Mother of SC Pride

Harriet Hancock Mother of SC Pride

Becci Robbins

1 Harriet Hancock

Harriet Hancock and her son, Greg Hancock

2 Mother of SC Pride

Thankb you Jim Blanton Brett Bursey Mandy Carter Kyle Criminger Bert Easter Bill Edens Greg Hancock Harriet Hancock Karen Hancock Klocko Dr. Ed Madden Sheila Morris Pat Patterson Victoria Reed Tony Snell Rodriguez Rev. Tom Summers Jennifer Tague 789

Cover photo: Jeff Amberg, Jeff Amberg Photography, Columbia SC Booklet design: Becci Robbins

This booklet is a project of the SC Progressive Network Education Fund, made possible by a grant from the Richland County Conservation Commission.

Printed 2016

3 Harriet Hancock

At first glance, she might seem an people living with HIV in a state that was unlikely conscript, but appearances can slow to respond to the pandemic. be deceiving. Under that stylish exterior beats the heart of a true warrior. PALSS was chronically underfunded, the case load overwhelming, and the work Harriet was fighting for the gay commu- emotionally crushing. A driven staff and nity before it coined the acronym LGBT an army of trained volunteers provided arriet Hancock (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender). She practical and emotional support to some joined the battle to defend her son Greg, of the state’s most critical patients. They has braved the who came out to her in 1981, but she soldiered on, knowing that if they didn’t meanH trenches of America’s stayed for his friends and their families, do it nobody else would. who would become hers. culture wars for more than In an effort to challenge stigma and 30 years. Back then, there was no map for the road stereotypes, Harriet led organizing efforts she was traveling. She read the books for South Carolina’s first gay Pride Greg recommended, and talked to him march, held on a muggy June morning Armed with her clipboard with an open heart and mind. Suspecting in 1990. Holding her son’s hand, she led that other parents might benefit from her 2,000 marchers down Main Street and and unrelenting optimism, experience, Harriet started a chapter of onto the State House grounds. Columbia she spearheaded South Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians had never seen anything like it. and Gays (PFLAG) in Columbia, the Carolina’s gay rights first in the Southeast. It was a bold move, The night before, Harriet was awakened movement at a time when given the hostile climate. “I was afraid by a phone call from a man who warned someone was going to burn a cross on my that there would be blood in the streets that carried real risk. lawn,” she said. and it would be her fault. The call shook her, but didn’t stop her. It was the beginning of her life as an Hate mail. Lost friends. advocate for some of South Carolina’s Nothing has. Over the years, she has The judgment of neighbors. most vulnerable and vilified citizens. testified in court and in the legislature, has marched and rallied, written letters Late-night calls from In 1985, during the early, dark days of and living wills, and raised money and threatening strangers. the AIDS crisis—when a diagnosis was a awareness. She has called in to talk death sentence—Harriet helped establish shows and called out lawmakers. She has Condemnation from the Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services served countless hours on panels, boards church. (PALSS) to meet the critical needs of and committees. And for all those public 4 Mother of SC Pride

PALSS Director Bill Edens meets with Harriet in the Columbia office that was ground zero in the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Edens, who worked the first year without pay, died of AIDS in 1993. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest civilian honor.

5 Harriet Hancock Harriet Hancock acts, there have been untold private ones Although she appreciated the new clothes “one of the kindest, most giving people spent parenting the motherless, tending her mother’s job afforded, Harriet wished in the world. Even though we were not the sick, and mourning the dead. for a mother like her friends had, there wealthy, we shared what we had. I like to when she returned from school. Instead, think I’m like him.” But of all her acts of courage, perhaps she and her sister were charged with the bravest was when she finally decided caring for their younger siblings while Educated in segregated schools but the to leave a violent husband, packing her their parents worked. While she may not daughter of parents who taught her that children into the family station wagon have liked the arrangement, her mother’s she was no better than anyone else, Har- in the middle of the night and going into example surely shaped Harriet’s ideas riet was sensitive to race and the privilege hiding. about women’s ability to make their own that granted—or denied. way in the world. In hindsight, it was the defining decision “I was raised in the South in a time when of her life, the singular act from which Harriet credits her father with teach- you had separate drinking fountains for so much good came. She couldn’t know ing her to recognize the humanity in all whites and blacks, and I always rebelled it then, but when she finally stood up people. “He was a great man,” she said, against that,” she said. “I can remember for herself, she made it when blacks had to sit in the possible for many others back of the bus, and I’d get on to do the same—including and sit in the back with them. her son, who said he doubts The bus driver would put me he would have come out if off. So I started early on, I it meant facing his father’s guess.” wrath. She graduated from Columbia Carolina Girl High School in 1954. Her yearbook, filled exclusively Harriet was born on Sept. with white faces, is signed by 25, 1936, into a middle- friends who call her “sweet” and class family in Columbia, Harriet Hancock “cute” and “swell.” She was a the second of four children. member of the Glee Club and Her father, Adam Daniels, Junior Homemakers of America. was a tire salesman from There is no hint of the woman Timmonsville. Her mother, she would become—except this: Elizabeth McCabe Dan- the quote under her name that iels, worked full-time in a Diane (left) and Harriet (holding her hand) at the church next door to reads “The hand that hath made department store. their grandmother’s house on Huger Street in Columbia. you fair hath made you good.” 6 Mother of SC Pride Harriet Hancock Elizabeth McCabe Daniels worked outside the home in an era when that was not the norm. Pictured here (from left) are her children Diane, Walter, and Harriet. Her youngest, Hylon, was born after this portrait was made.

7 a

Harriet Hancock

Harriet Hancock’s ancestors were had prominent neighbors, especially the Hampton and Taylor families, he did not South Carolina patriots and pioneers appear in the limelight.”

arriet’s family tree is deeply the State. He was a member of the first Legend has it that while cleaning his rooted in the Carolina and second provincial congresses, and musket he accidentally shot and killed his soil. HOn her maternal side, she is a was appointed a justice of the peace for sister. He laid her to rest on a grassy knoll descendant of Col. Thomas Taylor, a the Camden District in 1776. He joined overlooking a pond. That land came to Revolutionary War patriot Col. Thomas Sumter as captain be known as Kelly Cemetery, one of the known as the father of after the fall of Charlestown. oldest burial sites in Richland County and Columbia. He also served in the militia among the largest family cemeteries in during 1779. the state, with more than 400 graves. “The Taylor family’s plantation, ‘The Plains,’ “When Col. Sumter was sur- Many of Harriet’s ancestors are buried was located on much of prised at Fishing Creek, Taylor there, in what Lynn describes as “a small what became the city of was captured and wounded spot of serenity in the midst of a busy Columbia in 1786,” said with a sabre after he surren- city. The famed Southern writer James John Sherrer of Historic dered, but managed to escape Dickey, who lived nearby, was known to stroll through from time to time.” 9 Columbia. “The family’s Col. Thomas Taylor as they were being marched to house once stood at the Camden.” intersection of Barnwell and Richland streets, and is featured in The paternal side of Harriet’s the 1872 bird’s-eye map of Columbia. family also were early settlers Hampton Street formerly was called in the Midlands, tracing back Plain Street to acknowledge the fam- to Thomas Harwell, a Virginia ily’s former holdings.” native who bought a 640-acre parcel on the western side Taylor was a key architect in design- of Gills Creek to establish a ing Columbia, one of the country’s homestead in 1784. first planned cities. His plantation was the site of many gatherings and In “The Heirs of Harwell,” celebrations, noted Edwin L. Green Mark J. Lynn writes, “The in his 1932 book A History of Richland life and background of County. “Thomas Taylor was one of the Thomas Harwell is shrouded most influential men in this section of in mystery. Although Harwell 8 Mother of SC Pride

At the tender age of 18 and The days were bright and full of Many ticket-holders didn’t make it to fresh out of school, Harriet promise. the Gator Bowl, where the band refused married Marion Hancock, to perform until the promoter agreed to who had just returned from a It was, Harriet recalls, a happy allow a mixed crowd. “We never play to Navy deployment in Korea. time in their lives. “Cocoa Beach segregated audiences,” John Lennon told After he graduated in 1959 was like a boom town. It was so reporters. (Karen remembers her mother from the University of South carefree, like living a long vaca- calling 16 years later, when Lennon was Carolina with an engineering tion. It was exciting.” murdered. “She was heartbroken.”) degree, he took a job with the electronics company RCA in New Jersey. Greg’s earliest memories are from Florida, where the family was The move challenged Harriet’s sheltered, part of a tight-knit community small-town sensibilities. from RCA. “Those were She said, “I had never seen the good years,” he said, a traffic circle.” She was, remembering his parents in she discovered, quite naïve. the prime of their lives. “In “I think moving was the the 60s, they were young best thing to happen to me, and beautiful. They were because it broadened my working on the space pro- views about a lot of things. gram. They built bonfires People at RCA were from all on the beach and watched over the country. the launches.”

“I had been educated in South Carolina, Karen also remembers those which didn’t necessarily tell the truth years with fondness. Among about the Civil War. So when her memories is the time I went up North, I thought I Harriet took her to see was going to the land where The Beatles on their first people were horrible, only to U.S. tour. Karen was in find out I was really wrong.” second grade. They drove three hours, just the two of When the family moved to them, under tense condi-

Florida in 1961, they had tions. The concert had photos courtesy of Harriet Hancock two small children—Karen, been delayed after a major then 6, and 1-year-old Greg. hurricane hit Florida. Adam Daniels with daughters Harriet and Diane

9 Harriet Hancock

The easy, sunny days in said. “A lot of the violence Florida would dim, the good of my father was directed times becoming less frequent at my mother—unless we as Harriet’s husband spiraled got in the way. So when Harriet Hancock deeper into alcoholism. we left, it was a relief. As the illness worsened, I didn’t care where we his behavior became more stayed.” erratic, his mood more volatile and dangerous. When Harriet finally left, her third child, Jennifer, The family hid their prob- was 11. Karen was in lems. “This was the 1970s, college, and Greg was in when alcoholism was thought high school. Her husband to affect Skid Row bums, was beyond reach. not people in the suburbs,” Karen said. “It was our dirty “I had done all I could to little secret.” Satellite Beach, Florida help him,” Harriet said. “I left and came back home “Things gradually deteriorated,” Harriet to Columbia a broken person. I had to said. “The kids walked on eggshells save myself and my kids.” because you could never tell what he was going to do.” Karen is proud of her mother’s resolve and resilience during a time when there “It was always tense,” Greg said. “We were few resources for battered women. Harriet were always waiting for the other shoe to “When she left, she had no money, no and Greg, drop, the other plate to fly off the table.” skills, nobody to help her. She struggled. Cocoa The unpredictability was exhausting. I don’t know how she did it.” Beach, Florida, “I don’t mean to sound dramatic,” he Harriet’s only job experience was 1961 said, “but it had gotten so bad we knew working as a hairdresser to help put her we probably weren’t going to get out of husband through college. She had wanted there alive.” to go herself, but her husband’s insecurity dashed any of her aspirations that might Greg had played the role of the family threaten his control. “He was the jealous, peacemaker. “I was Mom’s defender,” he insecure type,” she said.

Harriet Hancock 10 Mother of SC Pride

After he died, succumbing to alcoholism the car.’ We hugged, we talked, we cried. When she told her brother what she’d dis- not long after Harriet left, she had the We stayed up half the night reassuring covered, Jennifer said, “He looked like a money and the freedom to go to college. each other.” deer in the headlights.” “I couldn’t wait to go back to school,” she said. “Things were not easy, but I Three words, and the family they once They struck a deal. She promised to keep loved every minute of it. Greg was in knew ceased to be. The trajectory of their his secret if he granted her access to school at the same time. We had a botany lives was about to change in ways they his bedroom and its perks: a vast music class together. I thought it was great; he could never have imagined. collection and stash of art supplies. “I thought it was his worst nightmare.” was 12 years old with dirt on my older Harriet tried to downplay the shock of the sibling,” Jennifer said. “Wouldn’t you Harriet excelled in college, making the moment, but Greg suspected that she was blackmail him?” dean’s list, earning a scholarship, and just trying to protect graduating magna cum laude from the him. “She was wor- Karen was away at University of South Carolina in 1984 ried about what the college and newly with a degree in sociology. world was going married when Greg to do to her child,” came out. Not know- She would find law school more he said. “But she ing what to do, she challenging. “It was difficult and took time to educate wrote “I Love You” competitive,” she said. She struggled her herself. ” on an envelope and first year, then found her stride. “There’s mailed it to her this saying that the first year you’re Greg had come out brother. scared to death, the second year you’re earlier to his aunt Harriet Hancock worried to death, and by the third year Diane—Harriet’s After the family had you’re bored to death—ready to get out.” broad-minded sister—who kept his con- time to process the fact that Greg was fidence for a year. “She kept trying to fix gay—Harriet compares it to the stages “Mom, I’m Gay.” me up with girls,” he said, “and I got so of death—they came together in a united tired of going on those dates, I had to tell front to protect him, becoming his strong- Harriet remembers the night in 1981 my aunt so she’d stop setting me up.” est allies. when Greg finally found the courage to say, “Mom, I’m gay.” Diane wasn’t the first in the family to While her love for him never wavered, know; Jennifer had already found out. Harriet was anxious when Greg first “I could see tears welling up in his eyes,” After moving to Columbia, she fell in came out, afraid of how others might she said. “He was hurting so bad I had to with a circle of friends who, like her, treat him. “I worried that he would have say something to diffuse the situation. So didn’t fit in. The group included a gay no friends. He assured me that he did, I said, ‘Is that all? I thought you wrecked boy who let it slip that Greg was gay, too. that gay folks who had been shunned by

11 Harriet Hancock their families come together to create was supposed to last an hour, but at parents of gay children come closest to their own family. And, sure enough, it 7 o’clock the guests were still in her understanding what it means to be gay in turned out he did have a family.” living room. “I told my sister ‘I think America. we need to feed these people, because Harriet grew to love Greg’s friends, and they’re not going home.’ It was the first Parents have a unique perspective and was grieved by their stories of being time they had anyone to talk to about this. platform when it comes to advocating for bullied at school, unwelcome in their Some of them were sharing for the first gay rights, Carter said. She is moved by churches, even banished from their own time in their lives. It was wonderful.” the parents who stand by their children. homes. She said, “They would say things like, ‘You’re the best mom in the world. North Carolina gay rights activist Mandy She said, “Every time I am at Pride and My mother doesn’t accept me. What can Carter, who cofounded the regional I see someone in a T-shirt that says ‘I you do to help her understand?’” LGBT organization Southerners On New love my gay son’ or ‘I love my lesbian Ground (SONG), mentored Harriet in her daughter,’ I get tears because these are It was a question she took to heart. She early years as a community organizer. people saying ‘This is me, too,’ and ‘I’m began looking for a way to help the Carter said that—as straight people—the willing to put myself on the line.’ families of gay people by sharing what she had learned in the process of coming to terms with her son. “There was a tremendous need,” she said.

She discovered the national organization Harriet Hancock PFLAG, dedicated to educating and supporting the families of gays and lesbians, and decided to start a chapter in Columbia in 1980. It was a risky move, considering the times.

After the local newspaper ran a story on Harriet’s plans, she said her phone started ringing. “They were teachers, health care workers, ministers. More of the calls were positive than negative.”

The first PFLAG meeting was held on a Harriet celebrates her graduation from the University of South Carolina School of Law in Sunday afternoon at Harriet’s house. It 1988 with her children Jennifer, Karen and Greg. 12 USC SC Political Collections Mother of SC Pride

ike most chapters of “And when I think about Harriet Parents, Families and and people like her in the South— FriendsL of Lesbians and Gays, are you kidding me? It’s profound. the Spartanburg group was Unbelievable.” started by the mother of a gay son. But Liz Patterson was more Carter’s admiration for her friend of high profile than most. The only three decades is clear. “Who knew when S.C. woman elected to Congress, PFLAG first started the impact it would she spent six years representing have? It was a game changer—the first the Upstate. A Democrat in a in the Southeast was in Columbia, South heavily Republican county, she Carolina. It’s remarkable.” served on County Council, in Former Congresswoman Liz Patterson the Senate and three terms in the (right) is the daughter of Gov. Olin D. Harriet said, “I know that we have helped House. Johnston and mother of Pat Patterson, who many families in their time of crisis, and performs in drag as Patti O’Furniture. have literally changed hearts and minds. Born Elizabeth Johnston, politics PFLAG was the beginning of many was in her DNA. Her father was Olin D. Johnston, South Carolina governor in the things to come and the most rewarding 1930s and long-term member of the U.S. Senate. work that anyone could be engaged in.” Patterson didn’t always champion gay rights. While she was running for The “things to come” were about to get a lieutenant governor, she didn’t support laws whole lot tougher. allowing gay couples to adopt or serve openly in the military. That was before her son Pat AIDS Crisis Hits came out at age 23. When he did, Patterson South Carolina Pat Patterson responded by educating herself on LGBT issues. In the late 1970s, health care workers noted a mysterious group of infections Liz Patterson now speaks at public events with and cancers spreading among gay great passion about gay equality. It is that sort men in urban America. By the mid- of personal and political evolution that lies at 1980s, the Centers for Disease Control the heart of Harriet’s work. identified the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) as the cause of Acquired Since 1998, Pat Patterson has been performing Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), as Patti O’Furniture (a nod to Irish roots) to a diagnosis that for years to come was a benefit community groups, including the Gay death sentence. & Lesbian Business Guild, the9 AIDS Benefit Patti O’Furniture13 Foundation, and PALSS. Harriet Hancock

In 1984, Harriet attended a national The state health department instituted meeting of PFLAG in Denver, and was a system of tracking patients and alarmed by all the talk about this fright- their partners. Because testing wasn’t ening new disease. She met parents who anonymous, people avoided getting already had lost sons. “I thought about checked, compounding the epidemic by my own son,” she said. “Is he going to putting yet more people at risk. die? It really scared me, and I wondered what we were going to do when it comes South Carolina’s health care and social to South Carolina.” service system were woefully unprepared. To help fill the gap in services, Harriet When she got home, she wrote letters and core allies began meeting to create to hospitals offering help. “We already a group to offer practical and emotional knew people were being turned away support to patients and their families. by their families,” she said. She was Among them were Fred and Ethel soon put in touch with a young man in Aldridge, whose son had died of AIDS. Lancaster who was facing AIDS alone. Their loss was made more painful by Harriet and a few friends from the hospital workers who refused to properly Metropolitan Community Church created care for him. Harriet was profiled in this 1987 booklet a support circle to help him. by the National AIDS Network to honor “Ethel told us of the ignorance and volunteers on the front lines. The entry It was the first time Harriet would stigma associated with AIDS,” Harriet about her begins, “As our fight against become close to someone only to watch said, “how food trays were left outside AIDS grows into crisis proportions, them die. It would be far from the last. her son’s hospital room; garbage not the people of South Carolina will emptied; his bed not changed; how she need to thank the tireless energy and By the summer of 1985, with 46 reported was afraid to leave him for fear that compassionate vision of one woman, cases in the state, it became impossible to no one would take care of him. They Harriet Hancock, for our readiness to ignore the grim handwriting on the wall. were with us because they never wanted meet the challenge.” AIDS was spreading in South Carolina, another family to suffer as they had.” and the state was ill-prepared for the It ends, “She is presently a PALSS buddy coming crisis. They founded Palmetto AIDS Life Sup- to a 13-month-old infant and its mother, port Services in Columbia. “PALSS was as well as helping with a 7-year-old with Fear and ignorance clouded public policy born out of concern and catastrophe,” AIDS who was abandoned by his family. decisions, with some lawmakers calling said Cynthia Poindexter, who worked for Most importantly, she continues to be for extreme measures, including tattoos the organization during its first six years. adopted mother to countless of the scared and quarantine for people with HIV. “It grew rapidly out of necessity, forging and hurting.” 14 Mother of SC Pride

Jean Strickler its way in the midst of public disdain, an urgency that systemic neglect, and private terrors.” propelled PALSS through uncharted Documenting the early history of the territory those first organization, Poindexter called grassroots turbulent years. groups such as PALSS “beacons in the darkness of neglect.” For many months Edens worked In the beginning, PALSS was powered without pay from by a small, unfunded army of trained vol- his apartment, filing unteers. The work was daunting and the client reports in a magnitude of need overwhelming. They milk crate. While didn’t foresee the scope of the problem. doing the practical social work of con- “Perhaps it’s a good thing we didn’t necting patients with know what lay ahead, for we may have services, he was also felt like the task was too monumental to writing speeches and take on,” Harriet said. “We had no blue- issuing warnings. print on how to proceed, but we knew the need was there. We all had the same “The things we said concern: if we don’t take care of our own, came true,” he told who will?” POINT newspaper in 1991. “We said PALSS held its first volunteer training people are going to in the fall of 1985. By then, an estimated die in the streets, and 10,000 patients were diagnosed with they did. We said AIDS in the United States. Untold children are going to numbers of others were infected and be abandoned, and SLED Chief Robert Stewart oversees arrests of 41 didn’t know it. they were. We warned that it ACT UP protesters at a “die-in” in front of the State was going to become an issue House in Columbia on April 20, 1989. Activists Bill Edens, a Columbia bar owner, was for heterosexuals, and it did.” were challenging a proposed bill mandating the recruited as PALSS’ director, bringing quarantine of people with HIV. In one of the first his political savvy and boundless energy PALSS struggled financially, direct-action demonstrations outside of a major city, to the fledgling organization. Newly surviving the leanest days protesters fell in the street at the intersection of Main diagnosed with HIV, he was driven by thanks in large part to a and Gervais, blocking traffic. The bill failed to pass.

15 Harriet Hancock

$25,000 grant that Sen. John Courson politics. Bill Edens’ mother, Martha The work was intense and emotionally helped secure from a reluctant and ill- Edens, was a prominent figure in the crushing. “It seemed we were going to a informed legislature. “He knew we were GOP beginning in the 1950s. His uncle, J. funeral a week,” Harriet said. doing good work and didn’t have any Drake Edens, Jr., is considered the father money,” Harriet said. “He wanted to do of the state party. These family connec- Poindexter made a habit of checking the right thing and was trying to quell tions helped open lawmakers’ doors that the obituaries first thing every morning, fears. otherwise would have remained closed. “looking for but hoping not to see names I knew. “The attitude of some legislators was that PALSS never had enough money to gay people are dispensable, that they’re meet the escalating need for services. “Death was what we dreaded, but what degenerates,” she said. “Courson’s door The organization relied on an underpaid was also foremost on our minds,” she was always open, as was Rep. Gilda staff, a talented board, and a dedicated said. “It was commonplace, but we never Cobb-Hunter’s and the Black Caucus’. network of volunteers who were required became accustomed to it. The shock, They’ve been the ones to help us.” to complete two days of intense training sadness and pain did not lessen as the to learn the skills they would need to numbers of dead rose. If anything, grief Courson was good friends with the Edens take care of their clients—and each was cumulative and grew heavier over family, heavy hitters in South Carolina other. Early on, PALSS adopted a team the years.” approach to support caregivers in an effort to head off burnout. “It was a time when we checked in with each other, almost like taking roll,” Tony Some volunteers worked the Snell Rodriguez said. “We were each crisis hotline, and others were other’s family, caretakers. We rallied for assigned to serve as “buddies” each other and for the promise that future to people with HIV. They did a generations would not have to suffer such bit of everything: bought food; devastation.” cleaned apartments; provided transportation; organized The suffering seemed especially cruel excursions. Just as important, they when visited upon the young. Among offered companionship to help PALSS’ clients was an 8-year-old boy alleviate loneliness and fear. with nowhere to go. His mother had died, his father was in prison, and his grand- Ernest Wiggins Susan Fulmer recalled those early mother had put him out. South Carolina activists joined thousands from days as bittersweet. “There was a across the country to display the AIDS quilt on the commitment that was tangible. It PALSS staff and volunteers rallied to the National Mall in October 1987. was real. It was spiritual.” boy’s aid. The court granted Edens an

16 Mother of SC Pride emergency right to foster him, the state’s the Midlands and across South Carolina,” first placement of a child with a gay man. writes Sheila Morris in the preface to her new book Committed to Home: “Brett loved Bill dearly, even called him Chronicles of the Queer Movement from Daddy,” Harriet said, her eyes tearing at a Southern Perspective, 1984–2014. the memory 30 years on. “He was just the sweetest little kid. Jennifer and I went to “Thoughtful people who felt the pain see him at the end, when he was dying. of grief and loss for loved ones became He was so sick and frail he couldn’t be committed to helping others who were touched, but Jennifer would climb into sick and unable to care for themselves— his bed just to be with him. It was tragic.” often those whose families and friends deserted them when they needed them PALSS workers not only did the daily, most because of the stigma associated dirty work of caring for people with with their being homosexual. AIDS, they often were left to make final arrangements after their clients died. “Closets were forced open by the sick- AIDS ness, and fence-sitters gradually found quilt, One of them was Shirley, a celebrated their courage and began to act. Small 1987 female impersonator in Columbia who groups of committed citizens of South died of AIDS in 1986. Her family, who Carolina began to organize.” only knew her as male, lived in Georgia The Names Project and had asked PALSS to take care of In 1986, The Washington Post ran the burial, as they were unable to cover a story on AIDS buddies. It quoted, expenses. make-up. Then the family, who wasn’t anonymously, a man who said, “You have supposed to come, arrived to see this to look at it historically to retain your True to form, PALSS staff and allies rose person in a negligee they didn’t know sanity. I have never seen or heard of a to the occasion, raising $2,000 to pay for anything about. Well, all heck broke community of people coming forward the funeral, and tending to the details of loose.” in great numbers to literally take care of the service. their own the way gay people have. While those years were marked by relent- “It was a community effort to bury less loss, they also offered profound “Someday people will say, ‘Look at what Shirley,” Harriet said. “I remember my reward. happened in the United States—one of sister and I picking out her outfit. She the most incredible movements rising had said she wanted something pink “While HIV/AIDS was a devastating up for all the right reasons.’ When it and fluffy. Volunteers did her hair and plague, it sowed the seeds of activism in spreads—and it will—and the straight

17 Harriet Hancock Photos on this and facing page courtesy of Jim Blanton

Organizers of the first Pride rally were hoping at least 100 would join their march down Main Street. To their surprise, a joyous crowd of 2,000 showed up. “We had not planned for people to be on the steps,” Harriet said. “But they just ran up those steps to that State House where legislators passed laws against them. They took those steps as a way to say ‘We’re not going to take this any more!’” 18 Mother of SC Pride DEMANDS people start biting the “just needed to hear dust, suffering this his voice.” They way, they will say, ‘We agreed that if they underestimated you. We heard gunshots didn’t know what real men during the parade you were.’” they would fall on the street and cover “Silent No More” their heads.

The fight for gay equality A whistle signaled hasn’t all been heartbreak; Jim Blanton was the first speaker at the marchers to there have been moments the first Pride, on June 23, 1990. begin walking. of transcendence, too. One “I took my son’s came on a brilliant Carolina morning in trembling hand in 1990 when Harriet led a crowd down my trembling hand,” Harriet wrote in Main Street in the state’s first gay Pride an essay for Rainbow Radio. “What a parade. feeling of empowerment came over us. We were part of history! What The day dawned hot and muggy, an emotional time. We were so with a forecast of thunderstorms. caught up in the moment that A nervous energy buzzed in the neither of us was aware that air as people gathered at the tears were streaming down our parade site. The march organizers faces.” were prepared for confrontation, had even trained for it, as had March organizer Bert Easter the police, who were stationed remembers scanning the on rooftops and along the parade rooftops for a possible sniper. route. As it turned out, only a few “Everyone had friends who said protesters showed up, and the violence there was going to be trouble,” everyone feared never materialized. he said. “The police were turned out in riot gear. Looking back on it, everyone “I remember being fearful of stepping out who walked out onto Main Street that day into the streets,” Greg said. “It was terri- was very brave. But there wasn’t much fying.” The night before, he’d taken a call protest. I think they were in disbelief that from his mother, who was anxious and gay people would be marching. List compiled by the Gay and Lesbian Pride 19 Movement, presented at the first Pride. Harriet Hancock

“It was Harriet who had the vision, who started the American Pride movement remark made by Jim Blanton, who had said, ‘We can do this!’ She was the one in 1969). There weren’t nearly enough grown tired of the gay movement being who led us down Main Street that first balloons to go around. in the closet. Harriet ran into him at a time,” Easter said. diner the morning of the annual Pride pic- The day was a collective coming out, nic, an event closed to the general public The parade committee inflated 1,000 a mass public declaration. “It was a and press. She asked whether she’d see pink balloons printed with a logo Greg courageous group of people raising their him later that day at Dreher Park. designed—a triangle (to acknowledge banners high and voices loud, arm in arm, homosexuals who were forced to wear brothers and sisters,” Snell Rodriguez Blanton remembers saying, “That’s not pink triangles in Nazi concentration said. “We, if only for one day, occupied gay pride; that’s gay shame.” He added, camps) set against a stone pattern (to what was rightly ours, as upstanding, tax- “If you march down Main Street, I’ll be remember the Stonewall protests that paying, equal citizens. glad to join you.”

“Coming out “At the time,” Harriet said, “there was from the shadows, work being done for LGBT rights, but

POINT we were no for the most part people were afraid to longer going to be activists because of their jobs. The be shunned by way they celebrated Pride was to have a lawmakers and picnic somewhere or a party at someone’s our fellow South house. There was too much fear about Carolinians. This being open.” was our day to shine. It was truly Accepting Blanton’s challenge, she a sea of pink, decided to float the idea of organizing a rainbow flags, march. After the picnic had stretched into festive balloons, the afternoon, when the party-goers were James Sears at Pride in 1991, the year he published Growing and one sign that “feeling no pain,” as she put it, Harriet Up Gay in the South. A former professor at the University of summed it all up: pulled out her clipboard and began South Carolina, he has written widely on the LGBT movement. In Gay Proud and circulating the crowd, asking whether Lonely Hunters, An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Silent No More.” there was any interest in having a parade Life, 1948–1968, he writes: “Documenting, writing, and reading the next year. narratives of our communities provide lesbians and gay men with The march was a collection of sacred, communal stories that for too long have nearly a year in the The response was enthusiastic.“Oh, yes! been lost or devalued in the larger canon of heterosexist history— making. It started Put my name down,” they told her. “Little presented to us as fact.” with an offhand did they know that in short order I would

20 Mother of SC Pride Shesaid be calling them to talk about getting They named the new organization the a group together to organize a Pride South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Pride “I feel like my son being march,” she said. Movement, which later became SC Pride. gay opened up a whole new The group she assembled met the “That first year, all correspondence used world to me—a wonderful Sunday after Hurricane Hugo hit. “It was the acronym GLPM, since many people community of good supposed to be a potluck, but nobody had didn’t want to receive mail with the people who are fun, any power,” she said. “I couldn’t believe words ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ on an envelope,” artistic, talented, and the number of people who came. South Blanton said. intelligent. It has Carolina was devastated, but people enriched my life.” drove all the way from Charleston. I’ve “We’ve been made to feel we have to often said that Hugo blew the closet be invisible,” he told a reporter before doors off South Carolina.” the rally. “Now, some of us realize that “I have been working with situation is not going to change unless we people with HIV/AIDS That meeting would be the first of many. become visible.” A GLPM press release since 1985. I have made “When we began the arduous 10 months claimed 10 percent of South Carolina’s many friends who are of planning, we honestly felt we would population is gay—nearly 347,000 men infected with this disease, be a success if 100 people showed up,” and women—8,000 more than the state’s and I have lost many Blanton said. “There was understandably largest county of Greenville. friends to this disease. a great deal of resistance from the LGBT community. Many felt we should just let “We spent almost every weekend in one They have put their trust well enough alone.” gay bar or another holding fundraisers in me when they felt that they could trust few others. They have allowed me to share a very private

Becci Robbins part of their lives, and have taught me a lot about living. Helping people with AIDS has been the most rewarding work I have ever done. No amount of financial compensation could ever equal what I have gained from them.” 21 Harriet Hancock

should march. Of course wearing of masks, the parade committee transgendered people should provided clown makeup to disguise those march.’” who wanted to march with us incognito. Before the march began, I spotted an Becci Robbins Mandy Carter, who had acquaintance who had opted for the helped organize North clown disguise. When I hugged him, he Carolina’s first Pride festival was so terrified he was trembling. two years earlier, was invited to Columbia to offer lessons “I saw him later in the afternoon at the learned in Durham. She rally. His face—which was now cleansed stayed in Harriet’s home when of make-up—was radiant. He was she came to town, and over transformed.” the months they became good The Upstate was deeply divided when Greenville friends. Harriet said, “Sleepy little Columbia County Council passed an anti-gay resolution in 1996. didn’t think it had any gay people until Carter spoke at Columbia’s it saw them in the streets.” She credits and trying to drum up enthusiasm for the first Pride, and remembers the march with the city passing a non- march,” Blanton said. “I was so burned being overwhelmed and overjoyed. discrimination employment policy. “It out that I’ve never gone to a gay bar “When we got up on the stage and looked started the conversation.” since.” out at the crowd—it was a moment. I get chills thinking about how pivotal and Dr. Ed Madden, director of USC’s Easter remembers heated debate about critical that was. I was struck by the allies Women and Gender Studies program, who should march in the first parade. who were not gay, straight people saying said Harriet set the stage for what would What should their public face look like, ‘We stand in solidarity with you.’” become an annual celebration. “She and who got to decide? These were tough was a pivot, walking around with that questions from a community not used to Blanton said two memories of the day clipboard at a picnic and getting people the scrutiny of the press or public. And left deep impressions. “The first was the to sign up. That changed how gay and they didn’t always agree on strategy and palpable joy we were all feeling as we lesbian people existed in this state. There tactics. proclaimed our equality,” he said. “This were people who were out, but what she culminated in the unplanned storming did was like a tipping point, a fulcrum, a “Harriet always had an inclusive mind of the State House steps by the jubilant challenge to think beyond the picnic, the set,” Easter said, “so when people were marchers. private party.” arguing whether drag queens should be in the first Pride march, she said, ‘Of course “The second was more intimate. Because Pride has been held every year except they should be. Of course leather people the City of Columbia outlawed the in 2001 and 2002, when GLPM was in

22 Mother of SC Pride transition. Although traditionally held in way to Atlanta. The Tour DuPont bicycle “To think of people Columbia, Pride moved to Greenville in race and Special Olympics events were turning away from 1997, and the next year to Myrtle Beach. also moved in protest. dying people, for your minister to refuse to The circumstances that prompted those The resolution threw the county into moves weren’t pretty. bitter debate. Roger Bell spoke at a bury you, for all the raucous Council meeting during the people that normally Greenville Stages Morality Play heat of the controversy. “The Upstate help to turn away. How is as homophobic today as it was racist can that be?” Greenville County, home to the state’s 40 years ago,” he said. “Now, laws and highest concentration of evangelical resolutions are being passed to legally “I feel very fortunate Christians, passed a resolution in 1996 make us second-class citizens. We cannot to live in Richland and will not be silent.” condemning homosexuality, calling County. We’ve had a lot it “incompatible with community of support from people standards.” In a move of solidarity with their allies in the Upstate, GLPM decided to move the in local government. The declaration was deemed contrary to Pride parade to Greenville in 1997. I don’t think Mayor the spirit of the Olympics, and cost the Bob Coble had been in county the Olympic torch, which was re- A solicitation letter to supporters read: office a year when he Thousands of courageous citizens will routed through the county in a van on its stuck his neck out for gather in downtown Greenville to us. Diversity creates a celebrate the cause of stronger city.” individual liberty and Becci Robbins equality under the “I’ve helped a lot of law. By marching for diversity, tolerance parents and family and inclusion, we members come to terms are not soliciting with accepting their special rights for any gay children. I accepted group. Rather, we my own son readily, but are demonstrating I was concerned. I felt our commitment to this huge pit of anxiety common rights for and fear.” Pride moves to Greenville in 1997. all. 23 Harriet Hancock n Betty DeGeneres’ “Our goal is neither to frighten nor servatives to attend the Traditional Fam- bookI Love, provoke. It is simply to stand firm ily Values Rally the following weekend, Ellen: A Mother/ against attacks on our civil rights and an event his group organized in response Daughter Journey, civil liberties; to present an accurate to the “gay assault on Greenville.” she recounts portrayal of ourselves to the community going to Pride in and media in order to dispel myths That effort filled Greenville’s Memorial Myrtle Beach in about homosexuals; and to continue our Stadium, which seats 7,000. Hundreds 1998, the year opposition to the anti-gay resolution more stood outside, peering through the the city’s elders passed by the Greenville County chain link fence. very publicly Council.” denounced the event. U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis was among the News of the march generated support as speakers. He expressed outrage that “It was estimated that 8,000 men and well as a fierce backlash. When gay- gays “are marching in our streets” and women attended. I met a number of friendly businesses put vowed to fight “the supportive family members sharing in stickers in their windows homosexual agenda.” He the celebration, lending moral support signalling their support said he would not accept to the concept that gay men and women for Pride, their locks the moral decay creep- have every right to come together, feel were glued shut. ing South. “We have a comfortable and celebrate who they real threat on our hands. are. A group calling itself Some things are right and Citizens for Traditional some things are wrong, “One of the first people I met was Family Values blanketed and we’re going to say Harriet Hancock, the matriarch of what Greenville with flyers it.” He got a standing has to be one of the first families of the condemning the march ovation. South Carolina gay community. and warning people to stay away or risk getting Inglis was followed by “I felt a close kinship with her. She too AIDS. “Homosexuals Gov. David Beasley, who had gone back to college in her forties. are going to be using the said, “This isn’t a rally; I also met her son, Greg, his sister who toilets, they are going to this is a revival.” He was there helping out; and the sister’s be using the parks, they looked at the stormy sky five-year-old son Tommy, who wore a are going to be using Harriet Hancock and said, “These rain- t-shirt saying ‘I Love My Gay Uncle.’ the restaurants,” warned drops are really angels’ Rev. Stan Craig, pastor Greg Hancock and his nephew teardrops in thanks for Talk about family values! Greg and of Choice Hills Baptist Tommy Gordon onstage at Myrtle your coming out and Tommy led the Pledge of Allegiance to Church, who urged con- Beach Pride in 1998. standing strong. start the program.” 9 24 Mother of SC Pride

“We must draw a moral line in the sand warnings against homosexuality as God- “Visibility is the key to that we will not cross. You people give given truth; the ties between religious us the strength to draw that line.” The conservatives and the state’s surging changing hearts and governor got a standing ovation, too. Republican Party; the increasing activism minds. If you’re visible, of the state’s gay community; the South’s and people can see you A year later, the drama would move to history of institutionalized bigotry, and and know you for the Myrtle Beach. the state’s resistance to cultural change, kind of person you are, racial and otherwise.” then they’re much less Myrtle Beach Daze likely to discriminate Sack quoted Harriet, who said, “There against you.” The dust-up in Greenville over the may be discrimination against gays and Olympic torch attracted national lesbians everywhere, but here the gay- attention. So South Carolina was on baiting is so open. It used to be race- “For years, it was okay the media radar baiting. Now it’s to tell jokes about screen when GLPM Harriet Hancock gay-baiting.” Snell African Americans. With announced that Pride Rodriguez added gays and lesbians, it’s would be moving that gays in South still OK to tell horrible Carolina were “the to Myrtle Beach to jokes about them. challenge efforts by scapegoat du jour.” the city’s power elite Hopefully, that will go by to exclude the LGBT The four-day festival the wayside, too.” community. in Myrtle Beach drew bigger crowds “I know people risk a lot— The New York Times and more media their jobs, homes, families ran a front-page attention than ever —but I wish everyone before. The bump story headlined: Gay could come out.” Rights Movement in numbers was a Meets Big Resistance in S. Carolina. public rebuke of Mayor Mark McBride, Reporter Kevin Sack wrote, “Gay who warned event organizers that his “I never thought I’d see rights leaders, political scientists and city did not welcome “gay garbage,” marriage equality—not government officials agree that a distinct and Burroughs and Chapin, the Grand in my lifetime. Not in my confluence of factors has contributed to Strand’s biggest landlord and developer, son’s lifetime. I think I’ll the rawness of gay rights conflicts here: which issued a memo to its tenants forever be in shock about the pervasiveness of fundamentalist threatening “repercussions” if they how quickly it happened.” Christianity, which interprets scriptural supported the festival. 25 Harriet Hancock

The strong-arm tactics failed. City Pride” to “Family Values Since 1895.” A Losing Faith Council unanimously opposed the mayor, company spokesperson explained, “Too and allowed several downtown streets to many of those other people are using the It is impossible to separate religion from be closed for the festival. word ‘pride.’” the struggle for gay equality, especially in the South, where church and state have B&C, used to getting its way, was so In an ad that ran in local newspapers, held a long political alliance with very furious it changed its official slogan B&C said: “As a private company, we real social consequences. from “Boldly Shaping the Future with have not, nor do we intend to be forced or intimidated into supporting organized South Carolina ties with Arkansas as the activities that we believe endanger the 5th most religious state in the nation, with historic values of our nation and the 70 percent of adults describing them- cornerstone truths on which they are selves as “highly religious,” according to Richard Fuller based.’’ the Pew Research Center. Nearly three- fourths of adults in the Palmetto State B&C pressured the Hard Rock Cafe say they believe in God with “absolute to withdraw its particpation in the certainty,” and nearly half attend weekly festival, and refused to allow the worship services. Village People to perform at the venue. “Traditional family values Morris profiled 21 gay leaders in her new don’t support their lifestyle and their book. “What’s interesting,” she said, “is sexual activities,” McBride told The that so many of them came from strongly Sun News. “I think they’re going to conservative backgrounds. The church come and propose their lifestyle and has disappointed them, hurt them, ostra- what it means to be gay and lesbian. cized them. Terrible things happened to Our community doesn’t want it. people within the church setting.” People don’t come here for those activities.’’ When Morris was growing up, being gay was not just considered a sin, but a McBride was wrong. People came, pathology. “The thought back then was some 8,000 strong. The controversy that if you are a homosexual you are helped Pride organizers attract big- mentally ill, and the law was that you name speakers, including U.S. House could be imprisoned for it,” she said. “So A couple at Pride 1999 wearing matching shirts Speaker Newt Gingrich’s sister Can- all those messages were coming at me as that read: “Experience the Radically Inclusive dice Gingrich, and comedian Ellen a young person—and not just me, but so Love of Christ!” DeGeneres’ mother, Betty DeGeneres. many others.” 26 Mother of SC Pride

While there are a number of welcoming Morris, a sixth-generation Southern It was a bitter parting of ways. Over the churches now in South Carolina, for Baptist, met her first long-term girlfriend years that Morris worked in a prominent some it is too little too late. “Many of while in seminary in Texas. In the early Baptist church, she became good friends them have totally walked away,” Harriet 1980s, she followed her partner to South with the pianist. “He was gifted,” she said. “They may never come back Carolina. She worked as a minister of said. “His playing was spiritual for because of the disappointment they’ve music, and sang in the choir at several me.” One Christmas, after the church’s had, the ostracism. There’s a strong Columbia churches. The relationship annual musical program, the pianist was distrust there. It’s the same with police; with the woman didn’t last. Nor did her fired because it had come to the staff’s there is a lack of trust.” relationship with the church. attention that he was gay.

The Item, May 1998.

27 Harriet Hancock THEYsaid They abruptly severed ties and banned “I grew up in a little town in a very poor “I love Harriet. She is the him from the property. Unable to retrieve county,” Morris said. “My parents were original warrior woman.” his belongings, he contacted Harriet in church every Sunday, but the message for legal help. She advised him that I got from that church was that I was Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter she couldn’t file a case for wrongful going to Hell.” termination, given South Carolina’s “We call her, with great “right to work” laws that grant employers It was a heavy burden for a small child. affection and respect, the nearly unlimited freedom to fire at will. “I knew when I was about 5 years old But she could get his property back. that I was different,” she said. “I didn’t ‘Mother of Pride,’ and indeed, have a name for it, but I knew. I lived a she is a surrogate mother After months of stonewalling, Harriet double life for the next 30 years.” to many of us who have lost threatened legal action, and the church our families and friends staff finally relented. “They dumped his When Harriet was a child, she attended because of who we are.” stuff out on his lawn without even telling Kilbourne Baptist Church in Columbia, him they were going to do it,” Morris which her father cofounded. After she Ed Madden said. It was a painful turning point for married, she and her new husband her, and she left the church that had been adopted a church near their Rosewood “Harriet is a heroine, in so central to her life. home. It was not a good fit. And after my opinion. I admire her for her passion for what she believes in.” Sen. John Courson

“Fierce and compassionate, Harriet embodies what most people aspire to be. She’s a warrior, rising to Becci Robbins the challenge, with courage and conviction, upholding everything that is right and leading the charge against everything that is wrong.” Rev. Tom Summers (wearing clerical collar and holding the red banner) has worked with Harriet since the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Tony Snell Rodriguez 28 Mother of SC Pride being singled out for humiliation by a “These questions have stayed with fire-and-brimstone visiting pastor, she ran me and in my continuing ministry out mid-sermon, vowing never to return. with the LGBT community. It is

sadly my estimation that the church Becci Robbins Harriet now considers herself agnostic. has yet to offer its fuller riches “That’s where I land right now. Surely of blessing, understanding, and there is something out there bigger than support to our LGBT brothers and us, but whatever it is, I’m happy for it to sisters.” just be a mystery.” Summers cites statistics that show She attends Community Church of the gay teens are four times more likely Midlands, which she helped establish to die by suicide than their peers. with the Rev. Dr. John Whatley in 2001. Bullying plays a part, he said, but “He had moved back to Columbia to take so does theology “play a critical care of aging parents,” Harriet said. “He role in cultivating a devastating and was looking for a church and couldn’t crushing guilt.” find one, and I was looking for a church and couldn’t find one. They all just The refusal of some denomina- Greenville protester, 1996 seemed to be very mean-spirited.” tions to bless same-gender couples troubles him deeply. “In my opinion,” Diane Carr, a longtime PALSS volunteer, The Rev. Thomas Summers has worked Rev. Summers said, “this neglect of the shared her frustration at the church’s alongside Harriet for decades. A retired preciousness of human bonds—gay or inaction in the face of AIDS in a 1991 Methodist minister, Summers served as a straight—is perhaps one of the greatest story. “I think the church places limits,” hospital chaplain and director of clinical incompatibilities and violations of the she said. “Yes, I’ll love my neighbor— pastoral education with the S.C. Dept. of Biblical principles of equality, fairness, provided he’s white, and middle-class, Mental Health for 41 years. love, and justice.” and straight, and sober, and clean. There are all these conditions.” During the early days of the epidemic, He is not alone in his disappointment. Summers accepted a request to preside Blanton said his spiritual life “was a She watched several people die in her over a funeral for a man who had died series of ups and downs. Ultimately, in years volunteering as an AIDS buddy. of AIDS, and whose family and church my mid-40s, my anger over the hatred Her gift to them was her presence. “If had cast him out. The cruelty shocked and homophobia in the church won the I’ve learned anything from PALSS, it’s and saddened him. “As a result of such day. While I wish the church would come the importance of little things, putting a wrenching experience, there became around for those who still care—like my your arms around someone and saying ‘I resurrected within me questions,” he said. partner—I personally no longer care.” love you.’”

29 Harriet Hancock

“I see her as a relentless, S.C. Gay Couples Say “I Do” Gov. David Beasley signed it into law. kind warrior who doesn’t The issue was still part of the national waver when it comes On Nov. 19, 2014, the first marriage conversation when, in March 2005, South Carolina lawmakers approved a to leaving no stones license was issued to a same-gender couple in South Carolina following constitutional amendment banning same- unturned to deal with this a Fourth Circuit ruling that found sex marriage and any “lawful domestic issue of LGBTQ liberation. Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage union.” The following November, voters She has humor, she has unconstitutional. overwhelmingly approved it. guts, she has anger, and all those things combined Malissa Burnette litigated I think make one powerful the Condon v. Haley case, son of a gun. She is representing Charleston County Council member something else.” Colleen Condon, who Rev. Tom Summers filed suit in federal district court seeking the “Harriet set the plans in right to marry in October motion that empowered 2014. us to change lives Condon and Nichols Bert Easter for the better.” Bleckley were the first Jim Blanton couple to pick up their license. That simple bit Ed Madden (left) and Bert Easter after their Charleston “When other people of bureaucracy was a wedding in 2005—a ceremony not legally recognized. long time coming and the got burned out, when cause of great celebration other people got tired of Unwittingly, they inspired organized across South Carolina among gay opposition. “An unintended consequence the drama, she’s been activists and allies who had worked so of the anti-gay amendment was that consistent, and has long for marriage equality in a state that it galvanized the LGBT activists, continued to fight and had worked just as hard to prevent it. strengthening their networks and hang in there. That’s got organizing clout, and political maturity,” to be worth something in In 1996, the S.C. House, in an 82–0 Madden wrote in a paper on the Fairness vote, passed a statute defining marriage everyone’s book.” for All Families Campaign. “So 2005 as a contract between one man and one was a watershed year, a tipping point for Bert Easter woman. The Senate passed the bill, and GLBT organizing in this state. By 2006, 30 Mother of SC Pride the campaign was in We’re going to enjoy this, “Early on, I had trouble understanding full swing. For that and then we’re going to move why we would want to emulate hetero- year, we worked to on to end discrimination of sexual marriage,” he said, “but, of course, maintain a campaign jobs, housing, and public my understanding of the importance of that would be accommodations. That’s the marriage equality evolved. movement building, next big step. We cannot let not just focused on up.” “I think it’s amazing that it happened so the vote. relatively quickly, and I’m thrilled it’s For Snell Rodriguez, gaining the law of the land. Ed and I have not “The campaign was marriage equality was a yet chosen to marry, but it sure is nice to crafted by the SC monumental achievement. have that option.” Mandy Carter Equality Coalition, “‘I do’ are the state’s primary the two LGBT political group, founded in 2002. most important words It was supported by allies such as the in my life and for lots of SC Progressive Network, a coalition of couples across this land.” human rights activists from across the he said. “Even for those state.” without partners, the right to be able to say these The most optimistic among them never words creates standing, dreamed they would see marriage dignity, and hope—and a equality realized anytime soon, and were path for us to attain whole shocked when the U.S. Supreme Court justice and fairness.” ruled same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, with Justice Anthony Kennedy Weddings were not a Becci Robbins writing, “They ask for equal dignity in universal priority in the eyes of the law. The Constitution the gay community. On Oct. 8, 2014, LGBT activists and allies from across grants them that right.” “Marriage equality South Carolina celebrated at the State House after the was never my issue,” historic court decisions paving the way for marriage The news stunned Harriet. “I was over- Blanton said. “When equality in South Carolina. After a rally, they delivered joyed, relieved, and very moved,” she the first GLPM steering 5,000 petitions to the attorney general’s office. Ignoring the told a reporter. “All I could do was just committee formulated our writing on the legal wall, the governor and the AG vowed cry. It’s like relief. Finally! The Supreme list of demands, marriage to continue using taxpayer money to fight in court. The next Court of the United States has spoken. was so inconceivable, it day, the S.C. Supreme Court blocked the marriage license This is it. There is no further place to go. didn’t even make the list. applications gay couples had filed the day before.

31 Harriet Hancock “Ms. Harriet’s leadership is legendary in the state of Legacy of Love having a center operated entirely on vol- South Carolina. She was unteers,” Harriet said. “We have so much our LGBT pioneer before a Of all the work she’s done, Harriet said on our plates, so many groups meeting movement even existed, she is most proud of the community- there, I think it’s remarkable we’ve done and she has never quit.” owned LGBT center she envisioned and so well.” then opened in 1993. It operated for a Rev. Andy Sidden year in a run-down Columbia neighbor- Harriet’s daughter Jennifer Tague hood until it was moved into a converted considers the center her second home. “When I think about what house on Woodrow Street, which they “I was here when they bought the she’s done in South Carolina renovated using the sweat and skills of house,” she said. “I was here when they —taking up the banner of gay volunteers. renovated the building. I was here when they dedicated the house. It was a long pride in a state like this at a Keeping the center open over the years process. It’s been great.” time like that—going to law with no paid staff has been a challenge, school so she could advocate and the board is in the process of hiring The building was renamed the Harriet for her cause. Just think someone for the first time. “It’s a struggle Hancock Center in 2005. Jennifer said the about it!” dedication was “a night to remember. It was a lot of fun, a lot of tears, a lot Karen Hancock Klocko of hugging. Mom was so proud to have the Center named after her for “Through these last 30 all the hard work that she’s done.” years, Harriet has been there for us. I’ve always admired Harriet said people have told her the her, always respected her. center saved their life. “It’s a safe You can’t say something haven for people who don’t have anywhere to go,” she said. “We better about a person than have done so much here, it’s an they showed up. Harriet accomplishment.” showed up—big time.” Sheila Morris Harriet keeps a busy schedule, ignoring the pleas of friends and

Harriet Hancock family who wish she would slow “Harriet is an amazing role down and take some time for herself model. She’s gutsy. She’s the Columbia Mayor Bob Coble awards Harriet the for a change. “Sometimes I tell her spark that started it all.” Key to the City in 2008. she needs to rein it in a little, dial Mandy Carter 32 Mother of SC Pride it down a notch,” Greg Hancock said. all agree, is where their mother is. middle of the festival and seeing all these “She’ll be frantic, having this going on Greg lives in Atlanta, working as a people who have struggled to be accept- and that going on, but she just keeps graphic designer. Jennifer just took a job ed, and seeing them so excited and happy. going strong. This work has given her life with SC Equality, “picking up the torch,” To know my mother had something to do purpose and meaning. I only hope I’m she said. Karen is in Maryland raising with it makes it so personal.” that connected and that involved in life two daughters, who have been to their when I’m her age.” share of gay festivals over the years. She Harriet also remains at the heart of the said they have each had a “Pride mo- LGBT family in South Carolina, much- Daughter Karen Hancock Klocko said, ment,” the experience of “standing in the beloved by the people she has fought for “I have never seen her tire of this work. There have been times when she’s been discouraged, but I’ve never heard her say Tony Snell Rodriguez has covered a lot of ground she’s burned out.” with Harriet—literally. He offers this look back. 789 Carter spent time with Harriet at the 2016 Creating Change conference in Chicago, “Picture a four-door Dodge Dynasty with a four days of meetings and workshops bumper sporting every justice and Pride sticker with LGBT activists from across the ever made, way before these causes were cool, and country. She marvels at Harriet’s energy a backseat overflowing with boxes of banners, and commitment. “I remember saying t-shirts, and rainbow flags piled so high you way back when, ‘How do you do it? couldn’t see out of the back window. You’re doing the lawyer thing, the center, Harriet Hancock all this stuff.’ She told me, ‘You know, It was Harriet’s car in the wind and on the way to Mandy, at some point I’m going to be another town, equipped with the fundamentals to able to do what I want to do.’ But she’s put out another fire or rally the troops. still just as busy.” Tony and Harriet at 2016 Creating Change conference Needless to say, when I served as president of Apparently, Harriet is doing what she GLPM (aka SC Pride) we were attached at the hip. wants to do. Activism isn’t what she When crises arose on the coast, Upstate, or anywhere in between, I’d give Harriet does; it is who she is. a call, and she’d say, ‘Let’s go! I’ll pick you up in an hour.’

Harriet remains the heart of the Hancock Our trips were filled with conversation, excitement, anxiety, strategizing, and family. Although her children are now sometimes a few tears. I cherished every mile, every moment, and every word. scattered across three states, they gather She may not have been able to see out of her back window but, make no mistake, together several times a year. Home, they she had a clear vision of where we were heading—and how to get there.” 9

33 Harriet Hancock “Her work has helped to guarantee that gays, lesbians and worked with for more than 30 years. ning. Power concedes nothing without a and their families, too long She has earned the title Mother of Pride. demand. It never has and it never will.” vilified and dismissed, have a Snell Rodriguez said Harriet has taught Nobody knows that better than Harriet, place in South Carolina— him the meaning of resiliency. “We’ve who also understands the power of an acknowledged place been spat upon, cursed, had our lives coalitions. “She has brought together at the table.” threatened, and been condemned to hell straight people and gay people, families Ed Madden by politicos and preachers alike,” he and politicians, health care practitioners said. “It wouldn’t be defined as activism and disenfranchised populations,” Madden said. “She has built alliances, “The thing I admire most without risk.” strengthened nascent communities about my mom is her courage The newest generation of activists—and and helped to create public voices for to stand and fight. She raised not just in the LGBT community—would marginalized people in our state. Her us to love and respect others, do well to learn from Harriet’s example record is one of tireless community- and I just hope that I am the of steadfast focus and unwavering building. She truly represents the kind of mother to my son commitment. changing face of South Carolina.” that she was to me.” As abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, That changing face is attracting the Jennifer Tague “Those who profess to favor freedom and state’s sons and daughters back home. yet depreciate agitation are people who Carter, who has spent most of her life “I’ve been to many want crops without plowing the ground; in North Carolina, said, “I lived in San legislative meetings with my they want rain without thunder and light- Francisco, and I was struck by how many Southerners were there. grandmother. It seems like Becci Robbins politicians here are always Now, people are moving back trying to pass laws against home to the South because change is happening here.” gay people, like the right to marry and the right to Harriet has been making change adopt children. I hope that for 30 years. She has opened by the time I’m grown things hearts and minds—and closets. In will be different, and people the process, she has made South will have learned to accept Carolina a better place for those people for who they are.” who want to live in a state that Activist and author Sheila Morris swaps stories with doesn’t just talk about family Tommy Gordon, her friend of 30 years in Harriet’s home. values, but practices them. 9 Harriet’s grandson 34 Mother of SC Pride In 2011, Harriet was invited to a reception at the White House with leaders from around the country. She was one of just 12 selected to meet privately with President Barack Obama.

35 Harriet Hancock Harriet Hancock

South Carolina History You Didn’t Learn in School

ontrary to popular narrative “Unlike other states, which adopted the “In 1826,” Madden writes, “two young that says the “gay lifestyle” term of ‘sodomy’ or in later years defined South Carolina men who would later is a modernC construct, the product of a sexual crimes more specifically, South become leaders in the Confederacy wrote permissive and godless culture, history Carolina retained the archaic umbrella letters to one another that seem explicit shows that homosexuality has always term of ‘buggery’ through successive about their sexual relationship.” been part of the human experience. revisions of the criminal code to the present,” Ed Madden writes in Proud Thomas Jefferson Withers, who served Native Americans had a more fluid Heritage: People, Issues and Documents in the Confederate States of Congress, understanding of sexuality and gender of the LGBT Experience (published in wrote fondly to his college chum James identity than did the colonialists who 2014). H. Hammond about their intimacies. would occupy their land and impose their own moral prescriptions. Some of Madden, who wrote the Library of Congress “Hammond would later the earliest Native artifacts reveal the chapter on South Carolina, become a major defender existence of cross-gender roles. references a letter written of both state’s rights and in 1810 by Rep. John C. slavery, serving as the Native cultures held that androgynous Calhoun to the woman state’s governor and then people, feminine males and masculine who would become his as a U.S. Senator until his females, were “two-spirit” people, seen mother-in-law, expressing resignation in 1860, when as gifted—visionaries and healers. shock that their friend South Carolina seceded Wentworth Boisseau was from the Union,” Madden But both the Spanish settlers and the a homosexual. He writes, writes. English colonialists condemned them “I cannot conceive of how as “sodomites.” In 1712, the Carolina’s he contracted the odious “First published in 1981, colonial government adopted English habit, except while a sailor these letters provide Common Law prohibitions against to the West Indies.” important documentary “buggery,” with the penalty of death. evidence of homosexual Madden also documents James H. Hammond activity at the time. Further, South Carolina would be the last state, in a sexual relationship served as South Carolina’s the publication not only 1869, to change it from a capital crime. between two high-profile governor and U.S. senator. raised important questions And while the U.S. Supreme Court in South Carolina men, a Letters reveal that he had a about historical evidence 2003 struck down sodomy laws, they story relatives fought in sexual relationship with a and interpretation, but also remain on the books in South Carolina. court from being revealed. fellow Confederate leader. questions about acceptable

36 Mother of SC Pride areas of historical inquiry and access to underground. Until the 1980s, gays and knowledge about our own antecedents.” lesbians remained a largely invisible population. There have been exceptions. The lives of Laura Towne and Ellen Perhaps the most notable was South Murray raise similar questions of Carolina’s first “out” transsexual; a evidence and interpretation, Madden more colorful character fiction could not writes. The Pennsylvania abolitionists invent. moved to St. Helena Island in 1862 to found Penn Center, the first school for In 1962, British writer Gordon Langley freed slaves. Hall arrived in Charleston by chauffeured limousine with his parrot Marilyn and Madden writes, “Close companions for two pedigreed chihuahuas. With his high- more than 40 years, they exemplify… a brow European connections (he was born ‘romantic friendship,’ sometimes called to the aristocrat Marjorie Hall Ticehurst, at the time a ‘Boston marriage,’ a model and his godmother was the British of emotional relationship acceptable for actress Dame Margaret Rutherford), he unmarried professional women. While a was soon embraced by the social elite recent history might refer decorously to in Charleston. Fun and flamboyant, he their ‘strong affectionate bond,’ others could name-drop with the best of them would claim them as ancestors to the and added to their parties a whiff of

current movement. aristocracy from the mother country. Library of Congress

“Similarly, Laura Bragg, who became That all changed on Sept. 23, 1968, when the director of the Charleston Museum Gordon Hall woke from surgery at Johns in 1920, maintained a longtime relation- Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and began ship with her companion, Belle Heyward, a new life as Dawn Pepita Langley Hall. cousin of DuBose Heyward, author of Porgy and Bess. Like Towne, Bragg was If that weren’t shocking enough, Hall a progressive educator who transformed soon announced her engagement to the educational outreach of the museum John-Paul Simmons, her black butler, and opened its doors to black patrons.” whom she’d been courting in secret for We’wha was a revered spiritual leader a year. The news was not well-received. who served as an emissary of the Zuni It is a challenge to document gay history A bomb threat forced the couple to move in Washington, where he met President in South Carolina, as moral and religious the wedding from a Baptist church to the Grover Cleveland. We’wha had a dictates have largely forced gay life Hall’s home. husband who was generally recognized as such. Photo circa 1886. 37 Harriet Hancock

The marriage much for Hall’s friends and neighbors. made international They closed ranks, turning their backs on headlines. Jack the bon vivant who had brought so much Leland reported in life and glamor to their parties. the New York Daily News, “Dawn Pepita The family would leave Charleston as Hall, a British born social outcasts, their money gone, and male before a sex their Society Street home sold. They change operation last moved to New York, where they became October, changed parents to baby Natasha, in 1971. her name tonight, marrying her former The couple divorced in 1982, with butler, a negro. Hall claiming physical abuse. Not long Wearing a full-length after, her husband was diagnosed with white gown with schizophrenia. Hall eventually returned a 12-foot train, the thin, brown-haired to Charleston to live with her daughter Miss Hall entered the wedding room until her death in 2000 from Parkinson’s in her restored Charleston mansion to disease. the strains of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ and was married to John-Paul Upon John-Paul Simmons’ death in 2012, Simmons, 30. 25 guests and a handful Edward Gilbreth of Charleston’s The of newsmen witnessed the 20-minute Post and Courier wrote, “Now the final ceremony, performed by the Reverend chapter of their remarkable story is over. William Singleton, a negro who appeared If this isn’t a great tale warranting serious ill at ease.” study and historical context, then I don’t know what is. The tabloid also reported, “Miss Hall said the news had not been received so joy- “Because even today, the story makes fully in Charleston’s top society, in which waves and raises the very contemporary Gordon Langley Hall, the man, once issues of gender identification, racism moved freely.” in America, interracial marriage, class disparity, mental illness, body The Holy City’s upper crust could abide dysmorphism and the way some people a gay man, apparently, but a transsexual are treated when the only crime they married to a black servant was just too commit is being true to themselves.” 9 38 TIMELINE

1980: Harriet Hancock establishes the 1993: PALSS Director Bill Edens 1998: Alliance for Full Acceptance is state’s first chapter of Parents, Families files lawsuit contesting the exclusion founded in Charleston. and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. of people with AIDS from the state’s insurance risk pool. He dies before the 2002: Activists meet to address the 1982: Gay student group seeks case comes to trial. lack of statewide coordination between official status at the University of South LGBT organizers, and establish the Carolina. Tony Snell Rodriguez files suit 1993: First LGBT community- South Carolina Equality Coalition, now after application is denied. He wins case owned center opens in Columbia. It SC Equality. in 1983. is renamed the

Harriet Hancock Becci Robbins 2003: US Supreme 1985: The state’s first HIV/AIDS Center in 2005. Court strikes sodomy service organization, Palmetto AIDS laws nationwide. Life Support Services, opens in 1993: Legislature Columbia. removes buggery 2004: State Republican law from criminal Party calls for firing gay 1988: Comprehensive Health code, a move schoolteachers. Education Act passes, prohibiting vetoed by Gov. discussion of non-heterosexual Carroll Campbell. 2005: Rainbow Radio relationships except in the context of Lawmakers goes on air. In 2010, Out disease prevention. reinstate the Loud, the Best of Rainbow archaic language. Radio is published. In 1989: Reacting to a bill mandating 2014, the book stirs quarantine of people with HIV, ACT UP 1996: South controversy after being stages “die-in” at State House, with 41 Carolina passes Defense of Marriage assigned to USC Upstate freshmen. arrested. The bill fails. Act, a constitutional amendment denying legal recognition to unmarried 2006: First SC Black Pride. 1990: First Pride march held in couples. Columbia. 2007: Sean Kennedy is attacked 1996: Greenville County Council outside a Greenville bar for being gay. 1992: Greater Columbia Community passes resolution declaring He dies from his injuries. His mother, Relations Council publishes study that homosexuality incompatible with Elke Kennedy, launches campaign on leads to the city passing housing and community standards. his behalf, helping to pass the Hate employment protections. Crime Prevention Act in 2009. 1998: Mayor of Myrtle Beach joins 1993: South Carolina Gay and business and church leaders to oppose 2014: Marriage equality prevails in Lesbian Business Guild is founded. Pride rally. Their efforts backfire. South Carolina. 9 Harriet Hancock

Mother’s Day Stacy Smallwood as a child, i remember mother’s back and dance in the glory of sun beneath my feet, on one saturday morning every year, crushing her tension into wine between my toes all because her son had the courage to say hoping this would help her sleep deeper “i’m gay.” and wake up more flesh than granite. i worried about breaking her, i can only imagine how the blood erupted in his face that my feet might find a fault when he turned to tell her, along the line of her spine forcing seas to swell and spill over his eyes and split her, as he squeezed the words out of his gut, but she reassured me how his muscles wove like rope to hang him bearing me on her back is what a mother is built for. as he stood before the only person his face could never lie to, how he ground his teeth into salt that dissolved in his mouth so i kept walking, and burned a tongue that would rather roll into his lungs moving mountains beneath my heels and hide until danger passed to give her some relief, than confess his sins to one who had already forgiven him. amazed at this steel strength glowing under my soles, two words but unwilling to share the weight of my difference with her that inspired a woman even though I knew at that young age. to change the world. last night, under a warm spring moon, i met another woman And this is what i want for you, mother; whose back was cast in titanium and iron. a broken but complete son to love, a woman named harriet hancock. with as few shadows as possible an entire state came out to thank her and an honest tongue. for helping to organize south carolina’s first pride march but how do i tell you, fifteen years ago, the woman who always said “don’t you ever bring digging hands in dying earth a white woman home to me” commanding it to bear rainbow fruit, that i’d rather bring a black man instead? fighting death threats and legislators how do you wrap that in a ribbon helping men to leave the sewers and say “happy mother’s day”?

40 Mother of SC Pride

n the summer of 2005, a group but this is what i bring home to you, of friends began talking about stomach knotted, knees weak, producingI a radio show by and about butterflies and chainsaws in flux. the LGBT community in South Caro- but i need to stand on your back again, lina. “The focus of the show was on the want you to know the comfort people, the stories, and the issues of gays of your son’s naked feet and lesbians in South Carolina,” said Ed digging and burying secrets where he knows Madden, one of the show’s producers. they’ll be safe, hoping your body won’t reject them. maybe you’ll cry under the weight Rainbow Radio began broadcasting on the same way i have, Sunday mornings from a small studio or maybe you’ll tense your muscles in Columbia. A program promotion and erode me out of your soil, announced, “For far too long, talk or maybe you’ll find the cause you were never searching for, radio airwaves have been dominated by the people who talk a reason to post a parade down gatesville’s only street about us. Starting this fall, we speak for ourselves!” a whole new way to love your broken child back together and tell him it’s okay, While the original goal was to get LGBT stories into the main- that God doesn’t make mistakes. stream media, the introduction of a constitutional amendment perhaps you’ll lie to me and tell me i’m perfect in 2005 banning same-sex marriage in South Carolina gave the just as i am, work added urgency. “Faced with legislation that said some and i might believe it. families deserve protection and other families—our families— but i’m so scared now, don’t, we felt that telling our stories mattered more than ever,” scared to turn the only woman i’ve ever loved against me Madden said. scared to confirm her greatest christian fears, scared to watch her steel melt around my ankles, The program was so well-received, Madden and Candace praying my answers to her questions Chellew-Hodge assembled an anthology of selected essays in could become her cause Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio, published in 2010 by and not my crucifix. Hub City Press. The book was dedicated to Harriet Hancock.

789 Out Loud stirred controversy when USC Upstate assigned it to freshmen. Conservative lawmakers, one calling it “taxpayer- Stacy W. Smallwood’s work has been featured in open funded pornography,” objected by cutting funding for the mics, slams, workshops and cultural arts events across university, a move Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter said during debate the United States. This poem was featured in amounted to “pushing our own moral agenda on institutions of Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio. higher learning.” 9 41 Harriet Hancock

Author’s Note communities, and an informed electorate savvy organizer, I didn’t know about her in the Palmetto State. life as a young wife and mother. It is that part of her story that impresses me most. met Harriet Hancock in 1990, when Not only was she brave enough to pack I wrote a profile of her for the South Debate at that first statewide meeting up her kids in the middle of the night CarolinaI Bar magazine, my first job out centered on whether to keep the coalition and go underground—with no skills, no of college. It turned out to be more than a narrow, as a consultant advised, or open it money, no safety net; she completely story for me; it was a revelation. Harriet, to anyone who supported our mission. We reinvented herself. In Bill Edens, and the other pioneers at chose inclusiveness, mid-life, she dared to PALSS were part of a community like welcoming labor dream bigger. I’d never seen before. Everyone was organizers, pro- welcome. Everyone was valued. choice advocates, and gay activists— It strikes me that Harriet’s professional I was so impressed with the work they knowing it meant life is book ended by were doing that I became a PALSS risking potential funerals and weddings. buddy, an experience that opened my funding and allies. Early on, she was eyes and shifted my priorities. Within burying friends, many months, I quit my job to take over a It was the best of them in the prime of struggling alternative newspaper. What I decision we ever their lives. Now, she thought would be a temporary gig lasted made. A history of is marrying friends— 10 years. having each other’s backs—even when more than a dozen so far—many of them older POINT ran dozens of gay-related inconvenient—has SC Bar News couples who waited pieces—on everything from the AIDS made us a stronger decades to be wed. The crisis to banned books to hate crimes to coalition, built on years between those bookends span a Columbia’s drag scene to the pandering, mutual trust and the respect that grows remarkable arc of love and compassion. grandstanding, and moralizing that often from shared experience. passes for legislating in the State House. It has been a privilege to tell Harriet’s These stories gave me greater empathy Our gay allies have brought great story, however incompletely. I thank her, and insight into what was then a largely political skills and creative energy to the the Hancock family, and the elders in invisible population. Network. It’s hard to imagine the past 20 years without them. South Carolina’s LGBT movement who were so generous with their time. In 1996, I was part of a group that met at Penn Center to form the SC Progressive This project has only deepened my Becci Robbins Network, a grassroots coalition admiration and affection for Harriet. Communications Director working for good government, healthy While I knew her to be a good lawyer and SC Progressive Network 42 REMothersou of SC Priderces

NewsBank, Richland Library, Columbia. A History of Richland County, Edwin L. Green, The R. L. Bryan Company, 1932. POINT, South Carolina’s Independent Newsmonthly, 1996–2000 issues archived at scpronet.com/point. Lonely Hunters: An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life, 1948–1968, James T. Sears, Editor, Westview Press, 1997. South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, South Carolina Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Collection, circa Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio, Ed Madden and Candace 1975–2012. Chellew-Hodge, Editors, Hub City Press, 2010.

Bound By Diversity, James T. Sears, Editor, Sebastian Press, 1994. Proud Heritage: People, Issues and Documents of the LGBT Experience, Chuck Stewart, Editor; South Carolina Chapter, Dr. Ed Carryin’ on in the Lesbian and Gay South, John Howard, Editor, NYU Madden, ABC-CLIO, 2014. Press, 1997. A Queer History of the United States, Michael Bronski, Beacon Press, Committed to Home: Chronicles of the Queer Movement from a 2011. Southern Perspective, 1984–2014, Sheila Morris, University of South Carolina Press, 2017. “Be Generous of Spirit: Early History of PALSS,” Cynthia Poindexter, MSW, Ph.D., October 2000. Dawn: A Charleston Legend, Dawn Langley Simmons, Wyrick & Company, 1995. “Palmetto Aids Life Support Services: The Early Years,” compiled by Harriet Hancock. Gay America: Struggle for Equality, Linas Alsenas, New York, Amulet Books, 2008. “On the Outskirts of Columbia, A History of Kelly Cemetery, Lake Katherine-Kilbourne Park & Other Nearby Lands, 1784–2015,” Mark J. The Gay Revolution: the Story of the Struggle, Lillian Faderman, New Lynn, Columbia, 2015. York, Simon & Schuster, 2015. “The Heirs of Harwell: Descendants of Thomas Harwell of Columbia, Growing Up Gay in the South: Race, Gender, and Journeys of the Spirit, S.C.,” Mark J. Lynn, 1997. James T. Sears, Routledge, 1991. Video and audio recordings of interviews made for this booklet A History of AIDS Social Work in Hospitals: A Daring Response to an are archived at the Modjeska Simkins School, a project of the SC Epidemic, Barbara I Willinger, Alan Rice, Routledge, 2012. Progressive Network.

This booklet is a project of the SC Progressive Network, a SC Progressive Network grassroots coalition of groups and individual activists working 2025 Marion St. • PO Box 8325 together to promote social and economic justice in the Palmetto Columbia, SC 29202 State. Now celebrating 20 years of organizing, the Network 803-808-3384 invites you to join us! 43 [email protected] • scpronet.com Facebook • Twitter • YouTube • Flickr Harriet Hancock

their family histories. She was astonished to find that they are blood relatives.

“My great grandmother Mary Monteith McCabe and Modjeska’s father Henry Monteith are half-brother and -sister,” she said. “Well, I can tell you that I got so excited about that! I really appreciate the fact that she was an activist, and I’m an activist.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s about race or sexual orientation or transgender issues— it’s all the same; it’s about civil rights.”

Her research revealed that Henry’s father, Walter Shields Monteith, “was a scoundrel,” Harriet said, “but all of us have relatives we are not proud of. But I am sure proud to be related What’s in a name? to Modjeska. If it’s Monteith, plenty. “She was such an accomplished, strong woman, and took a back seat to no one, so I am thrilled with my discovery. What a great his booklet was created as a companion to one the SC thing to share her bloodline!” 9 Progressive Network published in 2014 that profiled SouthT Carolina human rights matriarch Modjeska Monteith Simkins. In a remarkable twist, it turns out that Harriet Hancock and Modjeska Simkins are related, a fact only discovered during the course of this project.

Harriet had heard of Simkins many years earlier through her sister Diane, who had seen her at a public event and was so impressed that she called to tell her about it. Diane noted that South C aroliniana Library South C aroliniana Library they shared the name Monteith and wondered if they might be related.

Harriet didn’t think much about it again until she read the booklet, which prompted her to start looking for connections in Mary Monteith McCabe Henry Monteith 44