember Woodie's Brad Bitch?" Woodie asked Norman. has written the Myrtle Beach Bitch?' that he used to get under And I said, 'Yes sir, I the mess hall with, we do. It's me.' And he think he's at OCS in said, 'Go over to Florida. It was things like your barracks right that." now.' And he sent for "It was like a gossip HUNTER FIELD Kate too and told her column," Norman added. to report to her "Who was going with barracks. The whom. Who was sleeping provost marshall was 111 I • • • there, with two MPs with whom. Who 'divorced' each other and apiece at our bunks. 'Presents . . . And right in front of were going with someone else. Who had graduated us, they picked up from a Pfc. lover to a "Private our foot lockers, took captain or a lieutenant. So them away and put us all of this kept everybody into the stockade. up on who they knew had Maxie . . . Surrounded by 'bettered' themselves, so barbed wire. to speak, by 'marrying "The stockade into' the officers' club. Reporting" was full of both black And the names were and white prisoners mentioned, either the first who had done all sorts of things: name or the last name, or AN their feminine name that AWOL, stealing, ORIGINAL we gave them — Carol or manslaughter. We all whatever." MUSICAL had blue uniforms "It was almost like COMEDY with a 'P' on our receiving a newsletter backs for 'prisoners.' from home," Norman said We were in that to Woodie, "because it stockade over three was the only MU NICIPAL AUDITORIUM and a half months communication we had SAVANNAH, GEORGIA awaiting trial. We about people we had met MAY 310 and JUNE 1sit, 1943 were taken out every morning with guards in other bases." 8:30 P. M. - "I remember us getting to clean up the beach. (Proceeds to Soldiers' Recreational FILM] it together and having a We picked up the trash, raked leaves wonderful time. By the A PROGRAM FRO M THE WARTIME SHOW IN SAVANNAH, GEORGIA FEATURING WOODIE way, with the help of a WILSON AND NORMAN SANSOM IN DRAG. and pine needles, and poor fellow who knew we were always under were both gay but just got laughs and "Nobody saved anything," Norman the eye of a guard. belly laughs from us. He worked with us answered. "You see, people didn't save The Myrtle Beach Bombing Range never in the same orderly room.... He was in things in those days because we were all looked better! charge of the mimeograph machines in so afraid, not only of the service but of "The investigation went on slowly. the orderly room. He inked our our families." We would be interviewed one day, then mimeograph for us. So we wrote in the "I'd love to have a copy of it," we'd work for two weeks. Then we'd be Myrtle Beach Bitch, 'Guess what Sister Woodie said. "There were copies up interviewed three times in three days. Kate and Miss Woodie are doing now. until 1964 that I knew of. And by the We never gave them the names of They have somebody in this orderly way, Kate and I always kept a copy. That anybody. We refused. We said we didn't room that you girls should see! You was the worst thing we ever did. know. wouldn't believe it!' He was not gay. He "Because that's when the shit hit the "Eventually it got around what we just enjoyed the fact that we were. fan." were in for. We were GAY. But we still "We couldn't have had a big mailing didn't know what the charges were. Then

22 FALL 1988 I began to realize we might be tried for was. Imagine using your franking "Then I was really worried because homosexual acts committed in the privileges and putting your return there had been a case or two ahead of service — that just blew my mind. I was address on the envelope to send out the ours during the three months we were getting madder and madder and gayer Myrtle Beach Bitch! I mean, my God! awaiting trial, and we knew that he was and gayer! I didn't give a shit. I was just It's silly — right there, in ink! We were sent to Fort Leavenworth before being giving hell to everybody. When we also charged with 'sending vulgar and dishonorably discharged. And sure showered, I carried on, 'screaming' like obscene letters.' enough, within three days we were put a queen. The guards kept saying, 'That "And I can remember when it was on a train, sent to Columbia, South Wilson, watch him. He's our problem.' I read to me that I would be dishonorably Carolina, and then straight to was called in to the provost marshall discharged from the service without pay Greenhaven Federal Prison in several times. He said, 'Will you quiet it and rights, I realized that our lark had Stormville, New York. And we were down? Quit screaming like Photo from Before Stonewall sent there for one year." a sissy.' "And would you believe A LITTLE it, they came into the ASHAMED stockade barracks and built two special cells, TWO I asked Norman and SPECIAL CELLS, out of Woodie how it felt to be two-by-fours around our together again after not beds! That gave us just seeing each other for over 30 enough space to turn around years. Norman said, and pass cigarettes through "Fabulous. I can't get enough the bars. We would come of him." Woodie said, out of our little cells in the "Seeing each other is morning and go to work. marvelous. It was so nice of We were all marched to cat Norman to say, 'You've got over at the mess hall and to come to San Francisco and marched back to go to the see me someday!' All right,' bathroom but we were kept I said, 'Christmas in San there at night because they Francisco. — wouldn't trust us with the When it was time for me rest of the prisoners. We to go, I gave them both a hug were treated rather good by and a kiss goodbye. I told the inmates themselves. Woodie two things: that I and They didn't ostracize us. my generation were forever But that was the nearest to indebted to him for trying to segregation I have ever in start a gay press that we all my life known as a white now take for granted, and that man. he had done nothing to "The trial — a general deserve going to prison. court-martial — was quick. Until our afternoon We went in and sat at a together, Woodie had never table. I can remember being told anyone the whole story nervous. Of course, we of the Myrtle Beach Bitch. were admitted When I asked him why, he homosexuals. I think from answered, "I guess I was a the moment we got the first MANY YOUNG SOLDIERS, LIKE THESE PICTURED IN THE EMMY AWARD- little ashamed." I thanked interrogation, we both said WINNING FILM BEFORE STONEWALL, DISCOVERED OTHERS LIKE THEMSELVES him for deciding to finally let we were gay. But that was ON SOUTHERN MILITARY BASES. go of his secret. the one thing at the general Woodie Wilson died of a court-martial we were not heart attack in June 1984 sentenced for. Because we and our been really a bad thing to do. I was very while vacationing in Atlantic City. Norm lawyers had stipulated everything. We upset. I thought the world was awful. I Sansom died in July 1985 in San had them cross out everything that said hated being locked up in a cage in that Francisco. 0 stockade. I felt very humiliated. Yet I 'homosexual.' Allan Berube is completing a history of don't think I was ever GAYER! I must So our charges were 'misuse of lesbian and gay Americans during World government property' — which would have made more wisecracks in that War II, entitled Coming Out Under Fire, to stockade and had more fun. Kate would have been the mimeograph machine, the be published next year by the Free Press, a scream out, 'Oh, shut up, Woodesia!' paper we printed on, the typewriters — division of Macmillan. A longer version of You see, we kept it up! Fuck 'em! Fuck and 'misusing our franking privileges.' this article originally appeared in The Front When you mailed a letter in the service, 'ern! We were going to hang, that's all Page. you had to write 'free' in the corner of there was to it. We were going to be the envelope where the stamp usually discharged.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 23 We're Looking for a Few Good Womene L Deirdr "I fell in love with a girl," she remembered. "It was circumstance. She was fighting my brother, so! went over to fight this villainous little child. I knew I loved her but I couldn't put a name to it. We were together for many years." Helen left home while a junior in high school and spent years trying to get an education before joining the Marines in 1973 . The military was doing its best to turn lesbians against one another, but Helen and Leslie became lovers in the midst of this modern-day witch hunt. Leslie came from a mili- taryfamily. She was born in 1953. Her family followed her father's Two Southern lesbians elen and Leslie have been together Navy career from post to post. Hfor more than 14 years. They met "I didn't hear the word 'lesbian' until who battled the U.S . each other in the United States Marine I was ajunior or senior in high school," Marines Corps while they were both stationed in Leslie recalled. "Just the way it was said! Beaufort, South Carolina in 1974. I thought, 'Oh my goodness, I don' t want Helen was born in 1948 and spent to know what it is!' I knew it was the ob- most of her childhood in Texas. She never ject of derision." heard the terms "lesbian" or "gay" as a Leslie joined the Marines when she child, but looking back now, she realizes was 19. Helen was her first female lover. that she has always loved other women.

24 FALL 1988 HELEN nonsense, but! could never live with my- I hate the fact that it's some people we self for pulling that kind of nonsense." knew who are informants, but in some It was hard being a lesbian in the mili- When! refused them, they started har- ways you can kind of understand it. It's tary. Very, very hard. I was under investi- assing me. They did things like have the survival. The woman who is informing gation for being a lesbian. dogs brought in to sniff for drugs in my now has a child. What is she going to do if First I was accused of helping a room. she gets kicked out? They're making an woman to leave the Marine Corps. Then There were spies. People would fol- example of her. They play psychological they accused me of taking drugs. I don't low you around. They'd check out your games. take any drugs. friends. I cut off seeing a couple of friends When! first met Helen,! was assigned Another time, there was a woman who who did smoke because! was a danger to to her area. She didn't want any room- was having a lot of problems. We were all them. I was a fish being used for bait. mates. She had gone out and gotten drinking and I helped her to her bed. She I knew a lot of women who were under drunk. When I first got to the base! imme- was crying and carrying on.! told her the investigation. A lot were excluded be- diately knew I had made a mistake. I best thing to do was cry and let it out. cause either they were giving informa- thought, "My God, I've signed my life Now, when you're helping someone tion, or they were high rank. They were away for two years!" who's upset, you don't think of turning on kicking people out with dishonorable dis- Helen asked me questions and reas- the lights. I was holding her and some charges. There were five or six kicked out sured me. She was totally drunk, but I women walked in. They thought I was in one year when! was there. took her kindness to heart. So after that, taking advantage of her. she could do no wrong. I started I'm not sure if they were part of the cancelling dates to be around her. The group of women who were informing on LESLIE next thing you knew, I was trying to get me or not. But that woman never denied A person we knew when we were in her to cancel dates to be around me. We what they were saying. That's what fasci- the military has turned informant now. got into this very intense friendship. nates me. I guess it was all the attention They were paying $100 fora name. She's We moved to Columbia, South Caro- she was getting. turned in 300 names. There's another big lina from Beaufort because of the mili- These sons of bitches came in and de- witch hunt going on now. It's quite per- tary. We were out of the Marines, but you cided, well, let's make her a stooge. I was verted. They want anatomical details don't put that paranoia aside for a long called in and! said, "Look, y'all got a lot about what you did in bed. time. When we moved to Columbia, we of information and it's a lot of crap. Get it As long as you don't say anything, started meeting other lesbians and some off my record." I couldn't afford to have even if they know you were at a certain gay men. It was a very gradual process. I started going to the bars pretty much. I had felt very isolated before that. Even going to the bars, I felt isolated. So many people had drinking problems. It was difficult to find friends with common interests. It was very disillusioning. I dug my heels in and found out about some other groups by meeting people. I stopped going to the bars and started getting involved with more political organizations and found women who shared more interests with me. I went to a lesbian support group as well. Most of my friends from the bar were pretty closeted. When I went to the support group my friends weren't closeted. I was pretty much ready to turn away from the paranoia. It helped having other people around who were at peace with themselves. I consider lesbianism a truly alterna- Photo by Anthony Yarusl Impact Visuals tive lifestyle. It's a lifestyle of choice. I like this lifestyle because it is a freer envi- this on my record because I wanted to go party or something, they can't do any- ronment. People can be themselves. CI into teaching. So I hear this nonsense: thing. They need that detail. And they try "Well now, Helen, if you scratch my back to get it through information. Deirdre Lutz lives and works in Durham, I'll scratch your back." And I said, "What It's tough because it's such a closed North Carolina. She is currently collecting do you mean, scratch your back?" That's environment and you think they have to- oral histories of Southern lesbians and gays. when they said if! gave them a little bit of tal control over you. They follow you For more information about the project, information about my friends they'd take around. We used to think they had a radar write: Route 12, Box 137, C hapel 11 ill,NC care of me. so they could tell if you were holding 27514. I said, "I'll tell you what. Maybe you hands in your car. You really start think- can come up with people who will do this ing some outlandish things.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 25

mained. Brandy Alexander—legal name: Danny Leonard—made up his mind. Ile wasn't going to let the dozens of Marines in his bar run the risk of court-martial. He asked friends with vans to pull up to the bar out of sight of the sheriff's car. He herded the Marines in, saw them off, and closedfor the night. That evening five years ago was the beginning of a long, hardfight for Le- onard and soldiers at the Friends Lounge near Camp Lejeune Marine Base in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Because the lounge is the only gay bar in the country that is officially off-limits for military personnel, Marines who are caught there find their careers abruptly jeopardized. Bars have always been an important meeting place for gays and lesbians in the South, one of the few public places they could go to dance and meet others and relax in safety. Now, at the Friends Off Base Lounge, gays have discovered that a place that serves as the center of their social lives also offers them a chance to organize politically and create a suppor- tive family offriends. Led by Leonard, customers resisted the military campaign of harassment— and won temporary victory. For almost Home two years, gay soldiers who frequented the bar enjoyed a tenuous peace. Busi- ness thrived. On Saturday nights, more than 200 people came through the door, up from the 25 or so who braved being seen when harassment by military officials was at its peak. Free Then, on August 5 , Naval Investiga- ByDon King tive Service officers—chauffeured by an Onslow County Sheriff's deputy—resumed their campaign of harassment, stopping customers who looked like Ma- rines going in and out of Friends Lounge. Brandy Alexander runs he young Marine, dressed in civ- The officers stopped at least two car- T vies and thankful for the lift, got loads of bar patrons and took two men to the only bar in the out of the car at the Fast Fare, glanced the sheriff's office. One, a civilian, was country that's off-limits around carefully, and made his way released. The other, a Marine with only quickly through the adjacent dirt parking 11 days left in his enlistment, was de- to soldiers lot to the unmarked building sitting un- tained. obtrusively off a major thoroughfare in The gay community in Jacksonville is town near the base. Inside, he relaxed, raising hell, rallying around Leonard grateful he had once more made it and the Friends Lounge. Many say the through the parking lot without seeing an sheriff should be able to find better Onslow County Sheriff's car. Now he things to do than harassing soldiers in a could enjoy himselffor a few hours—at city with the eighth highest crime rate in least until he'd have to leave and the fear the nation. would return again. "We're making lots of contact with Two hours later, the word passed people on the base, legislative people, through the bar: they're there again. and city council people," said local gay Military personnel shouldn't go outside. activist Don Davis. "There is a new com- Closing time. The sheriff's car re- manding general on base, and that may

SOUTIIERN EXPOSURE 27 or may not have something to do with them in vans. tions in Jacksonville, New Bern, and this." One boy who was caught had been Wilmington. Two radio stations and "Now that it's started happening fighting for his country for three years three TV stations interviewed me. again, 1 can use all the help 1 can get," and had only two months left. Another After the publicity, they backed off Leonard said. "Not so much for me-1 man had served almost 30 years and and left me alone for almost a year. Then can always go back into hair—but for wasn't even gay. They pulled him on his election time came and they started again the military boys. Nobody knows the kind way off my property, court-martialled sporadically, but it wasn't as serious. of bullshit military gay people have to him, kicked him out of the service, and The media have been on my side. put up with." took all his benefits just because he was They've been very professional. They Leonard, a popular female imper- in an off-limits place. couldn't figure out why we had been sonator throughout the South for 24 One night, five boys walked off my singled out for discrimination. We've years, has become one of the best known property toward the Fast Fare. The donated $2,000 to the Beirut Memorial gay activists in the region. Ile has Fund — more than any other pri- helped organize benefits that have vate business in town. We've raised more than $350,000 to sup- done public benefits and Christ- port people with AIDS —more mas Cheer and Toys for Tots. We than the entire state of North raised almost $4,000 in October Carolina has contributed to fight for AIDS. the epidemic. The media asked why the Leonard was appearing at the sheriff was using money from Miss Gay America Pageant in Onslow County taxpayers to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1982 monitor Marines going into and when the owner of the Friends out of a bar. And the sheriff stut- Lounge asked if he wanted to buy tered something about it being it. He did— not realizing the con- his department's job to help out sequences of operating a gay bar the military. next to the largest Marine base in When I was doing drag in the world. Florida in 1964, we were pulled out of bars and beaten by cops with billy clubs. I've been put in IN THE BRIG jail probably 50 times. They'd In 1983, the harassment really pull paddy wagons up and put all started. the female impersonators and The sheriff's department and owners in, then fine us for being MPs decided they'd start some- in women's clothes. They used to thing called a Community Service make us strip down, and we had Patrol. They'd put Naval Investi- to have three items of male cloth- gative Service people in sheriff's ing. So we'd wear three pairs of cars, drive around to off-limits es- jockey shorts under our dresses. tablishments, look for military What was going on in stickers on cars, and turn in sticker Photo by Deena Turner Jacksonville reminded me of identification to base officers. If a BRANDY ALEXANDER IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR FEMALE that. Bars have changed an awful Marine's car was reported parked IMPERSONATORS IN THE SOUTH. lot since then. There are more of at my place, their pay was busted, them, they're more open. I don't their rank was reduced, and they'd be in- people in the sheriff's car stopped them. I want to see these kids go through what I vestigated for being gay. They could get walked out and asked why they were went through. up to seven years in prison and dishonor- bothering my customers. They told me to I've withstood this because — well, I able discharge. get the hell back or they'd bust me, too. wish you could meet these boys. They're I raised so much hell with them about I finally told my military customers proud to be Marines, proud to be fighting coming onto my property that they to keep their cars off my property, to call for their country. started parking at the Fast Fare. If they the bar and we'd go get them. I couldn't leave. You can't know how saw any of the boys walking off my I called the N. C. Human Rights Fund it is to get a phone call and the person property, they'd ask for a military ID, and it wasn't something they could help says, 'Four years ago, I came to your bar turn them over to NIS, and they'd be put with. I called the ACLU and Lambda and I want you to know I love you.' in the brig. Legal Defense Fund and kept getting the When these kids come back home, they This just went on and on and on. One run-around. I couldn't afford to hire a have a place to go. There's no way I Saturday night, the sheriff's car was lawyer. could turn my back on them. LI there, and I got on the mike and told anybody in the military to stay. We had about Don King is news editor of The Front 125 boys stay in the bar that night. "I COULDN'T LEAVE" Page, a newspaper for gay men and lesbians We've had people crawl out in the It got so bad. I wrote a letter to the in North and South Carolina. woods to change clothes and leave. county commissioners, to the sheriff, to We've put them in car trunks. We've put the newspapers and TV and radio sta-

28 FALL 1988 wrists flying in the air and no gay talk and no flitting around." In the back room, Mark recalled, One Big. dancing was permitted, "as long as we didn't get too rambunctious." On Hal- loween some men came in drag. Marroni's was more sedate; there was no dancing permitted there. Both Commumt places were dimly lit, typical of gay bars of the era. By Bob Swisher Because of strict racial segregation, neither Sepul's nor Marroni's was open to blacks. Mark recalled that black gays "had their own private community, and there was no intermingling" between black and white gays. After the bars closed, gays socialized and cruised at the Oriental Restaurant, Gay Life in Richmond Mark Kerkorian (not his real name) located above a florist's shop on the was a teenager living at home with his southeast corner of Fifth and Grace After 1944 parents in Richmond in 1944. For him streets. and other young gays, downtown was a "Every night, as soon as Marroni's fter World War II, gays and les- paradise from the Second World War and Sepul's closed," Mark recalled, "it A bians returning home created until the early 1950s. was a mad scramble up the street to the communities for themselves in big cities Mark described a scene long van- Oriental. Everybody flew up the street, and small towns across the South. The ished of a downtown where, especially and ran up the steps. Everybody made a closet door swung open for the first time, on weekend nights, cruising went on un- mad scramble to get to the booths that and homosexuals found they could come challenged in the men's rooms and the faced on Grace Street. Then we would out in public without fear. men's grills in the basements of most of hang out the window and scream at the In Richmond, Virginia, gays and les- the hotels, in the Greyhound bus station, ones going by in the cars that were cruis- bians enjoyed a full social life. They ate and in most of the movie theaters along ing or walking up and down the street. at restaurants and danced at bars, they Broad Street. Can you imagine going into a restaurant skated at roller rinks and partied at the The bars Mark remembered best after the bars closed and hanging out the Moose Lodge, they made love in movie were Marroni's and Sepul's. Marroni's windows and screaming at cars going houses and swam in public lakes. opened in 1946 or 1947 in the ground by?" "Life was much more open in those floor of the Capitol Hotel. Sepul's Gays also headed to private parties days than it is today," one gay man re- opened in 1950 or 1951 diagonally after the bars closed. "You might have called. "We had a lot more freedom. As across the street, where the parish house 100 or 125 people milling around drink- long as we didn't get out of hand, the of St. Paul's Church is now located. Both ing beer, but everybody enjoyed every- authorities just turned their head." bars were small mom-and-pop opera- body," Mark said. "The gay people were tions. friendlier towards each other then." Benny and Maria Sepulveda, who The bar scene at the time was noted ran Sepul's, "were very, very good to the for its friendliness, Mark added. "Total gay community," Mark recalled. "They strangers would come into the gay bar, liked us and they were very friendly with and I can assure you that within half an us." Their establishment consisted of a hour there were a half a dozen people to restaurant (mostly straight) in the front talk to them and make them welcome and, through a little doorway, a back and find out who they were and have room with booths and a jukebox reserved them become part of the community. I'm for gays. sorry to say that gay people today have a "Mrs. Benny," as Maria was affec- lot to learn from our experiences. We tionately known, was especially protec- didn't have the standoffishness you have tive of her gay clientele. "The only stipu- now. We were one big community." 0 lation the Sepulvedas made was that if we sat in the front part then we had to Bob Swisher is a reporter for The behave ourselves," Mark said. "No limp Richmond Pride.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 29 Washington regularly offers female impersonation at the local gay bar, and shows that once played only to gay audi- ences now draw heterosexual clientele too, at least on show nights. Indeed, today "drag," or female impersonation, is far more popular and more prevalent in the South than in San Francisco, New York, or Boston. Drag shows, once limited mostly to convention cities like New Orleans or San Fran- cisco, are now a regular staple in places like Longview, Little Rock, Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Jackson, Biloxi, Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham, Memphis, Knoxville, Nashville, Chat- tanooga, and Johnson City. It is big in Oklahoma, widespread in the Carolinas, and down home in Georgia. Most of today's impersonators pantomime recorded music over big sound- systems, appearing under feminine stage names as colorful and varied as their cos- tumes. Some are alliterative: Michelle he scene: a Michaels, Daisy Dalton, or Angel Austin. T dressing Others try to capture style or personality, room in a bar in the like Lady Grace or Hot Chocolate. And Deep South. Time: still others aim at sexy sophistication or Sunday evening. the clever innuendo: Lauren Hart, Va- The music from nessa Diane, Toni Lenoir, or Shayla the disco outside Kruz. There's even one impersonator sends a muffled named for his car, Gran Prix. thump against the For Shayla Kruz, a 29-year-old im- walls. Inside, in a personator from Monroe, Louisiana, room lined with drag is weekend travel, entertainment, mirrors, an 18- and fun. Kruz appears frequently in year-old man Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and HOT CHOCOLATE BEFORE... dressed in jeans, like most drags who perform today, he sneakers, and a books his own appearances. knit shirt begins to undress and start a two-hour transformation. He will change TRICK OR TREAT sexes — not literally, but in thought, A Southern tradition of manner, attitude, and, most of all, in The joy of "dressing up" and per- "playing dress-up" has looks. His mother sits nearby, watching forming for crowds is the initial attrac- as her son pulls on pantyhose and then tion for many female impersonators. In made female begins to apply mascara to his eyelashes. Jackson, Mississippi, two Southern boys impersonation more "Are you wearing the blonde wig discussed how they came to do "drag." tonight?" she asks. Angel Austin, 25, had been in the popular in Nashville than "Yes, but I wanted to wear that green business less than a year. But he recalled inNewYork dress of yours, too." how, in the seventh grade, "We used to "Now you're not wearing my best get dressed up to go trick-or-treating" in green dress. I'll not have you ruining it in his small Mississippi hometown. "We some show!" Then she adds: "You know, got eggs thrown at us!" He also remem- I'd seen drag shows, but I never thought bered junior high field day events where, I'd see the day when I'd be helping my along with potato sack races, there was a By Jere Real teenage son get ready for one!" "Boys-Dressed-like-Girls" contest. The scene is not that odd in the South Angel, who started doing drag shows these days. Almost every small-to while working as a house painter, ex- middle-sized city from San Antonio to plained: "I always had a sense of how I

30 FALL 1988 thought girls ought to look. I'd tell my Lamarr, who once worked at the than it was if you were thought, some- girl friends in high school how to dress, now-defunct My 0' My Club in New how, to be a woman. If you were small do their hair, and fix their make-up so Orleans, a drag landmark from the late and pretty in those days, you took a lot of they'd look their best." 1940s to the early 1970s, spoke of an era harassment. There was a lot of guilt too, Lauren Hart, who appears in Jackson when impersonators "had talent." Unlike particularly if you were Catholic, as I with Angel in a trio known as the Emer- most performers of his own era, Langan was. I was going with a boy who did ald City Dream Girls, and also as a solo sang operatic arias instead of pop or jazz drag, and one night he talked me into performer, said he "had been dressing up music. trying on everything. I kept telling him, in female clothes since age six." A one- "I think I was the only one who ever 'I'm not feminine. I have a masculine time junior high football player and later sang opera," he said. "I was billed as 'the body,' But when I got it all on and looked a track runner, he said his first experi- only true male soprano in America." at myself in the mirror, I was amazed." ence in female clothes was when his Lamarr recalled how, when performing Soon, he said, he was doing shows at mother made him a Little Red Riding as a female soprano, he would stop in an the Harbor Club on Staten Island, New Hood costume for Halloween. After that, aria just before hitting some very high York and later at the Club 82 on Second "I lived for it." notes, turn to the audience, and say in his Avenue. At first he was hilled as "Mid- He won his first prize for female cos- husky masculine voice, "Don't worry, night Blue," later as "Little Billie." tumes (S5) at a Methodist Church-spon- I'll make it!" and then go back to his high sored Halloween costume event in the voice to hit the final notes. "The women fifth grade. "I'd wear my aunt's clothes in the audience would gasp in disbelief," MAKING A LIVING and my grandmother's jewelry." After he said, smiling at the memory. Former drags aren't the only gays such early success, he admitted, he was "You don't have any talent when all who have little appreciation for female hooked: "I'd just get ready to do my an- you do is use records," he declared. impersonation today. Many gay men nual show." "Anybody can get up in front of a stage who have adopted hypermasculine gay So why does the South as a region Photos courtesy/lot Chocolate images, particularly in large urban cen- have such a fascination with drag? A gay ters, also dislike drag for its feminine writer who lives in New Orleans sat in elements. the French Market coffee house and "Sometimes the reaction's been mused on the subject: "Why, drag is just negative," Angel said. "I was reluctant a continuation of the 'dress up' we in the for a while to tell other gay men I do South all played as kids. I can remember drag. I guess I was just insecure at first, my mother used to yell at me: 'What are but it's all an art with me ... a job I try to you doing in my high heels. Haven't I do professionally." told you time and again not to put on my That view was echoed by 35-year- clothes?" He smiled at the recollection. old Rick Carter of Charlotte, North Caro- Indeed, the roots of sexual role rever- lina, who does a comic drag act as sal for private and public amusement run "Boom-Boom LaTour" and has been in deep in Southern culture. Even in Protes- the business for more than 13 years. tant rural areas of the Deep South, one "All of my friends who used to do can still find small country churches that drag are now pumping iron," Carter said stage "womanless weddings" as fun- with a laugh. Carter, who has worked draising events. An entire wedding cere- widely — Chicago, Florida, and Geor- mony is staged, all with men, to the great gia, as well as in the Carolinas and Vir- amusement of the congregation, who pay ... AND AFTER. ginia — spoke of the "fun and excite- admission to the event. ment" of drag, but said he never once In addition, annual "Womanless and pantomime. To have a talent of your thought of himself "as a woman." Beauty Pageants" are still put on at own is unique. I still sing," he added, Whatever the underlying reasons for Southern campuses by college students launching into "Ritorna Vicitor" from the widespread appeal of drag in the who, for the most part, would be reluc- Aida, right there in his apartment. South, the majority of those interviewed tant to recognize the events for what they Billy Schreiber was a professional — from Texas to Virginia — made it are. drag in the 1950s. "The problem with clear that they do not identify themselves today's younger drag queens is that they as women. overdo everything," he said. "Too much A now retired, long-time impersona- THE GOOD OLD DAYS jewelry and too much make-up." Ac- tor in the South summed it up best. "I Today's drag shows often draw criti- cording to Schreiber, who today runs a never thought of myself as a woman, and cal fire from old-timers in the business nostalgia clothing store in New Orleans, I worked in the business for 30 years," he who remember the days when female "A real woman doesn't go out looking said. "I was never one of those people impersonation meant live singing with that way. The idea of female beauty has who sleep at home in a nightgown. For piano or band accompaniment. One such always been to do as little as possible so me, it was a way to make a living." critic is 65-year-old Gene Lamarr, who as to emphasize what you already have." began doing female impersonation in the Schreiber took up impersonation at Jere Real is a freelance writer living in 1940s and worked at it for over 30 years. age 18 after returning from army service Lynchburg, Virginia. A longer version of this A singer, he criticized the modern trend in Germany. "Back in the '50s, it was article originally appeared in The Advocate. toward pantomiming to records. simply worse to be thought homosexual

SOUTI IERN EXPOSURE 31 Little

to get one block since you had to hide in doorways and under cars. And the so- By Ginger Snapp called "straight" gangs who were always beating up on the "faggots," but if you met them one-on-one they begged you to take them home. And sneaking into newsstands to buy magazines of male models that weren't even nude! And going into a department store to buy drag that you claimed was a present for your The New Orleans Bar am not the oldest queen in mother, sister, niece, or friend, and never I captivity, but! do have a good letting them gift wrap it, saying you Scene in the '50s and memory. It all started when I was going would do it yourself when you got home. to the dancing bars (which they were (Isn't it funny how so many mothers had '60s never called) in New Orleans in the such big feet!) And being hit in the ass by 1950s and '60s. There were always two a policeman's night stick and being told, rooms. The first room was a bar where "Get off the street, fruit!" we used to love to drink champagne The police would back the paddy cocktails (really champale) and just hang wagons up to the doors of clubs and out. The back room was for dancing. Of everybody, I mean everybody, went to course, we were all breaking the law; I jail. They stripped you, and if you didn't mean, two men or two women dancing have on three articles of clothing that together in public? God should strike us were indicative of your own sex, you down! were in serious trouble. Can you imagine I can still hear "La Bamba" or "Two a man wearing a single earring in those Silhouettes" blaring on the jukebox, and days? us doing see-saw drugs. You could get One hero from that era was Judge B. busted for just being seen in public with We used to get busted for anything and — are you ready? — painted eyebrows. everything, and Judge B. would dismiss Or how about entrapment? You could the case and turn on the bench to just sit with a policeman all night long and read the riot act to the arresting officers. have him buy all your drinks, but you Then Mr. D.A. would harass us even didn't dare walk out the door with him, more! because that's when they would grab you I miss some of my friends from those for intended prostitution. I mean really, I days, like Rowena, Donna Lisa, Ray St. didn't intend to, I did! Cyr, Mr. Boobie, Donnie Jay, Dani, Hot In those days we were all very pro- Ice, and so many others. I can remember miscuous. I used to love to look for those the nights we would all get in drag and tell-tale signs like a pinky ring, seer- drive to Lake Pontchartrain to eat boiled sucker suits, gold neck chains with a sea crawfish. Talk about stuffing your face! horse hanging from them. You get the We would sit there and go through trays idea. Little codes. of those critters, and by the time we The things I don't miss are running finished none of us was very pretty, but away from the police (in springalators, we didn't care! no less), with a drink in one hand (never spilling a drop), and your purse in the Ginger Snapp is a feature writer for The other. Sometimes it would take an hour Rooster, a gay publication in New Orleans.

32 FALL 1988 Faerie ered at Short Mountain that weekend grew impatient and began donning their dresses and tiaras. Finally a critical mass was reached, and —ready or not — the festivities began. The procession wound from the front porch of the I45-year-old house, down Cuhum the goat-shit-covered path to the knoll. Pagan ritual, country The paraders rang bells and chimes, shook tambourines and gourds, beat living, and a little magic drums, and carried wind socks. Along the way, they stopped to pick up the new Empress, 47-year-old Gabby Haze, and By Barry Yeoman his purple-clad attendants. Laughing, dishing, shmoozing and making minstrel sounds, they paraded down to Short Mountain's outhouse, where the coronation was to begin. "It was almost as if we were trapped in a Monty Python film," recalls Raphael Sabatini, a visitor from Louisiana that weekend. At the outhouse (also known as the "chapel"), the wind mercifully blew in the right direction. Outgoing Empress Stevie sat on the throne, a high-pointed oak bishop's chair. Gabby knelt at Stevie's feet. After confessing that he really didn't want to relinquish power, Stevie finally gave up his crown and wand. Gabby ascended the throne. Cam- eras clicked. People cheered. A new Empress reigned over Short Mountain Sanctuary, the greatest (and only) facrie community in all of Middle Tennessee.

RAPHAEL SABATINI, A BEYOND THE BARS MEMBER OF THE FAERIE he new Empress of Short Moun- COMMUNITIES THAT T tain wore royal purple to the coro- Across the South, there is a network STRETCH ALONG THE nation: a billowing ankle-length dress of rural sanctuaries where gay men 36TH PARALLEL FROM made from yards and yards and yards of gather, far from the bars and the tension VIRGINIA TO NEW polyester. On his head he wore a wig of of the city. Some are communities where MEXICO. rainbow-colored shredded tinfoil; on his people live in groups year-round; others feet, brown sandals. ("I didn't have are stewarded by one or two people when purple pumps," he recalls.) No jewelry gatherings are not in progress. or makeup, because "I didn't want to be They run from Running Water and too outrageous." Willow Hollow in North Carolina's Blue The outgoing Empress, who didn't Ridge Mountains, westward to Short want to give up the crown, tried to delay Mountain in Tennessee, down to the coronation as long as possible. But as Mani two Farm in the Ozarks of Arkan- the afternoon wore on, the 50 men gath- sas. They include Briarpatch in the pine

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 33 forests of central Louisiana, all the way They know that if it's their first visit, once served as the home to one of the to Gray Lady Place near Dallas, Texas. there'll be friends to welcome them; if nation's most radical faerie organiza- Together they make up the South's they get sick, there will be people to nur- tions, LaSIS (Louisiana Sissies in faerie community, "a network," in the ture them. Struggle). RFD, the country's best words of one manifesto, "of workers, "The first thing I noticed [at my first known faerie journal, is located at Run- artists, drag queens, political activists, gathering at] Manitwo Farm was that ning Water and will soon move to Short magickians, rdral and urban dwellers there was such a rallying support for Mountain. who see gays and lesbians as a separate each other," says Skip Ward of Pineville, In fact, RFD Managing Editor Ron and distinct people with our own culture Louisiana. "People were asking: How Lambe has observed a "Faerie Belt" that ... and spirituality." can we care for each other? How can we runs along the 36th parallel from Vir- Some faeries live in the countryside create a culture for ourselves outside the ginia's Tidewater area, through North and say rural living is a necessary part of bar?" At that gathering, Ward — who Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, as far facriedom. Others live in the city, escap- was 61 at the time— went into the field, west as Taos, New Mexico. Along that ing occasionally to pay homage to picked vines and wildflowers and made latitude lie many of the movement's Mother Earth. Some are pagans, some for himself a crown and g-string to wear long-established sanctuaries, as well as towns and cities which historically have are stockbrokers. Coverfrom RFD Some believe cross- had strong faerie communities. dressing is an impor- Even before gay leader Harry Hay tant way to explore issued a call for the official first "Na- one's feminine side; a tional Spiritual Gathering of Radical Fa- few wouldn't be cries" in Arizona in 1979, gay men were caught dead in a dress. gathering in the rural South to create safe Some practice alterna- space for themselves and ritual for their tive medicine such as communities. Rural land was cheap in acupuncture. Almost the South; the back-to-the-land move- all believe there is ment was strong; and the gay movement magic and healing en- was at a juncture. ergy to be gleaned "Gay liberation had reached a certain from the earth, the point," says Franklin Abbott, an Atlanta trees, and the rituals therapist and poet. "A lot of us could created by gay men never quite identify with the assimila- gathering in the woods tionist point of view: that we're just like on a dark night. everybody else except we suck dick. It Gabby Haze, the just didn't feel right." In the late 1970s, Empress of Short gay men began to gather for weekends at Mountain, likens fa- Running Water Farm, trying to carve out erie culture to weav- their own identity — to discover the ing. "When you do ways in which they weren't just like weaving," he says. everybody else. "you've got threads "As gay men, we realized early on in that run up and down. our lives that the [expectations] of soci- And through them, ety don't fit," says Ron Lambe. That you weave your colors knowledge helps faerie men break out of back and forth. the "straightjacket of society" — to dis- "I think the thread cover the magic of ritual and nature and running up and down FROM RADICAL PHILOSOPHY TO RECIPES, RFD HAS GIVEN FAERIEDOM brotherhood. "That magical, romantic, is our being gay men. A SOUTHERN FOCUS. back-to-nature mystique resonates with And all these other gay men," he says. things — pagan wor- One of the events that coalesced the ship, love of the land, drag, ecology — to dinner. "I felt like a little woodland Southern faerie network was the reloca- are the colors we weave back and forth creature," he says. tion of RFD, the quarterly faerie journal, that binds us all together." to Running Water in 1980. (For most of But the biggest draw of faerie culture its early life, RFD was based in the — what brings men to gatherings year SOUTHERN MAGIC Northwest.) Completely reader written, after year — is the sense of brotherhood Faeriedom is not an exclusively RFD is an amalgam of radical gay and family that rarely exists in the bars of Southern phenomenon; there are gather- philosophy, homesteading advice, reci- Memphis or the streets of New Orleans. ings and communities across the country. pes, poetry, erotic fiction, notes on Chi- Gay men flock to gatherings at places But the history — and present reality — nese medicine, announcements of gath- like Running Water and Short Mountain of faeriedom is inextricably tied to the erings, and letters from readers looking with the expectation that they won't be South. for friends and lovers. "Having RFD judged for being unfashionable or fat, for The South is home to at least a half- here gives us a regional focus, something hugging other men or crying in public, dozen rural sanctuaries, as well as an ur- to come together around," says Abbott. for dressing silly or howling at the moon. ban faerie circle in Atlanta. New Orleans RFD Managing Editor Lambe says

34 FALL 1988 it's no accident that the South has nur- tured facrie culture. "Maybe the intense alienation from the rest of society that we "A BUNCH OF VERY, felt in the South has given us the impe- VERY WEIRD PEOPLE" tus," he says. "For us, getting together and sharing and holding each other is so "My brother taught me to give "a bunch of very, very weird people" important because it's so hurtful, so him blowjobs when he was 10," who took him to Running Water Farm, alienating out there." remembers Raphael Sabatini, a 41- 15 acres of woods and field, garden At the same time, he says, facrie cul- year-old librarian who helped and apple orchard on North Carolina's ture incorporates an important element organize the first faerie gathering in Roan Mountain. "I was terrified and of mainstream Southern society: an em- central Louisiana. "I hated myself for perplexed" by the strangely dressed phasis on the ritual, care and structure enjoying it." (and sometimes naked) men that families provide. "Families are small In college, he remembers, "I gallivanting around the rustic house, incubator cultures," Lambe says. "Fam- thought I had to do flamboyant things he recalls. But then came the first ily is important to Southerners, and for for people to like me." For years he circle, in which he encountered "not a facries, family is what it's all about." invented an entirely new identity for bunch of men playing bar games but a himself (being Jewish) and convinced congregation of individuals who could his friends so thoroughly that they and would help me if! let them." FIRE, WATER, AND TRUST started buying him Chanukah By Saturday, he later wrote in RFD, At Manitwo Farm, on the shore of presents. By the time he reached grad "I realized I was home... . My fear Table Rock Lake near the Arkansas-Mis- school, "I lost who I really was." about dressing in drag was replaced souri border, 50 men stand naked around In Vietnam Sabatini had furtive with the group's love and assurances a bonfire sharing stories of painful expe- affairs with frightened soldiers. Back that if you want to play, this is the riences and ultimate triumphs. A basket home in northern Florida, his sex life safest place to do it." He put together is passed, and everyone puts his bad consisted of trips to the baths when he an outfit for the night: an orange memories in the basket. Once it makes was on business trips. "I trashed it up mumu, a cleric's robe, a hat with a veil its way around the circle, the basket is — all night in the orgy room. I would that covered his nose. "I danced and ceremoniously tossed into the flames. literally be a blowjob machine." He camped and kissed and loved those At Running Water, a dozen men sit in didn't like himself much. that had gathered, and when a brother a primitive sweat lodge, breathing in Then Sabatini discovered a copy needed a place to sleep, I offered my herbed steam and chanting the names of of RFD at a friend's house, and began mattress. Just awakening in the night pagan goddesses: Isis, Astarte, Diana, to read about the faerie movement. and brushing my foot against his toes Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inana. More He thought, "These are the people was an experience I'd never felt herbs are thrown on the fire, more sing- I'm looking for." before. That man loved the me I'd ing — and when the sweat lodge gets too In the summer of 1983, he rode rarely ever confronted myself, much hot, they run out to a frigid waterfall. the bus from Tallahassee to less shared with anyone else." One by one, each man stands under the Asheville. He was met at the depot by —B.Y. water, his pores flying open as he lets out a scream that pierces the quiet afternoon. At Briarpatch, 30 acres near Dry patients there to take their AZT. within the lungs of one partner and flow- Prong, Louisiana, a procession winds its Because of the epidemic, "gatherings ing into the body of the other. way to an old beech tree, where a short are more necessary, because people need As Abbott talked through the healing play is performed. Then, one by one, the love and emotional support and the images, his own partner — a man with each man removes his clothes and be- exchange of information about treat- AIDS — sobbed, thrashing on his back comes a "living maypole." Someone lifts ments," says Milo Guthrie, one of Short uncontrollably. "Let it out," Abbott qui- his shoulders, someone lifts his back, Mountain Sanctuary's founders. etly told him. "Let it all out." then his legs, until he is completely air- At the summer gathering, Franklin "I think we have the capacity to pro- borne, depending vide healing space, whether that's on our completely on his Illustration courtesy RFD land or in our urban circles — a place trust of his fellow -1— where people who are sick or weary or 1' I faeries. 01, scared can go and be recharged," Abbott says. Faerie culture, he says, "is the SAFE SPIRITS magic that has sustained our spirits." Even when our bodies are dying, our Medical reality has intruded spirits can stay alive and safe. 0 on the faerie movement in recent years. Abbott conducted a healing circle, simi- Just off the footpath to the house at Run- lar to the ones he conducts at home in Barry Yeoman is an associate editor of ning Water lies a memorial grove, en- Atlanta. About two dozen men paired up, The Independent in Durham, North Carolina. circled with hand-carved stones com- with one member of each couple resting He has been known on occasion to wear pink memorating men who have died — most his head in his partner's lap. Then Abbott high-top Converse sneakers with yellow of AIDS. At the gathering there this sum- talked through a meditation for each laces. mer, little beepers went off continually couple to visualize, evoking a warm cur- — reminders to the four or five AIDS rent of healing energy coming from deep

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 35 Illustrations by Sine Anahita

independence and interdependence in their rural homes. In all, there are more than 100 rural lesbian communities in the South, stretching from Florida to Kentucky, from Arkansas to Virginia. Earthstar, a native of Florida, has wanted to create a women-only space for years. She travelled extensively for more than a decade until a small inheritance made it possible for her to purchase a 17- acre potato farm near St Augustine. Today, she and a friend are transforming the land into a nursery business and lesbian sanctuary on the Florida coast. "I've always been living on the land, and I've always wanted to live in the country," Earthstar said. "I've always lived in the South, so it's part of what! am to be here." Lesbia Many land-based lesbians see a connection between their sense of Southemess and their commitment to the land. "We're all very 'country' in our hearts," said Jes, a member of the Spiraland lesbian community near Monticello, Kentucky. "We all like rural living." Land Jes, an Alabama native raised in By Janelle Lavelle northern Virginia, said her Southern heritage was part of what attracted her to Spiraland. Established eight years ago between Lexington and Knoxville, the six-woman community is now incorporated as a non-profit land trust, Women across the s early as 30 B.C., the Roman poet held in perpetuity and "committed to Horace wasopining, "This used nurture, conserve, and maintain the South are creating their to be my prayer — a piece of land not so resources and abundant life of the own rural communities very large, which would contain a Mother." garden, and near the house a spring of "My lover Kay and I had a choice of ever-flowing water, and beyond these a moving North," Jes explained, "but we bit of wood." For most of the world's felt our roots were in the South, and felt history, the right to own such a piece of that we wanted to be here. We also don't land was the sole prerogative of men. like cold weather!" But now lesbians throughout the South "A lot of the way we relate to the land are pooling their resources to reclaim is affected because we're Southern," she part of what they call "the Goddess added. "You have longer growing Earth" to "buy her back from the seasons here. You have different things patriarchy." that grow here than in the North — you The result is a Southern honeycomb have the hardwood forests, you have a of lesbians living, working, and loving lot of trees. There's more diversity to the on remote plots of land, learning both flora and fauna in a Southern climate.

36 FALL 1988 Even the wildflowers have a tremendous women at that festival each year kind of said. "We don't use the term 'lesbian,' diversity. And the length of the growing become Tribe, and I gained insight into a but I'll bet everyone in town knows. I season is also real important to me. Here different way of living." only had to take one bumper sticker off in the Kentucky mountains we can have In keeping with their spirituality, Pat my car when we came here." a spring garden, and a summer garden, and Joan partially support Cedar Ridge The lesbians at Spiraland have had a and there's plants that we sow in the fall Farm by selling organic herbs to a local similar experience. "There are a lot of and can pick off during the winter. co-op and the IGA grocery. Because of alternative-type people up here; there arc That's all kind of hard to do in Maine." erosion problems in the hilly terrain, the ex-hippies, people like that," Jes said. Pat, a lesbian living with her lover women had to work with state "They're real interested in working with Joan on Cedar Ridge Farm in Arkansas, conservation officials on their land-use the local groups, and having common grew up in Florida and attended college plan. "We hired somebody to bulldoze as ground somewhere." in Tennessee. "I think I just feel more little as we could, and laid out the Politically, the women at Spiraland comfortable in the South," she said. "The contour," Pat said. "Then we dug raised are feminists and separatists. For many Southern mountains that are real beds along the contour, and hauled rocks of them, women-only space is what impressive and makes it possible to dominating and dramatic disengage from men and put me off, but the land in men's institutions, free the South that I know — themselves from male- which is from the defined environments, Smokies to here — feels and improve the quality accessible to me, and of their lives. feels nurturing to me." Nevertheless, Jes said, "I was much more of a THE EARTH'S separatist in the cities CONTOURS than I am in the country.... It's quite a For land-based dichotomy: among a lot lesbians like Earthstar, of people, you can really Jes, and Pat, that sense of be much more self- nurturing is central to sufficient, more alone in a their Goddess-centered crowd. In the country — spirituality. Followers of though our ideals and the Goddess believe that everything are very there is both a feminine separatist — the way we and a masculine deity, interact with the com- and they emphasize that munity is not in a separ- feminine aspect because atist manner. Our attorney of its relevance to their advised us to become lives. The Goddess does 'known' — you know, not live above the earth, 'Those are the girls down they say, like the male there in Hampton Holler' god in the sky; she is the — so the community does Earth itself, and all of her not look at us as some- creatures are sacred and thing that is secretive. must be treated with a Alma "And the regular respect. heterosexual men are real "For me, feminism led kilt different from heterosex- to lesbianism led to ual men in the cities. The spirituality — which I interpret as loving up from the creek bed, so the earth is heterosexual men in the country — well, the Goddess, loving the Earth, loving propped up with the rocks. It's real some of them have real good energy and myself," said Pat. Her nature-based pretty, with the curves of the garden are kind of mellow; and some of them spirituality eventually led her to examine along the curves of the hillside." don't, but it's still not the harsh, negative the contradictions between her life in the Life in a rural community has energy like you get from the men in the city and her commitment to Goddess- inevitably created close contact between cities. So ! feel that personally I'm a lot centered principles. the lesbians and other local people. Pat more open, a lot more connected with the Leaving Kansas City for the rolling and Joan live in a town of 145 people, heterosexual community than I was in Southern hills of Arkansas was no seven minutes away from the land where the city." simple decision. "I kept going to a they are building their home. Because women's festival held in the Ozarks for they sell parsley, cilantro, and basil to the the last 15 years," she said. "It was a way local supermarket, they deal with NO BOYS ALLOWED to meet other dykes who lived in the townspeople, both men and women, on a Still, creating women-only space in country ... and try on the idea, then back regular basis. the country is not without its obstacles. off; then try on the idea again. The "We're pretty well 'out' here," Pat Because it has grown into a full-fledged

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 37 community of six women, Spiraland has freelance writing. We could not have land in harmony with the Goddess and been forced to deal with some of the moved to the land without that income. her Earth. Two houses currently under knottier problems caused by instituting a The county we live in doesn't have any construction already have electricity, formal policy excluding men — black population at all, and hasn't since "but we don't want to stretch electrical including male children — from the the Civil War. So it's not a place where a wires across the whole expanse of land. land. woman of color would be comfortable. I So we're looking for alternative energy "It's a hard issue, and I think that for have regrets on that level." sources." Water comes from two large, lesbians it's going to get harder and Nevertheless, the commitment to bunker-like cisterns that collect rain harder," Jes said. "More lesbians are women-only space remains the keystone falling from the roof. There is an 80- having babies, and they're having boy of all these women's dreams of the future year-old log cabin the women hope to babies. I don't know salvage, as well as a sturdy anyone that's gotten barn. pregnant by artificial "Creating a new life insemination that hasn't outside patriarchy was harder had a boy. than anyone would have "I love children. And believed possible," Jes wrote if I were able to have in a recent issue of Maize, a children here, and educate magazine by and for land- the children on our land, based lesbians. After and never have them go organizational conflicts, the off our land, it would be group's structure has begun different. But they have to to fall into place, and new go to public schools ... women have joined the older and at some point they're ones who "dared to keep going to be exposed to faith and meet the television and other mortgage." violence: bang-bang- "In another few months," shoot-em-up. And that's Jes summarized lyrically, the kind of thing that's "four wimmin will live on structured to the male [the Goddess Earth's] back, personality: that's my walking carefully. With our own personal belief. ears to the ground, we listen "One of our members to the rise of Spiral's song of was going to have a child, FREEDOM. We listen with and, for whatever our hearts, and sing!" reasons, decided not to. I Pat's hopes for Cedar was very relieved that we Ridge, 600 miles away, are did not have to make the strikingly similar. "I'd like decision of having to this land to become a choose between her living village," she said. "We have on Spiral and changing 40 acres, and I'd like to see our policy. We want other such little enclaves. I'd women-only space, and like to have room away from that doesn't mean each other, but to sec other women-only space with women build there and be the exception of these there, close enough to walk boy-children. It's a to." difficult issue, and I don't Her reasons for wanting see any good solution, such a haven, she said, were other than an adjoining piece of property for themselves and their land. "Lesbians formed by her exposure to life in the city. where the women with boy-children take priority in my life, and are most "I think as a lesbian and a woman, I could be." important to me. Women are what I want know a lot about domination. And At Cedar Ridge Farm, Pat and her to put my energy into," Earthstar said. oppression," she said. "I don't want to be lover Joan have identified another Her dream is for other women to join her oppressive, if at all possible, toward the problem of creating a women-only and her friend on nearby land, creating a planet and its animals. And I want our space. "I think one question I have for safe space both for local lesbians and life here on the land to reflect that myself is about racism," Pat said. "I those passing through. "I've travelled a approach." 0 think that moving to the country is a lot, and I know how important lesbian class privilege in lots of ways. I'm on land is when you're on the road." Janelle Lavelle is board secretary of the disability from my job [as a flight Fueled by such aspirations, the rural Gay and Lesbian Hotline in Greensboro, attendant], and that's where our major lesbian communities continue to grow. North Carolina and a staff writer for The income comes from, along with some The goal, Jes explained, is to develop the Front Page.

38 FALL 1988 Rabbit An Interview by Allan Troxler

Illustrations by Allan TroxlerIRabbit

A native American talks n Route 48 the directions blow out the window. I call R. from a McDonald' s 0 somewhere. I'm late so he tells me about a shortcut. Take the second or third of family , sex, andrace , Summerton exit. Turn back under the highway; there may be a sign. After so far, turn on ancestral ground right. Cross fishing creek twice. Eight to ten miles. Top of hill. Pecan trees. No, no landmarks. Everybody knows me, if you get lost. Tobacco's turning bright yellow. The heavy air smells like grape Nehi— kudzu must be blooming. His vague instructions, the haphazard distances, would apply in most any direction. He could be 30 miles back the other way by now. Justus Seed Farm Road. Half Acre School Road. A worn farm town at a cross- roads. A jumble of dusty rockers and pitchforks fills one window of the general store. Seems like he could have mentioned road names, or towns. Somebody's lettered a sign that says "RABBITS" in a yard where bottle-gourd birdhouses hang way up on crooked crossbranches.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 39 Ahead something black unfolds, spreads out, lifts off and So it was a Sunday night. I took some acid maybe around soars. Buzzard. The grinding sound from the left front wheel's seven o'clock and I finally got out of the house around ten. I getting worse. Down a hill. Across some creek. went to Elora; there was nothing happening there. And I drove "Godforsaken wildernesse!" bellows a European adven- to Mayhew, it was a little bigger, but there was nothing happen- turer as his horse sinks up to the saddlebags. I imagine R. sit- ing there, so I decided to come back to the disco in Pleasant ting at home „smiling slightly. What, after all, are transitory Hill, where the families are. My great-great-grandfather's towns and road signs when your people have been here since house is on one side, and my uncle's house is on that side, and time began? "Everybody knows me," he says as I pass houses my granddaddy's house on this side. It's on a knoll right in the where brown, impassive families sit in the shade. middle of the community, on top of ancestral ground. At the top of a long rise, a colonnade of pecan trees watches The two brothers who run the place were closing up. I men- over an old house. I holler through the screen door: my voice tioned to one of them I wanted some firewood. He said, "Well, hangs in the dark parlor. Here and there are signs, finally. This hang around. We can talk about is his place after all. it." There were about six or Next door, an old sprightly Indian woman, R.' s mother, seven guys still there. The older chats at the kitchen table with a big rough-hewn black woman. brother was high and when he We exchange pleasantries and they resume their talk of family realized I was tripping he went in voices strange to my ear. R. and I put together a lunch— and turned the sound system fried chicken, thick soup, butter beans, sweet potato pie, water- back on, and when he did the melon, ice tea—and then we walk back through the pecan light system came on too, and grove and settle in his parlor. the spotlights came shafting "Wh000000eeeeee!" he squeals, tasting the soup. "Take down through the dark of the somebody mean to grow peppers that hot!" I start with the pie empty dance hall. myself, and surmise that his mamma must be infinitely kind. I was halfway conscious of the song he kept playing over "There were all sorts of landmarks, and those roads do and over — "You so fine. You have names." got style, you got grace ..." "Why confuse you with details?" he asks loftily over a Over and over, so I get up and chicken leg. His dark eyes are laughing. start dancing, with the light This afternoon we aim to record R.' s stories as a gay man shafting down onto the dance native to this place. Where shall we begin? floor in the semidarkness. Sud- Naming. That seems a good place to start. Straightaway R. denly I flip into the world of the chooses Rabbit. "I'll be Rabbit!" he laughs, raring back in his virgin forest, with the sun shaft- sawed-off straight back chair. Rabbit the trickster, the sly joker. ing down through the oak trees. And I'll be the credulous European in a new and ancient world. Climax-formation forest. I strip Rabbit's people will be the Birds. Through all the open win- naked and I'm dancing native. dows come their soft chirps and sweet whistling. "You so fine. You got grace." Naked, dancing. Ancestral cry few people can say, "I am where my ancestors have ground. And then everybody V been before the memory of man runneth to the contrary." else was naked, and we were We get all these white theories about the Bering Straits, Poly- having an orgy! nesia, the Vikings, all that silliness, but we know we've been here forever. Here in the community Being nature and being a part of nature — a natural spiritu- people know that I'm Indian, of ality, a natural harmony — that's what is essentially Indian for course; but I go anywhere else, me. And also it's about family. There's an immediate, present they assume I'm black. You sec sense of your own identity because everybody else in the fam- it just goes to show we all nig- ily and in the tribe is a clone of yourself. So you look at your- gers in America, unless you're self, everywhere you go, you look at yourself. white. There's a drawing that John White did around 1585. It's In the early '60s, when I first called "The Flyer" — probably a conjurer, a shaman, ho- went to college, there were nine of us. We were these nine moerotic. He's almost naked, with a dried bluebird attached to "others," these nine niggers, right? There was a restaurant out- the side of his head, and he's literally in the air, dancing, flying. side of town that wouldn't let black folk in. It didn't matter An Algonquin ancestor. He looks just like a boy up in the com- whether you Indian or black, they wouldn't let niggers in. So munity, a cousin. Every time I see him I tease him about being we go out there — nonviolence, right? "Go limp." So we going the flyer or the conjurer. limp and this big white woman pulls up her dress and starts to One thing about pre-Columbian America was the virgin piss on me, saying, "This, nigger, is the closest you gonna get forest — climax-formation forest. The sweetgum and pines are to white pussy!" And I look at her— it's such an irony because the first trees to come back after a fire. Then the oaks force the I'm a faggot, and I don't want no white pussy! pines out and form a canopy over the forest floor, and you get Years later, up north, this dark man automatically assumes the dogwoods and hollies and ferns. It's nothing like the savage that I'm a mulatto. He don't know that I've been pissed on in wilderness that the white folks described when they came here. civil rights, protesting a segregated restaurant. He spits in my The oak trees are a cathedral with the sun shafting down face! Says, "You probably love having all that white blood." through them. And you know, I'm speechless! Now I'd sock the shit out of

40 FALL 1985 him first, but I say, "Goddamn, I been out there fighting for hour. You'd go down with your daddy and you'd just sit and your ass and you've got the stupidity to spit in my face!" watch the fire, not saying a word. Listening to the night. Cur- You get a lot of that still — how homosexuality is a form of ing. And the wonderful smell of tobacco in the air. That's how genocide against blacks, and that the only reason you find you knew the curing season was on. black guys sleeping with faggots is that they were trying to When he was a boy, my uncle came up unawares on my make some money to survive, to get bread for their babies. great-granddaddy one night. My great-grandma happened to be They say that AIDS is something that the white boy put on down there in the hammock with my great-granddaddy and black folk, right? they were fucking. So my uncle just stayed in the dark and lis- Rabbit slumps down in his chair. The room is quiet, except tened and watched. My family has always been educated and for the ice in a glass of tea. We look away from each other. Bird propertied and very respectable, but there is Great-Granddaddy songs embroider the late afternoon. in the hammock fucking Great-Grandma! And she's saying, "Oh, Mr. Bird! It's so good, Mr. Bird! Ohh, ohhh, OHHH, Mr. Bird! Mr. Bird! Mr. Bird!" And Rabbit hunkers back and howls in ecstasy and claps his hands. Aaah, the curing season.

Did I ever tell you the story about my uncle and this white boy who had the local grocery store, where they sold on credit, and at the end of the year you had such a bill you never could pay up and then you started the whole shit over again the next year. He and this white boy would sit around the store joking about who had the biggest dick. So finally one day he say, "I'm getting sick of you telling them lies about your tiny white dick!" "And I'm sick of you, nigger, telling about your big dick!" "All right, let's have a contest!" Very few people can say, So the white boy says, "Go bring me a "I am where my gallon fruit jar! I'll show you my dick is so ancestors have been big it won't fit into the mouth The curing season ... Hear that? before the memory of of a gallon fruit jar!" So my uncle says, "Go bring me a pickle jar! Show you my I hear a machine's persistent hum man runneth to the dick is so big it won't get into the mouth from across the road. contrary." of a pickle jar!" Well, years later my uncle's in the That is a gas-fired, bulk tobacco- hospital and he's lying there in one of burning barn. Ruins the night. You be out there listening to the those hospital gowns, a big-boned, beautiful man with straight cicadas and the crickets, the stars like moons, so bright and black hair. I had wanted to do this all my life, because when I beautiful, and then there's this fucking bulk-barn blower. was a child he would come and he would grab my knee, and he When I was a kid, the tobacco barn had one of these mole- would squeeze it real hard, and look me right in the eye, and I hill furnaces, and you had to cut firewood to feed up into the was like a deer flashlighted at night, mesmerized — and being stone furnace, which cured the tobacco inside. You had a ham- the faggot that I was, loving it! mock and you had to sleep down there, to stoke the fire every So to get back at him for squeezing my knee all those years,

SOUTIIERN EXPOSURE 41 I grabbed his dick and squeezed it! It was a shock! If it had ship. After that, I suppressed everything, sublimated into been a heart problem he would have had a heart attack. And studying and trying to get away from the farm, being valedicto- then he burst out grinning! He grinned and he grinned, and I rian and getting a scholarship and getting off the farm. I be grinned. I shook that thing! It was like squeezing a big Coke damned if I was going to be a sharecropper. bottle! During my sophomore year in college, I was home and Jimmy's little brother came to I was a sharecropper's son. We'd start in visit. "How's Jimmy?" I asked him. January, clearing the tobacco bed, preparing it The more "Haven't you heard?" to plant. Then we'd break land as soon as the and more we "Heard what?" rains stopped. And then once you got the to- "Well, his woman shot him." bacco growing, you plowed and chopped and played, the He was married and had kids, but it turned plowed again. I walked a hundred miles a day more I fell in out he was living with this other woman. I behind those two mules. think she lived with her mother, and he was I'd go to school maybe the first couple of love with staying there with them. He had made some days, register and get my books, and then I'd stay out him. and help finish priming the tobacco, and tying it up at night to get it to the market. But there was time for pleasure, too. Rabbit enjoyed the company of the older boy across the road, and two cousins. They carried on "with im- punity" in the back of the neighbor's daddy's car, circle- jerking and sucking. From age 10 or]] on, though, his true love was Jimmy, the son of a black lumberjack. Their family lived a feral existence far from the road. The hulking lumberjack skirted through the pas- ture, dreading Rabbit's grandmother's chickens, and the lit- tlest boy would take off for the woods running when Rabbit approached. Jimmy was always around. I don't think he ever had gone to school. We made love everywhere. Even in the curing barn one time, with the furnaces going and maybe 130 degrees heat. I was 13 or 14, hanging from the rafters, and we were fucking and sweating and every time we come together we be sloshing and the sweat would fly everywhere and you'd hear this deep "slush" sound. Whap! Whap! Whap! comment at dinner about her mother, and then he went to take My daddy had a '59 Impala Chevrolet, and I just hated that bath. She came in and said, "Do you still mean what you said goddamned car because I had to learn to drive on it. I'm a coun- about my ma?" He said, "You damn right!" And she shot him, try boy, right, and they make you parallel park. You know how dead. big a 1959 Impala Chevrolet is? Took me five or six times to get my license. So, I'd be sitting in there, playing like I'm shift- In the backyard, a little brown rabbit watches while I pee. ing the gears. And he'd be standing outside and he'd get a hard Then, all weightless nerve and muscle, ear and whisker, it arcs that would go down his pants. And he'd take it out, and we'd away. Rabbit dreams sometimes of Indian youths setting off on play with one another, and the family would be sitting right vision quests in emblematic quilts. I ask him, what of his own there on the porch, unaware. experience? It was what got me through adolescence really, that friend- Well, there was the quilt his grandmother made when he lej

42 FALL 1988 or college, and there were epiphanies along the way, as he in front of me! oecame student, poet, lawyer, art collector. Far away, in a In my sixth-grade year, after integration, the county said, hree-piece suit, he found himself walking down 5th Avenue "We don't want you, but we gonna give y'all the best facilities fter lunch, playing spoons. Clickety clickety click. Waiting so y'all can't say that you not equal." So we got brick schools or "wait" to change to "walk." Clickety click. The next day he and central heat and indoor toilets! And they tore the pissoir old the office he had another job, somewhere else. Soon he down!" as home. All his aunts gave him quilts for his new life, on an- estral ground. "Anthrophilologist." That's what Rabbit calls himself. A significant part of his fieldwork has been conducted in and around the pool halls nearby. Watching, listening, "trying to abbit has never told his family he's gay. "I don't think absorb the scene." F? it's necessary," he says, "because it's understood." It's the only thing in town, right? A funky jukebox, a couple le' s sure his daddy knows because he rescued Rabbit once of pool tables, guys standing around the wall watching. Too rom a couple of men he'd brought home—rough trade who broke to play or to buy beer. Just hanging out because there were getting mean. And his ain't nowhere else to go. You have to learn the signals: "You mother doesn't pressure him can wink at me and I can follow you out, but you better not to get married or to find a speak to me, and I definitely ain't gonna speak to you." woman. "You need a friend," But if you get them around the corner, then you can deal. she suggested awhile back. You say, "Hey! What's happening? Want to smoke a joint?" Rabbit shook his head and "I know what the deal is," he'll say. Which means he under- said, "You damn right! need a stands that we can get together and have sex. And the second friend." aspect of that is, "The deal is that we can deal. You make me an What of his search for offer and I'll think about it." There's a quid pro quo. It's not friendship? And what about hard and fast, but there has to be something. I ndianness and blackness It could be, "Why don't you buy me a pack of cigarettes, along the way? man. Yeah, we can deal." Or, "Hey man, you know, I need a "I'm an Indian," Rabbit couple of bucks to get me a haircut. You know what the deal says. "I deal with blacks. I is." deal with Indians. I don't deal Or it can be more outrageous. "Hey man, I need a new pair with whites. Is that what you of sneakers. I can't come see you if! can't get no sneakers to mean?" walk on, man. You know the deal." In its blunt way,! reckon it And part of that deal in a third sense is, "You're the sissy, is. and I'm the man. I fuck you, you suck my dick, but! ain't By happenstance, Rabbit's gonna do none of that shit. You know the deal." It's a way of early partners for sex were doing what you want to do, maybe getting something out of it black. In an apartheid world in a financial sense, and preserving your macho. which reinforced the closeness Or, "Hey man, I got a wife, I got a girlfriend. What am I of blacks and Indians—Rab- gonna get out of this deal? I'm not gonna enjoy this. If! wanted bit's birth certificate reads to get off, I'd go and fuck my old lady!" And! say to myself, "Colored" rather than "In- "Well shit, why ain't you at home fucking your old lady?" He dian" —Rabbit's light skin probably doesn't even have an old lady, which is also part of was sometimes a sign of the the deal, right? sissy, while "the real men, the It may be that people have to sell their bodies out of eco- athletes, were these black nomic circumstances, but! think that's de minimis in terms of guys, the so-called 'mandingo' the attraction of men to one another. There has to be a ho- types." mocrotic element to that turn-on. I started first grade in a Well, anyway, it was March 1985, and this man walked up four-room schoolhouse. "The tomcat the pool hall and he says, "Hey, how did those pictures Pleasant Hill Julius Rosen- come out?" wald School" it said above the (For years Rabbit has used his camera as a lure, introduc- portico. It had pot-bellied ing himself as an amateur photographer and asking guys to stoves, and of course it had an model for him.) utdoor john. The students when they took a leak stood around I just looked at him. Didn't know who he was. I said, us circular well-casing and pissed in front of one another. And "What? What?" And then I remembered him. loved it. About six months earlier I had been riding from Pleasant In retrospect you wonder, how did you get away with all Hill to Wisdom and I saw him walking down the highway in tese things that you now know were connected with your nothing but a pair of cutoff jeans. I was zooming to get to xuality and sexual interest? Like raising your hand, saying, someplace, and then as I got down far enough to where he was Teacher, may I be excused?" to go every hour on the hour to in my rearview mirror, I picked up that he was standing in the leck out the pissoir. At the time there were poor boys who had middle of the road, looking, facing in the direction I was going, i stay out to work, 16, 18 years old. They'd come the first day which was the opposite he was going. So I said, "Well, damn! I

-id then they'd come back when it snowed or rained. And I should go back." So, I had my camera and I went back and said, ived it, these huge mandingos, mature farm men, pissing right "Let me take a picture of you." He said, "Sure." So he stood

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 43 there in the middle of the road while I took a couple of shots, One phone call, Anthony told him, "Hey man,!' m about to and I moved on. get on the bus for New York to go live with this dude." At the pool hall, I thought he must be trying to cause When I called back, I got his mother. I always felt terrible in trouble. He said, "What's happening? Let's do something." I terms of the mother, because if! were a parent and I had some said, "I'm just hanging out. Just needed to get out of the house man calling there for my 16, 17-year-old son, I would want to and have me a beer." But he wouldn't be put off, so finally I shoot him. said, "Look, let me finish my beer and I'll think about it, So I said, "May I speak to Anthony?" maybe." "He's not here." So he wanders off and! forget about it and maybe a half an "You expect him?" hour later he comes back around. "Haven't you finished that beer yet?" I said, "Damn, I need to deal with this man and see "I understand he went to New York." what he's about." So we walk out of the place together, and "Yes." everybody knows. I had been going there for years. He knew So! said goodbye. what the deal was. (I had asked him about rabbits, what he recalled. As "a He says, "Of course this is going to cost you."! said, "I'll child of nature" he would come upon their nests in the fields, take you home. Where do you live?" filled with tiny balls offur. Then he And he said, "All right, I'll treat you to- paused. night." I said, "Whatever you want. Be- You know what a rabbit gun is? It's cause I can take you home." He said, like a long wooden box with a trap "No. Go on." door. You lure the rabbit in with onion And so we get out here, and we or apple inside. And once he gets in spend the night, and it's wonderful. deep enough, he trips a little stick His name was Anthony and Rabbit that's in the middle of the gun, and the didn't see him again for several months. door collapses on him. Then one Sunday afternoon he came I'm sure it's native. What they did back. was they burned out logs to use, before He wandered around the house and boards and European tools. My daddy he saw a chessboard that a friend of still sets out four or five of them.) mine had given me 20 years ago. He spread it out on the daybed, set it up as a checkers game and said, "Come on man, y grandmother's room off let's play checkers." So we played M the parlor was a quiet re- checkers with my chess set all after- serve, and in the evening she would noon, and the more and more we played, usually be sitting there in her large the morel fell in love with him. armchair, reading her Bible. I had had this fantasy since child- We didn't talk that much. Some- hood, since playing with the black dude times, when I was younger, I might ask across the road, of having a local, farm some silly kid question, but when you black man as a lover. I felt like this fan- grow up in an extended family, before tasy had just walked up to me. long you know everything. She wore At first, as Rabbit and Anthony nego- her long grey hair in a chignon, and at tiated their quid pro quo, there were night she would pull the tortoise-shell steak dinners on Tuesdays and Thurs- combs out and let her hair down to her days at a steakhouse decorated with a waist. Then, with a dramatic gesture, mural of the Matterhorn, Saturday afternoons getting high, she would bend over, put her hands behind her neck, and flip naked, watching the baseball game, and trips to the beach. her hair over her head. She looked ghostly with her long hair Then the deal escalated. "Ile was less and less giving, and! covering her head, when she bent over like that. was totally in love." Rabbit sold his art collection, so they She would brush it over and over again, from the back to the dined at the Rainbow Room and the Top of the World, and they front. Such a laborious thing to do, to keep brushing and brush- discoed all night. "It was the only place that he would dance ing her long hair. with me, in New York." In her room there was a sense that time really didn't change. At sea, on the fishing boat he rented just for the two of them, The present was no different from the past, and the future, more Rabbit vomited for four hours and Anthony caught two sharks. than likely, wouldn't be different either. Rabbit shows me a snapshot from that outing. A dark, young, That was what her room was like. Timeless. Outside of the powerful head stares off to the horizon. Blue-green ocean, house. It was this eternal world where you suspended disbelief. blood-red tee shirt. The world where art exists. "In January of '87 he tells me, 'Hey man, my girlfriend just She was an untouchable fairy godmother, and I said, "I can had a baby.' Turns out the boy's 16 years old and he's got a go into this world. I'm coming in." girlfriend and a baby! Triple shock!" I've always taken risks. Ll The girlfriend dropped out of school, moved into Anthony's bedroom, and they were man and wife. "I would call and the Allan Troxler is a dancer and artist in Durham, North Carolina. baby would be crying in the background. Or she would take the phone and demand, 'Who's this? Who's this? —

44 FA1.1, 1988 rights. "We have got to get gay people to do now what blacks did in the `60s," he once said. "Until they come out and get into political action, we are in trouble." Rustin died on August 24, 1987 at the age of 77. Veteran civil rights activist Bayard No More Rustin discovered gay pride one day in the 1940s on a bus in a Southern town. It was a revelation that would change his public and private lives for many decades to come. "I was prepared to do what I'd always done in the South," Rustin recalled, "and take a seat in the rear." But as he walked Back down the aisle, a small, white child playfully grabbed for his red necktie. The child's mother quickly reprimanded, "Don't touch a nigger!" "Something happened," Rustin said in an interview in his New York office. "I thought, 'If I go and sit quietly in the back of the bus now, that child ... is Seat going to end up saying, 'They like it back there. I've never seen anybody t in the South protest against it.' That's what people in the South said." When Rustin realized that his acquiescence to prejudice made him a party to it, it was a double epiphany. Not only did he stay in the front of the bus for that trip, but shortly afterwards, he told each of his friends that he was gay. "The only way I could be a free, whole person was to face the shit," Rustin said. As a young man, Rustin had always been tough. He loved sports and won four varsity letters in school. He already knew he was gay then. "It was all extremely romantic," he said, "but the consequences of being gay didn't re- Photo by Doug IlincklelWashingtort Blade ally strike me until I got to college." There, he said, he felt so Civil rights activist ayard Rustin was a long-time civil much conflict that he quit college after a B rights activist known as a skilled year and a half and never got his degree. Bayard Rustin refused organizer with a passion for details. He "I must have 25 or 30 honorary degrees," to move gay pride to was chief organizer of the 1963 March on Rustin chuckled, "but no earned one." Washington, which drew more than After that, Rustin, a wiry and ener- the back of the bus. 200,000 people and was credited with getic man, often faced and fought preju- pressuring Congress to pass the 1964 dice against him for being gay as well as Civil Rights Act. black. Most famous was the attempt by A self-acknowledged homosexual Republican Senator Strom Thurmond of since the early `60s, he was also, in his South Carolina to discredit the 1963 later years, an outspoken advocate of gay March on Washington, which Rustin co-

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 45 ordinated, by gay-and red-baiting the in love with a man with whom he lived returned from a meeting in India than he activist in a public tirade before the Sen- until his death last year. was off again to Trinidad or South Af- ate. But the sponsors of the historic His lover, Walter Naegle, worked rica. He claimed the variety of his proj- march stood behind Rustin. closely with him, traveling along as ects was "rejuvenating." And although a "Nobody should have to earn the Rustin's work took him to all parts of the talented guitar player and tenor in his right to be defended," noted the veteran globe. Rustin said he had met more of pre-activist days (he performed with of human rights campaigns in South Af- gay society through Naegle, and the two Leadbelly in New York's Cafe Society), rica, Southeast Asia, Central America, even went out dancing at an upper West Rustin showed no regret over his vigor- and the United States. "But the reality is, Side bar once in a while. ous path in life. if you defend the rights of others, they "Until this last relationship, which is "Once in a while, when I hear Se- will almost automatically defend your now going into its tenth year," Rustin govia or a classical guitar, I wish I kept rights." said with obvious pleasure, "I didn't re- on," Rustin said, admitting that life as a Despite his commitment to solidarity, ally know what it was to have a relation- musician would have kept him in much Rustin was "dumped" by Martin Luther ship ... with absolute, total confidence, gayer company over the years. "But it King Jr. because of fears among civil no lies, no pretenses, no defenses." Smil- passes with the next trip to Africa," he rights strategists that then-FBI Director ing again, he added, "It takes time to do laughed. CI J. Edgar Hoover would use Rustin's that, and it took more time with me than Peg Byron is a reporter for United Press homosexuality to discredit King. with most, I hope." International in New York. This profile origi- "Hoover began circulating all kinds Rustin's civil rights efforts never nally appeared in the Washington Blade. of stories about King, one of them hint- slowed down. At age 76, he no sooner ing that there might be a homosexual relationship between us," Rustin said. Al- though King would steadfastly support Rustin after Thurmond's tirade, "I just wish he had showed that strength in '62. It was painful, I will admit it," Rustin said. But, he quickly added, "It didn't hurt our friendship." Rustin's experience on that Southern bus had another major effect on his life. After telling his friends he was gay at age Who the 35, Rustin's life opened up to having more serious relationships. "There was a period when I was pro- miscuous," he said with a slight smile. "I don't mean I was running out every Enemy night, but I had a series of one-night stands. Not until I declared myself could I build these associations," he said. "If you are hiding things, you can't get too close to people, even gay people. There- Isn't. fore you set up false relationships." Rustin said it was hard to meet other gay men in those days, especially be- By Gary Kaupman cause those involved in the civil rights movement were in the closet. "I found out later that many of the people I'd known over the years were in fact gay," Rustin said, shaking his head. "That's the reason I want as many young A PRIL 1968 gay people to declare themselves. Al- From Afghan Hounds to Fort Benning, Georgia. Three months though it's going to make problems, after returning from Vietnam, three those problems are not so dangerous as Equal Rights months before discharge from the Army, the problems of lying to yourself, to your my weekend pass is denied because Mar- friends, and missing many opportuni- tin Luther King Jr. is dead. If there are ties." riots in Atlanta, we'll have to go. Although Rustin found it difficult to I have a far more important reason to make what he called "appropriate go to Atlanta: My Afghan hound will friends" for many years, he eventually likely be a champion there this weekend. came to know many gay people who The gall of that man. Getting shot THIS were leaders in organizations like the weekend. Urban League, the NAACP, and 100 I go AWOL. Some loudmouthed Black Men. And while in his 60s, he fell

46 FALL 1988 preacher gets himself shot and makes the Acting liberal, we hired black em- DR. KING ... AGAIN best little WASP boy in the world risk ployees. Even had them over for ribs and I first heard Stevie Wonder's birthday court-martial. Martin who? a dip when the weather was fine. So what paean to Dr. King at a birthday party. My if the neighbors gawked, whispered? So birthday party. Ecstasy. Until some spoil- IZODS & WEEJUNS what if their stares made our employees sport made me listen to ALL the words. I had, I suppose, heard of Dr. King so uncomfortable they never returned? Stevie wrote that song for Dr. King, not prior to his death. Middle-class white Not our problem. me. That's twice, Dr. King. boys raised north of Buckhead aren't ignorant. They read the papers. FREE AT LAST? LOVE'S LIGHT But cars, football, Izods, and girls On Independence Day, 1979 my wife Age, AIDS, psychotherapy, real (for most of us) were more important declared her independence from me. And friends brought increasing awareness of than a bunch of blacks who wanted to I declared my freshly found gay identity my responsibilities as a gay man. Some- ride in the front of the bus. Fine with me. to the world. times involved enough to claim myself I had a car. A bright red MG. Makes no Enter Donna Summer. Exit Barry an activist. Often aghast at abuse piled diff to me where THEY ride. Manilow. An androgynous amalgam upon abuse. (A friend arrested for inde- And we had our own pool so it didn't danced, drank, and partied 'round the cent exposure after a trio had beaten him really matter that THEY might be swim- pool. Those same neighbors gawked and nearly to death and taken all his clothes. ming at Chastain next year. pointed. At least the visiting blacks had Another, who lost her job and child when A civics teacher hinted at the possi- behaved respectably. she publicly acknowledged her lesbian- bility of racial prejudice. Proudly I par- (Especially irate, one neighbor took ism. The list seems endless.) roted a phrase learned from a friend's to guiding his riding mower, full throttle, And Al: smooth and shiny as aubergine velvet. Passion's fruit. Soul's mate. Arguments and understanding. Equality. However briefly, free at last. HAPPY 59TH, MARTIN Fear flashes. Dirty ice recalls January 1987 in For- syth County. It's OK, we're marching toward Auburn Avenue, not Cumming's courthouse. Bands, floats, and banners, not helicop- ters and guns. Nothing to fear here? Our posters proclaim, "Civil Rights, Gay Rights. Same Struggle, Same Fights." Some smile, offer "Right on, brother" and Photo by Gerald Jones break into restrained ap- plause as we pass. Their respect is trashed by others dad, "I'm not prejudiced. I hate blacks in constant circles around the parking hurling icy stares, sneers. (we used the "n" word then), Catholics, area behind his house when our after- Hoots, hollers, and epithets extinguish Jews, Poles, and all other minorities. noon party began. That sent ME scurry- the glow. That's not prejudice. That's equal oppor- ing to Midtown.) Those so offended by our participa- tunity." Bright boy. tion in Dr. King's birthday parade are me TABLES TURNED 25 years ago. Cars, clothes, girls (for THE MAN most) and peer pressure inform their ac- Latency turned to blatancy. Proper tions. Black Atlanta had the good grace not couples introduced at church soirees Grim-faced, I march on. And pray to riot that weekend. My unit was never were replaced by men met in smoky bars that it doesn't take them as long as it took mobilized, my absence never detected. and at sybaritic celebrations. Gene, a me to figure out who the enemy isn't. 0 Returned to civvies, driving a red Jag, black man found frequently in both and married to a wife whose blindness to places, challenged me: Accept him as an Gary Kaupman is a freelance writer and bigotry mirrored my own, I marched to- equal. We made out madly in a bar one administrator for Southeastern Arts, Media ward the dream: money, connections, night. And then, in front of a crowd, he and Education Project in Atlanta, Georgia. house (with pool) in Buckhe,ad. said, "No."

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 47 lative buildings; freedom with our families and our neighbors; freedom to be who we are and love each other. The thing about freedom, though, is We Will that you can't just want it for yourself only, or your own kind. Freedom means everybody: not just the men, not just the people with money, not just the white people, not just the Christians, not just Do the the people without AIDS, not just queers, not just any part of us that might be better off than the rest. Freedom means justice. Justice in this country takes work. The Supreme Court decision in hard- Hokey Pokey wick vs. Bowers spelled it out for us. Our right to love each other physically has By Mab Segrest nothing to do with the "concept of ordered liberty upon which this country is based." To give us such a right would Photo by Doug IlincklelWashington Blade cast aside "a millennium of moral teaching" and the "legislative authority of the state." Hardwick upheld the same Constitution that allowed slavery — another practice with a millennium of historical roots. It is the same Constitution that privileges "free enterprise" and puts profits over people, to all of our detri- ment. These sodomy laws, because they affect us in every single Southern state, are the place to begin, just as targeting legalized segregation and voting rights was the place the civil rights movement began in the years after World War II. If we decide that nothing can stop us from changing the sodomy laws in the Southern states, we will have begun — in fact, we have already begun — on an heroic endeavor. If we have a solidly sodomy South to contend with, we also have the example of the black freedom movement.

A FREEDOM LEGACY We grew up and now live in a region that was partially transformed in our lifetime by the courage and grace of black Building a New hat ! want is a gay and lesbian people, and we have a legacy from them W freedom movement in the South. about what the move toward freedom Southern Freedom I'm talking about civil rights, but not just can achieve. Movement civil rights; about elimination of anti-gay We also have an obligation to that violence and sodomy law repeal, but legacy. more than that. I'm talking about Free- Not only in the South, but all across dom— freedom in our hearts and intel- the country, the gay and lesbian move- lects and imaginations; and in our beds ment and the communities which have and bushes and kitchen and all the other grown out of it are too constrained by places we choose to make love; freedom racism — as is the rest of North Ameri- vir on the streets and in the courts and legis- can culture. No freedom movement that

48 FALL 1988 trods some of the same ground as was lesbians and gay men will put issues of learn as feminists and homosexuals walked by Harriet Tubman, or Rosa sexuality on the front burner, and there about our bodies — and everybody's Parks, or Frederick Douglass, or Martin they will heat up very fast. As gay histo- bodies — in this North American cul- Luther King, can afford racism. rian John D'Emilio points out, to work ture; not the least of which is how to be Gay and lesbian communities in the against sodomy laws and most other loose and whimsical in the face of forces South are concentrated in urban areas — forms of our oppression, we have to of destruction. We will do the Hokey Po- areas that, because of electoral access learn how to talk about sex. My guess is key. opened up by the civil rights movement, that sex was not the hottest topic of con- We will learn to take on the Church in are the main arenas in the region and versation around the dinner tables when the Bible Belt, and not give definitions of country under at least some control of many of us were growing up. So we will morality to religious fanatics, knowing people of color. In those places, we have be teaching and learning a lot. that if God were as mean as they be- to increasingly learn to build and earn lieved, he would have struck them dead alliances — and this process will both in- long ago. (I say "he" because I never met creasingly challenge us to change the PUT YOUR BUTT IN a fundamentalist who thought God is racism within our own movement as well We will bring to our movement our female.) as the general culture and, perhaps, will own strengths and style, not the least of We will claim our full places in our make more space for lesbians and gay which is a humor and whimsy informed families of birth, and know that it is a men of color within their communities of by camp. One of my favorite memories peculiar dynamic of oppression that we color. from last fall's march on Washington are born into the families of our oppres- In the freedom movement I am was a moment in the circle before the sors. This sometimes feels like growing speaking of, we will honor the leadership civil disobedience at the Supreme Court up in the belly of the beast; but the more of gay and lesbian people of color; and began — direct action that was to include sure of our own power we become, the we will realize our strength lies in our a contingent of people with AIDS who more it's like being inside the wooden diversity, in the way our 10 horse within the walls of Troy percent pops ups across all Photo by Sandy Dwyer/Impact Visuals and emerging to catch them kinds of cultural boundaries. unaware. Our presence in our We will make sure that diver- birth families challenges our sity is honored and reflected parents and siblings—and in our growing numbers. children — to change in inti- We have a freedom legacy, mate and immediate and far- then, as Southerners. But we reaching ways that do not also have the challenge of cre- happen in other movements. ating our own indigenous Through these intimate movement as Southern dykes connections, we will refuse to and faggots. let the bigots "demonize" us. This means that everybody We will increasingly assert can't move to San Francisco our familiarness in a South from Durham or Atlanta or that is our home. Richmond or New Orleans. AIDS has brought our gay And everybody can't move to and lesbian community fully Durham from Pittsboro, or to to the face of death. But, my Atlanta from Brunswick, or to lesbian sisters and gay broth- Richmond from Lynchburg, ers, if we can look there or to New Orleans from calmly and not avert our eyes

Shreveport or Monroe. MORE THAN 500,000 PEOPLE MARCHED ON WASHINGTON LAST or flee — if we can keep cele- Republicans and funda- OCTOBER TO DEMAND LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS. brating, keep loving, keep mentalists met the organizing moving in humor and joy — we have done in Durham, North Carolina did not know if they would receive ade- then truly, nothing can stop us as we with alarms that we were trying to make quate medical treatment once arrested. carry in our hearts a familiar refrain: Durham the "San Francisco of the One of the affinity groups led us in a cho- "Oh, freedom/ Oh, freedom/ Oh, South." While this has a certain appeal, rus of the "Hokey Pokey," as we all sang freedom over me./ And before I'll be a what I want from a Southern freedom loudly, "You put your butt in, you take slave/ I'll be buried in my grave./ Free- movement is not to create more refugee your butt out, you put your butt in and dom, freedom, freedom over me." 0 centers but to keep us from being run out you shake it all about." It seemed an es- of our homes, wherever they are. sentially gay moment, and I wasn't sure So any attempt to organize in the some of my straight friends in the anti- Mab Segrest is director of North Caro- South will need to take into account not Klan movement would have understood. linians Against Racist and Religious Violence only the cities, but the towns and coun- Our Southern freedom movement and the author of My Momma's Dead Squir- tryside in which many of us grew up and will make clear that what straight people rel: Lesbian Essays on Southern Culture left. We must learn to tap the deep and have often misunderstood as a pathetic (Firebrand Books). This article was ex- secretive veins of queers who still live in imitation of them is more often than not cerpted from her keynote speech at the 13th these places. subversive satire. Our movement will be Annual Southeastern Conference of Lesbians A Southern freedom movement of totally grounded in what we have had to and Gay Men, held last spring in Atlanta.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 49 Anonymous illustration

50 FALL 1988 A River of Names By Dorothy Allison

AT A PICNIC AT farm, the only time the whole family for the fairy tale she thinks is everyone's life. MY AUNT'S ever gathered, my sister, Billie, and! "What did your grandmother smell like?" chased chickens into the barn. Billie ran I lie to her the way I always do, a lie stolen from a book. right through the open doors and out again, but I stopped, "Like lavender," stomach churning over the memory of sour caught by a shadow moving over me. My cousin, Tommy, sweat and snuff. eight years old as I was, swung in the sunlight with his face as I realize I do not really know what lavender smells like and black as his shoes ... the rope around his neck pulled up into I am for a moment afraid she will ask something else, some the sunlit heights of the barn, fascinating, horrible. Wasn't he question that will betray me. But Jesse slides over to hug me, to running ahead of us? Someone came up behind me. Someone press her face against my ear, to whisper, "How wonderful to began to scream. My mama took my head in her hands and be part of such a large family." turned my eyes away. I hug her back and close my eyes. I cannot say a word. Jesse and I have been lovers for two years now. She tells me stories about her childhood, about her father going off each day I WAS BORN and the younger, born in a pause of to the university, her mother who made all her dresses, her BETWEEN THE babies and therefore outside, always grandmother who always smelled of dill bread and vanilla. I OLDER COUSINS watching. Once, way before Tommy listen with my mouth open, not believing but wanting, aching died, I was pushed out on the steps while

SOUTI IERN EXPOSURE 51 everyone stood listening to my cousin, Barbara. Her screams hands shook and I wanted nothing so much as to tell her terrible went up and down in the back of the house. Cousin Cora stories. brought buckets of bloody rags out to be burned. The other So I made a list. I told hen that one went insane — got her cousins all ran off to catch the sparks or poke the fire with little brother with a tire iron; the three of them slit their arms, dogwood sticks. I waited on the porch making up words to the not the wrists but the bigger veins up near the elbow; she, now shouts around me. I did not understand what was happening. SHE strangled the boy she was sleeping with and got sent Some of the older cousins obviously did, their strange away; that one drank lye and died laughing soundlessly. In one expressions broken by stranger laughs. I had seen them helping year I lost eight cousins. It was the year everybody ran away. her up the stairs while the thick bood ran down her legs. After a Four disappeared and were never found. One fell in the river while the blood on the rags was thin, watery, almost pink. Cora and was drowned. One was run down, hitchhiking north. One threw them on the fire and stood motionless in the stinking was shot running through the woods, while Grace, the last one, smoke. tried to walk from Greenville to Greer for some reason nobody Randall went by and said there'd be a baby, a hatched egg to knew. She fell off the overpass a mile down from the Sears, throw out with the rags, but there wasn't. I watched to see and Roebuck warehouse, and lay there for hunger and heat and there wasn't; nothing but the blood, thinning out desperately, dying. while the house slowed down and grew quiet, hours of cries Later sleeping but not sleeping, I found that my hands were growing soft and low — moaning under the smoke. My aunt up under Jesse's chin. I rolled away but! didn't cry. I almost Raylene came out on the porch and almost fell on me, not never let myself cry. seeing me, not seeing anything at all. She beat on the post until there were knuckle-sized dents in the peeling paint, beat on that ALMOST my cousins and I. That was some kind post like it could feel, cursing it and herself, and every child in ALWAYS, WE of joke too. the yard, singing up and down, "Goddamn, goddamn, that girl WERE RAPED, "What's a South Carolina virgin?" ... no sense ... goddamn!" — At's a 10-year-old can run fast." I've seen these pictures my mama gave me — stained sepia It wasn't funny for me in my mama's bed with my prints of bare dirt yards, plank porches, and step on step of stepfather, not for my cousin, Billie, in the attic with my uncle, children — cousins, uncles, aunts; mysteries. The mystery is nor for Lucille in the woods with another cousin, for Danny how many no one remembers. I show them to Jesse, not saying with four strangers in a parking lot, or for Pammy who made who they are, and when she laughs at the broken teeth, torn the papers. Cora read it out loud —"Repeatedly by persons overalls, the dirt, I set my teeth at what I do not want to unknown." They stayed unknown since Pammie never spoke remember and cannot forget. again. Perforations, lacerations, We were so many we were without contusions, and bruises; I heard all the number and, like tadpoles, if there was one words, big words, little words, words too less from time to time, who counted? My terrible to understand. DEAD BY AN maternal great-grandmother had eleven We were so ACT OF MAN; with the prick still in daughters, seven sons; my grandmother, six them, the broomhandle, the tree branch, sons, five daughters. Each one made at least many we were the grease gun ... objects, things not to be six. Some made nine. Six times six, eleven believed ... whiskey bottles, can openers, times nine. They went on like multiplication without grass shears, glass, metal, vegetables ... tables. They died and were not missed. I not to be believed, not to be believed. come of an enormous family and I cannot number and, Jesse says, "You've got a gift for tell half of their stories. Somehow it was words." always made to seem they killed like tadpoles, if "Don't talk," I beg her, "don't talk." themselves; somehow, car wrecks, And she, this once, just holds me, shotguns, dusty ropes, screaming, falling out there was one blessedly silent. of windows, things inside them. I am the less from time I dig out the pictures, stare into the point of a pyramid, sliding back under the faces. Which one was I? Survivors do weight of the ones who came after, and it to time, who hate themselves, I know, over the core of does not matter that I am the lesbian, the one fierce self-love, never understanding, who will not get children. counted? always asking, "Why me and not her, not I tell the stories and it comes out funny. I him?" There is such mystery in it, and I drink bourbon and make myself drawl, tell have hated myself as much as I have all those funny old stories. Someone always loved others, hated the simple fact of my seems to ask me — which one was that? I own survival. Having survived, am I show the pictures and she says, "Wasn't she the one in the story supposed to say something, do something, be something? about the bridge?" I put the pictures away, drink more, and I loved my cousin, Butch. He had this big old head, pale thin someone always finds them, says, hair and big watery eyes. All the cousins did, though Butch's "Goddamn! How many of you were there, anyway?" head was the largest, his hair the palest. I was the dark-headed I don't answer. one. All the rest of the family seemed pale carbons of each Jesse used to say, "You've got such a fascination with other in shades of blond though later on everybody's hair went violence. You've got so many terrible stories." brown or red, and I didn't stand out so. Butch and I stood out, I She said it with her smooth mouth, that chin that nobody because I was so dark and fast, and he because of that big head ever slapped, and I love that chin, but when Jesse said that, my and the crazy things he did. Butch used to climb on the back of 52 FALL 1988 my Uncle Lucius's truck, and open the gas tank and hang his "No, no," he yelled. "Move like her." He turned to me. head over, breathe deeply, strangle, gag, vomit and breathe "Move." He kicked at me. I rocked into a ball, froze. again. It went so deep, it tingled in your toes. I climbed up after "NO, NO!" He kicked me.! grunted, didn't move. He him and tried it myself, but I was too young to hang on long, turned to Lucille. "You." Her teeth were chattering but she held and I fell heavily to the ground, dizzy and giggling. Butch herself still, wrapped up tighter than bacon slices. could hang on, put his hand down into the tank and pull up a "You move!" he shouted. Lucille just hugged her head cupped palm of gas, breathe deep and laugh. He would climb tighter and started to sob. down roughly, swinging down from the door handle, laughing, "Son-of-a-bitch," Randall grumbled, "you two will never staggering and stinking of gasoline. Someone caught him at it. be any good." Someone threw a match. "I'll teach you." He walked away. Just like that, gone before you understand. Very slowly we stood up, embarrassed, looked at each I wake up in the night screaming, "No, no,! won't!" Dirty other. water rises in the back of my throat, the liquid language of my We knew. own terror and rage. "Hold me. Hold me." Jesse rolls over on If you fight back, they kill you. me; her hands grip my hipbones tightly. My sister was seven. She was screaming. My stepfather "I love you. I love you. I'm here," she repeats. picked her up by her left arm, swung her forward and back. It I stare up into her dark eyes, puzzled, afraid. I draw a breath gave. The arm went around loosely. She just kept screaming.! in deeply, smile my bland smile. "Did I fool you?" I laugh, roll didn't know you could break it like that. away from her. Jesse punches me playfully, and I catch her I was running up the hall. He was right behind me. hand in the air. "MAMA! MAMA!" His left hand — he was left-handed — "My love," she whispers and cups her body against my hip, closed around my throat, pushed me against the wall, and then closes her eyes. I bring my hand up in front of my face and he lifted me that way. I kicked, but! couldn't reach him. He watch the knuckles, the nails as they tremble, tremble. I watch was yelling, but there was so much noise in my ears I couldn't for a long time while she sleeps, warm and still against me. hear him. "Please, Daddy. Please, Daddy. I'll do anything, I promise. JAMES WENT One of the uncles got him in the face Daddy, anything you want. Please, Daddy." BLIND. with homebrewed alcohol. I couldn't have said that. I couldn't talk around that fist at Lucille climbed out the front my throat, couldn't breathe. I woke up when I hit the floor.! window of Aunt Raylene's house and jumped. They said she looked up at him. jumped. No one said why. "!f! live long enough, I'll fucking kill you." My uncle Matthew used to He picked me up by my beat my aunt Raylene. The throat again. twins, Mark and Luke, swore "What's wrong with her?" to stop him, pulled him out in "Why's she always the yard one time, throwing following you around?" him between them like a loose Nobody really wanted bag of grain. Uncle Matthew answers. screamed like a pig coming up for slaughter. I got both my A FULL BOTTLE will kill you sisters in the tool shed for OF VODKA when you're safety, but! hung back to nine and the watch. Little Bo came running bottle is a quart. It was a third out the house, off the porch, cousin proved that. We learned feet first into his Daddy's arms. what that and other things could Uncle Matthew started do. Every year there was swinging him like a scythe, something new. going after the bigger boys, "You're growing up." "My Bo's head thudding their big girl." shoulders, their hips. There was codeine in the Afterward, Bo crawled around cabinet, paregoric for the baby's in the dirt, the blood running teeth; whiskey, beer and wine in out of his ears and his tongue the house. Jeanne brought home hanging out of his mouth, MDA, PCP, acid; Randall, while Mark and Luke finally grass, speed and mescaline. It all got their daddy down. It was a long time before! realized that worked to dull things down, to they never told anybody else what happened to Bo. pass the time. Randall tried to teach Lucille and me to wrestle. "Put your Stealing was a way to pass the time, things we needed, hands up." His legs were wide apart, his torso bobbing up and things we didn't, for the nerve of it, the anger, the need. down, his head moving constantly, then his hand flashed at my "You're growing up," we told each other. But sooner or later, face. I threw myself back into the dirt, lay still. He turned to we all got caught, then it was "WHEN-ARE-YOU-GOING- Lucille, not noticing that! didn't get up. He punched at her, TO-LEARN?" laughing. She wrapped her hands around her head, curled over Caught, nightmares happened. "Razorback desperate," was so her knees were up against her throat. the conclusion of the man down at the county farm where Mark

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 53 and Luke were sent at 15. They both got their heads shaved, from the woman I could not admit I'd been with, and take my their earlobes sliced. infinitely fragile nephew and hold him, rocking him, rocking "WHAT'S THE MATTER, KID? CAN'T YOU TAKE myself. IT?" One night I came home to screaming — the baby, my sister, Caught at 16, June was sent to Jessup County Girls' Home no one else there. She was standing by the crib, bent over, where the baby was adopted out and she slashed her wrists on screaming red-faced. "SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" With each word the bedsprings. her fist slammed the mattress fanning the baby's ear. Lou got caught at 17 and held in the station downtown, "DON'T!" I grabbed her, pulling her back, doing it as raped on the floor of the holding tank. gently as I could so I wouldn't break the stitches from her "ARE YOU A BOY OR ARE YOU A GIRL?" operation. She had her other arm clamped across her abdomen "ON YOUR KNEES, KID, CAN YOU TAKE IT?" and couldn't fight me at all. She just kept shrieking. Caught at 18 and sent to prison, Jack came back seven years "That little bastard just screams and screams. That little later blankfaced, understanding nothing. He married a quiet bastard. I'll kill him." girl from out of town, had three babies in Then the words seeped in and she four years. Then Jack came home one looked at me while her son kept crying night from the textile mill, carrying one of and kicking his feet. By his head the those big handles off the high speed mattress still showed the impact of her spindle machine. He used it to beat them fist. all to death and went back to work in the "An act of "Oh no," she moaned, "I wasn't morning. going to be like that. I always promised Cousin Melvina married at 14, had God," my aunt myself." She started to cry, holding her three kids in two and a half years and said, "Then belly and sobbing. "We an' t no welfare took them all away. She ran off different. We an't no different." with a carnival mechanic, had three more God's got one babies before he left her for a motorcycle Jesse wraps her arm around my acrobat. Welfare took those too. But the damn sick sense stomach, presses her belly into my next baby was hydrocephalic, a little back. I relax against her. "You sure you waterhead they left with her, and the three of humor." can't have children?" she asks. "I sure that followed, even the one she used to would like to see what your kids would hate so — the one she had after she fell off turn out to be like." the porch and couldn't remember whose I stiffen, say, "I can't have children. child it was. I've never wanted children." "How many children do you have," I asked her. "Still," she says, "you're so good with children, so gentle." "You mean the ones I have, or the ones I had?" I think of all the times my hands have curled into fists, when "Four," she told me, "or 11." I have just barely held on. I open my mouth, close it, can't My aunt, the one I was named for, tried to take off to speak. What could I say now? All the times I have not spoken Oklahoma. That was after she'd lost the youngest girl and they before, all the things I just could not tell her, the shame, the told her Bo would never be "right." She packed up biscuits, self-hatred, the fear; all of that hangs between us now — a wall cold chicken, and Coca-Cola, a lot of loose clothes, Cora and I cannot tear down. her new baby, Cy, and the four youngest girls. They set off I would like to turn around and talk to her, say ..."I've got a from Greenville in the afternoon, hoping to make Oklahoma by dust river in my head, a river of names endlessly repeating. the weekend, but they only got as far as Augusta. The bridge That dirty water rises within me, all those children screaming there went out under them. out their lives in my memory — and I become someone else, "An act of God," my uncle said. someone I have tried so hard not to be. But I don't say My aunt and Cora crawled out down river, and two of the anything, and I know, as surely as I know I will never get a girls turned up in the weeds, screaming loud enough to be child, that by not speaking I am condemning us, that I cannot found in the dark. But one of the girls never came up out of that go on loving you and hating you for your fairy tale life, for not dark water, and Nancy, who had been holding Cy, was found asking about what you have no reason to imagine, for that soft- still wrapped around the baby, in the water, under the car. chinned innocence I love." "An act of God," my aunt said, "Then God's got one damn Jesse puts her hands behind my neck, smiles and says, "You sick sense of humor." tell the funniest stories." My sister had her baby in a bad year. Before he was born we I put my hands behind her back, feeling the ridges of my had talked about it. "Are you afraid?" I asked. knuckles pulsing. "He'll be fine," she'd replied, not understanding, speaking "Yeah," I tell her. instead to the other fear. "Don't we have a tradition of "But I lie." 0 bastards?" Dorothy Allison, a native of Greenville, South Carolina, currently He was fine, a classically ugly healthy little boy with that lives in San Francisco but says she misses the South. "A River of shock of white hair that marked so many of us. But afterward, it Names" will appear in Trash, a collection of her short stories to be was that bad year with my sister down with pleurisy, then published this fall by Firebrand Books. cystitis, and no work, no money, having to move back home with my cold-eyed stepfather. I would come home to see her,

54 FALL 1988 Can't Budget

After years of federal cuts and

The stories are pouring in from all hard times, Both states have tried to bolster their over these days. A small town in Geor- failing economies with government gia devastated by two plant closings. West Virginia spending. They were the only Southern Public schools in West Virginia strug- states that exceeded the national aver- gling to pay teachers and buy supplies and Louisiana age for per capita spending last year. for students. Families uprooted from They were also the only Southern states across the South living in tents outside are struggling whose general fund budgets decreased the nation's capital, vying for a hand- in 1987. ful of construction jobs. to make ends The impoverished budgets in both Such stories are far from new: mil- meet states serve as a sort of economic lions of Southerners have been suffer- weather vane, an indication of which ing severe economic hardship since way the wind is blowing. They are the Ronald Reagan came to power in legacy of President Reagan, who drasti- 1980. But as the Reagan years draw to cally cut federal aid to the states and left them to flounder a close, the mainstream media suddenly feels free to cover, through the worst depression since the 1930s. Many analysts say however belatedly, the true extent of the crisis. the budget cuts and hard times will soon catch up with more "The U.S. has been suffering more than a farm crisis or a prosperous states and metropolitan areas. drought, more than a cyclical downturn in the Western resource Budgets, like facts, are stubborn things. In West Virginia and belt," The Wall Street Journal reported this summer. "It is in the Louisiana, the bottom line is written in red ink. As journalists midst of a coast-to-coast, border-to-border collapse of much of Kate Long and Richard Baudouin report in this special section, its rural economy... . In many places, it has been going on for nearly eight years of federal cuts and economic neglect have 10 years, even as the nation's roaring economy brought about a combined to push both states to the brink of bankruptcy. Belea- rebirth of tired cities and enfeebled industries." guered policymakers from the Gulf Coast to the Appalachians Two Southern states have been especially hard hit by the are struggling to respond to the crisis — and some, following crisis. West Virginia and Louisiana, both heavily dependent on Reagan's example, have actually suggested cutting services for the energy industry, have the highest unemployment rates in the poor and taxes for the rich. Clearly, the battleground of state the country, nearly double the national average. Nearly 40,000 budgets goes beyond impersonal figures in a ledger. Behind the people left Louisiana last year alone, and West Virginia has lost numbers lies the reality of millions of Southerners, living in pov- a higher percentage of its population this decade than any other erty and looking for a better deal. state in the nation. The Editors

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 55 rosy pictures of the state budget. The governor's re-election ads proclaim that the state has "turned the corner" and is Almost Broke recovering. In July, Moore actually told the press that the state had finished fiscal year 1988 in the black. Astounded, the auditor and legislative leaders immedi- West Virginia ately contradicted him, citing evidence of a mounting economic crisis. Nobody says federal cuts caused all Is the Mountain State budget a casualty of of West Virginia's problems. Coal em- Reagan' s New Federalism? ployment, the foundation of the state economy, has been in a slump since the late 1970s. The state has lost an esti- By Kate Long mated 62,000 jobs in mining and manu- facturing, and most of the 34,000 jobs it West Virginia never had much fat to for falling $72 million behind in has gained have been low-paying service spare. So when Ronald Reagan first support payments. Without that jobs. In 1985, a huge flood hit the state, started chopping federal dollars from money, schools struggled to pay disrupting state services and small busi- state budgets in 1981, state politicians teachers and buy basic supplies. nesses in 29 counties. went scrambling. West Virginia's entire • In June, the state owed health care Democratic state leaders do say the state budget was only $2.2 billion, so that providers over $100 million in state could have weathered those set- first $63 million whack sliced deep into Medicaid payments. Hospitals and backs if the federal government had not existing state programs. doctors now routinely refuse to also pulled the plug on them. "Without Some states could absorb those first take state insurance and ask state the federal cuts, our nose would not be cuts easily. With large reserves, they employees to pay up front. where it is now, underwater," Farley could live off their fat while they decided • People who sold the state items like said. what to do. States with big tax bases and office equipment and toilet paper Republicans disagree. "There are no comparatively wealthy populations or provided legal services in 1987 federal cuts," Finance and Administra- could raise state taxes without undue still haven't been paid. The legislation Commissioner John McCuskey said hardship. Not West Virginia. It had a ture recently passed a small tax base and no financial cushion. law that says the state Photo courtesy Charleston Gazette Seven years and many federal cuts later, has a "moral obliga- the state is awash in red ink. tion" to pay them. "In many instances, we have not been • Last spring, the high- able to adjust," said Assistant State way commissioner Treasurer Arnold Margolin. "We've sim- warned that about 40 ply had to discontinue programs, forgo percent of the state's building projects, not buy the books for bridges are unsafe, local libraries. You just don't buy the and the state can't books. You don't build the sewer. You afford to fix them. don't repair the bridge. You don't have the financial aid, so someone doesn't go In all, legislative to college. How do you quantify that?" leaders estimate that the Between 1981 and 1987, federal sup- state owed between $240 port to West Virginia dropped from 32 million and $400 million percent of the state budget to 26 percent. in outstanding bills at the If the percentage had stayed the same, end of June. "If we were Margolin said, West Virginia would have a business, we'd be de- received $200 million more federal dol- claring Chapter 11 bank- lars in 1987 alone. ruptcy," said George Two hundred million a year isn't Farley, finance chairman much in federal terms. It would buy one of the House of Dele- MX missile. But $200 million is approxi- gates. mately six percent of the entire West Vir- ginia budget, enough to spell the differ- PROBLEM? ence between red or black ink for a small WHAT PROBLEM? rural state. This year, signs of financial distress In the midst of all this crop up almost every week in state news- alarming news, Republi- papers: can governor Arch Moore and his lieuten- • The public schools sued the state ASSISTANT TREASURER ARNOLD MARGOLIN, A DEMOCRAT, SAYS ants constantly paint FEDERAL CUTS UNDER REAGAN HAVE FORCED THE STATE TO ELIMINATE PROGRAMS.

56 FALL 1988 flatly. "West Virginia actually received doctors and other care providers, not the "That's an amazing statement," Farley more federal dollars in 1987 than it got in state. So the state loses money it could said, pointing out that the state couldn't 1981. So how can anybody talk about have used to ease the strain on other state even afford to match the Medicaid dollars federal cuts?" programs. it needed to pay hospital bills last spring. Assistant Treasurer Margolin, the Unable to replace direct federal cuts, The state has actually contracted with two Democrat who held McCuskey's office the state has significantly reduced or consulting firms to find ways to get more from 1976 to 1984, said his successor is eliminated many essential services for federal dollars. mixing apples and oranges. Yes, the ac- children, the elderly, the mentally ill, and Nobody from the Reagan administra- tual number of federal dollars to the state the disabled. Federal funds for badly tion has expressed concern about West has gone up, Margolin said. But after needed sewers are gone. Local health, Virginia's difficulties, Farley said. seven years of inflation, the federal aid library, and elderly programs have also "They've never offered to help and never West Virginia received in fiscal year been severely reduced. even acknowledged that problems exist," 1987 was actually worth 16 percent less he said. "But maybe it's awkward for than the money the state received in fis- SURVIVAL OF THE RICHEST them to offer help when the governor says cal year 1980. the problems don't exist." Moreover, Margolin said overall fed- "I think West Virginia is part of a Washington's silence frustrates many eral dollars have increased because the handful of states that are more dependent who remember the War on Poverty and worsening economy has forced more on a federal-state partnership, to con- the federal commitment to Appalachia people to sign up for public assistance. tinue the strides that we made in the `60s during the Kennedy-Johnson years. The new federal dollars are due to sharp and `70s," said Margolin. "The rules of "Sometimes I think maybe we should an- increases in programs like food stamps, that partnership changed dramatically in nounce a communist insurgency out here, Medicaid, and Aid to Families with De- 1980, and have continued to this day. so they'd pay attention to what's happen- pendent Children accounts; so the in- And we've had a very difficult time un- ing to us," said Perry Bryant of the West crease is actually one more distress sig- der the new rules." Virginia Education Association. "It's nal. Farley, the House finance chairman, pretty tough watching Reagan push Con- Margolin noted that those additional said the formula for getting federal dol- gress to send hundreds of millions to Cen- public assistance dollars actually cost the lars discriminates against less wealthy tral America's military, knowing what's state money. The state must put up states. "West Virginia can't even afford happening to us. What about the problems matching dollars to get the federal aid, to get all the federal dollars we're en- in our country? What about us?" but the federal dollars go to clients or titled to, because we can't afford to put Problems have trickled down until the up all the match." Under local level is swamped. In 1986, Reagan Photo courtesy Charleston Gazette the rules of Reagan's cut off federal revenue sharing funds. new federalism, West Many West Virginia counties depended Virginia has to pay the on those funds for as much as a third of same match as a wealthy their budgets, using the money to pay for state does, even though it basic services like police, fire, ambu- has less money and lance, prenatal care, nutrition, and librar- needs the federal aid ies. In fiscal year 1988, the state doled out more. Medicaid is now leftover interest on the funds, but this year the only major federal the well is dry. program based on a Ironically, Richard Nixon established state's ability to pay. revenue sharing back in 1972 to send fed- "That's the real prob- eral dollars back to the states. Tax dollars lem I see in the new fed- came from the states, he said, so the feds eral-state relationship," should send back more dollars, with said Margolin. "Many of fewer strings. Reagan has reversed that their policies are based relationship. Today it's less support, more on the mistaken assump- strings. tion that every state has "It really kills me to hear the feds talk the same ability to pay. like that money belongs to them, like Maybe it's easier at the they'd been giving it to us as charity," federal level to do it uni- said Perry Bryant. "But it was always our formly, but it causes in- tax money. Now we're taxed higher, and equities to continue and they've just decided to keep it, while we makes it harder for poor hang out to dry." states to catch up." Again, state Republi- can leaders deny the MORE TAXES, LESS SERVICE problem exists. "To my Reagan took office promising to cut knowledge, West Vir- federal taxes as he withdrew aid. Most ginia is getting just about Americans never got the tax cuts. Instead, FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION COMMISSIONER JOHN every federal dollar it the money was absorbed by interest on MCCUSKEY, A REPUBLICAN, SAYS FLATLY THAT "THERE ARE NO can get," said McCuskey. the national debt, huge federal corporate FEDERAL CUTS."

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 57

Photo by Craig Cunningham/Charleston Daily Mail tax breaks, and the military budget. As a result, most West Virginians now pay higher federal and state taxes and get less service than they did before Reagan was elected. Nobody can say West Virginia hasn't tried to cope. Since 1981, the state's tax effort has increased to 47 percent of the gross state product, according to House finance figures. Although West Virgini- ans rank 49th in per capita income, they now pay taxes slightly above the national average. Most other states have been in financial hot water at some time since the early '80s, especially energy and farm states. Twenty-nine states ended fiscal year 1987 with general fund reserves smaller than the five percent considered prudent, according to the National Con- ference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Small buffers leave states vulnerable to unexpected downswings. Fifteen states A COAL SLUMP HAS CREATED LONG UNEMPLOYMENT LINES, AND FEDERAL CUTS HAVE MADE IT had less than one percent reserves. Eight IMPOSSIBLE FOR WEST VIRGINIA TO RECOVER. were Southern states: Alabama, Arkan- sas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisi- and cuts, and reduced or eliminated serv- and owes tens of thousands of dollars to ana, Texas, and West Virginia. ices. According to the NCSL, 21 other some counties for items like the rental of "Without the federal support, what states also substantially raised taxes in magistrate offices. happens is, you become so much more 1982, the first year after federal cuts hit After losing revenue sharing, many vulnerable to an economic shock that the states. In 1983, more than two-thirds West Virginia counties can't pay all their you previously could absorb or weather," of the states raised at least one tax, for a employees, much less pick up the tab for Margolin said. "Now it's much harder to record $7.5 billion in new state taxes. state or federal responsibilities. It is not deal with any kind of unforeseen eco- West Virginia also conducted a state- the best atmosphere in which to raise nomic downturn." wide property reappraisal which still local fees or taxes. Still, faced with the As West Virginia lost federal funds hasn't gone on the books. Taxpayer loss of basic services, local leaders must and the coal economy faltered, courts groups say it would raise residential either raise money or cut programs also ordered the state to improve its taxes and lower corporate taxes. people need and want. prison, education, health, and mental Financial desperation has provided a In several counties, sheriffs or asses- health systems. To cope, West Virginia favorable breeding ground for other "so- sors have sued county commissioners for raised taxes, slapped on spending freezes lutions" likely to shift the load onto the cutting their budgets. They contend that, average citizen: (1) lowering business since the law requires them to perform taxes, and (2) kicking the problem down- certain duties, commissioners must give THE RISE AND FALL OF stairs to local government. them enough money to do so. Enough FEDERAL AID Business lobbyists traditionally argue money isn't there. So commissioners Federal Aid as % of State-Local Budget that lower business taxes attract new have cut items they have no legal respon- 28 business, despite studies to the contrary. sibility to fund, like health departments 26 In 1987, desperate for new jobs, West and libraries, to pay for mandated serv- Virginia included some rather large loop- ices like law enforcement. 22 - 20 holes in its new business tax law. The "After the fat's gone, you cut into 18 changeover cost the state about $30 mil- muscle, and that's when it gets tough," 16 lion in fiscal year 1988, providing more said Gene Elkins, executive director of 14 12 incentive to kick problems downstairs to the West Virginia Association of County 10 local government whenever possible. Officials. Observers predict that within a few years, both local and state govern- e - ments will be under all manner of court 4 - THE LOCALS GET 2 orders they can't afford to carry out. 0 CLOBBERED Faced with this no-win dilemma, an 53 56 59 62 65 68 71 74 77 80 83 86 So far, West Virginia has forced local unusual number of experienced local Calendar Years government to pay for items like orphan leaders decided not to run for office this est — Based on annual growth in state local expenditures roads, state prisoners, sophisticated com- year. "They say it's just not worth the from 1979-84 (9.3%). hassle," said Elkins. Source ACIR staff compilation based on federal aid puter systems, and certain property tax figures from U.S. Budget, FY 86, Historical Tables, Table reappraisal costs. The state has withheld Clay County Commissioner Don 12.1. State local general expenditures from Census' Government Finance series (annual). tax money that belongs to the counties, Samples decided not to run for re-elec-

58 FALL 1988 tion when the county lost its federal reve- a rate of return of 13 percent on ing of hope here in the '60s and '70s. If nue sharing. "The voters don't blame the state funds. Now he gets only you didn't have much, you still felt you federal government," he said. "They just about eight percent. could do something for yourself if you blame whoever's in office." • As people move away in search of worked hard enough. It's not like that Some local leaders, desperate for jobs, federal aid based on popula- now, but! hope it will be again. I want money, are now more open to options tion drops even further. West Vir- that feeling back." they wouldn't consider before. In rural ginia has lost almost 2.7 percent of Meanwhile, history repeats itself. In Tucker County, for instance, county its population since 1980, the big- the '40s and '50s, millions of Appala- commissioners faced with the loss of gest loss in the nation. As the tax chian people had to leave home to find their emergency dispatch service voted base shrinks, fewer children enroll jobs in Northern cities. People joked to allow an Alabama county to dump in school, and the state is eligible about "the three R's: readin', writin', and hundreds of thousands of tons of out-of- for fewer federal education dollars. the road to Akron." On weekends, thou- state garbage in the county landfill, for a The vicious circle keeps rolling. sands of West Virginians traveled south fee. to go home to the mountains they loved. Republicans like Commissioner Angry Tucker County citizens forced Nothing has changed about the way McCuskey say negative thinking is hurt- a cancellation of the contract. Now the West Virginians love their state. Today ing the state. "The governor didn't make commissioners still have to find money the newspapers report that on Fridays, up those 34,000 [new] jobs," he said. to fund the ambulance dispatch service. thousands of West Virginians travel north And the health department. And the sher- "Everybody isn't leaving the state on the from Southern cities like Charlotte, hillbilly highway. Sure, they're not coal iff. And the library. And the senior citi- going home for the weekend. mining jobs, but service industry jobs are zens programs. With little hope of help still good jobs. And that's the way it's from the state. Kate Long, a West Virginia native, is writ- going in the whole country, not just West ing coach at the Charleston Gazette. She is Virginia." the author of Johnny's Such a Bright Boy, A VICIOUS CIRCLE Perry Bryant of the education asso- What a Shame He's Retarded (Houghton- ciation said he longs for more reason to Barbara Bayes, director of the Char- Mifflin, 1977). think positively. "There was such a feel- leston Legal Aid Society, can list federal policy changes since 1981 that have made it harder for low-income people to get off welfare. The feds now take your medical card soon after you start a job, she says. They have made it tougher to get child care while you work. Drastic The Bayou cuts in low-cost housing. Drastic reductions in student loans. And so forth. Such policies have hurt the state budget too. Every person on public assis- Budget Battle tance costs the state money. When it's harder for people to get back on their feet, it's harder for the state to get back Will Buddy Roemer cut political sleaze on its feet. or populist services? Even the ripple effect of Reagan's federal policies has trapped states like West Virginia in a downward spiral: By Richard Baudouin • When federal dollars go down, state borrowing goes up. High un- A huge bronze statue atop Huey with a gift of oratory every bit as brilliant employment forced West Virginia Long's grave dominates the view from as Long's has promised to remake the to borrow almost $250 million the steps of the state Capitol in down- face of Louisiana state government. from the feds to cover unemploy- town Baton Rouge, a constant reminder Newly-elected Governor Buddy Roemer ment checks. The state sold bonds to lawmakers and bureaucrats of the fiery has completed his first legislative session to pay the feds back. politician who brought about a revolu- —and in just three months he won • Delays cost money. After losing tion in Louisiana in the late 1920s and sweeping changes in the areas of eco- Appalachian highway funds and early 1930s. Five decades after his death, nomic development, labor-management sewer funds, West Virginians the spectre of Huey Long still holds sway relations, campaign finance, and educa- watched with dismay as construc- over government in the Bayou State. An tion. tion costs soared. "By the time we assassin's gun may have cut short Long's But while Roemer has made revolu- get the money to build the sewers, meteoric rise to power, but his populist tion look easy in Louisiana during his we won't be able to afford them," philosophy has survived that bullet. first seven months in office, his progress Margolin said. Some 43 years after Long's bullet- in the area of state fiscal planning has • With less money to invest, the state ridden body fell to the floor of the capitol been somewhat slower. He has managed generates less interest on state building he constructed, those marble to bring the state budget into balance, no funds. In 1986, Margolin oversaw halls are witnessing another erstwhile mean feat given the economic problems revolution. A bright young politician the state faces. But he is still at the very

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 59 beginning stages of his effort to restruc- legacy during brief periods when they • A centralized state government ture and redirect the way Louisiana gov- controlled the governor's office or the dominated by a powerful governor. ernment spends its money. legislature. But the political heirs of the • A comprehensive program of gov- Remaking the face of government in man who called himself the Kingfish ernment action to provide road con- the state poses a tricky dilemma, because have always out-smarted, out-politicked, struction, education, and social populism in Louisiana has two faces. One and outlasted the foes of populism. services for the poor and sick. is the face of activist government, of hu- Well into the 1980s, Louisiana gov- • Paying for it with heavy taxes on man services for the poor and fair taxation ernment still operated according to the business, particularly the oil and of business and industry. The other is the principles articulated by Huey Long gas industry which has flourished in face of corruption, of cynical politicians when he and his army of sharecroppers, the state since the turn of the cen- who use populist rhetoric as a smoke- workers, and yeoman farmers seized tury. screen while they staff agencies with their power from the state's Bourbon aristoc- cronies and feather the nests of their allies racy in 1928. The central tenets of that From 1977 to 1982, severance taxes in with lucrative consulting contracts. philosophy were: Louisiana (which include revenues from Today, many in the state remain suspi- natural gas production) increased from cious of Roemer and his Photo by Patrick DennislState-Times and Morning Advocate $492 million to $980 mil- calls for reform. Progres- lion annually. Addition- sives say they have little ally, the royalties, rentals, sympathy for a reform and bonuses which the movement whose hidden government earned from agenda seems less the ra- production of oil and gas tionalization of services on state-owned lands in- than a retreat from a his- creased from $205.6 mil- torical commitment to the lion to $653.4 million. poor. When reformers The revenues from talk of tax restructuring, mineral extraction were a they are not as concerned politician's dream. They with creating a stable and financed a massive pro- growth-oriented base as gram of public works con- with reducing the revenue struction and human serv- burden on business and ices with no pain for ordi- industry. nary citizens. Energy com- Which side will panies merely passed Buddy Roemer ally him- along severance taxes to self with as he attempts to consumers in other parts of shake the foundations of the country, and Louisiana Louisiana government? residents pay almost no Will his Roemer Revolu- sales or property taxes. tion be a bayou version of But in mid-1982, the the Reagan Revolution — boom went to bust. Inter- making life better for national overproduction those at the top end of the glutted energy markets, economic scale at the ex- and prices began to fall. As pense of those at the bot- exploration and drilling tom? Or will he bring a for new energy slacked measure of competence to off, Louisiana companies the management of state which provided services government — cutting and products for the oil the cronyism and sleaze and gas industry began to without sacrificing com- lay off workers. passion and quality in State mineral revenues human services? fell almost as dramatically as they had risen. By the end of fiscal year 1987, the THE KINGFTSH combined total of sever- LEGACY ance taxes and royalties Buddy Roemer is not was down to $714 million, the first governor to at- a decrease of almost 150 tempt to eradicate the in- percent from the high fluence of Huey Long point of 1982. from state budget policy. Republican Dave Generations of reformers A HUGE STATUE ATOP HUEY LONG'S GRAVE DOMINATES THE VIEW FROM THE Tre-en, who was governor have chipped away at his STEPS OF THE STATE CAPITOL THE FORMER GOVERNOR HELPED BUILD. when the bottom fell out,

60 FALL 1988 ostensibly believed in reform, but he did exhausted and out-foxed Edwards with- spending levels and priorities," Roemer not command the political resources to drew from the race after running second said. cope with the dramatic turnaround in the in the primary, and Roemer was declared That debate was joined during three state's fortunes. Edwin Edwards, who the winner. Edwards then invited the months of stormy committee meetings beat Treen in 1983, was a philosophical governor-elect to put his own team in and floor wrangling over Roemer's populist unwilling to change patterns of immediate control of the state budget spending plans. Now, the eloquent gov- taxation and spending. The result was a The revolution against the past was un- ernor's heated rhetoric has been trans- state budget that was literally out of con- der way. Reformers looked eagerly to- lated into the cold numbers of a budget trol. ward the dismantling of the Long legacy document with his name on it. On top of that, Edwards was twice in Louisiana. But since getting his scrub brush on indicted on charges that he used his in- BEYOND THE RHETORIC fluence to steer state hospital business to the budget last December, Roemer has some of his cronies and rake in $10 mil- found that it will take Some pretty strong How close did he come to achieving lion in the process. Efforts at fiscal re- soap to clean things up. He discovered the idealistic goals he set out in his pub- form were stymied. By mid-1987, with immediately that the stain of red ink was lic statements? Roemer officials are put- its image again tarnished in the national Photo by Judi LadousalTimes of Aco4iana ting an optimistic spin on the budget, but media, Louisiana was teetering on the the imprint of fiscal reform on the new brink of bankruptcy. document is very faint. Roemer did man- Out of the wreckage of the Edwards age to cut spending by $500 million. But administration emerged a governor un- he was also forced to raise over $500 like any who had preceded him in the last million in taxes and fees to help retire the 50 years. As a U.S. Representative from accumulated debt and bring the $7.9 bil- northwest Louisiana, Buddy Roemer had lion budget into balance. been a card-carrying Boll Weevil Demo- Where those cuts will be made is still crat who supported Ronald Reagan's unclear. Even Roemer admirers charge conservative tax and budget policies. But that the new budget is a very vague docu- his pedigree was somewhat at odds with ment which spells out few specifics. That the political position he staked out in the ambiguity would have drawn severe 1980s. criticism if Edwin Edwards had tried to foist it off on the legislature, but independent-minded legislators who might ROEMER TO THE RESCUE have protested were silent. Buddy Roemer is the son of Charles "The budget that we had this year was Roemer II, who served as administrative very general. It was not nearly as de- strongman for Edwin Edwards during his tailed as it should have been. There was first two terms in office. As commis- not enough information ... from a pro- sioner of administration, the elder Ro- grammatic point of view," said Mark emer controlled the state budget and pre- Drennen, president of the Public Affairs sided over the collection and dispersion Research Council, a leading voice for Gov. ROEMER SAYS HE WANTS TO "SCRUB" of billions of dollars in revenues. THE STATE BUDGET CLEAN, BUT SOME FEAR HE change in Louisiana. "A lot of those of us By the time he entered the governor's PLANS TO HELP THE RICH AND HURT THE POOR. who wanted to cut the budget are getting race last year as a darkhorse candidate, the results that we wanted. But the proc- Buddy Roemer had long since split po- much more pernicious than he thought ess that we wanted to get there is not litically from his father, who was con- during the campaign. His administrative being used. We are relying on the good victed in 1980 of accepting a bribe from team found bills going unpaid, dedicated graces of the governor." an FBI informant posing as an insurance funds being raided for general opera- Cochran says the bulk of spending executive in the federal sting operation tional expenses, and barely enough cash reductions will come in the area of per- known as Brilab. The younger Roemer to make payroll each week. sonnel — the budget calls for slicing the called for a Louisiana revolution against By the time he took office on March state's 73,457 government jobs by 7,000 the politics of the past. He racked up po- 15, Roemer was claiming, with some positions. Exactly what positions will be litical capital by calling the state budget a hyperbole, that the state faced a deficit of cut will be left up to those who run state "joke" and promising to "scrub" away $2 billion — including accumulated agencies. "The best way to do it was to wasteful and unnecessary spending. He shortfalls of $1.3 billion from the Treen give them this mandate: 'Here's how picked on a variety of politically un- and Edwards administrations. "The much money you have to run your de- popular state programs as he talked problems were much larger than we ex- partment, — said Cochran. "We did try about ways to cut the budget by $300 pected them to be," said Chief of Staff and provide as much flexibility for man- million. He almost made it sound easy. Steve Cochran, an architect of the gover- agers as we can." Trailing in fifth place for most of the nor's budget strategy. The new budget eliminates few serv- race, Roemer's tough talk finally caught Despite the surprises, Roemer hung ices outright— only two state police on in the fall. His candidacy was ignited tough on the need to break with Louisi- troops, a number of driver's license bu- by a series of newspaper endorsements ana spending tradition. "Now is not the reaus, and several miscellaneous state across the state as he jumped into the time to talk taxes, but rather is a once in a agencies will be closed. "We didn't do lead in the last week of the campaign. An lifetime opportunity to debate essential away with any programs. We didn't

SOUTIIERN EXPOSURE 61 merge anything," said state Representa- In recent years, as the Reagan admini- opposition to the charity hospitals, and to tive Raymond Laborde, a member and stration has cut federal aid to the state, the human services program as a whole. former chairman of the House Appro- charity hospitals have been an important They suggested that the sprawling De- priations Committee. "[Roemer] found safety net for the working poor — indi- partment of Health and Human Re- out that the budget had been cut a lot al- viduals who have no private insurance sources bureaucracy be targeted as a ready. The campaign rhetoric was gone." but make too much money to qualify for prime starting point for budget cuts. Ro- Medicaid programs. emer responded with a two-pronged pro- But political support for charity hos- posal to close or shift control of several HAND-TO-HAND pitals often stems not from the services hospitals, and to privatize others on an COMBAT they provide the poor, but from the jobs experimental basis. Both plans failed. Beyond the short-term efforts to deal they provide constituents. Some legisla- Roemer proposed closing a charity with the current crisis, Roemer has made tors have resisted health care innova- hospital in Tangipahoa Parish. But the only halting first steps toward perma- tions, fearing that more efficient services facility happened to be located in the dis- nently redirecting the way Louisiana would lead to layoffs in their districts. trict of the powerful chairman of the Sen- spends its money. In three critical areas, Many Roemer supporters — espe- ate Finance Committee, a key figure in which account for well over 50 percent cially conservatives and business inter- Roemer's effort to pass his legislative of state spending, he has had little suc- ests — have used these flaws to whip up program. That senator exercised his con- cess in achieving the goals which budget siderable clout, and funding for the hos- reformers have talked about for years. pital reappeared in the final budget — albeit with a warning that the hospital Health Care. Programs and facilities had to increase its efficiency. which care for the poor and sick are a Roemer also wanted to turn another frequent battleground between populists charity hospital in Lake Charles over to a and fiscal reformers. Health care and regional governing board. But the gover- social services account for about a quar- nor backed away from the plan after op- ter of state spending annually, but such ponents called it the first step towards programs were virtually untouched by withdrawing state support for the hos- the budget. pital. While a demonstrable concern for the The administration also had little luck less fortunate is a legacy of the Huey in privatizing state services. Some Ro- Long years, his heirs have often used the emer backers argued that private firms system for less altruistic reasons. The could run charity hospitals and other fa- poor often become pawns in a game of cilities more efficiently than the state, power politics: services are provided and but no legislation was passed to try the then retracted in an attempt to mobilize approach. "We got our butt handed to us large blocks of voters. A popular gambit on that," admitted Cochran. of past governors confronted by a budget-cutting legislature was to close Higher Education. Louisiana oper- down a popular program such as kidney ates a far-flung system of colleges and dialysis, knowing the outcry that would universities which often duplicate pro- result. grams and dilute financial resources. But Support for the poor has also served in Roemer's first budget, funding for the as a cover for actions which benefited higher education system came in for business interests at the expense of tax- little scrutiny other than a failed attempt payers. For example, legislators have to merge all state campuses under one long resisted efforts to allow generic board. Roemer's initial spending plan drugs to be prescribed for indigent pa- would have closed two junior colleges in tients covered by the Medicaid program. Shreveport and New Orleans, but those Their purported reason was concern for terminations were revoked after some quality — but in reality many were moti- political maneuvering. vated by the entreaties of pharmaceutical The future of higher education in manufacturers interested in the high Louisiana is now inextricably linked to a profits which name-brand drugs gener- federal court order which calls for inte- ate. grating state colleges and universities. The Charity Hospital system is an- Roemer apparently plans to use the rul- other good case in point. Louisiana oper- ing to revive his plan to consolidate all ates a huge network of full-service health governing of higher education under one care institutions which provide free treat- board. Once control is achieved, Roemer ment for the state's poor. The origins of hopes to revamp funding for state the system can be traced back to colonial campuses. Photos by Guy Reynolds! State-Times and Morning times, but its expansion began under Advocate Elementary and Secondary Huey Long and has continued under As LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY OPENED THIS populist governors that succeeded him. FALL... Education. Roemer officials point to

62 FALL 1988 this area as their biggest success in re- But passage will require a two- Although Roemer has made great structuring the relationship between state thirds vote from the legislature and strides in his first seven months in office, and local government. Historically, Baton support from voters in a statewide he has yet to address some serious under- Rouge has provided most of Louisiana's referendum, tentatively scheduled lying issues of state budgetary policy. education spending, paying for a large for December. That remains a Nor has he staked out a middle ground percentage of teacher salaries as well as dicey proposition. between politicians who want to pre- non-instructional items like school buses serve the present inefficient system of So far, most veteran budget reformers and food services. human services at all costs and fiscal are impressed with the quality of the ad- Roemer's initial budget completely conservatives who have uncontrolled ministration's effort to bring state spend- eliminated state support for such items. budget-slashing as their hidden agenda. ing under control. "What he has achieved He eventually agreed to fund them for Still to be answered by Roemer, in con- in the short time in office has truly been one year at a slightly reduced level, after junction with the legislature, are such remarkable," said former state Represen- which responsibility for the services questions as: tative Jock Scott, who fought a frustrat- would shift to local school boards. Should we care for the indigent and ing and ultimately losing battle to re- "Our fundamental belief is that an treat the mentally and physically handi- structure the state budget during the educational system ought to be done at a capped primarily through large institu- Edwards administration. local level," Cochran said. "I think we tions, or should we decentralize those have made great strides in implementing functions and provide services at the this philosophy and having the budget community level? reflect what we are trying to accomplish." Will turning services over to private Although local boards understand that companies compromise the quality of they are on their own after this year, care and reduce the level of state com- knowing that buses and food services are mitment? up to them and actually paying for them How can the state give all citizens an are two different things. "They are aware equal opportunity to attend college, but of it, but they say, 'How are we going to still allow some campuses to pursue do it? We don't have the money, — state more advanced missions such as primary Representative Laborde said. research and education of gifted students? How many colleges do we actually need to get the most bang for our THE NEXT CHALLENGE higher education buck? Roemer's flair for the dramatic and If financing of elementary and secon- tremendous self-confidence have raised dary education is best provided at the new hope among budget reformers that he local level, how do we ensure that poor will be able to dismantle the worst of the parishes do not fall irretrievably behind Long legacy in Louisiana. But after his more affluent urban areas? first major legislative tests, he has yet to How do we maximize revenues from repudiate that inheritance. the extraction of minerals — a depleting, non-renewable resource without be- • Roemer shows no signs of diminish- coming overly dependent on this form of ing the power of the executive taxation as we have done in the past? branch. Indeed, he has asked for Buddy Roemer is in a unique position and received tremendous authority to force this debate. While he has clearly over fiscal matters, prompting com- thrown in his lot with fiscal conserva- parisons in some quarters with the tives in state politics, he has paid at least Kingfish himself. lip service to the need for compassion • Roemer must still design a legisla- and concern for the less fortunate. He has tive package which restructures begun to address, if tentatively, some of how state government provides the questions posed above. human services. His attempts dur- But to negotiate successfully the ing the first session encountered tightrope between the populists and fis- tremendous political obstacles. cal conservative elements in Louisiana, • To be sure, Roemer is confronting Roemer must commit much more of his Louisiana's tax system: a massive political capital to the effort. Restructur- program to shift the burden of taxa- ing the budget is the most complex issue tion from businesses to individuals Roemer faces — and the most important was scheduled to be presented to a issue to the future of the state. The real special session of the legislature in trial by fire of his governing skills is yet October. The proposed legislation to commence. would cut state sales taxes, raise personal income taxes, and gradu- Richard Baudouin is editor of The Times of Acadiana in Lafayette, Louisiana. ally increase property taxes on ... GOVERNOR ROEMER WAS STUDYING HOW homes valued at under $75,000. TO CUT SCHOOL SPENDING.

SOUTIIERN EXPOSURE 63 CLOSER TO HOME LIGHTEN UP WHAT SOUTH? I was very moved by the stark and I would like to see the magazine be- For several months I've been mulling powerful pictures in "Unsettling Images: come a little less serious. I would like to over a theme for an issue of Southern Portrait of American Agriculture" (SE see articles about some of the stars we Exposure. The issue would be entitled Vol. XVI, No. 1). I applaud your creative have in the South, and some nostalgic something like, "Is the South Still South- interspersing of messages from farm ad- pieces on little pockets scattered about. ern?" vocates with photographs from the For instance, the McGowin family in a The "South" means so many things to "Manifest Destiny" exhibit of the Rural town of 2,000 in Butler County all went people. To some it has to do with the Advancement Fund. to Oxford. A story about English life as cooking, the music, the Southern accent, Nevertheless, I became more and they lived it in the Black Belt could be the slow pace of life and the sound of more dismayed as I checked out the cap- fun. cicadas at night. It is about how people tions on the photographs: Maine, New You need more short fiction to make live, how they talk to each other, how York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, it more of a people's magazine. As it is, it they treat their relatives. To others, the Nevada. I started feeling betrayed: Hey! is valuable for students, but for the gen- South is history, politics, race, oppres- What's going on in this "new" Southern eral public there isn't that much to read. sion. Class, race, sex, age, and where one Exposure? You should become more of an outlet for grew up obviously have a lot to do with Although the editor's eloquent intro- writers, of which there are tons in the what one thinks of when they talk about duction provided the rationale for con- South. "the South." necting Southern rural/agricultural tradi- Marie S. Jemison John Shelton Reed, a sociologist at tion to national policies, other powerful Birmingham, Ala. the University of North Carolina, has issues of Southern Exposure have fo- written about where the South is. (He studied the yellow pages of phone books cused on national topics like health care, GROWING STRONGER working women, nuclear power, toxic looking at where companies stopped waste, and clean water without claiming It is hard to describe what Southern calling themselves "Southern this 'n' that "regional distinctions pale compared Exposure means to me. Except to say that" and started calling themselves to the larger problem." everything. How I wish it were published "Western... ." Such is the state of sociol- Please. I implore you not to move every month! ogy.) But does the South, no matter away from the South like that again. I've learned so much about my par- where it is or what it is, still exist? How Southern Exposure has always been ents and grandparents and great grand- much change do we have to experience totally, preciously "our" publication. It parents from your pages. I read and en- before we are forced to conclude that the extracts and highlights what is uniquely joy every page from cover to cover. I also South is no long Southern? Southern — all the stuff that gets dis- keep every issue and read again for those Cary Fowler missed, bypassed, and belittled else- "drought" months when no issues are Pittsboro, N.C. where. Stuff that gets swallowed by the coming. We welcome letters from our readers. larger economic or "policy" issues — Last night, while reading the "Older Send your comments and criticisms to The never mind the cultural perspectives. Wiser Stronger" issue (SE Vol. XIII, No. Last Word, Southern Exposure, P.O. Box Let's keep the focus — the portraits 2-3), I found an article about my beloved 531, Durham, NC 27702. Please be sure to — on us, and celebtate the many other aunt, Nancy Washburn. She's 89 now — include your name, address, and daytime struggling and proud groups that we as alert as ever, involved, growing telephone number, and try to hold letters to Southerners feel close to within a region- stronger. I phoned her up and read the no more than 250 words. Longer letters may al context. article to her. She was delighted, and be edited for length. Len Stanley wishes me to thank you. Durham, N.C. I am enclosing a check for you to send her a one-year subscription. I should mention that Nancy Washburn is blind now, but I finally convinced her that you need our support. Frances Ram Jonesboro, Ga.

64 FALL 1988 ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE U.S.: History and Consequences An International Conference Harvard University November 11 - 13, 1988 Gay News, Join:

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