[Marxism] Being There: The Spirit of '69 & Christopher Street West

[David Thorstad <binesi@xxxxxxxxx>]

The following is a reminiscence by my friend Marcus Overseth about his 
involvement in radical gay events in California in 1969. He explains his 
role in creating the slogan "Better Blatant Than Latent" (one of the 
best slogans to come out of gay liberation, in my view) and some of the 
early gay actions. He was also an editor of the /San Francisco Free 
Press/ after being involved in the formation in 1969 of FREE in 
Minneapolis (Fight Repression of Erotic Expression--perhaps my favorite 
name for a gay and sexual liberation group). With the fortieth 
anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion upon us, it is well to remember 
that much of the groundwork and most of the important organizing that 
preceded Stonewall took place in California. That included, but is not 
limited to, ONE magazine, the formation of Mattachine Society and 
Daughters of Bilitis, and various early protests in San Francisco and 
Los Angeles.  Marcus's activities and views are discussed in Donn Teal's 
/The Gay Militants/ (1971).
David
=====================================================================

   LAGLF was holding meetings on the second floor in a hall in the,  
what was it, Silverdale or something like that, neighborhood, a few  
miles east of Hollywood and not that far from Chavez Ravine.   
Somewhat of a gay area even back in the day.  This would have been  
probably June, or very late May of 1970.  I've always been one for  
slogans and such, having been at that time a recently recovering ad- 
writer.  Suggested "Better Blatant than Latent" for a button.  Idea  
was accepted and a bunch were ordered up.  They were/are fairly  
large, perhaps 2 1/2" in diameter.

   The coverage in Time magazine occurred immediately after the  
first anniversary celebrations of Christopher Street, both in NYC and  
as Christopher Street West right down Hollywood Blvd. To my  
knowledge, the article in Time denoted the first major media  
recognition of the then nascent gay liberation movement.  As  
journalists are wont to do, the Time writers selected my slogan as a  
kicker, or precis at the end of the article to encapsulate the spirit  
of the newly discovered social movement in the short, pithy and  
precise summation of that quantum leap in gay consciousness:  "Better  
Blatant than Latent".

   Prime organizer of the original CSW was the estimable Morris  
Kight, who later came to be given the unofficial title of "Mayor of  
Gay LA".  Morris was a gifted politician, organizer, schmoozer,  
unifier, tactician and strategist.  Drawing in a broad assemblage of  
disparate elements from the community such as a gay motorcycle club  
from someplace like Azusa, the Reverend Troy Perry of the recently  
established Metropolitan Community Church, Jim Kepner and the many  
long-struggling early gay movement circles which he exemplified; the  
Society of Pat Rocco Enlightened Enthusiasts; Bob Humphreys and his  
circle and the younger activists who had become energized by  
participation in GLF , guys like Don Kilhefner, the prime organizer  
of  the Gay Community Services Center in central Hollywood;  Morris  
became as the spider at the center of a web of affiliations which put  
together a parade which became the prime template for Gay Pride  
parades all across the planet.

   Still little recognized or understood by East Coast gay  
activists, a large measure of development within the then young and  
vibrant gay liberation movement occurred first in the California  
centers of Los Angeles and San Francisco.  The groundwork was  
initiated by Harry Hay and the original Mattachine circle.   
Organizational development and even street actions built gradually  
through the Fifties and Sixties.  By the end of the Sixties the stage  
had been set, the producers and directors had their scripts lined  
up.  All that was needed was a fresh new cast of actors who were part  
and parcel of the general social movements of the day:  The civil  
rights movement; the anti-war movement and the "youthquake" as Look  
magazine described it.

We all came together on an October evening on Market Street in San  
Francisco as the Committee for Homosexual Freedom picketed THE major  
social event of the established gay community season:  The Beaux Arts  
Drag Ball.  Many of the CHF people were in drag and some, like Jack  
Ransom , in full drag and full beard, became precursors of Gay  
Guerilla Theater, the Cockettes and the Sisters of Perpetual  
Indulgence.  Our slogan that evening was: "Wear Your Gown All Year  
Round"  coupled with our general slogan   "Outta the Closets and into  
the Streets".  I provided extensive photographic and print coverage  
of the event as the newly designated gay editor of the San Francisco  
Free Press, a previous street publication run by pornographer Norm  
Fitzgerald outta his storefront office right out there on Haight  
Street and  his silent partner, attorney Herb Montgomery, who later  
became a San Francisco judge.

Again in October of '69 another street action occurred in San  
Francisco which was to electrify the gay community in that city.  One  
Saturday morning i walked out the door of our first gay liberation  
commune flat at the corner of Waller and Webster and a few steps to  
the Chinese owned little corner grocery.  Did something unusual.   
Bought a copy of the SF Examiner, the remaining flagship publication  
of the Hearst tradition of yellow journalism.  Their headline  
slamming the gay community had grabbed my eye with such lines as "men  
who are not really men" and similar boilerplate slanders.  Sharing  
the copy with housemates Jack Ransom and Nick Cheshire and then with  
Michael Brown and Marshall Aronowitz from the second floor group and  
then with Stevens McClave and others who came by during the day, we  
began laying plans.

The previous year, Stevens, who came from a well to do family in  
Michigan had been a part of the Paris Spring of '68, most probably  
with the Situationists.  Born for the stage, Stevens picked up the  
ball and did much of the organizing for the CHF picketing of the  
Examiner Building.
We were a rag-tag crew of hippies and queens, about 20 in all, even  
including a couple straight women who were friends of the gang.   
Phyllis Jaffe from Milwaukee was there.  At the time she was a lover  
of the Rev. Jefferson Fuck Poland and lived in another of the flats  
at Waller and Webster along with another CHFer, Dunbar Aitkin,  
originally from Maine.

Things were proceeding peacefully around the north side of the  
Examiner Building as we chanted our slogans and hoisted our signs  
decrying the Examiner and their Hearstful policies. Then, from some  
floor up high, somebody dropped a big glob of purple printers ink  
down on the sidewalk, splattering several demonstrators.  Ever the  
Situationist and theatrical to the max, Stevens promptly laved his  
right hand in the big glob of ink and proceeded to make pretty,  
purple handprints all over the granite walls of the building.

"Brothers help me!"  Stevens hollered out, as a suddenly  
materializing from nowhere Tac Squad cop in helmet and black drag  
laid his beefy paw on Stevens' slender shoulder.  I was the first one  
in, my hand on the cop's shoulder and then they were on me too.  Next  
thing i was being hustled into a nearby paddywagon and so were  
others.  If memory glands aren't failing me, i seem to recall there  
were 13 of us busted that day and hauled off to SF City Prison, a  
truly gloomy dungeon of a place.  In the process, still carrying my  
35 mm Beseler Topcon, i managed to get a shot from the wrong side of  
that paddywagon of one of our straight women friends being hustled  
none too gently into the vehicle.  That photo (amazingly, the cops  
did not yank out the film when they impounded my camera a few minutes  
later) became part of my coverage of the event in the San Francisco  
Free Press .

CHF had gained the attention of the gay community  when we picketed  
the Beaux Arts Ball. With the Examiner bust, we captured the  
attention of the community and promptly galvanized all the more  
volatile and activist tendencies among Bay Area gays.  From its  
beginnings with Leo Lawrence, Gale Whittington, Don Burton and a  
handful of others picketing the steamship line which had fired  
Whittington over his sexuality in April of '69; CHF quickly morphed  
into Pat Brown burning his S.I.R card as a protest against that then  
closety gay organization and its accomodationist policies.  A handful  
of street demonstrations, the picketing of the drag ball and then the  
confrontation with the Examiner and the SF Tac Squad, gave the CHF  
the moral leadership within the gay community of San Francisco in  
that energized October of '69.

Our new generation of gay activists had become the new face and the  
cutting edge of the entire gay community in San Francisco.  Our CHF  
contingent was roundly cheered as we joined the city's great peace  
march against the Vietnam war that fall.  We had become a part of  
history. In a November dinner meeting at an upstairs venue in  
downtown Berkeley,  we had a couple of guests from the southland:   
Morris Kight of the Westlake Park neighborhood in Los Angeles and Don  
Jackson from Bakersfield.  After a couple of hours with the gang  
which had galvanized San Francisco and meeting the individuals,  
Morris remarked that "Central Casting could not have come up with a  
more perfect set of characters or roles".

Morris learned of my tenuous economic status in San Francisco and  
threw me an invitation to come down to LA and help the GLF get off  
the ground down in SoCal.  A couple months later, with the SF vortex  
sucking the energies outta me instead of flinging them upwards and  
outwards, i took Morris up on his offer, arriving in LA just in time  
for a couple small meetings at Harry Hay and Johnny Burnside's  
Kaleidoscope Factory followed by LAGLF's first street action, the  
picketing of Barney's Beanery with its infamous "No Fagots" sign.   
While the moving lights of CHF in San Francisco were extending into  
Gay Guerilla Theatre, the slow and sunny southland was just starting  
to hit the streets.

   -Marcus Magnus Overseth, editor emeritus San Francisco Free Press  
(September 1969-January 1970)  Former chairman (June 1970) LAGLF.   
Official photographer:  Christopher Street West. e-mail: stickman@xxxxxxxxxx


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