4 10 64 https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/740a6bfa3b21416d6e86e4f972b0294a.png f4d83e150faacfb6ed213cd8e8407759 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Description An account of the resource This collection began in 2019 with the initial goal of collecting ten oral histories from older adult LGBT people in the Lehigh Valley. Topics explored include the childhood experiences of LGBT people, experiences within educational and religious institutions, coming out stories, understanding of the gay liberation movement (1960-1980s), experience of the early years of the AIDS epidemic and AIDS activism (1980s-present), and experience with the fight for marriage equality. The project has been a collaborative effort among faculty and librarians from Cedar Crest College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College, and members of the local community, under the direction of Dr. Mary Foltz, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University and Co-Director of the South Side Initiative. <br /><br /><em> The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.</em> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Mary Foltz Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Liz Bradbury OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-19.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 August 3, 2020 Liz Bradbury, August 3, 2020 LGBT-19 1:31:13 LVLGBT Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive Collection Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Liz Bradbury Mary Foltz video/mp4 Copy of BradburyLiz_20200803_video.mp4 1.0:|33(7)|62(9)|79(9)|104(13)|129(4)|158(3)|183(3)|206(5)|233(3)|252(17)|277(11)|302(7)|329(4)|356(3)|385(11)|414(8)|439(14)|468(3)|493(8)|520(10)|543(10)|554(11)|583(12)|608(14)|633(7)|660(7)|683(13)|708(12)|741(4)|764(17)|789(11)|812(13)|835(17)|860(15)|883(9)|908(2)|929(10)|950(9)|977(10)|994(13)|1021(9)|1048(7)|1071(4)|1094(3)|1115(12)|1140(3)|1163(6)|1184(13)|1211(5)|1234(5)|1257(12)|1284(2)|1309(9)|1334(13)|1363(5)|1388(8)|1413(5)|1438(4)|1463(11)|1484(14)|1509(13)|1534(13)|1561(2)|1586(4)|1609(16)|1632(12)|1659(6)|1678(5)|1701(9)|1722(14)|1747(6)|1772(4)|1799(13)|1824(10)|1845(10)|1864(16)|1885(6)|1904(10)|1933(9)|1964(15)|1991(7)|2022(8)|2051(8)|2074(12)|2095(18)|2114(14)|2145(6)|2170(6)|2193(12)|2220(4)|2247(3)|2256(10) 0 https://youtu.be/gFXnnMuRT_s YouTube video English 5 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I’m here with Liz Bradbury to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. And Liz and I are meeting on Zoom because there’s a pandemic going on. Today is August 3rd, 2020. So, Liz, thank you so much for talking with me today.&#13 ; &#13 ; LIZ BRADBURY: So, glad to be here. 0 109 The Valley Gay Press LB: I can’t remember exactly what I covered in the last time when we were talking about Steve Black. I did talk about Steve a lot. And certainly, he was the one who got us involved with the activism that we did in the 1990s which was over a long period, and then well into the 2000s. One of the things that happened was that, in 1998, we began to produce the Valley Gay Press. 0 203 Finding Community &amp ; Sharing Resources LB: And by the way, I didn’t really mention this, but I really miss it and I think a lot of people miss it. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to continue to do it. It connected me and connected all of the different LGBT organizations with each other, and that was one of the things about Pennsylvania Diversity Network, too. We called it a network on purpose so that we could really talk about the relationship between all these different organizations. And if you look at the Valley Gay Press where we indicated the different things that were going on in the community, in the events section, because we always had the events section, there was a list and the communication information for all these different organizations in the greater Lehigh Valley, and there were over 30 of them. And there still are. 0 365 Transitioning from The Valley Gay Press LB: Well, what happened was that, and as I outlined before, that Steve became very, very hard to work with, and it just got harder, and harder, and harder to work with him and it was very frustrating. And we were also beginning to realize as time went by, and this was over a four-year period, that paying to print the paper was extremely expensive. The cost of the paper just went up and it would just double all of a the sudden. We were printing 800 papers, and they’d say, “This is 120 dollars,” and then the next month they’d go, “That’s 240 dollars.” And we’d be like, “Wait, it was 120 dollars last month.” “Yeah, it went up. And it’s not a lot, it’s just like two cents a page.” I said, “Well, yeah, but it was one cent a page before, now it’s double.” 0 462 Goals for the Community / Haven (run at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley) LB: And we also felt that what we wanted to do was concentrate on bringing information to people and we weren’t going to try to do PA Gala because Steve was running it. And he wasn’t going to stop running it. That was the thing. He was going to continue to run that, and we were going to continue to run an organization that’s primary purpose was getting out Valley Gay Press. And also, other kinds of things. 0 617 Haven Facilitators / Facilitator Age Discrimination LB: So, we were involved in setting up Haven and we worked with Unitarian Church, and we were there for some of the first meetings of that. And I trained to be a facilitator. I was a facilitator at Haven for years. And at one point I was almost at every facilitator meeting. I had a little conflict with one of the people who ran the organization. And I thought that there were some problems with it because I actually didn’t think that we were trained very well. I saw that. I saw youth that had pretty severe problems there that the facilitator had no idea how to handle. And that was confirmed by other facilitators that were there, too, because there always had to be at least three facilitators there during the time. So, it was hard to fill those slots. 0 773 Instilling Pride in Out Haven Facilitators LB: They also had a training -- and I remember this, it was very stressful because Don Kohn was involved with it, a bunch of different. He was on their beginning board, and Tracy Denton was very, very involved in setting that program up, and she really did all the beginning steps to make Haven work at the Unitarian Church. And [Elsa Stole?], who was a member of the church, she really was the other person that made that happen. And it’s done great. They’ve met every single week for, what, 20 years. Every single week they do it. 0 1031 Starting Pennsylvania Diversity Network So, anyway, we had the Valley Gay Press and we couldn’t afford to pay for it and we were having a hard time working with Steve. So, we said to Steve, “We’re going to start a new organization, it’s going to be a 501c3, which is a charity that you can donate to and you can write off of the money. And we’re going to call it Pennsylvania Diversity Network. And Steve understood. We gave him a year to get ready for us to leave, and he was fine with that. And, so we started Pennsylvania Diversity Network, and Robert Roush, who was a development guy, and he now is running a big LGBT youth organization in Western New York that covers the whole part of that state, and he and his partner, Steve Olofson, started the Gay Men’s Chorus in the Lehigh Valley. And I said to Robert, “We will pay you to help us set up the 501c3.” 0 1214 Fighting Anti-LGBT Discrimination at JCPenney So, we had two numbers, our house number and then another number that now is my cell number. And people would call to ask questions about anything. They would call me and say, “I’ve been discriminated against. What should I do?” Well, I was the chair of the Human Relations Commission of the City of Allentown. I was on the commission for many, many years, more than 15 years. I helped to write the antidiscrimination ordinance because when we passed the ordinance, I was involved in writing it so I really understood how the ordinance worked. 0 1477 Providing the Community with Regional Discrimination Information LB: So, I would point out to them how to write the policy that would really protect people so people could be comfortable. People would call me on the info line and say, “I’m coming to a job at such-and-such a place, is this college,” and this has happened, “I’m coming from Princeton and I’m looking at a job at Moravian. Are they LGBT-friendly?” And at the time I said, “No, they’re not. They just removed their nondiscrimination policy. There’s no policy in the City of Bethlehem. You’re really at risk here. I wouldn’t recommend it.” 0 1660 PA Diversity Network's Purpose LB: And I would refer them to lawyers but sometimes the lawyers would contact me because they didn’t really know what the law said in Allentown. It’s not the same from town to town. And I’m very familiar with what the laws say throughout the state, and which laws are the ones that are really protective. So, we wanted Pennsylvania Diversity Network to be able to give that information to people. And we worked a lot on the marriage equality issue, which I talked about. And we also produced the Photo Project, which I talked about as well. So, we did that kind of stuff. 0 1811 Marriage Equality &amp ; Partner Benefits / Effect of United States v. Windsor LB: Did I talk about that one before, Freedom to Marry?&#13 ; &#13 ; MF: You talked about the Photo Project but you didn’t really talk around it, like what other activities you were involved with. &#13 ; 0 2067 Freedom to Marry / Spreading Info to the Community LB: And then in 2014, we got full marriage equality. And so, up until that time, the full marriage equality that happened in 2014 we did these Freedom to Marry things. And Pennsylvania Diversity Network partnered with Metropolitan Community Church to do these things. So, there was a protest outside, and we did that outside the courthouse. And I worked with Beth Goudy a lot about what would be the best use of our time to do this, and what would make the most impact? 0 2208 Making the Information More Accessible LB: So, Pennsylvania Diversity Network was speaking politically, and MCC was speaking from the point of view of a religious organization. And they had larger groups of people to do this. We made a video about it, and we put that up. I would speak to the press. Beth would speak to the press. I would try to have a Spanish statement, because I can read Spanish so it really sounds like I know what I’m talking about. I may have absolutely no idea what I’m saying, but I have a really good accent. So, people would fall for that. 0 2327 Collaboration between PA Diversity Network and the Metropolitan Community Church LB: So, we always wanted to be involved in that and we always worked with MCC, and then MCC would have a service, and I would usually speak at the service. And I usually would go for the laughs. I did a couple of really big laughs ones one time. And I’m one of the things I said was, “You know, we have a lot of different anniversaries when we’re a lesbian couple. And so, lesbian couples, we have all the times that we got married in the church, and the different times we tried to do Freedom to Marry, and our civil union, and our marriage, but for a lot of people, the most important anniversary is their first date, or their first kiss, or the first time they did it,” and people began to laugh. 0 2618 Working with the Community to Disseminate Infomation LB So, we did a lot of different events like that. I think we had some at our house. We were also really involved with ACCO, A Chorus Celebrating Women. ACCO is the name of a mythological woman singer, which is true, actually. But it also stands for A Chorus Celebrating Women, A-C-C-O with a woman’s symbol. And Bev Morgan was the founder and leader of ACCO. She’s a wonderful musician with a beautiful voice. And she had all these women. There was a lot of bi and lesbian women that were involved with ACCO for years and years. She ran that for a long, long time. And we worked with them to promote a lot of their events, or just to be at the events or help them with stuff that they were doing. Because we were very good friends with Bev Morgan and Sandy Fluck. And Sandy Fluck was the chair of the Education Department in Moravian. They live in Rehoboth, now. 0 2733 Meeting Adrian Shanker LB: So, here’s the story of meeting Adrian. So, Adrian was a freshman at Muhlenberg College. And that was in about -- he’s 32 now, so that would have been 14 years ago, so 14 years ago would have been 2006. So, I got a call from Patti Mittleman, I believe, and she was the one who ran Hillel House, and also was involved with running the organization that was really supportive of LGBT students at the college. 0 2806 Including Gender Identity in Muhlenberg College's Nondiscrimination Policy LB: So, Adrian calls me and he goes, “I’m a freshman at Muhlenberg, and I want them to include gender identity to their nondiscrimination policy because it only includes sexual orientation.” I said, “Okay.” So, this is in 2006. So, I said, “Okay, yeah. There’s no problem with that.” He goes, “Well, I want to create a petition to get everybody in the college to support this.” And I said, “No, you don’t want to do that. That’s not what you want to do.” Now, this is one of those few times that Adrian totally listened to me. He stopped doing this. He started telling me what to do, I think, the next year. 0 3173 Adrian's Molding of the GSA at Muhlenberg College LB: And when Adrian started at Muhlenberg, there was about 45 young people in the Gay-Straight Alliance there that they had. And he also did a really smart thing. He stopped letting them worry about changing the name of the Gay-Straight Alliance to spectrum or citron or whatever. Because it’s an enormous waste of time. The federal government allows you to call a group like that Gay-Straight Alliance, and they only actually support that, particularly for high schools. But the thing is that every time a group of college students wants to deliberate that, it usually takes them about eight months to decide what the name is going to be and then they leave, and next year, the next group comes in. 0 3276 Asking Adrian to the PA Diversity Network Board / Making Changes LB: So, after he did that for a couple years, we said, “Let’s have this college student on our board,” and he would be walking by our house. He would walk everywhere, and he’d take other students and walk by our house. He’d ring the doorbell and come in. And we’d hang out with him. Trish would always make him vegetarian food. So, he did that. 0 3535 September 11th Religious Healing Ceremony LB: So, now Adrian’s on our board. And I just want to point out one of the things that happened with that. So, we had September 11th that happened during that time in the beginning part of that. And it was devastating. A year later, there was supposed to be a healing religious ceremony in the community that was put on by the Council of Churches. So, they scripted the whole thing, and they told all the ministers what they had to say. They gave them the script. And one of them was Reverend Beth Goudy of the Metropolitan Community Church. 0 3771 Westboro Baptist Church Fundraiser LB: Well, one of the groups that picked up on this was the Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps’s people, the God hates fags people. This is 2002. Now, I have maintained, absolutely, that these people are our best friends. And there’s a reason for that, and I’ll show you why. Because we could not get the Council of Churches to say anything. We couldn’t get any condemnation from politicals. The mayor of Bethlehem wouldn’t say a fucking thing about it. And we were mad that he wouldn’t say anything. This was supposed to be a healing ceremony and we get kicked in the teeth. So, nobody says anything. 0 4269 Televised Debates LB: And I would be on debates. They called me to be on the TV a lot of times. But they really screwed us on the TV a couple of times, because Adrian and I were going to be on a debate one time, on Business Matters and I said, “We will be on this debate about marriage equality, but you have to have,” because they were considering a Constitutional Amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the State of Pennsylvania. I said, “You have to have legislators on. You can’t just have some crazy street preacher who’s just going to scream and scream and scream and say, ‘You’re a giraffe,’ and ridiculous stuff like that.” So, Adrian had set it up. 0 4472 PA Diversity Network Advocacy LB: But that was one of the things that we did as Pennsylvania Diversity Network. We did political things. We did speak on political issues. We did actual advocacy with regard to people who had lost their jobs or who had been denied -- we would help people find lawyers that would help them obtain custody of their children or get second-parent adoptions. We advocated to and explained to people about the second parent adoption law and how important that was. 0 4627 Hop the Bridge LB: Even after marriage legal in New Jersey, we did a big effort, it was called Hop the Bridge. And we had a huge demonstration in Easton. We got three couples to get legally married. One of them was my previous girlfriend and her partner, which was 25 years before, he’s my Facebook friend, she said, “We want to do this.” And they’d been together for the same amount of time as Trish and me. And I said, “Okay, I’ll set it up.” She said, “We have a niece in Easton.” They live in the middle of the state of Pennsylvania. So, they came and we had two other couples. It was Jerry Schmidt and Chuck Woodbury, and -- actually, we did it twice. So, we had these different people that did this. I think that was the next Freedom to Marry thing. We took a bus over and did it. But there was a bunch of different ways. 0 4781 Leaving PA Diversity Network to Start an LGBTQ+ Community Center LB: Now, Trish and I had been doing this for 20 years. Both of us had actually been doing LGBT activism since -- I had been doing it since the ’70s, she’d been doing it since the ’60s, she was in on the starting of SAGE, the national organization for older LGBT adults. I was working on stuff when I was in graduate school. We had been working all the way through on civil rights stuff. And truthfully, we were getting worried because we were thinking, “Who’s going to do this stuff after we retire?” 0 4913 Raising Money for the Community Center LB: And then I told the story. And people stood up and clapped. And Barb Ross, who, her wonderful partner Kathy Bergey had died and she had this estate money, she said, “I’m going to make the first donation.” So, I said, “We need to raise money.” I said to Adrian, “After Barb makes this money, I’m going to call for people to give donations in the room. Let’s just do that. Trish and I’ll donate 1,000 dollars,” which was hard for us, because we didn’t have a lot of money. “But we’ll do this.” And he goes, “Okay. Well, I’ll donate 1,000 dollars.” So, okay, we’ll do this. And then he says, “Maybe we can raise 10,000 bucks.” He said, “We need to raise 75,000 dollars by October for us to do this. Maybe we can raise 10,000 bucks.” 0 5127 Looking for a Physical Space for the Community Center LB: So, one of the things was that the mayor said he would give us a building for a dollar. And the city did do this. Now, we’re running out of time here. But the city did do this. And they arranged to give us this building on Turner Street, and it was a dollar. It was really neat, because it was only half a mile from our house. And it’s a weird-shaped building. And so, in a nutshell what happened was, we investigated that building for a year. And we had architects and hazmat and we did all this due diligence and we figured out there’s no way in hell we can use this building. Among other things, it’s not just covered with asbestos, it’s made of asbestos. It was full of lead and asbestos and Adrian said, “The only thing that was living in that building was dead pigeons.” 0 5463 Closing Remarks MF: All right. Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. It was, again, just such a pleasure. 0 MovingImage Liz Bradbury details the transition from The Valley Gay Press to Pennsylvania Diversity Network, providing the Valley with crucial information, meeting Adrian Shanker, and starting an LGBTQ+ community center for the Lehigh Valley. INTERVIEW WITH LIZ BRADBURY AUGUST 3, 2020 MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Liz Bradbury to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. And Liz and I are meeting on Zoom because there's a pandemic going on. Today is August 3rd, 2020. So, Liz, thank you so much for talking with me today. LIZ BRADBURY: So, glad to be here. MF: I'm just going to go ahead and do the brief consent and then we'll jump right in. So, do you consent to this interview today? LB: Yes. MF: Do you consent to having this interview transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? LB: Yes. MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Community Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats, like films, articles, websites, presentations? LB: Yes. MF: And do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review the interview, to identify parts you want to delete, or to withdraw the full interview from the project? LB: Yes. MF: Okay. Great. So, last time we talked a lot about the move to PA Gala, and then we moved to discussion of The Valley Free Press/Valley Gay Press that you had put out for 18 years. I thought today we could spend some time talking about the PA Diversity Network, which was the organization that you started after PA Gala. So, could you give me the origin story of PA Diversity Network, and what your aims were with that organization? LB: I can't remember exactly what I covered in the last time when we were talking about Steve Black. I did talk about Steve a lot. And certainly, he was the one who got us involved with the activism that we did in the 1990s which was over a long period, and then well into the 2000s. One of the things that happened was that, in 1998, we began to produce the Valley Gay Press. And at that time my dad had passed away and we had inherited some money and so we could afford, at that time, to pay Trish and I out of pocket to produce the Valley Gay Press out of our own pocket. So, we paid for it to be printed, and PA Gala mailed it to its constituency, our mailing list for PA Gala. And it was a very welcome piece of information for people to get. We also were making people aware of the kinds of political activism they could do, particularly with regard to the passage of the ordinance, the passage of the hate crimes bill, voting information, that kind of stuff was all included. And then, the Valley Gay Press, which was fun to read. And the Valley Gay Press was such an important thing for me. And by the way, I didn't really mention this, but I really miss it and I think a lot of people miss it. I'm sorry that I didn't get to continue to do it. It connected me and connected all of the different LGBT organizations with each other, and that was one of the things about Pennsylvania Diversity Network, too. We called it a network on purpose so that we could really talk about the relationship between all these different organizations. And if you look at the Valley Gay Press where we indicated the different things that were going on in the community, in the events section, because we always had the events section, there was a list and the communication information for all these different organizations in the greater Lehigh Valley, and there were over 30 of them. And there still are. If you look at all the GSAs, if you look at the colleges, if you look at the churches that are really doing significant things like MCC, or the Quaker church, or the Unitarian Church that had specific programs for LGBT people, if you look in everything from the Gay Men's Chorus to, at the time, the sports organization, there was a sports organization, now we have all these youth groups that are happening, Haven came up during that time. We had, of course, Pride, and a bunch of other things that were happening, lots of different things that MCC was doing and within MCC, they had other organizations that were involved. There were other religious organizations. There was a Catholic organization. And then, once we did the outreach to Berks County, because Trish mentioned that last time, we got this grant to do outreach to do Berks County, we included all the Berks County organizations. And there was a bunch of different organizations in Berks County. There was an organization called "The Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Reading and Allentown." And it was this social group that just hung out and we had events here, we'd just invite all these people and they'd just come and make friends and stuff like that. So, we had all these different groups. And the thing is, that people didn't know those groups existed. And today, people don't know these groups exist. People come to us and say they didn't even know there was a community center. They didn't know there was an LGBT organization at Lehigh University. They didn't know there was the Gay Men's Chorus. They didn't know that there was a Pride Festival. And so, all of those things we felt were really important to emphasize in Valley Gay Press. Well, what happened was that, and as I outlined before, that Steve became very, very hard to work with, and it just got harder, and harder, and harder to work with him and it was very frustrating. And we were also beginning to realize as time went by, and this was over a four-year period, that paying to print the paper was extremely expensive. The cost of the paper just went up and it would just double all of a the sudden. We were printing 800 papers, and they'd say, "This is 120 dollars," and then the next month they'd go, "That's 240 dollars." And we'd be like, "Wait, it was 120 dollars last month." "Yeah, it went up. And it's not a lot, it's just like two cents a page." I said, "Well, yeah, but it was one cent a page before, now it's double." And we were printing, then, front and back so that counted. We were printing the equivalent of legal sheets, and some places wouldn't print legal-sized sheets. So, anyway, the cost was getting very high. And one of the things about PA Gala was that PA Gala was a 501c4 organization, which means that it endorsed candidates. And if you endorsed candidates, if that's the kind of organization, you can't be a charity and you can't get sponsorships. PPL isn't going to give money to a PAC, or it wasn't a PAC, but they're not going to give money to a political organization. They want to give money to charity so they can write it off. And we also felt that what we wanted to do was concentrate on bringing information to people and we weren't going to try to do PA Gala because Steve was running it. And he wasn't going to stop running it. That was the thing. He was going to continue to run that, and we were going to continue to run an organization that's primary purpose was getting out Valley Gay Press. And also, other kinds of things. So, the other kinds of things that we wanted to do was to go and speak on LGBT issues, to help other organizations establish themselves, and continue to run with specific missions that were specific, like Haven. We were really involved in the beginnings of Haven and setting up Haven at the Unitarian Church. There had been another organization that Steve Libby had been involved with through Valley Youth House, that had been the first LGBT youth group in the Lehigh Valley that Steve Libby started, and Robert Roush was involved in that. And that was at Valley Youth House. There were a lot of problems with it. It turned out that the guy that was running Valley Youth House, he made statements to us that sounded as though he was thinking that most gay men were pedophiles. At least he said, "Most people presume that all gay men are pedophiles," that's what he said to us. And he said, "We have to fight that every day." And I said, "Well, I don't know what you mean by that." And he said a lot of other things that implied, and this was a long time ago, this was 20 years ago, that Valley Youth House presumed that any kid that was LGBT had severe mental health problems. Now, lots of kids that are LGBT have the stress, minority stress issues, but they're not abnormally affected by the fact that because they're LGBT. And he was likening them too -- he actually said this to us, "I'm part of a parents' group that the parents have lost a child to an accident or violence," and I said, "And that's the same as being gay? Is that what you think that means?" And he sort of said, "Well, you know, there's a lot of stress." I said, "Well, sometimes, not everybody feels that stress. That stress is external. It's not the same." Anyway. So, we were involved in setting up Haven and we worked with Unitarian Church, and we were there for some of the first meetings of that. And I trained to be a facilitator. I was a facilitator at Haven for years. And at one point I was almost at every facilitator meeting. I had a little conflict with one of the people who ran the organization. And I thought that there were some problems with it because I actually didn't think that we were trained very well. I saw that. I saw youth that had pretty severe problems there that the facilitator had no idea how to handle. And that was confirmed by other facilitators that were there, too, because there always had to be at least three facilitators there during the time. So, it was hard to fill those slots. But so, I did that for a long time. And I was concerned about that. And that was one of the reasons that we started our youth group, because the people who were at Haven, and I know that there were a lot of people that were very, very serious about, and very concerned about the youth, but they didn't have any training. Many of them didn't have any training. They also had some policies that, we felt, was pretty discriminatory, blatantly illegal, that they were discriminating against people who, because of minority status, to be Haven volunteers. A lot of it had to do with age. They said, "Anybody under 25 can't be a facilitator." I said, "I was a college teacher when I was 25. How can you say that? In the City of Bethlehem, it's against the law to discriminate against people based on age. So, you can't do that." And they said, "But what if somebody has a relationship with somebody who's 21?" I said, "Well, that's your training issue." That's like saying, "Well, if we have Black people, what if they're thieves?" Yeah, what if they're not? You can't just presume that somebody's going to be inappropriate because they're a minority. That's completely discriminatory. And I had a conflict with them. I said, "I'm not going to list you in the Valley Gay Press if you continue to have this policy because it's going against our nondiscrimination policy. We don't discriminate against people based on age. If you think that someone is going to be too young, you can say they have to have experience. But if this person is a high school teacher, how can you say that they can't be around a person who's 18? That's ridiculous." They also had a training -- and I remember this, it was very stressful because Don Kohn was involved with it, a bunch of different. He was on their beginning board, and Tracy Denton was very, very involved in setting that program up, and she really did all the beginning steps to make Haven work at the Unitarian Church. And [Elsa Stole?], who was a member of the church, she really was the other person that made that happen. And it's done great. They've met every single week for, what, 20 years. Every single week they do it. The problem was that at the beginning they had this training, so I had to go to the training. Trish and I were both at the training. And they had a form that we had to fill out, which was fine. And we had to fill out this stuff, and we had to apply to be a facilitator. One of the things you had to do was, you had to have three letters of recommendation, or at least references, that they could check of people that had known you for more than 10 years. I said, "Fine, that's fine." And then, it said, "Don't worry, we won't tell them that you're working with an LGBT youth group." So, I said, "Why are you saying that?" And they said, "Well, we don't want to out anybody." I said, "But what if the person who is applying is a homophobe? Don't you want to be sure?" And they said, "Well, we don't want to out anybody." I said, "Well, isn't it kind of a requirement for a person who is working with LGBT youth to be honest about their sexual orientation and gender identity? Isn't that what we want, role models for them?" They said, "No, we don't want to have to have people out themselves." I said, "Okay, well, I don't agree with that at all. I think that's wrong." I remember this. And some of the straight people who were involved with this -- and including Don and Melinda Kohn, this is a long, long time ago. I remember Melinda Kohn saying, "Well, what if somebody doesn't want to out themselves?" Then they said, "They shouldn't be a facilitator. That's all it is to it." If a kid says to them, "Well, are you gay?" are they going to lie? Or are they going to say, "I don't want to say?" because if they say, "I don't want to say, you're instilling in some queer youth that it's bad to be queer, and that you should hide, and that you don't have the tenacity to say, 'Sure.'" So, Scott Lauoner, who always wrote for our paper, he wrote "Scotty in the City", and he was a wonderful advocate, and he lives in New York now and I still hear from him all the time, he works with SAGE and a bunch of stuff like that. So, he and I and Trish and Melinda Kohn and a bunch of other people were standing outside of the Unitarian Church. It was in the summer. We were having this discussion, and Melinda turns to Scott, and she says, "Well, I know that Liz and Trish are out to everybody, but lots of LGBT people aren't out to everybody." She turns to Scott and she says, "You're not out to all of your family members." And Scott goes, "I have some third cousins in Arkansas that don't know that I'm gay. But that's about it." And I think that's the kind of deal. I mean, he was a young Republican, although a very progressive one, I doubt he's a Republican now, and he'd been on the Human Relations Commission as an out gay man. And this was 20 years ago. He was the first out gay person on the Human Relations Commission in the City of Allentown. And he wrote in the paper and he didn't care. And Steve Ziminsky, I just interviewed him for a COVID thing, he was a schoolteacher and people would say, "I'm a schoolteacher," I'd say, "Steve's a schoolteacher. He's written letters to the editor where he outed himself, and he doesn't care. He wants youth to know." He wrote this whole thing, like a kid asked him to go to his installation as an Eagle Scout, and he wrote this whole thing about how the Boy Scouts were discriminatory and how he was very proud of this kid to do all these things. But, and then he outed himself in The Morning Call. So, we wanted kids to be proud of our LGBT elders, of our ancestors, of our heritage. And we didn't feel that Haven, at that time, really got that because it was being set up by people that weren't queer, and we didn't feel that they understood. But we worked with them for a long time. So, anyway, we had the Valley Gay Press and we couldn't afford to pay for it and we were having a hard time working with Steve. So, we said to Steve, "We're going to start a new organization, it's going to be a 501c3, which is a charity that you can donate to and you can write off of the money. And we're going to call it Pennsylvania Diversity Network. And Steve understood. We gave him a year to get ready for us to leave, and he was fine with that. And, so we started Pennsylvania Diversity Network, and Robert Roush, who was a development guy, and he now is running a big LGBT youth organization in Western New York that covers the whole part of that state, and he and his partner, Steve Olofson, started the Gay Men's Chorus in the Lehigh Valley. And I said to Robert, "We will pay you to help us set up the 501c3." It's pretty complicated to do it. And he was a development director in a lot of different places and he knew how to do it. And so, he did it. But he said, "I really think this is great you're doing it." I think we said. "We'll give you 400 dollars to do this." We had the money then. And he said, "I will donate it back to the organization." So, he did that. But he set up the 501c3, which is complicated to do. But when you do that, you have to do it at right at the beginning of an organization because if you run an organization for a long time, and then try to set up the 501c3, it's quite hard to do that. So, we set up the 501c3, we got an immediate okay from the government that said that we could run it, which was provisional, and then we began to run it later. I was the executive director ; Trish was the chair of the board. She did all of the membership stuff. She did all the financials. It was a herculean task. And one of the things we did was, we represented on a lot of different other organizations. So, we worked with other organizations, we helped other organizations, we helped with Pride, we always were at Pride, we helped to try to get information to the community at Pride Festivals, and lots of Pride Festivals and different events about how people could lobby their state representatives and state senators and other elected officials to support LGBT issues, which is not actually a political thing. That's a legitimate thing for a 501c3 to do, to talk about issues and then have people support issues. So, so one of the things we did what we worked on Lehigh Valley Health Network to add sexual orientation and gender identity to their nondiscrimination policy. And we were successful with that. And we worked on St. Luke's to do domestic partner benefits. And we used the Valley Gay Press and the organization to do that. I also ran the info line and I've been running this info line for 25 years, and I still do it. It's running right now. And people would call us, at our number, we had a specific number for a while, and then I just said, "Let's just use my telephone number, what the heck." So, we had two numbers, our house number and then another number that now is my cell number. And people would call to ask questions about anything. They would call me and say, "I've been discriminated against. What should I do?" Well, I was the chair of the Human Relations Commission of the City of Allentown. I was on the commission for many, many years, more than 15 years. I helped to write the antidiscrimination ordinance because when we passed the ordinance, I was involved in writing it so I really understood how the ordinance worked. I also knew other kinds of ways that people could challenge instances of discrimination through other things because when people are discriminated against regularly on the job, it almost always falls into the circumstance of sexual harassment. And if it is sexual harassment, then it's against the law and it's been against the law since the 1980s. So, I had a call from a guy -- and this was before we passed the ordinance -- who said that he worked at a major chain pharmacy which is actually owned by JCPenney, and it's a well-known pharmacy. And he was a manager, but he had a higher-level supervisor. The supervisor was constantly saying things that were very rude to him, including writing him emails that said things like, "Hey, at the Pride Festival, you could get a date down there and you could probably get a lot of dick down there," and stuff like that. Well as soon as you say something about somebody's sex life, it's absolutely sexual harassment. And if it's happening from your boss, it doesn't matter whether it's same sex or opposite sex. So, I said, "Do you have any witnesses?" And he goes, "Oh, I have the emails." I said, "The guy wrote you the emails?" He goes, "Well, he put them in the trash but he doesn't know that you could just look in the trash. So, I took them out of the trash and I copied them so I have copies of them." I said, "So, you have copies of this guy saying you can get dick at the Pride Festival." He said, "Yeah. And then he put posters on the wall about it and stuff like that." Well, this really affected this guy's health. He said, "I've had heart palpitations. I have a heart condition." So, I contacted JCPenney, the highest level of people and I said these things had happened to him, and we had documented proof of that, and I was on the Human Relations Commission. Well, that was before we had the law. That would have been in 2000. I said, "I'm part of this organization, we're a civil rights organization. I'm advocating for this guy. He's going to sue you. He's got health problems. It's exacerbated his health problems." They got back to me within two days. And I said, "This is blatant sexual harassment," and they said, "What does he want?" And I said, "He wants this employee to be gone. He wants a new supervisor. He wants some time off. He wants healthcare, to be sure that his healthcare recognizes this," and a bunch of other things. And they did it within a couple of days. But he thought that it was going to be some other kind of thing. He didn't know how to proceed with that. And we had loads and loads of instances like that, where people would say, "This company has a policy that looks like it's really anti-gay but they don't mean to say that." And I've mentioned this in another thing where policies would say, "We don't discriminate based on the law," and wow, yeah, that's really altruistic of you that you don't do something that's illegal. That's not exactly something to laud. So, I would point out to them how to write the policy that would really protect people so people could be comfortable. People would call me on the info line and say, "I'm coming to a job at such-and-such a place, is this college," and this has happened, "I'm coming from Princeton and I'm looking at a job at Moravian. Are they LGBT-friendly?" And at the time I said, "No, they're not. They just removed their nondiscrimination policy. There's no policy in the City of Bethlehem. You're really at risk here. I wouldn't recommend it." One time, we had a guy who called me who was the spouse, but they weren't legally married because it's before marriage equality, of a neonatal surgeons that was coming to Lehigh Valley Health Network and he said, "Do they have domestic partner benefits there?" And I said, "They do not. They do not and we've been lobbying them for a long, long time." This is, again, before marriage equality. They did pass their thing, and as a matter of fact, they passed it because of this. So, I said, "What's your partner going to do?" And he said, "Well, we have two kids," and he told me this whole thing. I gave him all this stuff. I said, "Here's a good pediatrician, and here's a good school, they could go to United Friends School, it's really terrific but we have this nondiscrimination policy at the City of Allentown, but they don't give domestic partner benefits." And he said, "Well, I'm proud of the fact that he's a star. I mean a neonatal surgeon? Somebody that's doing that kind of work, that's the kind of thing that a big healthcare system has a feather in their cap." I said, "Okay. Well, do me a favor. I'm sure, in fact I know that you can get them to give you the benefits through him. Do not accept that. Say to them, 'We won't accept that unless you give everybody these benefits.'" And they did. They did it. And they did it for a bunch of reasons. I also threatened them with Money Magazine, I talked about that before. But that was something that we would do. So, I would get calls. I remember before Equality Pennsylvania was a statewide organization, it was a Philadelphia organization, and before that, it was called Lesbian And Gay Legal something, it was a group of lawyers. And they would deal with discrimination issues. And they had a bunch of interns. I was talking to them and they said, "We have like five people that field phone calls that have questions about discrimination and other LGBT issues." I said, "I do that, too." They said, "How many calls do you get?" I said, "I get about an average of a call a day. Sometimes it's three calls in one day and then not, but it comes out to be maybe one every two days." And then I said, "How many do you do?" And they said, "Two a day." And they had five people working on this stuff. And I would refer them to lawyers but sometimes the lawyers would contact me because they didn't really know what the law said in Allentown. It's not the same from town to town. And I'm very familiar with what the laws say throughout the state, and which laws are the ones that are really protective. So, we wanted Pennsylvania Diversity Network to be able to give that information to people. And we worked a lot on the marriage equality issue, which I talked about. And we also produced the Photo Project, which I talked about as well. So, we did that kind of stuff. And then we did all these other programs. So, our house is a big open space, and so, we actually had art shows in our house. And we did that once a year. We did that, I think, for four or five years until they realized that there was a little bit of an insurance issue there. We were probably a little bit at risk. And that was a fundraiser but it was also really fun. Trish made wonderful food and there would be all these people looking at all this art in the walls because it's big open gallery spaces on the second floor and the first floor of our house. And we used the living room and stuff. We had six or seven artists displaying their work, and a lot of crafts. It was really great. It was very exciting. As I said, we worked right from the beginning with Haven. We worked right from the beginning with the Gay and Lesbian Taskforce. And I doubt that anybody is talking about that taskforce but one of the things that the Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, and they started in 1998, did was -- in fact, it's the only thing they did because they only lasted about six months -- but they created a survey of 900 people that they actually surveyed and tabulated and analyzed, and I don't know where that is, but it might be in the archives. So, if anybody makes any reference to this survey that the Lehigh Valley Taskforce did, [Chris Bose?] was really involved with that, and [Renee Bennett?], and they're still together and they're still in the Lehigh Valley. They may have that survey and that information. It's really an interesting snapshot of 900 identified queer people and how they felt about things in 1998. Very interesting thing to see what would come out of that. We also worked up with MCC on loads and loads of stuff. And one of the things was the Freedom to Marry events that we had. And I think I talked about that before as well. We did a lot of things with Freedom to Marry that had to do with speaking publicly. Did I talk about that one before, Freedom to Marry? MF: You talked about the Photo Project but you didn't really talk around it, like what other activities you were involved with. LB: Okay. So, one of the things that happened with Freedom to Marry, and I think it started about seven years before we got marriage equality. So, we got full marriage equality in the State of Pennsylvania in May of 2014. And anybody that was legally married in any other state, and Trish and I had been married in Connecticut in 2009, we got that full marriage equality in 2014. In 2012, we got federal marriage equality based on the Windsor case, Edie Windsor's case. And so, in 2012 if people were legally married in other states, then some federal benefits would come to them, including that I was getting Trish's domestic partner health benefits at that time through her job at New York State. She was retired, but I got the health benefits. But we had to pay tax on those benefits as though it was money that she was earning. And it was a lot of money. So, we paid about 1,000 dollars a year for those benefits. But when the Windsor case came down through the Supreme Court, which had to do with certain federal benefits, and we're about to learn about Edie Windsor. I'm going to talk about how significant this was, because only Edie Windsor could have made this happen. There's almost no one else in the whole country that could have made the Windsor case happen. And every marriage benefit we got came out of that case. But only Edie Windsor could have done it. And it has to do with how much money she inherited from Thea Speyer. The Windsor case determined that the federal government should recognize benefits for people who were married in other states, in some instances, and who were married in their own states, fully. And in other countries, because Edie Windsor and Thea Speyer were married in Canada, so they have a reciprocal agreement with the United States. So, Trish and I were married in 2009, so in 2012, we didn't have to pay 1,000 dollars a year on the healthcare benefits that I was getting through her domestic partner benefits. They recognized our marriage. And that was a big deal because 1,000 dollars was a lot of money to us. We also recognize that at that point that from that moment on in 2012, if Trish died before me, I would get her pension. And that wouldn't have happened. Well, actually, New York state had that caveat, but everybody that had a federal regulated pension, which is pretty much every pension, so the pension you get, TIAA-CREF pension or something like that, that would all have been covered for anybody that was legally married. So, I was just interviewing somebody who said, "What's the financial benefit?" Because she has been with her partner for a long time. I said, "If you die, your partner can get your pension the way a married person would get it." And she said, "I thought we designate it." I said, "That doesn't work. You can't just designate somebody, unless you have a special caveat through," and that's what New York State had. They said, through their unions, "You can designate one person to get this benefit." But if we had broken up, she couldn't have her next partner do it. That was it, you get one choice and you can choose anybody. But there were all sorts of tax consequences of that. But after Windsor, that was for everybody. And there was also a Social Security benefit that came from Windsor, as well. That was a big deal. And then in 2014, we got full marriage equality. And so, up until that time, the full marriage equality that happened in 2014 we did these Freedom to Marry things. And Pennsylvania Diversity Network partnered with Metropolitan Community Church to do these things. So, there was a protest outside, and we did that outside the courthouse. And I worked with Beth Goudy a lot about what would be the best use of our time to do this, and what would make the most impact? And one of the things we realized right from the beginning was, as I said before, that if we went to Lehigh County Courthouse, we could apply for a marriage license and then they would deny it, but they would keep it on file. And I told you that before, didn't I? yes. So, that stuff, it was important. But with the Pennsylvania Diversity Network, one of the things we were doing was, we started telling people about that. And we'd share that information with people. So, here's the important thing that you need to know, that if you go to Northampton County to apply for a license, your effort disappears the next day, because they're not going to let you apply. But if you go to Lehigh County Courthouse, 100 years from now people are going to go, "What's the deal about Liz Bradbury and Trish Sullivan and why were they constantly denied a license for seven years in a row? And look, more and more people were doing it," because the first year, we were the only ones that did it, and then it was more and more people until every time, there'd be 30 people that would apply for a license until 2014, when they recognized our marriage, and then we stopped doing that. In fact, after we got legally married, I think we stopped doing it then because we thought that, in effect, we were legally married and so we didn't try to apply for another license because we didn't want to get married again, we just wanted them to recognize us. So, I think that went from 2002 to 2009 for us. Other people would apply because they're trying to get the state to do it. But we were there for all of those protests. So, Pennsylvania Diversity Network was speaking politically, and MCC was speaking from the point of view of a religious organization. And they had larger groups of people to do this. We made a video about it, and we put that up. I would speak to the press. Beth would speak to the press. I would try to have a Spanish statement, because I can read Spanish so it really sounds like I know what I'm talking about. I may have absolutely no idea what I'm saying, but I have a really good accent. So, people would fall for that. So, we were in line to apply for our marriage license, and there was a young Latino couple in line, too. And we did this thing and we went outside and then all the press was there, and the television stuff. The thing about speaking in Spanish was, they often didn't have a lot of Spanish content. So, we could almost always get on the Allentown Spanish station, which is part of WFMZ. And usually, I would just start to read the statement and then they'd have a voice over because I really only said two sentences, "nos derechos es importante," that kind of stuff. Then, they interviewed this Latino couple that was in the line, and then the guy says, "Do you think there's a large percentage of gay people in the United States?" And he goes, "Oh, yeah. I do. I think there's a lot." "Well, what do you think is the percentage?" He goes, "Oh, about 50 percent." I'm like, "Yay." And I'm thinking, "Okay." I thought that was a great thing because I think a lot of people think Latinos are very anti and stuff like that. And this young guy was like, "Yeah, it's 50 percent. Why shouldn't they have these rights?" It was great. So, we always wanted to be involved in that and we always worked with MCC, and then MCC would have a service, and I would usually speak at the service. And I usually would go for the laughs. I did a couple of really big laughs ones one time. And I'm one of the things I said was, "You know, we have a lot of different anniversaries when we're a lesbian couple. And so, lesbian couples, we have all the times that we got married in the church, and the different times we tried to do Freedom to Marry, and our civil union, and our marriage, but for a lot of people, the most important anniversary is their first date, or their first kiss, or the first time they did it," and people began to laugh. And I stood, "For those, ours were March 11th, 1987." And then it just got this huge laugh, and it went on for a long time. There was about 250 people there, so it was a big rockstar moment. And I think Beth didn't want me to say it. She goes, "You're not supposed to say those things. It's a church." I said, "Oh, come on. I got a big laugh." She said, "Yeah, you did." And we had the Photo Project there, we would take more pictures of people for the Photo Project, which is another big Pennsylvania Diversity Network effort. So, another thing that we did with MCC, we had another organization that was one of our branches that was called Rainbow Families. And it was run by Donnie and Earl Snyder. They have a little kid. and Donnie and Earl also wrote "Planet Parenthood," in the last 10 years of the Valley Gay Press. It was about what it was like to be a couple of gay men raising a child, and the process that they went through to get their kid, they had an open adoption, and it was very interesting stuff. We did Rainbow Families, and Rainbow Families would put on a Christmas party. This is kind of hilarious. So, we put on this Christmas party at MCC for kids. It was put on by Rainbow Families and Donnie and Earl were very involved with Metropolitan Community Church. But Rainbow Families was our organization, actually. And so, we worked together with the church. There was a sing-along, and it was Christian because they're a church. There was a lot of Latino kids, and kids would come from the neighborhood would come in -- this is when they were on Fourth Street, so there's all these kids. Then, we had cookies and all this kind of stuff. And I read the Grinch in Spanish because there's a lot of Spanish kids there. Trish read it in English, I read it in Spanish. And Don Kohn came -- this is pretty hilarious -- and you may know this, but he came dressed as Santa Claus. Don looks like Santa Claus, if you think about it. He's got the grey, white hair and he had a beard. So, it's two Jews and an atheist put on a Christmas party, or two atheists, and Melinda was there, too. And the funny thing about Don is, he's really Jewish, and he doesn't know the words to any Christmas carol. So, I think he'd get by with "Jingle Bells," but that was about it. So, we had to print out the lyrics so that he could sing along, we'd have a big sing-a-long in the church, and that was fun. And we did that for quite a few years. We did that to have fun in a variety of different circumstances. And we really wanted to be sure that there was outreach to families. So, Rainbow Families had an event for quite a while, they had an event every month, particularly in the summer, where it would be at a park and a bunch of families, it could either be LGBT families with kids or kids that were LGBT, so it was something about the family that was queer. I remember one of the last ones we had, which I think was about 2008, or no, a little bit later than that. And Hannah was living at our house, then, so I think that was in about 2008. And Adrian was there, and he was in college. Now you may not know this about Adrian, but he can make balloon animals. That's one of his top skills. So, he said, "I will come and make balloon animals." And he can make all those balloon animals for the kids. I'm sure that he can still do that. I'm sure it's on his resume. And he made balloon animals for kids, and we did all sorts of things. The kids were playing and the parents are just hanging out and a lot of fun stuff. So, we did a lot of different events like that. I think we had some at our house. We were also really involved with ACCO, A Chorus Celebrating Women. ACCO is the name of a mythological woman singer, which is true, actually. But it also stands for A Chorus Celebrating Women, A-C-C-O with a woman's symbol. And Bev Morgan was the founder and leader of ACCO. She's a wonderful musician with a beautiful voice. And she had all these women. There was a lot of bi and lesbian women that were involved with ACCO for years and years. She ran that for a long, long time. And we worked with them to promote a lot of their events, or just to be at the events or help them with stuff that they were doing. Because we were very good friends with Bev Morgan and Sandy Fluck. And Sandy Fluck was the chair of the Education Department in Moravian. They live in Rehoboth, now. So, these events that were happening would use the Valley Gay Press, and we'd use our other vehicles, and we had a huge email list that I can send lots of emails out whenever I wanted to. And people paid attention to those emails. Because I didn't send things that were just like, "Give us money," or something like that. It would be like, "Edie Windsor's case has been decided, and this is what this means to you, and this is why you need to get married because now you won't have to pay for your benefits and you can get your partner's pension if your partner dies." These are really important things. And then as I said before, Trish's explanation of how you do that. And then we'd constantly be telling people, people calling us and asking us how to do that kind of stuff. And all of those things happened. And so, we went along and we met Adrian. So, here's the story of meeting Adrian. So, Adrian was a freshman at Muhlenberg College. And that was in about -- he's 32 now, so that would have been 14 years ago, so 14 years ago would have been 2006. So, I got a call from Patti Mittleman, I believe, and she was the one who ran Hillel House, and also was involved with running the organization that was really supportive of LGBT students at the college. We had already known Patti for years. Right from the beginning we knew her. She just died a few years ago. It was very sad because she was such a wonderful advocate and so important to so many people at the college. And in fact, loads of people that we know, we knew because of Patti Mittleman. Everybody says that. And so, she said, "I have a guy who's going to call you," and she said his name, and then Adrian called me and he said -- have I told you this story before? Probably. Oh, okay. This is a great story, then. So, Adrian calls me and he goes, "I'm a freshman at Muhlenberg, and I want them to include gender identity to their nondiscrimination policy because it only includes sexual orientation." I said, "Okay." So, this is in 2006. So, I said, "Okay, yeah. There's no problem with that." He goes, "Well, I want to create a petition to get everybody in the college to support this." And I said, "No, you don't want to do that. That's not what you want to do." Now, this is one of those few times that Adrian totally listened to me. He stopped doing this. He started telling me what to do, I think, the next year. But this year, he was really listening to me, I said, "First of all, realize that petitions are a bad way to go about anything because you're really creating divisiveness, and it's harmful to you because if you go ask your friend or your teacher or your parents or your boss, if they'll sign a petition for your rights, and they say no, you're not going to ever get over that. You're going to remember that for the rest of your life. And if you have 10 people say no to you, it's going to be devastating. You don't want to know where they stand on this issue. It's not up to them. It's to the president of the college." And I said, "We already have a law in the City of Allentown that includes gender identity. Why don't you already have that in your policy?" And he said, because Adrian already had the ear of the president of the college when he was a freshman, he said, "The president of the college told me that the college, first of all, it was a Lutheran college, and because they're a not for profit, they don't have to follow the nondiscretionary policy of the City of Allentown." I said, "Well, that's crap. That's ridiculous. Of course, that's not true. Do you think a not-for-profit can discriminate against Black people just because they're a not for profit? Unless it's their mission to do something, they can't blatantly discriminate against somebody." So, I said, "Let me give you an example of somebody that can do that because it's their mission. The Catholic church. It's the Catholic church's mission to follow Catholic principles. So, if they want to not allow people based on Catholic teachings, a divorced person, to have a position at the church, or they don't want to allow somebody who's Protestant to have a position at the church, they're allowed to do it because it's their mission to do it. Cedar Crest College's mission is to elevate and support women students, that's their mission and it has been since the 1800s, one of the ways that they can enforce that or support that, is by keeping men from living in the dorms. That's one of the things that they do. Now, there is some validity to that, it's a women's college. There's some validity to that. And it's their mission so they can do that. The NAACP's mission is to work for the health and welfare of the Black population. So, they can say, 'It's our mission to give scholarships to youth, and we are going to only get them to Black youth, or people who identify as Black, and it's our mission to do that. It's okay. We don't think white people are bad, we're just working for this disenfranchised community.' With the NAACP, clearly that's racial discrimination. They're discriminating against white people. But that's okay, it's their mission and they're not doing it because they hate white people, they're doing it to support Black people. The mission of Muhlenberg College is not to discriminate against, or promote straight people, or cisgender people. It's not. It's not their mission. So, first of all, that's the thing. The second thing is, it's not even the mission of Muhlenberg College to promote Lutheran principles. That's not their mission either. They dropped that mission in the 1800s. Their mission is to educate people. And that's all they do. They educate people. So, if you came in and said, 'I want to go here but I'm not going to get an education,' yeah, yeah, they can say, 'No, you can't do that.' But you can't say to people that, 'We're not going to support you because of your gender identify.' So, it's the law. But the way you want to get them to change the policy. So, first of all, it's a law. So, you can just say to them, 'It's the law. You have to have this policy. It's the law. In fact, you can't even deny people gender-neutral housing, because it's the law. And they're adults. You can't tell people, 'Well, you have to live in this kind of a housing with the opposite sex.' You can't say that in a hotel, so you can't say that in the college. But that's not what you want to do. Go to the president, tell him it's the law, and then tell him that Lehigh already has this policy. Just tell him that. He'll change it in a week. Lehigh's had this policy for two or three years. They have gender identity in their policy. And Muhlenberg wants to be considered the hot, edgy school, and Lehigh is the stodgy, 'We used to only let men in 20 years ago' school. He'll turn it around in no time." And he did. He did. And I said, "You don't have to ask anybody. It's no work. Just go in there and tell him. And if you want him to talk to me I'll talk to him. But you can convince him of this." Well, that was a big win for Adrian. And when Adrian started at Muhlenberg, there was about 45 young people in the Gay-Straight Alliance there that they had. And he also did a really smart thing. He stopped letting them worry about changing the name of the Gay-Straight Alliance to spectrum or citron or whatever. Because it's an enormous waste of time. The federal government allows you to call a group like that Gay-Straight Alliance, and they only actually support that, particularly for high schools. But the thing is that every time a group of college students wants to deliberate that, it usually takes them about eight months to decide what the name is going to be and then they leave, and next year, the next group comes in. So, Adrian said, "Forget it, we're not worrying about that. We're calling it Gay-Straight Alliance, we're not going to call it anything else. But we're going to do a bunch of different important things." And we worked on some of those things. But he pretty much did this on his own. And within a year, he had 700 students in the Gay-Straight Alliance. Yeah. And then, when he left, there were 45 again. Which is something I point out to people all the time. It takes a dynamic person to make that kind of stuff happen. You have to make it attractive. It doesn't just spontaneously happen. You have to make it attractive. And he did all these things, like he had the sex toy expo, and there was a drag ball, and nobody else had done that. He was the one who had instituted these things. All the other things, they were just worried about changing the name to be more inclusive. Just shut up about that and have a drag ball and a sex toy thing, and everybody wants to join. So, after he did that for a couple years, we said, "Let's have this college student on our board," and he would be walking by our house. He would walk everywhere, and he'd take other students and walk by our house. He'd ring the doorbell and come in. And we'd hang out with him. Trish would always make him vegetarian food. So, he did that. That's how we met Hannah Watson, who ended up living with us and now is a very, very close friend of ours, and lived with us for almost two years. So, we asked Adrian to be on our board. And he was very excited about that. And so, once we had him on the board, he began to point out important things that needed to change. And one of them was that he said that he thought that I should get paid, because up until then, I was getting nothing. I didn't get any money, and of course, no benefits. But I did have benefits from Trish's stuff, and we had a little bit of income, and we were still antique dealers up until 2002, and we did other stuff, and we have some crappy investments that give us a tiny little amount of money. And so, we were getting by. We live very, very frugally, and we were getting by. But Adrian said, "You should get paid. You should get 500 dollars a month." And then I got a big raise, I think the next year I got 700 dollars a month. I don't get any benefits. I think we also had a deal where if we got paid for a training, or whomever did the training would get half the money that the place paid us. We never got very much in those days for trainings, but if they gave us 100 dollars, I would get 50 dollars and the organization would get 50 dollars. So, we actually built up our bank account pretty well with that. He pointed out some other ways that we could -- I had already created the Gala. I've wanted that Gala to be a community event, because FACT's event was very, very, prohibitively expensive. It cost 80 dollars or 60 dollars to go. We couldn't afford to go to it. It was fancy. I wanted our event to be very inexpensive and to honor people who were working in the community, so a party for community members, and then honor people. And Adrian has changed that back into a much bigger fundraiser because we make a lot of money from that, and he really wanted that to make more money. But I wanted people to come to it and I wanted to honor people. And he said, "Let's get sponsors for this." And so, we started to do that. We went from making 2,000 dollars to making 8,000 dollars, and now it makes about 45,000 dollars a year. At that time when Adrian joined the organization, our budget was about 20,000 dollars a year. And I didn't make any money. Well, our budget was about 12,000, then we went up to 25,000, because I was getting paid and so we had to make more money. But I also said, "I never want to take any money from this if we can't afford to do other stuff. So, we need to have a savings account," and we did. Because that was one of the things that used to happen with PA Gala, that we would run out of money, and it was really scary that we just wouldn't have any money. And I'd say, "We spent all the money on the last mailing and now we have nothing for the next mailing," and I didn't want Pennsylvania Diversity Network to have no cushion at all, that we couldn't produce the paper, for example. I didn't want to be hand to mouth with it. So, we decided that we would have a savings account about 5,000 dollars in it, which would be a big cushion and that was about half our year's budget at that time, so that would be good, and we built that up. And we did fundraisers and we would have events, a lot of them we would put on, we'd do it. And we were involved with Theatre Outlet that did the Matthew Shepard play, and we did other protests. We were doing a lot of interesting ways to protest and get money where we would get people to pledge money to us or to other organizations. And we would help other organizations to raise money, particularly if they'd been targeted by an anti organization. So, now Adrian's on our board. And I just want to point out one of the things that happened with that. So, we had September 11th that happened during that time in the beginning part of that. And it was devastating. A year later, there was supposed to be a healing religious ceremony in the community that was put on by the Council of Churches. So, they scripted the whole thing, and they told all the ministers what they had to say. They gave them the script. And one of them was Reverend Beth Goudy of the Metropolitan Community Church. So, because Beth was going to be there and she was going to say positive things about our community, we wanted to support her. And we did this a lot. We were really, profoundly not religious. We don't like religion. And this story is one of the reasons. We would often go to MCC stuff, we were very good friends with Beth, and we'd often go to MCC stuff to support her and to support other things, particularly the Christmas service we'd go, because very few people would go to the Christmas service, so we would go to that, just to support her. She said, "You don't do this because of religion, right?" I said, "No, we do it because we like you. It doesn't have anything to do with religion." But MCC was doing some very good things for the community, and we were pleased with that. So, we go to this big ceremony and Beth's going to speak and there's 25 other ministers who are going to get up and do a five- or two-minute gig. And there's two big lines of people from MCC and other LGBT and queer people that are in these lines. It was in a church on Center Street, it was one of those big churches on Center Street out there in Bethlehem. So, Beth's about to go and they had a lot of white people. And I think they got a couple of Black people. So, this guy gets up and he's a Black Baptist minister from Philadelphia. And apparently nobody knew him. I don't know where they got this guy. But he gets up and he gets the thing, and he tosses the script away, and he blames September 11th on gay marriage, just flat does it. It's gay people, it's supporting gay people, that's why this is happening, that's why God did September 11th, God hates fags, the whole thing. Unbelievable. And nobody says anything. And then, another person goes up, and then Beth gets up, and she's just got this look on her face. She's just totally white. I think she's thinking, "What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" Although she wouldn't have thought it that way. So, she gets up and she does her thing and then she gets off stage. And I look down the row to Trish. I look at the other people. And I look at the other people in the next row and I say, "I think we should go." So, we all stood up en mass and walked out of the church and we stood on the steps and we wouldn't leave, but we stood outside. And the head of the Council of Churches comes to the door and she says to us, "Well, I know that was bad." I said, "You don't know how bad that was. You have no idea how bad that was. And here's the second thing. You should have stood up and said you don't support that and you didn't. So, what are you going to do about it?" "Well, we'll have to think of it," mealy mouth, "We'll think about it, I don't know." So, we of course contacted the press and told them that this had happened. So, there was an article in The Morning Call about it that was picked up by The Wire and other people pointed this out, because it was a pretty big deal to blame September 11th on a bunch of gay people in the room. Well, one of the groups that picked up on this was the Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps's people, the God hates fags people. This is 2002. Now, I have maintained, absolutely, that these people are our best friends. And there's a reason for that, and I'll show you why. Because we could not get the Council of Churches to say anything. We couldn't get any condemnation from politicals. The mayor of Bethlehem wouldn't say a fucking thing about it. And we were mad that he wouldn't say anything. This was supposed to be a healing ceremony and we get kicked in the teeth. So, nobody says anything. So, the Westboro Baptist Church announces that they're going to come to the Lehigh Valley and demonstrate all over the place, and they're going to support this minister that said this horrible thing. So, I said, "Bring it on." And I said, "Let's do a fundraiser. Every minute they are speaking, every minute they're on, people will pledge 10 cents a minute up to a cap, you can make anything but you pledge 10 cents a minute, and then you can say, 'I'll pledged up to 20 dollars,' and we'll time how long they're here." They were supposed to be here two days. Within one week, we'd raised 1,000 dollars. And we gave it all to MCC. And we got contributions from Alaska. People were spreading this all over the place. We had email in those days. We didn't' have social media, though. So, we did this with just email and people were sending the email around to different churches and progressive churches, and political people were pledging, and these weren't large pledges. We had hundreds of pledges. And we gave the money to MCC because they had really been victimized. This was a religious thing. I just collected all the money and I gave it to MCC. It was great, actually. But as per the circumstances of Westboro Baptist Church, they decided to not show up. Well then, we weren't going to get the money. So, now we really wanted them to come because we wanted the money. And we got attention from this. So, they did come about a month later. And this was in November, or something like that, I think. Yeah, it was in November. So, they show up and they're going to protest at Cedar Crest and Lehigh University. Were you there then, at Lehigh? No. Okay, this is pretty hilarious, actually. Now, this is the thing. We don't want them to protest at MCC. We want them to protest at the Episcopal Church. We want them to protest at the Unitarian Church, although the Unitarians are on our side. So, what we want is United Church of Christ. Well, they came to the Episcopal church and they screamed the vilest, rudest, most horrible things at every single person that came out of that Episcopal church that's right downtown in Bethlehem. Suddenly, they're all on our side and the Council of Churches is saying, "Hate is so bad, it's so terrible," because it's happening to them and they're saying horrible things. The Morning Call interviews the Westboro Baptist Church who tells The Morning Call that they do 1,000 protests a year. I point out to The Morning Call in a letter to the editor that that is ridiculous. A thousand is a ridiculously high number. I said, "That's three a day. So, on the day after Christmas, do they do an extra three? Do they do six the next day? Come on. They don't do 1,000 protests. They didn't even come when they said they were going to come." They didn't even do that number of protests while they were there. And in fact, at one point they said, "We're going to do Lehigh," but they like to go to places where there are big college football games. So, they were like, "We couldn't go because we had to go to Philadelphia to go to a big game in Philadelphia." It was really true. This is this really true. When they show up, they're totally bumbling idiots and they have no idea. They have these horrible signs and it's so easy to protest against them because to say, "God hates fags," that September 11th was the fault of somebody else, it's ridiculous. So, because they protested in Allentown, the mayor of Allentown was very direct, it was Roy Afflerbach then, and he said it was terrible that they had done this. We couldn't get the mayor of Bethlehem to say anything because he was a weasel, and I was really angry that he didn't say something. I humiliated him, publicly for years. But they did protest at Lehigh. It was right outside of Packer Hall. And Beth Goudy, and I, and a bunch of other people from MCC were on the other corner from them. And they have these ridiculous signs. But there's like three of them. So, there's three people. No one else would be with them because they were such buffoons. They weren't really on the campus. They were on the street. Cedar Crest let them be on the campus which they didn't have to do, they could have told them they could be the entrance, but they just let them be on the campus. They didn't want to be on the campus, because nobody would see them there, so they didn't even do it at Cedar Crest. They only do it for high profile. Again, they're our friends because they really are, at Lehigh, everybody at Lehigh thinks they're horrible. All the students are doing horrible things to them. Nobody's on their side because they're so outrageous. One of the things they did was, they'll sing, "God hates fags," to different pop songs. So, they're standing in the corner and Beth and I are across the street, and they're singing, "Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, hey, hey, God hates fags." And they kept doing it. Beth and I were just laughing through the whole thing. So, then, after that for years, every time anybody would mention Westboro Baptist Church, Beth and I will both burst into, "Na, na, na, na," we would sing, "God hates fags," because it was just so absurd. That's the best you could come up with? It was so not offensive in a lot of ways. They weren't like the street preachers that really are scary. We couldn't have paid them for more publicity. And people used to say, "If we'd show Matthew Shepard the Matthew Shepard's play, it would be terrible if Westboro Baptist Church," I'd say, "Pray they come, you'll sell every ticket. People would pour out to support you. They'd give you donations because they're there. You want them to be there because they're so outrageously horrible." And they're so much on our side that they didn't just go stand in front of MCC, they stood in front of the biggest Episcopal church and called them vile, horrible names, and said just the worst possible things you could say. And people who had never had anybody shout anything to them suddenly, "Oh, now I know what it's like to be discriminated against." So, we were really involved with that and we were really involved with promoting that. And we did a lot of other actions to try to get people to -- before Silent Witness, which is actually a very effective way of dealing with pro to anti-gay protesters, we worked on schemes to turn around the ability to do those protests and be successful with them. And I would be on debates. They called me to be on the TV a lot of times. But they really screwed us on the TV a couple of times, because Adrian and I were going to be on a debate one time, on Business Matters and I said, "We will be on this debate about marriage equality, but you have to have," because they were considering a Constitutional Amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the State of Pennsylvania. I said, "You have to have legislators on. You can't just have some crazy street preacher who's just going to scream and scream and scream and say, 'You're a giraffe,' and ridiculous stuff like that." So, Adrian had set it up. Adrian was then chair of Equality Pennsylvania. So, it was me and Ted Martin, who was the CEO of Equality Pennsylvania, and then there was a guy who had been on school board who was ultra-far right, and we said he would be okay, but I said, "Unless you can get somebody who is a normal person, you can't just bringing that crazy guy that comes with the megaphone and stands at MCC and shouts out, 'I want to have sex with my child.' Forget it." So, they said, "No, we won't do that. We'll have this guy and if we can't get somebody else it'll just be the three of you." I said, "Okay." So, we get out there and it's the three of us and then they have the crazy guy on the phone. And we're already taping. And I said to Ted, "We can't walk out of this because then he gets the whole forum. He'll be able to talk the whole time. He says these crazy things over and over again. Obviously this person is insane, he's a pedophile, this has nothing to do with this argument. You can't even find anybody to speak intelligently about this." And then, at the end, I said to the guy who's in charge of Business Matters whose name I can't remember right now, but he's the head of the Business Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and he's in all the billboards and stuff, and I can't remember his name right now. He's very effective in this job. But he said, "This is much more interesting if we do it this way." I said, "It's not okay for you to do this because you lied to us. You lied to us and I'm out of here and I will never be on the show again because you lied. You said you weren't going to have him and you did. That's a lie." So, Adrian ended up talking to the producer of the show and he said, "You know, broken trust like this is like trying to use a broken condom. You can't just patch it back together." He actually said that to her. He said, "We can't just overlook this." And we've never been on that show again. Because they did lie to us. They wanted it to be a circus and stuff. But I also debated on National Public Radio, I debated that woman -- I can't remember anybody's names, it's like Molly Mase? It's two Ms. She's the woman who spoke to the Supreme Court about Proposition 8, she's ultra-far right, she's disappeared now because her issue was marriage equality and she lost, and I don't know what's going on with her. But I actually debated her on Radio Times. And they have no argument. But that was one of the things that we did as Pennsylvania Diversity Network. We did political things. We did speak on political issues. We did actual advocacy with regard to people who had lost their jobs or who had been denied -- we would help people find lawyers that would help them obtain custody of their children or get second-parent adoptions. We advocated to and explained to people about the second parent adoption law and how important that was. At that point for me, Pennsylvania Diversity Network was all about information. So, we had the newspaper, we had the info line, we had a really, really large, blanket email potential, which was one of the first times that people could do that. We had an enormous mailing list that we could write to people and send people written information. We spoke publicly. We were on television all the time. Trish hates to be on TV, but I don't mind it that much, and so, we would be at protests and I had figured out ways to speak. We had a really great press list that we could send out information to, I would speak publicly. And Adrian still does that in a lot of ways. He will speak publicly in very infrequent situations. He makes it a media event. And, as we got closer and closer to the center, what we did was, we got full marriage equality in 2016, and Adrian came to us and he said, "Okay, we have full marriage equality now. This is one of our biggest projects that we had done," he had done a whole marriage equality circumstance where when he and his husband got married, they went to the Lehigh County Courthouse, applied for a license, were denied, with me and Trish there and I photographed the whole time. We got in the car with them, we drove all the way to Darien, Connecticut where their families were, and they got married there. They got legally married right there. And then it was this whole series of photographs, and he had this whole thing about how he couldn't get married. And we did another marriage action. Even after marriage legal in New Jersey, we did a big effort, it was called Hop the Bridge. And we had a huge demonstration in Easton. We got three couples to get legally married. One of them was my previous girlfriend and her partner, which was 25 years before, he's my Facebook friend, she said, "We want to do this." And they'd been together for the same amount of time as Trish and me. And I said, "Okay, I'll set it up." She said, "We have a niece in Easton." They live in the middle of the state of Pennsylvania. So, they came and we had two other couples. It was Jerry Schmidt and Chuck Woodbury, and -- actually, we did it twice. So, we had these different people that did this. I think that was the next Freedom to Marry thing. We took a bus over and did it. But there was a bunch of different ways. But the Hop the Bridge thing was, Jerry Schmidt and Chuck Woodbury, and Bill Morrow and his partner whose name I can't remember, and Jen and Mary Ann Kelly. And they'd all been together for a long time. I was with them when they got the licenses. I was the witness. You have to have a witness in New Jersey, so you get the license in New Jersey. I set that up for them and everything. And then we had this big demonstration in Easton. We walked across the bridge into New Jersey where Beth Goudy was in a parking lot and married them in the parking lot in front of all this press, and it was on TV and everything. And then we walked back. We got to the middle of the bridge we said, "We're married, and now we're not married. We're recognized, and now we're not recognized." It got national attention. And Adrian and I worked on that together. And one of the things that Aiden was beginning to realize is when you do a press thing, you have all of your people behind you. You don't talk to your people ; you talk to the cameras and have all the people behind you so it doesn't look like you're by yourself. And that was a really good way of doing it. So, we had hundreds of people there. It was really great. And it was really terrific. And we got front-page articles in all the newspapers and stuff. We had always been very serious when we went to get our civil union, because that's when Trish and I went and got a civil union. Did I talk about that? That's our personal thing, but I'll talk about that when we talk about this other stuff. So, Adrian came to us and he said, "Okay, this is what I want to do." Now, Trish and I had been doing this for 20 years. Both of us had actually been doing LGBT activism since -- I had been doing it since the '70s, she'd been doing it since the '60s, she was in on the starting of SAGE, the national organization for older LGBT adults. I was working on stuff when I was in graduate school. We had been working all the way through on civil rights stuff. And truthfully, we were getting worried because we were thinking, "Who's going to do this stuff after we retire?" And we were praying that Adrian wouldn't move away, which he almost got a job and moved away, but he didn't move away. And then he bought a house. That was really good. He's married now. Okay, now he has to stay here. And he ended up saying to us, now in 2016, "We have marriage equality, you've really done this stuff. I think it's time to start a community center, and this is what we should do." And he said, "And I want to be the director of it. And I want it to be a paying job. So, we need to raise enough money to pay for me and to start the thing so I can quit my job." So, we were coming into the Gala, and I said, "So, we're going to make this announcement. We're going to end the organization. We're going to start a new organization that's going to be call the LGBT Community Center," and he said, "We're going to name it after you. You're going to step down as the CEO, I'm going to be the CEO. You both are still going to be working on it." Trish was the chair of the board ; she would stay the chair of the board for the first year. And we're going to make this announcement. We're not going to tell anybody. It's going to be a secret announcement and we'll tell everybody to come." We had the event at the Symphony Hall in Allentown, this big event room, a beautiful room. My sister was there, she came from Connecticut, because I said, "You have to come for this, it's a big deal." After all, it's her name, too. And the mayor was there, and all these different people. But we didn't tell them exactly what was going on. So, people were guessing, "You're going to run for office," they were saying to Adrian. And then I get up, I have a little fake thing. I said, "I'm going to change the Photo Project," and I could see people going -- and I said, "That's not it." And then I told the story. And people stood up and clapped. And Barb Ross, who, her wonderful partner Kathy Bergey had died and she had this estate money, she said, "I'm going to make the first donation." So, I said, "We need to raise money." I said to Adrian, "After Barb makes this money, I'm going to call for people to give donations in the room. Let's just do that. Trish and I'll donate 1,000 dollars," which was hard for us, because we didn't have a lot of money. "But we'll do this." And he goes, "Okay. Well, I'll donate 1,000 dollars." So, okay, we'll do this. And then he says, "Maybe we can raise 10,000 bucks." He said, "We need to raise 75,000 dollars by October for us to do this. Maybe we can raise 10,000 bucks." So, I said, "Okay." I have to say, and this is not humble, but I run a party better than Adrian does. For one thing, I'm funnier than he is. So, I get up and I say the stuff, and I had been running all the galas, I think this was our eighth gala, and I was running it. I said things that made people laugh. One of the things I said was that I had gotten a call from one of our regular calling guys who says, "Well, you know, you do a great job with this but what if you die?" And so I said this to everybody. I said, "Well, I'm not going to die, but this is what we're going to do." So, I said all those things, and then Barb came up and she said, "I'm going to make the first donation," and then I said, "I'm going to donate." And then I said, "Okay, our friends Ann and Laura donated. So, now we have 3,000 bucks. Now you have heard from the lesbians. Where are the gay men?" People started jumping up all over. By the end of the night, I mean people were going, "Five thousand dollars," I mean, they were just like dominos they were just going over and over. And finally, we were writing it down. We thought it was going to be four or five people, we'd have 10,000 dollars, it'd be great. So, I'm like, "Is somebody writing this down?" And nobody was doing it. I'm trying to remember everybody and I'm looking around and people are doing this. And we didn't even know they were, they were just jumping up and stuff. So, at the end of the night, I was awake all night, and in the morning, at about seven o'clock, Adrian goes, "Do you have a list?" I said, "Yeah, I think I have a list," because I'm trying to remember everybody, and we compared our lists, and we had 35,000 dollars. So, we were halfway by then. We actually made the money by -- this was in the summer, why was it in the summer? Yeah, it was in August. And we were actually able to make the money -- I'm pretty sure that's sure. We had the gala in August. No, no, it was in June, and we had the money by August. That was the thing. It was in June because we had it as a Pride thing. And it was a problem because a lot of the high schoolers were graduating, and they were all graduating in the arena, and there was no parking and nobody could find any place to park. So, we remembered as many people as we could and we had 35,000 dollars. And by August, we had the money. Adrian quit his job within a month, and then he did it, and he set it up. So, one of the things was that the mayor said he would give us a building for a dollar. And the city did do this. Now, we're running out of time here. But the city did do this. And they arranged to give us this building on Turner Street, and it was a dollar. It was really neat, because it was only half a mile from our house. And it's a weird-shaped building. And so, in a nutshell what happened was, we investigated that building for a year. And we had architects and hazmat and we did all this due diligence and we figured out there's no way in hell we can use this building. Among other things, it's not just covered with asbestos, it's made of asbestos. It was full of lead and asbestos and Adrian said, "The only thing that was living in that building was dead pigeons." Now, Adrian and I are both scared to death of dead things, particularly rodents. I said, "Don't look down," when we were in the building, because there were all these dead birds because there was no roof. There was no roof, there were no windows. It was going to cost us a million dollars. In fact, it's still there because nobody can afford to take it down, because the remediation of it would be so hard to do. So, we ended up then, it was August and we went to Florida, and Adrian was looking around at buildings, and he said, "I think I found a building. I want you to look at it online." And so, we're looking at it online, and I said, "Adrian, this looks like a mobile home with no windows." Oh, no. We found a building that we really liked. And we tried to get it. It was on Seventh Street. It was close to the arena. It fell through and it was sort of an anti-gay thing that made us very sad. We almost got that building. And then, he had this building. We didn't want it to be in Bethlehem because I wanted to be able to go to work and I really wanted it to be in Allentown. I thought we would get more government support. He wanted it to be in Allentown, too, even though he lived in Bethlehem, then. And there's a lot of reasons for that, and one of them is that there's more people in Allentown, so there's more justification of having it, there's more inner-city youth, that kind of stuff. So, Trish said, "I don't want this mobile home with no windows," which I'm not kidding, it really was only 4,000 square feet. The building that the city wanted to give us was 7,000 square feet. I think the mobile home was 3,000 square feet. And so, Trish found the building that we have online, and she said, "Look at this building. It's great and it's kind of within our price range. It's a little high, but it has an elevator." So, I called Adrian up and I said, "We just sent you a thing, you have to go look at this building today." He said, "I can't go today, but I'll go tomorrow morning." So, he gets Rob Ritter, and he goes to the building, he calls me from the building, and he says, "I love the building. I love this building." I said, "Are you going to put an offer on it?" And he said, "I already have." And we got it. That's the end of that story. Then, there's all this stuff about the center, but other people can tell that story. So, that's what we got. MF: All right. We can conclude today, and then we had talked about maybe with our next interview focusing on some more personal stories, maybe your life history. LB: Sure. MF: Okay. Is there anything else you want to add before we can conclude today's interview? LB: I can talk about the center, and there are things I know about the center that other people, mostly the main stuff that I know about is when Trish and Adrian and I walked into the building and said, "What are we going to have to do to it, and how are we going to fix it up?" And how we fixed it up in the first six months. Adrian was doing colossal efforts to get money, and to make it happen, and get all the other complicated things, including changing over the 501c3, and doing all that kind of stuff. We took the Pennsylvania Diversity Network 501c3 and converted it into the center's 501c3. And getting the board together and doing all the different kinds of things and getting contracts and doing all that kind of stuff, while I was getting 300 different volunteers to prep the building and to clean it and to paint it and to do a few physical changes in tearing up the rugs and rebuilding the moldings and doing all the stuff that we had to do. It was a colossal effort. And it was fun because that kind of stuff I like to do, although it was physically very tiring. And Adrian has no skills in that at all, so I get to do everything. And I just tell everybody what to do. And he told people that. They said, "How did you know what to do?" He said, "Well, Liz tells us what to do and then we just do it." So, I did a lot of work but we also had wonderful, wonderful, wonderful volunteers, hundreds of volunteers. Some of them would just come. We were there all night, and people would come and stay all night with me and help me until three o'clock. "I don't want to come until midnight, is that okay?" You know that kind of stuff. It was terrific. So, I can talk about that. But that seems like other people know about it, compared to me. That was wonderful. MF: All right. Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. It was, again, just such a pleasure. LB: Oh, it was fun. MF: All right, I'm going to pause this now. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:31:12 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Liz Bradbury, August 3, 2020 Description An account of the resource Liz Bradbury details the transition from The Valley Gay Press to Pennsylvania Diversity Network, providing the Valley with crucial information, meeting Adrian Shanker, and starting an LGBTQ+ community center for the Lehigh Valley. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LGBT-19 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-08-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs. https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/36a34952a068b4cd12318cd8f4b369a5.png 3fb41826b12864524dc5d097b869e9a5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Description An account of the resource This collection began in 2019 with the initial goal of collecting ten oral histories from older adult LGBT people in the Lehigh Valley. Topics explored include the childhood experiences of LGBT people, experiences within educational and religious institutions, coming out stories, understanding of the gay liberation movement (1960-1980s), experience of the early years of the AIDS epidemic and AIDS activism (1980s-present), and experience with the fight for marriage equality. The project has been a collaborative effort among faculty and librarians from Cedar Crest College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College, and members of the local community, under the direction of Dr. Mary Foltz, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University and Co-Director of the South Side Initiative. <br /><br /><em> The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.</em> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Mary Foltz Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Liz Bradbury OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-18.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 July 27, 2020 Liz Bradbury, July 27, 2020 LGBT-18 2:02:32 LVLGBT Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive Collection Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Liz Bradbury Mary Foltz video/mp4 BradburyLiz_20200727_video.mp4 1.0:|5(12)|60(15)|85(13)|106(13)|131(7)|154(13)|179(8)|202(4)|227(10)|248(9)|273(7)|294(7)|315(12)|340(4)|365(12)|388(14)|409(14)|432(8)|455(6)|476(5)|499(12)|520(12)|545(3)|568(7)|593(16)|614(2)|635(10)|658(12)|681(7)|710(12)|737(9)|760(8)|785(8)|806(12)|827(5)|856(3)|885(9)|914(4)|939(6)|966(4)|989(10)|1010(12)|1035(9)|1058(13)|1081(15)|1110(8)|1131(4)|1152(15)|1179(9)|1200(9)|1223(15)|1246(6)|1269(4)|1292(11)|1315(18)|1336(15)|1361(8)|1388(6)|1411(11)|1436(11)|1461(16)|1488(8)|1513(8)|1538(6)|1565(4)|1592(16)|1623(3)|1654(3)|1681(6)|1704(6)|1727(12)|1754(6)|1781(14)|1806(2)|1827(6)|1854(13)|1881(8)|1910(7)|1933(4)|1954(12)|1979(9)|2006(5)|2031(3)|2054(18)|2081(4)|2104(11)|2129(7)|2150(4)|2171(16)|2196(18)|2221(14)|2244(4)|2271(6)|2292(6)|2321(10)|2344(12)|2367(8)|2392(3)|2415(9)|2438(5)|2465(10)|2492(11)|2517(4)|2538(17)|2561(2)|2584(16)|2605(6)|2628(6)|2655(13)|2684(9)|2709(6)|2728(4)|2753(19)|2776(3)|2797(8)|2822(10)|2845(12)|2874(7)|2901(12)|2926(17)|2953(4)|2978(4)|2993(4) 0 https://youtu.be/G__68xDI1lg YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: Okay. My name is Mary Foltz, and today I’m here with Liz Bradbury to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley. This project is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project, and our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. Liz and I are meeting on Zoom today, which is July 27th, 2020. And we’re meeting on Zoom because there’s a pandemic going on. So, Liz, thank you so much for your willingness to speak with me, today.&#13 ; &#13 ; LIZ BRADBURY: So, glad to be here, again. It’s great to see you. 0 86 PA GALA’s Work in the Passage of Anti-Discrimination Ordinances in the Lehigh Valley MF: Okay. So, today we’re really continuing a discussion that we began last time in which you talked about the work of PA Gala, espeically in relationship to an anti-discrimination ordinance for the City of Allentown. And we ended that conversation with your successful organizing work to stop conservative residents from repealing that ordinance. And you mentioned in that past interview that there had been a lawsuit. And I thought today we could just continue that story and tell us a little bit about what that lawsuit was about, and how long it went on. Would you like to start there? 0 614 Focus on the Family Lawsuit Against the Anti-Discrimination Ordinance LB: So, we were successful, and it was a big relief. Two days later, the bad guys, the lawyers for the bad guys that had come out of Focus on the Family that had trained them through an organization that’s supported by Focus on the Family, brought a lawsuit against the law, saying that because the ordinance was different from the state law, that we couldn’t have that law. And they filed the lawsuit. And we looked at this and the city said, “Of course we’ll fight this.” &#13 ; &#13 ; The city was great. The City of Allentown said, “Yeah, we’ll fight it. How dare they say that we can’t have something that’s beyond what the state has. We have all sorts of laws that are beyond what the state has. Even traffic laws are beyond what the state has. We have a different constituency. The people who live in Allentown are different from the people who live in the rural parts of the state, and the laws are different from town to town, from municipality to municipality, so why shouldn't it be done?” 0 792 Anti-Discrimination Law is Struck Down / Appealing to Superior Court LB: And at the time, Roy Afflerbach was our mayor and he had been in the legislature and he said, “The point of that law was to be sure that like, if there was a rule that said you can’t sell red dresses in Allentown, and there were manufacturers who were trying -- then you couldn’t just presume that that was true in Bethlehem,” that kind of stuff. It was a commerce law. But this judge said, “The wording of this piece of legislation, I don’t see how you could get around having different nondiscrimination laws from municipality to municipality.” Well, that’s going to affect every municipality in the State of Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia. So, there was a lot of effort to look at this law. And the judge at that time -- so, now it had been a year, maybe a year and a half later he said, “Okay, we have to nullify this law. I’m going to strike down this law.” 0 1042 Connection to Fight for Domestic Partner Benefits LB: Now, this is what happened. In between 2003 and 2005, the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania had been charged to make a decision as to whether the City of Philadelphia could have a domestic partner requirement, which was an ordinance, for their own city employees who were LGBT. And the State of Pennsylvania had made a Defense of Marriage Act, which is a misnomer, that said that the State of Pennsylvania could not have same-sex marriage in any municipality, that the legislature voted against same-sex marriage. And so, that kind of stuff is kind of a figurehead situation, but they were saying, “We don’t want to have same-sex marriage, so okay.” They made a legislature. 0 1318 Effect of Domestic Partner Benefit Rulings on Anti-Discrimination Law LB: Well, that was a big deal for two reasons. One of them was when our case then went to court in the Superior Court, Dan Anders had already said this Supreme Court decision is very good for us. And so, that was the thrust of every one of our dream team. They said, “Look, the Supreme Court has said this in the State of Pennsylvania that our constitution in effect says we’re allowed to do this. The Supreme Court makes decisions about what the constitution says.” And that was irrefutable. 0 1459 Passing an Anti-Discrimination Law in Bethlehem LB: And then, finally, in 2011, it was hard to do this, Adrian led the effort and I worked with him on this, to write the law and write the language to pass it in Bethlehem. Bethlehem was the one that was dragging its feet. And one of the reasons is that Bethlehem’s people who are Democrats are very, very comfortable that they’ll always be elected because there’s never any Republican votes, so there’s never any worry that you could -- see, in Easton, here’s the significant thing that happened in Easton. Maybe I said this already. But through PA Gala, we were able to get a mayor and a city council person to win their elections, because they said they would pass the ordinance. And the mayor of Easton was a Republican. And he won. 0 1748 Anti-Discrimination Ordinances Across the State LB: So, I just changed it so that it couldn’t be like somebody who was religious running an ice cream store, it had to be somebody who was religious running a church, which is fine. Churches can do whatever they want, and that’s based on our constitution. So, finally, we passed those things. And now, we had demonstrated that the Constitution and the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania absolutely supports these laws. And since, all of those other laws -- now, we have 58 municipalities across the state, some of them are counties, Allegheny County passed theirs, Erie County has a law, and we’d passed all of those different communities all across the state. 0 1900 Steve Black LB: Steve Black died about six years ago and Steve was an extraordinary advocate, an amazing activist. He was kind of a hermit in a lot of ways, particularly in the last years of his life. And he was a young guy, he was quite a bit younger than I am. And when I started this stuff, I remember turning 40 and he said, “I thought you were like me, in my twenties.” He was in his twenties, then. But he was -- he was very, very dedicated to all the things. He was very smart. And he was really terrible at relationships. And that was a big problem. And one of the things was that he was self-effacing and he never wanted to take money. He was very honest. He often spent his own money on making things happen. 0 3688 Beginning the Valley Gay Press LB: Now, I want to say some stuff about The Valley Gay Press and I want to say it really fast because we don’t have much time left. So, we started The Valley Gay Press in 1998 because we were trying to pass the anti-discrimination ordinance and we need the vehicle to get information out. And we created The Valley Gay Press to pass the ordinance. But we also created it to get information to people because we didn’t have any way to get people information. We didn’t have the internet then ; we didn’t have social media. And we also recognized that there was this huge problem that was happening in the community because at that time, there were 30 LBGT organizations, FACT, the Gay Men’s Chorus, a bunch of GSAs in colleges, a whole bunch of different organizations that were serving the LGBT community. And some of them were big, including Pride of the Lehigh Valley. 0 3808 Components of The Valley Gay Press LB: I reduced it to 10 issues because we had two months where we had big obligations that we just couldn’t produce the paper during that month. It’s also an enormous amount of work. And we produced it for 18 years. I ultimately made it to three sheets of paper, which was 12 pages. It regularly had about 80 articles in it. And I wrote and edited and compiled everything. 0 4184 Publishing Reports in the Valley Gay Press / Borders Operation LB: We did real reporting. So, people will contact us about issues. One of the first things that happened was a young guy named Travis contacted us about a thing that happened to him. He was 17. He was living on his own in the Lehigh Valley, he’d come from New York State. And he went to Borders Books to buy an XY magazine, which used to be a magazine -- I don’t know if it’s still around -- but it was for teenage gay kids, or LGBT kids. And they wouldn’t let him buy it unless his parents bought it for him. 0 4312 The Valley Gay Press’ Role in Lehigh Valley Health Network’s Non-Discrimination Policy LB: We used the paper to change Lehigh Valley Health Network’s nondiscrimination policy because they had made a big announcement, they had big billboards that said that Money Magazine had said that they were one of the 100 best places to work in the United States. Well, one of the questions in that Money Magazine thing was, “Do you have a nondiscrimination statement that includes sexual orientation?” And you have to say yes to that, or you can’t be one of the 100 best places to work. And they didn’t have that in their policy. So, I went online to look at their policy and it wasn’t in their policy. 0 4407 The Valley Gay Press &amp ; Providing the LGBTQ+ Community with Necessary Information LB: So, we did that. We also did a thing where we used the paper to get St. Luke’s to give domestic partner benefits, and we did that in a variety of different of ways. But all the information was going out to all these people in the community very significantly. We had a college rating system. And Moravian College had done a really bad thing. We had an intern, Jonna Finocchio, who was one of our first interns, she’s now a really top psychotherapist in Colorado. But she was at Moravian and she wanted to work on a project. 0 4654 Trish’s Column - Getting a Civil Union LB: Scott took a lot longer to write his. But I’d call up Steve and go, “You didn’t do your column,” and he’d say, “I’ll get it right to you,” and he’d have it in 10 minutes. I would do mine in a day or something. But Trish would research her column for days and days and days and she had brilliant columns. She had a column about places that older LGBT people could retire to that were specifically for LGBT people. 0 4981 Trish’s Column - Getting Legally Married in Darien, CT LB: Fast-forward to 2009, when Trish writes an article about how you can go to Darien, because you can drive to Darien in two and a half hours, get married, you don’t have to stay overnight, you can actually have the Justice of the Peace meet you at the courthouse in Darien, or you can go to the beach which is where we’ve done two other weddings there, which both have broken up since then, including Adrian, Adrian got married there. And you go there, and you have the Justice of the Peace, or you can bring a minister with you. 0 5105 Valley Gay Press Info Line LB: So, that was another thing that The Valley Gay Press did. One of the things, and just as a little aside because this was an amazing thing, we had the info line, and people were calling me. I think we started that in about 2000, and before that, people called us anyway. We had this number, which is still my telephone number, where people would call me to ask questions. 0 5342 Valley Gay Press’ Statement of Equal Rights LB: What else did we do? We had a list of all these different organizations and not-for-profits that were signed onto our statement of equal rights. One of the things about the paper was, we were noticing that a lot of newsletters, like MCC’s newsletter, if they were talking about people, they would say, “Many thanks to John W. and Mary R.,” and all these different things. And I said, “We’re not doing that in the paper. If you’re not going to put your whole name in, we’re not putting your name in.” We’re going to put Liz Bradbury, we’re not going to put Liz B., because that’s not what we do. We’re proud of who we are. 0 5567 Changing the Name of the Newspaper / Doing What’s Best for the Community LB: So, one of the things that happened with the paper was, the paper was called the Valley Free Press at the beginning. And after a while, when Bush, George Bush won his second election, everybody was so discouraged by that because he was such an asshole. It seems like nothing now. But he was so horrible that I said, “I’m changing the paper’s name to The Valley Gay Press. But the real name of the paper will be The Valley Gay Press: the Lehigh Valley’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Opinion and Newspaper. So, that when people would say, “I want you to put this article in because it’s news,” and I would say, “It’s my opinion that it’s not news,” or, “I don’t have to put in something that I don’t think is going to help the community,” I had an out for doing that. 0 6014 Creating the Photo Project through Pennsylvania Diversity Network LB: One of the things we did, and I did it through The Valley Gay Press was to create The Photo Project. And the Photo Project, we just had this idea. We were going to go to a Freedom to Marry event. And Pennsylvania Diversity Network was involved with every one of the Freedom to Marry instances. The Metropolitan Community Church did that Freedom to Marry day was in February, and we wanted to bring attention to the lack of marriage equality in the United States. And Trish and I, we figured out that if we went to Lehigh County to get a license to get married, that Lehigh County would keep the license on file, but they would deny it. 0 6562 Goals for Newspaper / Library Project LB: So, Adrian came to me and he said, “You’re going to do the training institute.” I’d been doing the trainings with the Photo Project for a long time. And he said, “You’re going to do the training institute.” And I said, “Great. What do I not have to do? I feel like I’m doing everything,” and I wasn’t getting paid. I was only parttime. He said, “You don’t have to do The Valley Gay Press anymore,” which was enormously complicated. I was producing that paper six times a year. I was editing 80 articles. 0 6823 Opponents of the Non-Discrimination Ordinance LB: So, I just wanted to add this one thing that happened that’s going back a little bit. And it has to do with a lawsuit and all the ordinance passages, and even back to Gail Hoover’s election, and Julio Guridy. Julio is still on city council now. We worked to get him a nomination and he supported our ordinance, and Gail, of course, introduced the ordinance and stuff. Well, because that happened, Emma Tropiano was not elected. 0 7046 Longevity and Impact of The Valley Gay Press MF: It was just wonderful, Liz. It was really wonderful to hear the stories about that lawsuit, but then to really think about The Valley Gay Press and its impact. I guess I didn’t realize it was 18 years.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yes, 18 years. 0 7162 Telling Liz and Trish Apart PATRICIA SULLIVAN: They couldn't tell us apart.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: And Trish really wants this, this is a big thing. Everything we did in The Valley Gay Press was very calculated. And we would place things in certain places, and all of a sudden we realized that people we knew well just didn’t know us apart. They didn’t know us apart, and they couldn’t tell which one was Liz, and which one was Trish. And for the most part, we’re pretty interchangeable. 0 7333 Closing Remarks MF: Well, it’s such a pleasure to talk with you today. We’ll set up another meeting. But we’ll stay after and talk a minute after I stop the recording, but I just want to thank you now for giving me another two hours of your time. I really appreciate it. 0 MovingImage Liz Bradbury describes PA GALA’s work in passing nondiscrimination ordinances throughout the Lehigh Valley and state, her relationship with Steve Black, and the creation and impact of The Valley Gay Press. INTERVIEW WITH LIZ BRADBURY JULY 27, 2020 MARY FOLTZ: Okay. My name is Mary Foltz, and today I'm here with Liz Bradbury to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley. This project is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project, and our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. Liz and I are meeting on Zoom today, which is July 27th, 2020. And we're meeting on Zoom because there's a pandemic going on. So, Liz, thank you so much for your willingness to speak with me, today. LIZ BRADBURY: So, glad to be here, again. It's great to see you. MF: And to start, we'll just do the consent, which I know we've done many times before. But do you consent to this interview today? LB: Yes. MF: And do you consent to having this interview transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online? LB: Yes. MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Community Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, and maybe some things we haven't thought of yet? LB: You bet, yes. MF: And do you understand that you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and you can take out parts, you can redact parts, or you could withdraw the entire interview? LB: Yes. MF: Okay. So, today we're really continuing a discussion that we began last time in which you talked about the work of PA Gala, espeically in relationship to an anti-discrimination ordinance for the City of Allentown. And we ended that conversation with your successful organizing work to stop conservative residents from repealing that ordinance. And you mentioned in that past interview that there had been a lawsuit. And I thought today we could just continue that story and tell us a little bit about what that lawsuit was about, and how long it went on. Would you like to start there? LB: Sure. So, let me say that first of all, I didn't mention last time one of the other people that was very, very active, one of the 10 key people was very active in all the work that we were doing, and I named a bunch of people last time. And one of them was Allison Hamm, who's still around in the community. And she was very, very tenacious with regard to -- at one point, she actually went to Gross Towers, which is a place for disabled and older adults, where they had gone to get lots of people to sign the ordinance, she actually went door-to-door and had people remove their name, and they all did. I mean, they all had been misled into signing the ordinance repeal of ballot question. So, let's see. So, one of the things that was happening then was, and I can't remember what I said this in the last thing, but I have to say that this was a physically, desperately, big toll on both me and Trish and a lot of other people that were working on this. I think I mentioned I lost 17 pound in 70 days. I couldn't eat. And one of the reasons for this was that we were afraid that if we weren't successful in making the people that were circulating a petition to take our rights away, if we weren't successful in demonstrating that if they lied to people, they would not succeed, they would get in trouble. If we weren't able to show that, it would put every ordinance at risk in the state. And I felt every morning when I got up at six o'clock to start working on this, and every night at midnight, or later, when I went to sleep, and that was the only time that we weren't working on it, when we were sleeping -- maybe when I was reading a little bit before I fell asleep. It was the only time that we felt calm, because we didn't think that Frank McVeigh was out there, collecting more signatures. And it was devastatingly hard. And people shared that feeling with us, and they were terrific about it. So, when I finally got to the end of this story, we were successful. And the city took the thousands, or the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of names off of the ordinance. And we still even had additional names that could have been removed, but they just took the ones off of the people who had signed documents saying, "I was misled on that, take my name off of the ordinance." And had they come back and said, "Well, there's not enough," we would have had hundreds of other names, too, because among other things, people signed three or four times because they were told that it was about something else. So, if you say, "This is a thing about civil rights, this is the bingo sign-in sheet," that would cause it. So, that was all done. So, we won that. And the ordinance was in place. We were very, very happy about that. It was a huge relief. The other side was absolutely furious, to the point of physical demonstrations of violence. And I have to just say this at one point, Trish and I -- this is to give you an idea about Frank McVeigh, who believed that he was doing God's work, I suppose, but also I think there was all sorts of other things going on in his mind, I don't know what they were. Many people thought he was a nice guy. But he wasn't. And here's an example. We were sitting in the car. His second wife, whom he was married to, had a disability. She had a disability that caused it to be hard for her to walk. So, we were sitting across the street from City Hall in our car getting ready to go into the city council meetings which were very trying. I mean, when you're in this and people are saying just horrible things about you, and you think, "How are we going to deal with this and what are we going to do?" But this was it. This was the thing. We're sitting there in our car and we see Frank McVeigh, we were across the street, across Hamilton Street, and we see Frank McVeigh pull up in his car. And he parks in a no parking place because it's a handicap parking place. And you can see him, he's reaching in his glove box, and he takes out a hang tag, and puts it on his mirror. His wife is not in the car. And then, he gets out of his car and he goes over to the sidewalk, and there's a set of stairs there that goes into the wall, it's very steep, and he runs up the stairs. And I think, "Okay, that says everything. That's Frank McVeigh." He thinks that anything he does is okay because he's doing it. So, anyway. We were successful in the meeting and they said that they didn't have the numbers. We had to affirm that all the way through. And we were successful in that. And the other thing that was successful was that we had brought this really frightening lawsuit against these other people. And they were petrified by that, as they should have been, because they lied using very serious public documents that they had to swear on and stuff, and they lied. And nobody told them, "Oh, by the way you can't just lie to people and get them to sign this ballot measure petition to remove these rights. You can't lie to people to do that, because if you do that, you could get in trouble." Nobody said that to them. I guess it's possible that the lawyer didn't think that they would do it. But in every ballot measure, that's what happens. And I think it's important for people to understand that ballot measures are bad. No matter what they are. Even if it's a really good cause it's a bad way to do it because when you have a ballot measure, no one is responsible for the language of the law, no one understands really what it's about, because when you're voting on it the little blurb is so short that, how do you really know how this is going to affect people? And if it turns out to be bad, if it turns out they have other ramifications, the legislators who have been elected say, "I didn't do this. People voted for it. It's not my responsibility. I'm not going to do anything to fix this. You voted for it, it's in place." And so, the only way to change it is another ballot measure, which is equally as hard. And throughout the United States, every time there's been an effort to have a ballot measure to remove or to sanction LGBT rights, the people that are circulating the ballots have always lied to get people to sign it. And so, people need to understand that we are a representative form of democracy and we should not have ballot measures. They're bad. They're dangerous. They're bad. They relinquish the ability to fix a law when it's got problems in it to nobody. There's never been a ballot measure that really did the work that it needed to do. And in places like California, when you go into a voting booth, they hand you a booklet that's the size of a phone book, an old-fashioned phone book, with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ballot measures. And you just have to know what they're about. And nobody knows what they're about. And it's really a very dangerous thing. So, we were successful, and it was a big relief. Two days later, the bad guys, the lawyers for the bad guys that had come out of Focus on the Family that had trained them through an organization that's supported by Focus on the Family, brought a lawsuit against the law, saying that because the ordinance was different from the state law, that we couldn't have that law. And they filed the lawsuit. And we looked at this and the city said, "Of course we'll fight this." The city was great. The City of Allentown said, "Yeah, we'll fight it. How dare they say that we can't have something that's beyond what the state has. We have all sorts of laws that are beyond what the state has. Even traffic laws are beyond what the state has. We have a different constituency. The people who live in Allentown are different from the people who live in the rural parts of the state, and the laws are different from town to town, from municipality to municipality, so why shouldn't it be done?" So, Dan Anders, who had been our wonderful lawyer, got together a dream team of lawyers, including Edward Khan, who the federal courthouse was already named after. So, the federal courthouse in Allentown was named after a guy who was on our dream team. And Dan Anders and people from Biddle &amp ; Smith, which is a big, big law firm in Philadelphia, Tiffany Palmer, who's a wonderful lawyer, she's a judge now. She was just elected judge. She was on that team. People from the Human Relations Commission, the lawyers of the Human Relations Commission of the state, and the lawyer from that spoke very, very well about it. And lawsuits like that take a long time. So, it's probably a year before it actually went to court. And so, this was in a lower court and the judge was a guy named Black. And Franklin Cannon, our pal Franklin Cannon had said, "This guy is really pretty good. He's not a negative guy. He's not anti-gay." And the point of view that the lawyer had for the bad guys' side was, "You can't do this because it's beyond," and we knew that that wasn't going to fly, that was just a ridiculous point of view. The problem was that the judge himself said this, and this was a legitimate thing. He said that the legislature of the state of Pennsylvania had passed a law that said that commerce laws between cities had to match. And at the time, Roy Afflerbach was our mayor and he had been in the legislature and he said, "The point of that law was to be sure that like, if there was a rule that said you can't sell red dresses in Allentown, and there were manufacturers who were trying -- then you couldn't just presume that that was true in Bethlehem," that kind of stuff. It was a commerce law. But this judge said, "The wording of this piece of legislation, I don't see how you could get around having different nondiscrimination laws from municipality to municipality." Well, that's going to affect every municipality in the State of Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia. So, there was a lot of effort to look at this law. And the judge at that time -- so, now it had been a year, maybe a year and a half later he said, "Okay, we have to nullify this law. I'm going to strike down this law." So, the lawyers immediately moved -- I just want to say we found that out on my birthday. And it really sucked to find that out. I just remember hearing it on the news and thinking, "Holy crap." I literally screamed at that point, because after all of that work, it was unbelievable. But the city said, "We will appeal this," and our dream team said, "Don't worry about it, we'll repeal it," and the judge, who was a good guy said, "Let's keep the law in place while it's under appeal, because it's a civil rights law and we don't just repeal civil rights laws. It hurts individuals if you do that. And the intent of the civil rights law is fine. The problem is that it goes against the other law." So, that was very, very devastating. So, now it was going to be appealed to the superior court. So, we passed it in 2002, now it's about 2003. And so, we had to wait a long time. Now, the law's in place. So, we kind of had breathing room there. And then here's the great thing about this. Trish and I, and Steve, and all the other people who had worked on the ground to get it to where it was, we didn't have to do anything. This was in the hands of the brilliant lawyers ; it wasn't our fault. If they screwed it up, it wasn't our fault. There wasn't anything we could do about it. It was between judges and lawyers, it was going to superior court, and people across the state were very worried about this, so they were working very hard. And anybody could have brought this lawsuit in at any time, and frankly, because it happened in the City of Allentown, we were lucky because Allentown appealed it. And if it had been in a small municipality, the small municipality might have said, "Yeah, we can't afford an appeal, we're not going to do an appeal." Or if it had been a law that had been challenged, say, in New Hope, and the dream team didn't show up to work for that, they just said, "Well, okay. We won't have it now." Well, that would have set a really bad precedent. So, the dream team worked on it and worked on it. They were really wonderful. It was right before Tiffany Palmer's daughter was going to be born. She was pregnant. And now she has a beautiful daughter who's just about to go into college now, I guess. And we ended up just waiting. And it was another maybe two years. So, now it's like 2005. And now it's in the state superior court, and that's in Easton. So, we went to Easton. There were very few people there. And we were glad that the anti people weren't there. There were no anti people there. They weren't even following it anymore by then. And we were there, and our dream team was there, and maybe a couple of other people. Do you remember anybody else? Steve was not there. And we watched the case. Now, this is what happened. In between 2003 and 2005, the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania had been charged to make a decision as to whether the City of Philadelphia could have a domestic partner requirement, which was an ordinance, for their own city employees who were LGBT. And the State of Pennsylvania had made a Defense of Marriage Act, which is a misnomer, that said that the State of Pennsylvania could not have same-sex marriage in any municipality, that the legislature voted against same-sex marriage. And so, that kind of stuff is kind of a figurehead situation, but they were saying, "We don't want to have same-sex marriage, so okay." They made a legislature. But some people were presuming that what they were saying was that other communities could not have domestic partner benefits that approximated marriage, and Philadelphia had done that. So, the anti-gay people had brought this lawsuit saying that domestic partner benefits approximate marriage and the State of Pennsylvania had made a law that we can't have same-sex marriage in the State of Pennsylvania. And all through this time, and all through the time up until we got marriage equality, or up until we got the LGBT Caucus in the state, which Adrian was involved in doing, and also the lobbying that Steve did, we were in danger of the Republican legislature voting to pass an effort to have a constitutional amendment in the State of Pennsylvania that banned marriage, because constitutional amendments are horrible, because in effect, it is, again, a ballot measure. So, the way that would have happened in the State of Pennsylvania was, the legislature would vote, "Yes," on it, then they had to wait a whole cycle, so another two years, then if they voted, "Yes," on it again, then it would go to a vote for every person in the state. Having every person vote in the state on whether or not you could have the right to protect your family through marriage is a devastating vote. It's horrible. Because you find out that people you know, or restaurants that you like to go to, or stores, or legislators, or your postman, or something like that, decides that they're going to make a public issue of taking your vote away. Or even that they just say, "Yeah, I'm going to vote that way." And we would have had to go door-to-door. It would have just been a thousand times worse than the effort that we went through to try to keep the ordinance from coming. Luckily, that never came up and it never got all the way. It did come to some first votes, but we had good people in the legislature that kept it in committee, so that it wouldn't come up, including Pat Brown, who did a lot of work to keep that from happening in the State of Pennsylvania. He's a Republican State Senator. And he's our State Senator in our area. But this lawsuit was looking at that and it had gone to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania in 2003, I guess, decided that -- so, this was after our law was shot down in the lower court. The Supreme Court made the statement, and it was a pretty strong vote, and the gist of their decision was that municipalities had the right to make laws that protect and govern their own people. That's the point of government. And that's what they said. So, therefore, the City of Philadelphia's elected officials think that they should have a domestic partnership rule for their employees, they can do that because they have decided by a vote of the people, they've been put in office by the vote of the people, and they've decided that that's good for the community and they're responsible for that. Well, that was a big deal for two reasons. One of them was when our case then went to court in the Superior Court, Dan Anders had already said this Supreme Court decision is very good for us. And so, that was the thrust of every one of our dream team. They said, "Look, the Supreme Court has said this in the State of Pennsylvania that our constitution in effect says we're allowed to do this. The Supreme Court makes decisions about what the constitution says." And that was irrefutable. And so, the Superior Court, they have to go away and come back and issue a thing, but they didn't have any argument and the anti people's argument was -- what were they going to say? "No, the Supreme Court didn't say that?" They couldn't say that. So, what they said was, they reiterated that the Defense of Marriage Act was different from what state law said, but that was made moot by the Supreme Court. So, we won. And we were very happy. And we issued that in The Valley Free Press, big headline, "We won, the law's in place." And the other thing was, the second thing about this is, that from that moment on, because at that point, only six communities when we passed our law, it was very close to the time that Erie passed theirs, they passed theirs just after ours, although they didn't specifically enumerate gender identity. But it was in the definitions. At that point, then, once that was in place, all these other municipalities started passing laws. And they were contacting us, contacting me, to say, "How do we write this law? How do we do this?" We passed the law in 2007 in Easton, that was the next passage. It was pretty easy to pass it in Easton. They had no law, so we crafted a law and they put it in place. And Tim Herr, who just died a couple days ago, and Earl Ball led that effort, and Ernie Schlegel led the effort in 2009 in Reading, to pass it. They had an existing law, so they added sexual orientation and gender identity into it. That passed pretty easily. They had a very Democratic city council. And then, finally, in 2011, it was hard to do this, Adrian led the effort and I worked with him on this, to write the law and write the language to pass it in Bethlehem. Bethlehem was the one that was dragging its feet. And one of the reasons is that Bethlehem's people who are Democrats are very, very comfortable that they'll always be elected because there's never any Republican votes, so there's never any worry that you could -- see, in Easton, here's the significant thing that happened in Easton. Maybe I said this already. But through PA Gala, we were able to get a mayor and a city council person to win their elections, because they said they would pass the ordinance. And the mayor of Easton was a Republican. And he won. I think I mentioned that in the last time, where he won by 57 votes. And we had 200 Democrat voters in Easton and we contacted them directly to say, "The Democrat says he will not support this. The Republican says he will support this. We are endorsing the Republican." Well, literally -- it's not even 57 votes, it's half of that, if you just have one more than half of 57, one more than half of that amount, he would win. If you took 28 of those people out of -- no, it would be a little bit more -- of those people out of the 57 that guy would have lost. Well, he won. And we had 200 votes. Well, there's no question that Tim Herr and Earl Ball and all those people, our people in Easton voted for him, because Easton is a Democrat city, and it's primarily Democrats. So, there's no question that he won because of that issue, and that really influenced elected officials all across Lehigh Valley, from then on. They really thought, "We have to be pro-LGBT or we will lose elections." And so, the Democrat lost, and the mayor, true to his word, it was introduced by a woman who had won for city council who said that she would support it. There were a couple of other people that said they would support it, too, and so we endorsed those three, and she won by 53 votes. So, again it's very significant that people turned out for these people, when you're talking about a block vote of 200 people who don't know where each of these people stand, to make the Republican they've had a Democrat mayor in Easton for about 15 years, Sal Panto. So, it's rare. And the Republican guy was only in for one term because he didn't turn out to be that great a representative of the people after that. So, the city councilwoman introduced this bill, and then it went through, and then the bill was to set up a whole Human Relations Commission, a whole ordinance that protected everybody, which is easier to do, because then you can get the African American community, and the Latino community, and religious minorities, and all sorts of people who have disabilities, all together to say, "Of course there should be a Human Relations Commission, and there should be an ordinance that says you can't discriminate that would locally protect people." And so, that won. And that was very, very significant. And that happened solely because of the information that was sent out. And that was a big win for us. That was a big deal. We're starting to win things. That was a big deal. And that was in 2007. So, that was the next big Lehigh Valley thing. There really hasn't been any other Lehigh Valley passage since then, other than Bethlehem. And Bethlehem was harder because we had to write the vote, but there was a lot of Catholic agitation. The city solicitor was sort of in the pocket of the Diocese in Bethlehem and they were telling him, "You have to have a huge religious exemption that would allow anybody to just say, 'My religion keeps me from doing this,'" and they had written it that way, so Adrian said to me, "Take this law and rewrite it so it doesn't say that without them knowing." So, I took it and they had "any entity," and I said, "Any mission-driven religious entity," which is actually protected by the Constitution of the State and the United States. So, I just changed it so that it couldn't be like somebody who was religious running an ice cream store, it had to be somebody who was religious running a church, which is fine. Churches can do whatever they want, and that's based on our constitution. So, finally, we passed those things. And now, we had demonstrated that the Constitution and the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania absolutely supports these laws. And since, all of those other laws -- now, we have 58 municipalities across the state, some of them are counties, Allegheny County passed theirs, Erie County has a law, and we'd passed all of those different communities all across the state. And some of them were rural areas in parts, like Pittston has one way up there, and Scranton passed theirs, soon after that. A lot of them are in Bucks and Montgomery County, but there were some that were outside of Pittsburgh. So, all of these were a big deal. It's still only about a third of the population of the State of Pennsylvania, but several times after that, reporters called me up and said, "We would like your statement on this because a person in this passage in, I don't know, Plymouth Meeting said they're going to bring a lawsuit because it's not the same as the state." I said, "Well, they can bring a lawsuit but it's completely frivolous because there's already been a lawsuit and the Supreme Court said, 'No,' so you can't just keep bringing the same lawsuit over and over again." And reporters will actually go back to the person and say, "Well, this is what she said, and you can find that in any kind of piece of information about the Supreme Court," so it stuffed the guns of people who were doing it. It was a big deal. So, our passage in Allentown made all of those things happen, and made all of that, not just the first mention of gender identity, but all of it. And since then, every law has had gender identity in it, using the same language that was written on our kitchen table, which was written by Mark Keelson, which I think was really terrific. So, that is a big legacy, I think, for us and for all of the people that worked on that and how significant it was to really make that happen. And the lawsuit was over and we were done, and we were really relieved by that. So, I think the other thing that I was going to talk about, I was going to talk about the Valley Gay Press. Is there anything else I need to say about that? Yeah, I'm going to say some stuff about Steve Black. Steve Black died about six years ago and Steve was an extraordinary advocate, an amazing activist. He was kind of a hermit in a lot of ways, particularly in the last years of his life. And he was a young guy, he was quite a bit younger than I am. And when I started this stuff, I remember turning 40 and he said, "I thought you were like me, in my twenties." He was in his twenties, then. But he was -- he was very, very dedicated to all the things. He was very smart. And he was really terrible at relationships. And that was a big problem. And one of the things was that he was self-effacing and he never wanted to take money. He was very honest. He often spent his own money on making things happen. And one of the things that happened, he was the head of PA Gala, and he never kept me from speaking. He never said, "I'm the only one that can talk, don't let anybody else speak, you can't make any statements for this organization, you can't do that." We were on the same page on everything. I mean we often would just come out of her room after somebody had said something and say, "Can you believe that that person said that?" at the same time. We were really on the same page with that. He was never afraid that I was going to take away his limelight or anything like that. He liked to do work and he liked to get recognition for it but he also really wanted other people to get that recognition. And when Out100 contacted him, so that's the top 100 out LGBT people in the United States, and it's in The Advocate, and they contacted him and said, "We want to know whether you or Liz Bradbury should be the Out100 person," he called me up and he said, "Well, I think you should do it," and I said, "Well, Steve, you're the head of the organization, and I'm perfectly fine with your doing it. You're the head of the organization, you made all these things happen from the beginning." He said, "Well, let me see if we can both be it." And I said, "Okay, fine, if you want to do that," and they said, "No." So, I said, "I want you to do it." And he said, "Okay." And then he said, "But I made it so that both of our pictures will be in the magazine. So, you have to come up here, and I have my little fake tie, so I could go up to the luncheonette in Pen Argyl." We set up a camera to take a picture, and then I actually shopped the picture and everything so it looked really good. He used that pictures for years, just of him. It was a funny tie. I only saw him wear the tie three times. It was the same tie, every time. And he got to be in the Out100. He was the Grand Marshal of the Pride parade that year. And he got hit on by a lot of guys because of that. It was incredible. He said, "I can't believe how much I'm getting out of this. The Out100 thing is really -- I mean, people are calling me up for days," and that had never happened to him, although he was a very nice, an attractive guy. The thing about Steve was that he never had a long-term relationship and he told me at one point that he never wanted to be in one. He said, "I always pick people that I can't possibly be involved with," and that really hurt him. And I'm going to talk about that at the end but I do want to talk a little bit about because he was involved in all of the stuff that we did from the beginning. He was the one we met, Trish, and I, and Steve did all of this stuff for years and years and years. But it got harder and harder to work with him because I think I described what happened at the beginning with Chris Young, where he's always holding things to the last minute. Well, Steve started to do that too, and I don't understand why he was doing that. It would be time for the voter's information to come out and people would be saying to us because we were often the face of that, "Why don't I have my voter's guide? The election's only five days away," and I'd say, "Ask Steve," because he was the one who generated all the components to the mailing. So, we would do the mailing, but he will generate the components to that. And it wasn't something we could really do because he figured out how all those things were going to be. And we would create how they were going to look, but then he would print them and stuff like that. And he'd often wait until the last minute. One time, he waited until the last minute and he said, "I can go to the William Way Center in Philadelphia and use their copying machine for free," for something that he was going to do, "And then they have a folding machine." He hated to fold things. And I would say, "We would just do the folding. It's not that hard to fold." "No, I hate to do the folding." So, we went down there, and it was four days before the election. So, it was Friday and the election was Tuesday, and the machine was broken and he couldn't use it. And we had a big argument about that. I said, "Steve, for heaven's sake, if you wait until the last minute, you're always at that risk." And so, I think we had to take it to like Staples and pay a whole lot of extra money to have them do it and stuff. And he said, "It's okay, we'll have enough money," and I said, "Yeah, but it's so late." And we would often do the mailing on Monday for people to get it on Tuesday. And that's a terrible thing to do because people don't always get it. And people would say to us, "I didn't get my mailing until the day after the election." Or, "I didn't look at my mailbox," you know, that kind of stuff. That was never what we wanted. And it was very, very frustrating. And also, Steve could be very, very rude. He never really understood that we were doing an enormous -- even though he was generous in terms of our attention, he never understood how much work we were doing and how we were getting people to donate and we were doing a lot of fundraisers and we were doing it in our house, and we were getting people to do fundraisers, and also, we were producing, by then, the newspaper, The Valley Gay Press, which I'm going to talk about in a minute. And that was in the voter's guide, and the mailings that he was sending out. He was sending the mailings. That was getting people to pay their membership in PA Gala because it was a membership organization, and to donate. And we did. We were getting plenty of money but if there was a flux. Another thing we kept saying to him is, "You can't use all the money so there's nothing in the account. We need to have a savings account so that if anything happens, we still have 5,000 dollars to do the mailing of the voter's guide, because we have to be able to have that money. We can't just have nothing and then hope we're going to get this money to come in." And also, we were a 501c4 organization, so we never had sponsorships, people couldn't write off their contributions to us. And Steve, he wasn't too rude to me, but he was often very, very rude to Trish. And one of the reasons was that Trish did an enormous amount of the maintenance of mailing lists and the membership list. And he did that a lot, too, but she did a lot of that kind of stuff. And she would remind him about things and he'd get really, really rude to her. There's no reason for him to be that way. It was like she'd just say, "You know, this person is dead and we keep getting a call from her dad that says that it makes him upset that she's getting these mailings, can we just take this person's name off the mailing list?" I think we told him that four times, and that would have been something that Trish would never have let happen, but he was like, "Well, I can't manage it," I said, "Yeah, but it's really influencing us," and he'd get really mad at us and stuff like that. But he tended to just passive-aggressively not get stuff done. And it wasn't the intention of not doing it, in some ways he had a lot of things going on. He was running the luncheonette. But it made us nuts, and it made us look bad. And that's the thing that we just really didn't want to have. We had a presence in the community. So, I said to Steve in, I don't remember when it was, I guess it was in about 2002. I said, "Trish and I are giving a one-year notice," and we didn't want to get mad and say, "Okay, we're not going to do anything anymore." I said, "We will work with you for the next two voter's information things," but we were paying out of our own pocket for the production of The Valley Gay Press, and that was because we couldn't get donations that were sponsorships. And this dovetails into The Valley Gay Press but we wanted to have an organization that was an information-based organization. The voting information, we just couldn't get any donations for that. And we wanted to continue to do The Valley Gay Press which we did for a long time, the newspaper. But we couldn't afford to pay for it out of our own pocket anymore. So, I said to Steve, "We're going to create an organization that is to produce The Valley Gay Press, to do advocacy," because he didn't like to do that, "And to run the info line, and do other on the ground kinds of things. People will call us up and say, 'We need you to advocate for us,' we'll do that. You continue to do the voter information stuff, that's fine, but we're not going to help you anymore after a year." So, we gave him a whole year of this stuff. And at the end of the year, I don't think he thought I was kidding, but he said, "Well, you certainly gave me enough time." And I said, "I'm never going to say anything bad about PA Gala and I'll write about it in The Valley Gay Press and I'll encourage people to support you and everything." And then, Pennsylvania Diversity Network was also a membership organization which was very inexpensive, it was 15 dollars for a membership to get the paper and stuff. That was mostly to get the paper. And he was a little upset, he said, "You didn't say you were going to make this a membership organization because that's going to keep people from giving money to me." I said, "No, it isn't. People are still going to give you money for the voter information. They really like that. And I'll encourage them too. I'll do that, completely." But what happened was that he didn't anticipate that we were doing an enormous amount of work, and we were doing these huge mailings for him all the time, and we were raising money for him all the time, and he never really saw that until he realized that he had to do it himself. And he pulled it off for a year. And one of the people that came to help him was Corey Horvath, and I think Allison did, and several other people. He also got people who were just in the luncheonette, who hung out in the luncheonette to do the mailings. Some of them had no idea what they were doing, but they were just like, "Here, do the mailings," and they just hung out in there all day, gave them a hamburger, which was actually adorable. And I think they did it for about a year to two years. And then he couldn't do it anymore. It was too hard. It was a huge undertaking. All that stuff where he had to go find out who the candidates were, Trish had been doing that for years, we'd been interviewing people for years and he just wasn't seeing that. And then, suddenly that was an issue. So, we went through and I still was on the board for a while. At one point, we were sort of at odds about who we were to endorse for mayor of the City of Allentown, so we had sort of a dual endorsement. It ended up that it petered out. He couldn't do it anymore. And this is sort of the end of his story. He was still there ; he was still running the luncheonette. It was a mess because half of it was the food area, and the other half was all of his papers and computers and everything. You could just see everything there. It was kind of hilarious, these big packages and boxes of envelopes and stuff like that, all over the place, in one half of the luncheonette. And it was cordoned off, so you couldn't sit there. And it wasn't working anymore. So, he ended up running for treasurer of the City of Pen Argyl -- no, tax collector. And he won. And he ran as an openly gay man. It was a big deal that he won. And that's actually a paying job. It doesn't pay a lot but it pays probably equal to what he was making from the luncheonette, so that was a good deal for him to do that. And he did that for a couple years. But it became really apparent to me -- so let me just say this, that as I said, Steve was bad about relationships, and he was really bad about friendship. He didn't understand what friendship was. And he would say things like, "Oh, this person is my really good friend," and then I'd say, "Well, where does she live?" And he wouldn't even know. And I'd say, "A friend is a person who helps you move. A friend is a person you call in the middle of the night and say, 'I think there's somebody in the house,' or, 'There's a bat in the house.' Those are the people that are your friends. It's not just somebody you had a beer with." And I think that that's a dangerous thing, when you think that those people are your friends. And that was the circumstance. And he was also drinking a lot and he was going to the Republican Club because they have no Democrat clubs there. So, he'd go to the Republican Club, and he would drink a lot. He had a couple DUIs. And that had happened, actually, in 2002. And I'd actually taken him to court and stuff. And it was a sting at the Stonewall, as a matter of fact, that they followed him. He was right there at the Stonewall, and they followed him. But he knew that he was over the limit. And he ended up really having a hard time. And he told me at one point that he was dating a guy, a political person who had been convicted of a crime with regard to politics, and he was waiting to be sentenced, and Steve was meeting him at the bingo afternoon thing at Diamonz every Sunday. And he said, "Yeah, I'm dating," and he told me who it was, Michael Sona, actually. And he said, "Yeah, that's one of the examples of me dating somebody where the relationship could never really work out," because I think Michael Sona went to prison for 20 years. I think he's still in prison, now. He was scapegoated by the other politician. And not the best relationship circumstance. So, he ended up having these DUIs and stuff. And apparently, he dated some guy who was a criminal who, according to Steve, stole a whole bunch of the money that he had from the tax collectors. Because people would come into luncheonette and give him cash. So, "Here's 1,000 dollars in cash for my taxes," and people actually pay their taxes that way. So, he'd have these huge piles of money around. And Steve was very cavalier about stuff and he just didn't care. Sometimes he would meet somebody who was drunk at the bar and he'd let him come and stay at his place. He never really cared about his environment. I remember one time, he had an apartment in Philadelphia and he finally let that apartment go. And I went with him to Philly and I helped him move all his stuff, because I was the friend. And I wasn't really friends with him, but he said, "Will you do this?" And I said, "Yes." So, I helped him carry a big couch up, because he lived in an apartment over the luncheonette. It was outdoor stairs. We carried it in, we got it into his kitchen. You walk into his apartment, there's a kitchen there, and we put it down, it was sort of on its back. He said, "Just put it down there." And then, we went out and he had some boxes of papers and stuff, we brought the stuff in, we put it in something. I just put it on the edge of the couch. It was lying on its back. And then, he moves the rest of the stuff so that he wasn't paying for this apartment anymore, which was actually very, very inexpensive. He kept it for a long time. And then a year later -- like, we're not friends so I didn't used to go over and see him, but I brought some other boxes in, and I carried it up. It was literally a year later and I carried it up into his kitchen, and this couch was still there on its back with the same boxes on it. And I thought, "This is the way this guy lives." This is his living room and the couch is on its back, because he never had anybody over. He never entertained. He didn't have any friends. But anyway, apparently what happened was, he got caught because he didn't have, literally, thousands of dollars. I think it was 25,000 dollars or something was missing from the stuff, and he was indicted. At that time, he'd had several DUIs so that was on his record and he was indicted. And there was a lot of press coverage on it. By then he was not communicating with anybody and I couldn't get him -- he won an award through our gala, and I tried to get him to say -- this was when I first started the gala, the first gala we had, which was 14 years ago, I guess, and I called him and he wouldn't answer the phone. He wouldn't answer my calls. He wouldn't answer my messages, because we had answering machines. Finally, I called him on the number at the luncheonette where you would get takeout orders, because I knew he would answer. And I said, "This is Liz, what's going on? Are you going to come to this?" And he said, "Well, I haven't decided." And that's all he said. And he didn't want to talk anymore. He was just unhappy. And by then, what had happened was that the hate crimes bill had been overturned. The hate crimes law that had passed in 2002 was overturned on a technicality. And the technicality was that they had passed it as a farm bill. And it went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said, "This isn't really true." Now, they do that all the time. But by then, the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania was pretty conservative and they said, "No, you can't have a bill like this." And so, all the work that he had done for years and years, this was his legacy, was gone. And the hate crimes bill was gone. And it was done. Now, a federal hate crimes bill passed soon after that that includes sexual orientation and gender identity, so there is a little bit of balance for that. But his work was gone. I think it was devastating for him. The organization was gone. The hate crimes bill was gone. He figured out he didn't have a lot of pals. And then, this money thing happened. And there was an article in the newspaper that was public information that he had gone into a park and tried to kill himself. And they had taken him to someplace, like a lockdown, because he'd been indicted. So, I thought that he tried to kill himself because he knew that if he went to jail, it would be a terrible, terrible thing, and that it would be an embarrassment to the community, and that he wasn't going to be able to explain that this money had been stolen. Some people thought that he had taken the money. It was hard to know because it was all cash. But I knew that he never stole money like that. He never did anything. He never misused money, so I don't think that that would have happened. I didn't know that this had happened, but I got a call from him and he was in jail, but he was in the hospital jail. He was in lockdown in the hospital. Part of the reason of that was that he had tried to kill himself. So, he gets on the phone and he says, "Well, you may have already read in the paper that I tried to kill myself." I didn't know that, but I immediately looked it up, because it was way up in Pen Argyl, so it was a different paper. It's not the Morning Call. By then, maybe I had heard about it. So, I said, "Okay, yeah. What do you need me to do?" And he said, "Well, I'm in the hospital and I need to get out." And I said, "Well, why are you in the hospital?" And he said, "Well, they think I'm going to try to kill myself again." And I said, "Well, are you?" And he said, "No, I need to get back to my job." But the thing is, the way he was talking, it was weird. The way he was talking was very strange, like he'd been sedated or something like that. So, I said, "Well, maybe what you need is to get a doctor to say that you are okay, and that you're not going to," because he said, "I need a lawyer," and I said, "Well, I think what you need is a doctor." So, he said, "Okay," and then he goes, "You mean Dr. Brown?" And I said, "Well, who is that?" And he said, "Well, my family doctor," and I thought, "He's really messed up." So, I said, "Let me see what I can do." Here's something you always need to know. If anybody ever gets hurt and you need to get into a hospital, get a minister. A minister can always get into a hospital. So, I called Beth Goudy, who was a close friend at the time, and I said, "This is what's happening with Steve," she said, "Do you want me to go and make a hospital visit?" I said, "Yes." She'd get in anywhere. She'd get into a lockdown hospital because she's a minister. So, Beth went over to see him and then she called me the next day and I said, "I know you can't really tell me because there's confidentiality, but is he okay?" And she said, "Well, he's in the right place. He needs to be where he is." And then I didn't hear anything about him, and then maybe four months go by, and then all of a sudden, John Dawe, who was the head of NEPA, the LGBT organization up in Scranton, said, "I just heard that Steve is dead." And so, I thought he'd gotten out and killed himself. I really thought that's what had happened. And I was devastated. I just thought, "This is terrible. None of this should have happened. This is awful." And I really thought that he'd killed himself because he was a young, healthy guy. And so, I couldn't imagine what would have taken him. He would have been in his forties, then. And so, then what happened was, I was going for a walk and Rob Hopkins who had known Steve all along through all of this time, Rob Hopkins is an activist in the community and was on the Pride board for a long time. He said, "I have to tell you something. Northampton County made a huge mistake and published, publicly, every death certificate in the county for the last 10 years, including my mother's, which is completely illegal because it says what people died from on the death certificate. And that's breaking HIPPA and everything. But it's totally searchable. So, I searched Steve's, because Rob knew Steve very well, and he said, "It said that Steve died of a brain tumor, and it was the kind of brain tumor that you get from AIDS." You only get that kind of brain lesion from AIDS. And he said, "Did you know that he had AIDS?" I said, "I don't think he knew that he had AIDS." And Rob said, "I don't think so, either. I don't think he did," because he was very, very honest. We knew lots and lots of people who were HIV-positive, we'd talk about them all the time. He wouldn't have not told me that. He told me everything. He told me everything, even though we weren't really friends. When he was selected as a delegate to the Democratic Convention in LA, and he went to it, it was when Al Gore was running, and it was first time he'd ever been in an airplane before. And he called me from there to tell me all about it and it was real great stories that he told me, including that he got to get into all of these really great parties because he checked the gay box, and the other Democrats -- including Bob Casey who is now our senator -- couldn't get into the parties because he wasn't gay. "I have to tell you this," he's saying to me, "I have to tell you this story. These guys who aren't gay can't get into the cool parties." And so, it's so exciting. So, anyway I was doing a training in Pen Argyl, for Pen Argyl High School. And at the end of the training, most people left and this younger woman came over to me, and she said, "We have something in common. I'm Steve Black's cousin," and I was Steve's best friend, and I was the executor of his will. And so, we talked about him and she said he didn't know he was sick until the very end. He didn't know that he was HIV-positive until he was dying of AIDS. She said, "His mother said that he died of AIDS, but he really died of a brain tumor." And I said, "Well, the brain tumor was from AIDS," and she hadn't known that. And we talked about Steve for a long time, about how wonderful he was and stuff. I think the reason I want this to be in this archive was, first of all, he was an extraordinary activist. But because he didn't have a lot of self-esteem in a lot of ways, he was afraid in a lot of ways, he didn't have any support from his family, and he didn't seek out good friends to build that family support that you can get from a chosen family, things didn't work out for him. And he couldn't recognize that. And I wrote an obituary in The Valley Gay Press about it. I also published it on, by then, we had Facebook. And I wrote that, and among other things, I said, "He was great at politics, he was great at activism, and he was terrible at relationships," and he was. Because we would gladly have been his pal and been his friend and hung out with him and have dinner. We would say, "Come to this party," and he'd never come to a party. We'd have parties at our house, he'd never come to a party. He would never have dinner with us or anything. We have so much in common with him that we didn't have with other people because he was all political and lots of other people don't know about that kind of stuff. It was devastatingly sad. I write notes to him on his Facebook page. Every time some big thing happens, I say, "I wish you were here because we just passed domestic partner benefits in the City of Allentown." "I wish you were here ; marriage equality just went through." And I'm glad that Rob told me this, because he obviously had this illness when all these things happened with the money, and it makes more sense that he would be clouded by the fact that he had this brain tumor that was killing him, and that's why he wasn't able to keep track of the money and made bad decisions about these people being in his space. And I think that's really true. And people said to me I shouldn't have written that. And I said, "Look, it was public information that he was indicted. He had serious mental health issues, and one of them was, now it turns out, from a brain tumor." I would rather people think that he had problems with mental health issues than that he was a thief that just got elected and stole a whole lot of money for his own gain. It wasn't the case at all, so I want people to understand that about him. I think he was a really good guy and I think he deserved better in the world. But I hope people understand that sometimes you have to make that happen for yourself. So, that's about Steve and I did want to be sure to say that. Now, I want to say some stuff about The Valley Gay Press and I want to say it really fast because we don't have much time left. So, we started The Valley Gay Press in 1998 because we were trying to pass the anti-discrimination ordinance and we need the vehicle to get information out. And we created The Valley Gay Press to pass the ordinance. But we also created it to get information to people because we didn't have any way to get people information. We didn't have the internet then ; we didn't have social media. And we also recognized that there was this huge problem that was happening in the community because at that time, there were 30 LBGT organizations, FACT, the Gay Men's Chorus, a bunch of GSAs in colleges, a whole bunch of different organizations that were serving the LGBT community. And some of them were big, including Pride of the Lehigh Valley. One time the Pride Festival and the biggest fundraiser that FACT had, which was a big country club event, were on the same day at the same time. And they were furious at each other that that happened. And I thought, "If I create a newspaper and I put a calendar in it and people will have this information long in advance, there won't be any excuse for people to do this." One of the things we also found out was that lots of people who go to bars all the time believe that everybody in the LGBT community go to bars all the time. Right after we started to produce The Valley Gay Press, which was a newsletter that we were sending out with all of the fundraising letters that were coming from PA Gala, we were sending it regularly out and then people would send money to PA Gala, and it was really bringing in a lot of money. It was very significant. We started The Valley Gay Press with 12 issues. It was on a piece of legal paper, so we were four pages in the first one, there were eight pages in the second. We decided to go with eight pages for a while. And at first, we were coming out every month and it was killing me because we still had a job, we were antique dealers then, and it was killing us. We couldn't do it. I reduced it to 10 issues because we had two months where we had big obligations that we just couldn't produce the paper during that month. It's also an enormous amount of work. And we produced it for 18 years. I ultimately made it to three sheets of paper, which was 12 pages. It regularly had about 80 articles in it. And I wrote and edited and compiled everything. In fact, let's see, I wrote the "Hot News" page which I set up. I wrote the thing about legal weddings. I wrote my column, which started out called, "A View From a Dyke," which I thought was really funny and nobody got it. You know View From A Kill, that's a James Bond movie. And a kill is a stream, like Catskill. That means stream. So, I thought "View from a Dyke," I thought that was really funny, and people just thought it was pejorative. And I was talking about Boudica and "Bou-dyke-a" and that's where it comes from, it just never flew. So, after about five years, I changed it to "Liz Out Loud," which had been the name of my article that I had written for Above Ground magazine for a long time before we started The Valley Gay Press. And when I changed it back to "Liz Out Loud," Mitch Hemphill, who produced it, he thought of that name, and he was so happy that I was using it again, because by then, his magazine wasn't going anymore. I set up all the front-page news. I took all the pictures in it. I wrote, "What's That About," which was sort of like a write-in piece, people would write in questions or ask me questions and these were the answers to the questions. Sometimes I'd just use that as a way to get information to people. Other times, people would really contact us on the info line and ask questions, and then I'd give them the answer, and I'd write the answer there. I wrote the quiz that was on the back. Sometimes the quiz was particularly to get people to know things, like, "What does a super voter mean?" that kind of stuff, or "When is the next election?" but lots of the times, they were just queer things that were fun. When we did a survey within a year of the paper coming out and loads and loads of people were getting it -- maybe it was two years after -- and Beth Goudy told me, "Loads of people said that they always read the quiz. It was the second thing they read." She said, "I read the front page, then I turn it over," it was on the back page, "and I read the quiz. That's the next thing I do." So, it was a big draw. But it was interesting that 50 percent of the people said they always read the quiz and 50 percent of the people said they never read the quiz. There was no in between, it was one or the other. So, that was interesting. I created the comic. There was a comic called "Distelfink," that I had for a long time, probably about five years in there. I wrote a bunch of other articles. I did every single edit. And people would write press releases and I'd say, "These have to be small because I've got to fit 80 articles in and the type is really little, it's only eight-point type," and people said, "It should be bigger type." I said, "Yeah, if it was bigger type, then whose articles am I going to cut out? I'd have to have less articles. Use a magnifying glass." I used to say that all the time. I used a magnifying glass. I still have that magnifying glass in here. I wrote book reviews in there for a long time. I wrote quotes of the month and photos of the month. I took those. And the quotes of the months were something that I generated from stuff that was happening either in the community or nationally, I would put that into the paper. And then, we had all these other columnists, and we had a lot of other events. We had Sylvia Comics after a while. Nicole Hollander, who produced the syndicated Sylvia Comics, told me they had been stopped in the Tribune papers and she told me I could put them in. I contacted her personally and she said, "Yeah, sure. Put them in your paper. What the hell." So, I had the right to do that. She had, "I have full rights to those, I can let them go for anything. You don't have to pay me just go. There's no other venue that the comics are coming from, so go ahead and put them in." So, I put those in all the time. She gave me the comics to put in. I had a community calendar of events. I had all the contacts for all the different LGBT organizations in the community, all the recurring events that always came out every time. And then there were the columnists. So, like Steve Libby wrote "Rants and Raves." They were terrific pop culture things. Trish and I used to say we never knew anything about pop culture, except we read it in Steve Libby's column, and now we know nothing because we don't read the column anymore because it's not there. We had "Planet Parenthood," which was about LGBT families with kids. And that was actually multiple different people who did it. The first person who wrote it with a pseudonym was Elizabeth Goff, she's a pediatrician and she wrote it for a while, and then a bunch of other people did it. And ultimately, for the last 10 years, because it was 18 years, Donnie and Earl Snyder wrote it. They had a little boy. And it was a great article, the way that they wrote it. Later, Adrian had a commentary in it. Adrian's ex-husband, he was a nurse and he had a column about health. "Scotty in the City," which was written by Scott Lauoner, was right from the beginning. Scott was living in Allentown, but then he moved to New York. And they were great articles. But the first articles were terrible. I remember Steve Black saying, "So, Scott wrote a book report." And then he got really good. The more people wrote them, they just got better and better at them. We had some financial ones that never really worked really well, I have to say. We had [Adra Liance?], who was a young person that I knew, I met through Facebook, who wrote a column called "Angry Black Lesbian Rant." And it was really short. It'd be a 100-word rant. Sue Sneeringer wrote stories about theatre. [Phil Healing?] wrote a column, he lives in England now, but he wrote a beautiful column for a long time. And then, Adra wrote the book reviews for a while. We did some really significant things. We did real reporting. So, people will contact us about issues. One of the first things that happened was a young guy named Travis contacted us about a thing that happened to him. He was 17. He was living on his own in the Lehigh Valley, he'd come from New York State. And he went to Borders Books to buy an XY magazine, which used to be a magazine -- I don't know if it's still around -- but it was for teenage gay kids, or LGBT kids. And they wouldn't let him buy it unless his parents bought it for him. And there was nothing in the magazine that was any different than Teen Vogue or Seventeen or something like that, except for that it was a gay magazine. So, we actually did this whole undercover thing where we had Patti Mittleman's son, Joel, who was 14, they said that it was a mistake, so we sent Joel in as an undercover guy to see if he could buy the magazine. It was really great. He was a straight kid and he goes, "I don't really want this." But he was great. And [Laura Gutaras?] called because she was working for the Girl Scouts and she said, "How can you say that this is any more inappropriate than Seventeen," and various different things for young women that actually have body image issues and stuff like that that are much more serious than just talking to kids because they're queer? It wasn't like a sex manual in any possible way. So, we were successful with that and they changed their whole policy. We actually went national with that, and they changed their policy nationally to be sure that every Borders Books across the United States, that they would never keep an LGBT kid -- I called Borders in other states to see if a teenager could get it. They were like, "Of course, it's a teen magazine." And then, other people were like, "No, we don't sell it," so Borders told them they all had to be able to sell it. They couldn't do that. That was a big thing. We used the paper to change Lehigh Valley Health Network's nondiscrimination policy because they had made a big announcement, they had big billboards that said that Money Magazine had said that they were one of the 100 best places to work in the United States. Well, one of the questions in that Money Magazine thing was, "Do you have a nondiscrimination statement that includes sexual orientation?" And you have to say yes to that, or you can't be one of the 100 best places to work. And they didn't have that in their policy. So, I went online to look at their policy and it wasn't in their policy. So, I actually called up the head of HR there, the vice president in charge of HR and I said, "You obviously told Money Magazine that you have this policy and you don't. And you're in trouble." And the guy said, "Well, we have an internal policy we just don't tell anybody about it." I said, "Yeah, I'm looking at your policy right now on your website and it's not there." And he said, "Well, you know, these are hard to change." And I said, "Well you better change it. I know it's a Friday afternoon but if you don't have this in place by Monday, I'm about to release a newspaper that's going to really expose you, and then I'm calling Money Magazine to get them to remove you from the list and keep you off of it for the next five years," which is what their rule is. So, they changed it that night. They went in and they changed it. The guy's like, "I can't change it," I was like, "You can, too. You're the vice president of HR. It's not hard to change a website. I can do it right now to my website. I'll show you how to do it." So, we did that. We also did a thing where we used the paper to get St. Luke's to give domestic partner benefits, and we did that in a variety of different of ways. But all the information was going out to all these people in the community very significantly. We had a college rating system. And Moravian College had done a really bad thing. We had an intern, Jonna Finocchio, who was one of our first interns, she's now a really top psychotherapist in Colorado. But she was at Moravian and she wanted to work on a project. Here's the deal. Moravian had a nondiscrimination policy that said, "We don't discriminate based on all these classes," and they included sexual orientation, gender identity, "as per required by law." Well, there wasn't a law in Bethlehem, so in effect, it was saying, "If the law says we have to do it, we do it." Well, there wasn't a law. So, I had called them up and said, "I think you should change that," and they said, "Well, no, it's a legal thing." I said, "No, it's a weak thing. You're not doing it." So, I said to Jonna, "Why don't you work on this thing?" So, she went to them, and she went to her professor and she tried to do the stuff, and the reaction was that they took the whole policy away, and said, "We just don't discriminate against anyone, as required by law." So, they didn't even have the intent language there anymore. They removed sexual orientation and gender identity. So, we produced, and we had on our website, a list of all the colleges that included Moravian with a skull and crossbones next to it. And we also did that with the Catholic colleges, who were very, very anti-gay. We'd have some very significant problems with DeSales and a couple of other things. But Moravian had the skull and crossbones. So, Liz Kleintop, who was a professor at Moravian, a graduate school professor who's transgender and ended up on our board, contacted me and said, "How do I get that skull and crossbones off of that? I'm trans, I've just transitioned and everybody's been great to me." I said, "This is how you get it. You have to have them have a nondiscrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity without any caveats saying, 'If we're required to do it by law.'" And she said, "Okay." And she did it. But it was all because of all that stuff that we did which was really great. And then she ended up on our board and she's been great. I just talked to her on a COVID interview. We had a Who's Who of 80 people in the LGBT community, and allied community that had their picture and all the different stuff that they had done and it was an insert that we put into the Pride Festival paper. We always had a paper come out at the Pride Festival. So, I'd go hand them around. I'd had 1,000 papers out to people at the Pride Festival. They'd say, "Oh, I get this in the mail," and I'd say, "No, it just came out today." "Oh, great." And at one point, there were people sitting on the hill at the Pride Festival, this little hill there in the shade, and every single person was reading the paper. I took this great picture of everybody intently reading the paper or asking each other the quiz questions. So, that was a really successful thing. We certainly used it at the beginning to get all the news of every step of our passage of the ordinance, and all the other ordinances to people, "You must come to this meeting, you need to write these letters, you need to do all of these things," and that was very, very successful because we got information. And then Trish would always write these amazing articles. It was called "Trish's Column." And I would dash off my column, Steve Libby could write his column in 10 minutes, they were great columns, his were great columns. Scott took a lot longer to write his. But I'd call up Steve and go, "You didn't do your column," and he'd say, "I'll get it right to you," and he'd have it in 10 minutes. I would do mine in a day or something. But Trish would research her column for days and days and days and she had brilliant columns. She had a column about places that older LGBT people could retire to that were specifically for LGBT people. She had columns about how to change your name, step by step and what it was then, if you were a trans person. And she did this column about how to get married, if you were a same-sex couple, in the closest place, and I've told you this before, to the Lehigh Valley when marriage became legal in some states, and the closest place was Darien, Connecticut. And so, Trish and I went. She researched the whole thing and we decided that -- Well, first of all, let me just take a step back and say that Trish and I were the first couple in the State of Pennsylvania to get a civil union. And we were the first of anybody to get a civil union. That was in 2000 when Vermont instituted civil union. It was the first state to institute civil union in the United States. It was the highest legal recognition of our relationship we could get any place. So, they had just done it, it was in August of the year 2000. We called our friends, Bev, Morgan, and Sandy Fluck. Sandy Fluck was a dean at Moravian, and our other friends, Barb Ross, and Robin Dingle, we said to them, "We're going to go to Vermont on such and such a day," and you just have to go in, you don't have to have residency, you just go in and get your civil union. "We're going to go up there and do that. Do you want to go?" And they said, "Yes." So, they said that they would go. Bev and Sandy went in our car and Robin and Barb, and they're all still together, went in their car, Laura Gutaras and her then-girlfriend came with us, they met us up there, and my sister who is a photographer who lives in Connecticut, she met us up there to photograph the wedding. And we invited The Morning Call to come with us. And they did. They sent reporters with us. So, people would say, "How did the paper find out?" I said, "We called them." So, they came with us and they sent a reporter and a photographer, and they did every step of it. And so, this is a civil union in 2000. So, we go up there, we do the whole civil union. You had to get a Justice of the Peace so we went into the office -- now, civil union had only been in place for two days in Vermont. And so, the six of us went in, three couples, and people through the whole courthouse, we went to Brattleboro, which is the closest place, it's closest to the border, and we went to the City Hall, this little, quaint, New England City Hall, and all these people from the whole thing came in to say, "Congratulations," to us because we were the first out-of-state couples to really show up. And it was three couples and we'd come all the way from Pennsylvania. So, we got the licenses and then we met this person in a little gazebo down the street. And now, The Morning Call is taking all these pictures of us and everything, every single part of us, the pancake breakfast, and the rest of it, they came to our hotel room to see when we were getting dressed to get ready to go. Trish and I kissed. It was in an article of us kissing, which you've probably seen that. It's in the archives. And then, the woman gets up to do the wedding for us, and she screws up every single line. She kept saying, "He," she kept saying, "Husband," she was totally cool, she wasn't anti, but she was just so used to doing it the other way, she couldn't do it. She just said, "That's one way to say it, but this is the way we're supposed to say it," and then she'd say, "Do you take your wife?" We used wife or spouse ; I don't know. Finally got all finished with that and we come back to Allentown, and then it's Musikfest. And on the Musikfest edition of The Morning Call on the front page is me and Trish getting our civil union, and then there's a two-page article about us getting the civil union. And as a result of that, over 100 people stopped us, literally on the street, in the gas station, the neighbors came and congratulated us. No one said anything negative to us. The reporter got a lot of shit, but we didn't get anything because everybody loves a wedding. In fact, Steve had gone to the Democratic Convention and he said, "I can't believe that you're getting more coverage as the couple who went to get the civil union than I am at the Presidential Democratic--" and I said, "Everybody loves a wedding. What are they going to say, 'Those damn people, how dare they be together for 12 years and love each other so much that they want to have a formal, you know?" Paul Carpenter's column was about it ; we got a lot of attention for that. Fast-forward to 2009, when Trish writes an article about how you can go to Darien, because you can drive to Darien in two and a half hours, get married, you don't have to stay overnight, you can actually have the Justice of the Peace meet you at the courthouse in Darien, or you can go to the beach which is where we've done two other weddings there, which both have broken up since then, including Adrian, Adrian got married there. And you go there, and you have the Justice of the Peace, or you can bring a minister with you. Adrian had a friend marry him, and Hannah got married there, too. And so, we got married -- it was raining so we actually stood across the street with an umbrella. We didn't even go to the beach ; we just did the thing. My sister was there. It was my birthday because we had been married so many other places because we did Freedom to Marry and all that kind of stuff, and we had our civil union that we're never going to remember it, so we did it on my birthday so we could always remember the day we were legally married in 2009. And Trish then came back and wrote an article that step-by-step explained how to do it. We also put it on our website. There was this exodus of huge numbers of people from Pennsylvania, the guys who were the head of Reading Pride, Barb Ross and Kathy Bergey, Adrian and Brandon, flowing up to Darien to get legally married and get back in one day. You could get legally married in one day. And people would say, "I want to get married in my own state," I said, "What if something happens? What if something happens?" And that's what happened to Kathy Bergey. She died. She got leukemia the next year and died, and Barb Ross was able to sue the state, and she sued the state and said, "I was legally married," and she didn't have to pay the tax on the inheritance that she had because she had married early. We really made a big deal to tell everybody that they needed to do that. So, that was another thing that The Valley Gay Press did. One of the things, and just as a little aside because this was an amazing thing, we had the info line, and people were calling me. I think we started that in about 2000, and before that, people called us anyway. We had this number, which is still my telephone number, where people would call me to ask questions. They would say, "What's the nondiscrimination statement mean? I've been discriminated against," and we did a lot of advocacy for people through PA Gala. And when we started to do the marriage equality, everybody was calling us about marriage equality. "How do I get married in Delaware?" Well, it's hard, it's a four-day wait, you're going to have to stay at a bed-and-breakfast for four days, "What should I do?" Explaining everything, how you did it. "How do I dissolve my Vermont civil union?" Well, you've got to go live in Vermont because it's not recognized here. And then it turned out there was a way to do that in Delaware, remote control, you just paid Delaware money and they would dissolve it for you. So, typical of Delaware. But I had all the information. So, people were calling me all over the United States, "How do I get married?" because it would come up on our website. So, I get this call from a couple in Israel. And they say, and I knew this, "Israel will recognize a marriage from any other country, but they won't perform same-sex marriage unless it's performed through Judaism, by conservative Judaism in the state of Israel. We don't do the marriages here but we'll recognize them anyplace else." And the problem is that this couple is from Israel, so they can't get married in Belgium, because you have to be from Belgium, or one of you has to be from Belgium. They said, "The only other place is Canada," but Canada, you have to be there for several days, and they don't have the time. I said, "That's okay, they need to go to Darien, Connecticut." So, I actually explained to them, "Fly into Kennedy International, get a car to drive you to Darien. It's only about an hour from there. You can get the thing, get married, get the car back, and fly back, and you can do it in one day." And they did it, these people from Israel, so that they could be legally married. Probably huge numbers of people from Israel then were flying to Darien in effect, just to get legally married. In the play and the movie, Auntie Mame, with Rosalind Russell, they talk about the conservative place where her nephew's girlfriend that he's going to marry lives, or the family lives, where they're antisemitic and gated communities, and Mame hates that because she's really, really progressive, and she says, "I don't want to have you marry that Aryan from Darien." And they meant Darien, Darien, Connecticut. It's like the most conservative. It's in Fairfield County, which is where I'm from, actually, and my sister lived in South Norwalk, which is right next to Darien. And so, that's why she was able to be there right away for the wedding. But, anyway, a huge number of people have their wedding licenses. Of course, now, you can get married in Pennsylvania and it's not necessary to go to Darien anymore, unless you have to do it in one day, which you can do. What else did we do? We had a list of all these different organizations and not-for-profits that were signed onto our statement of equal rights. One of the things about the paper was, we were noticing that a lot of newsletters, like MCC's newsletter, if they were talking about people, they would say, "Many thanks to John W. and Mary R.," and all these different things. And I said, "We're not doing that in the paper. If you're not going to put your whole name in, we're not putting your name in." We're going to put Liz Bradbury, we're not going to put Liz B., because that's not what we do. We're proud of who we are. If you're going to be the head of the Pride organization -- that actually happened. The guy who was the head of Pride at the beginning in 1995, he wouldn't let his name be in the newspaper. So, the Morning Call covered it as the head of Pride. It had a picture of him, you can see it in the archives, of just his torso with a shirt, but not his head, and not his name. It was John F. I said, "It's Pride. Pride. The word is pride." So, we made a decision we would never do that. We'd say, "If you don't want to have your name in, then you don't get any name in. You don't get any recognition." The other thing we said was, we're not going to put any articles in for for-profit businesses. If you have an event, say a bar has an event, it has to benefit in some way at least 10 percent to a not-for-profit. So, if you're going to have Lea DeLaria come, and you want me to advertise it, 10 percent of the gain has to go to a not-for-profit that's signed on to this list of equal rights. And it was everything from Turning Point, it could be anything. It just had to be a pro-LGBT organization. And so, when we have this big list of things, there were two organizations that you would think should have signed on that didn't, and I made a big deal about this, too. One of them was WDIY. They would not sign on. Their board was very, very anti. And after a while, Marcy Lightwood said, "Why?" I would write periodically, "These are the two organizations that wouldn't sign on, and we need to lobby them," and she was on the board. She was actually a performer, she had a show, and she went to them and said, "Why?" And they said, "Well, we think that we are supporting this group. We have to have both sides." And she said, "There is no other side to civil rights." The other organization was Godfrey Daniels, that absolutely would not. And one of the things their board said was -- and get this, their board said, "We let them perform on stage," in effect, "We let them dance for us. Look at how happy they are, they're singing out in the fields. They can't eat at the table but they can perform for us. We're going to support their rights." And when we went to pass the antidiscrimination ordinance in the City of Bethlehem in 2011, we couldn't get either of those organizations to sign on. Godfrey Daniels would not sign on as one. And I was very vocal about that. And people like Dena Hall and a couple of other people said, "But they're really pro there," I said, "No, they're not. You can't have it both ways. You can't say, 'We let LBGT people there, there's LGBT people that work there,' unless they're going to say, 'Sure, as an organization we believe that everybody should have equal rights.' You can't get them to say that." She said, "Well, it's a matter of opinion." I said, "Yeah. It is. This is my paper. Screw you." So, one of the things that happened with the paper was, the paper was called the Valley Free Press at the beginning. And after a while, when Bush, George Bush won his second election, everybody was so discouraged by that because he was such an asshole. It seems like nothing now. But he was so horrible that I said, "I'm changing the paper's name to The Valley Gay Press. But the real name of the paper will be The Valley Gay Press: the Lehigh Valley's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Opinion and Newspaper. So, that when people would say, "I want you to put this article in because it's news," and I would say, "It's my opinion that it's not news," or, "I don't have to put in something that I don't think is going to help the community," I had an out for doing that. And there were several instances, not a lot, but there were a couple of instances where that happened. And part of it was like, when we were trying to pass the ordinance, we were really trying to get people to come to the meetings. And the person at that time who was in charge of Pride who is not around in the community anymore, wanted to have a board meeting that night. I said, "Look, this is the night of the passage of the ordinance and you want me to advertise people to go to a different meeting? I can't do that. This is really, really important." And she said, "Well, it's not going to pass anyway." Well, it did, dammit. And I wouldn't put it in. And they said, "Well, you have to put it in, it's news." I said, "No, I don't have to put it in, I can do whatever I want because this is an opinion newspaper." And I did that on purpose. But I also wanted to be sure that L, G, B, and T were totally included. I think it even said it's A and there was a plus and everything, because although I was calling it The Valley Gay Press, because I didn't want it to be hidden, I didn't want the queerness of it to be hidden, I really wanted people to understand that it was fully inclusive of everybody. Another thing that was pretty important about this paper is that we had equal readership between men and women. And I made a big effort to be sure that they were men writing articles, and women writing articles, and people who identified as trans writing article so that people wouldn't just say, "Well, this is really just a gay man's rag," or, "This is a thing that's only about lesbian activism," or something. It wasn't like that. And it never came off that way. We always had a very equal membership with the organizations, and also, representation in The Valley Gay Press. When we did the survey, we asked a question, and this was a few years into the paper, and we sent it out to 1,000 people and we got about 400 responses, which is pretty good for a survey. It was written responses, not online, and we gave them envelopes to mail back. And of those, one of the questions we asked is, "Do you go to a gay bar," and then it was a different amount of time, like almost every night, every week, once a month, six times a year, and then it said, "Two to three times a year, or never," and two to three times a year or never, 90 percent of the people who answered the questionnaire said that. And I said, "People need to understand that you cannot get a wide demographic of the LGBT community from a bar. You just can't. Even though people who are in the bar think that's true, it's not. Hanging up a poster in the bar is not going to let everybody see the poster." So, that helped us get a lot more of the circulation of the information because we wanted to tell people what's the next meeting of FACT, when is MCC's Christmas service, what's that going to be like? Here's the Gay Men's Chorus, how do you get a part of that? And we really made an effort to help other organizations start up and run. And that was one of the main reasons that I really wanted that paper to do that. And because of that, we had a very good relationship with all the other organizations. I also made a decision to never say anything negative in the paper -- not out of my mouth, but in the paper, about any organization that was trying to do something good for the LGBT community. If they were trying to do it even if I thought what they were doing was stupid and pointless and it wasn't going to work I'd never write that in the paper. I would never say that in the paper. I'd never run down anybody that way. And people would write me things and they would say they did this thing and it was really discriminatory, and I would say, "I don't know if that's really true. I'll talk to them about it. I'll try to advocate for that." There was an LGBT support organization that was really discriminating against young people really seriously, and it was clearly a bad circumstance, and I didn't write any big articles about that, but I did lobby them and say, "You can't really do this. You're breaking the law of the City of Bethlehem, and we're not going to list you anymore because that's going against our nondiscrimination policy, which has age as one of its nondiscriminatory classes." But I wouldn't run it, and I made a decision to not do that. Let's see, I had a big bulletin board in my office that had every issue on it so that I could like, "When was that?" and I could look at it. My office was in a different room. Let's see, I told people when to vote, but Pennsylvania Diversity Network was a 501c3, so we couldn't endorse candidates anymore, but we could talk about issues, and we could talk about what was happening, and what people said, and we did that all the time. And I wrote obituaries in the paper because that wouldn't come up in other papers. And I was already doing trainings, then. What other things did I want to say? We had no ads. At the very end, once Adrian was on our board, he said we should have somebody sponsor each issue, so they could pay a lump sum, and then we would put a thing in. They had to be a pro LGBT organization. So, Air Products did it for six issues. And it did help us to be able to get more money to run the paper. I have to say that I stopped doing the paper when we started the community center. I was the programs coordinator at the beginning, but Adrian said, "I want you to run the training institute," and I was doing that anyway. I was doing trainings. I had been doing that since we started the Photo Project, which is another thing I'll talk about another time, but we're coming close to the end, now. Can we go till 12? Or is it too -- should we end? Can we go till 12? MF: No, we have about 15 more minutes fine. LB: Well, I can probably talk about that. One of the things we did, and I did it through The Valley Gay Press was to create The Photo Project. And the Photo Project, we just had this idea. We were going to go to a Freedom to Marry event. And Pennsylvania Diversity Network was involved with every one of the Freedom to Marry instances. The Metropolitan Community Church did that Freedom to Marry day was in February, and we wanted to bring attention to the lack of marriage equality in the United States. And Trish and I, we figured out that if we went to Lehigh County to get a license to get married, that Lehigh County would keep the license on file, but they would deny it. In Northampton County, they would just not let you get the license. And in most places, like in Texas, they would take it and tear it up in front of the people to be extra mean. But in Lehigh County, we'd go to Lehigh County Courthouse, you'd go in there, plunk down 35 dollars, fill out the whole thing, they would stamp it "Denied," give us a copy, so that's in the archives, too, all these copies that are denied, and then they would put that in their file, so, it's a historical document. And we wanted to make that a historical document. So, we made the decision from then on, once we realized that all the Freedom to Marry actions would be all these people would be getting these licenses, and we were the first ones to do that. And then, for seven years, people would go in and they would plunk the money down, and they would get denied and then we'd all go out and stand out and point to our wedding rings and do stuff about that. Once we could be legally married in 2014, we stopped doing it, because there wasn't any excuse. We didn't have to do Freedom to Marry anymore. And in fact, once we didn't want to do Freedom to Marry anymore because we were legally married in Connecticut, and we expected people to recognize that, but we have all these denied certificates. So, I got off the topic. What was I talking about? So, one of the things that happened with the Freedom to Marry, we were going to go to a big Freedom to Marry celebration, I think that was, and I said, "People don't understand." There was a guy who was a football player and he was running for governor for the State of Pennsylvania. He's a famous football player and I can't remember his name, so that tells you everything. I'm not a sports dyke. Somebody said, "Should there be a constitutional amendment against marriage in Pennsylvania to keep same-sex couples from marrying in Pennsylvania?" And he said, "Yeah, that has to get in there so that we can get them out." And I thought, "Does this guy think that if this constitutional amendment is in place, we will all just disappear?" We're all here. We're all in these relationships. We have civil unions. We have all these different things. How dare he suggest that. So, I said to Trish, "I want to do a Photo Project of couples who would be public with their picture, and then underneath the picture, their names, and their professions, how many years they've been together, when we took the picture, and if they had any kids or grandkids. They have to have their name on there and they'll have to fill out a form of release and stuff." And she said, "I think we could do this." And I said, "Let's see if we can get 25 couples at the end of Freedom to Marry." We had 50 by the end. In one day. We sat there and we talked about people who would do it, who we knew would do it. And we had all these people. Right away, we had 150 in no time. But we realized that there was a huge number of white people and there weren't really a lot of people of color. So, we went to Philadelphia to a big event, and we had a table there to give information about our organization and what we were doing. I said, "I want to take pictures of people, too," and Allison Hamm was volunteering for us and she said, "What do you want me to do?" I said, "Go around and find people of color so that this doesn't look like the Aryan same-sex couple party thing." And there were lots of different people and we met Rich Spangler, and Ben Renkus, who that year said, "We want to start a Pride Festival in Reading, will you help us?" And we said, "Yeah, let's go to these meetings and talk about what you need to do," and so, we did some stuff with them. And they did. And they ran the Pride Festival for 15 years. This year didn't work out very well, not the least of which because of COVID not being able to fix it up, but Rich died just a couple weeks ago. But they had 15 wonderful Pride Festivals and I was at every one. We met these people and we did that. And we came back and we started to just gather all the pictures. I would get 20 or 30 or 40 pictures at every Pride Festival. And ultimately, we had 900 photographs of same-sex couples, 1,800 people, of people in every different circumstance. And we got a grant. So, at first, I had them in framed pictures with the matted thing and the picture was in there [inaudible] are in the project. And we had them in lots of different places and we had them in different formats. And we actually had it you know at the entrance of the Senate in Harrisburg on a day that they were voting on a constitutional amendment. And they tabled it. They didn't vote on it because there were 225 same sex Pennsylvania couples' pictures in the hallway, right there, and they couldn't miss it. It was very vocal and very out. We had it in over 150 venues in hard copies. I also could project it. I was doing trainings on it. We ultimately got a grant from PPL so that we could put multiple pictures on big things on stands. I think the last time I had it in the frames, we had 375 pictures, and it was in the Hicks Art Gallery at Bucks County Community College. It was magnificent. It looked great. They were all framed. It took forever to put it up. It took three days to put it up. So, we created a new way of doing it where we would put it on easels, and we had it at Lehigh on the easels there, in a big thing with all of the hundreds and hundreds. Then, we had all 800 photos on that format, almost 900 photos. And that was very, very successful. We had it in every place, from Knesset Israel, the synagogue in Allentown, to Air Products, we had it at PPL, PPL gave us the grant for the thing. We had it in many, many colleges. We had it in every one of the Delaware Community Colleges. We moved it around to every Delaware Community College. I think it was seven different colleges. We had it at the Power and Light Company in Philadelphia. We had the whole thing set up. It was very, very successful. One of the things that was so significantly successful was that no one ever said anything negative about it. What do you say about that? How dare those people love each other? How dare those people be happy together and be long-term? There were people that were together for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. There were huge numbers of people that were together over 10 years. In fact, more than half of the people were together over 10 years. But then, lots of cute little new couples that had just been together for a few days, and they're so happy and everything, and they're like, "Oh, I love this." And the pictures were beautiful. Everybody was smiling. I hit on this thing where, if people put their heads together, where they touch their heads, they would automatically smile. So, everybody is happy. The biggest criticism I ever got was, "Well, it's a lot of happy people. They're not legally married." Fuck you. But I also had interspersed a lot of pieces of legal information, other countries that had legal marriage, all this different kind of stuff. It was very, very successful. It was a huge project that we did that was very good. That was all done through Pennsylvania Diversity Network. We ran that for 10 years until we got full marriage equality in the State of Pennsylvania. So, Adrian came to me and he said, "You're going to do the training institute." I'd been doing the trainings with the Photo Project for a long time. And he said, "You're going to do the training institute." And I said, "Great. What do I not have to do? I feel like I'm doing everything," and I wasn't getting paid. I was only parttime. He said, "You don't have to do The Valley Gay Press anymore," which was enormously complicated. I was producing that paper six times a year. I was editing 80 articles. During the time I produced that paper, I produced, myself, over 400 articles on LGBT issues, lots of them were researched. I wrote for other places, too. I wrote for Pansy Press, I wrote for Diversity Rules, which is in New York State. I wrote a column for Gaydar I wrote a column "Now," for Gay Journal. Before The Valley Gay Press I wrote for Mick Chapple's Above Ground, I did that for years and years, and it was very successful, I think. I'm not really trained as a writer but I got good at it, because the more you do it the better you get at it. One of the things that Bolton Winpenny said to me about the Pansy Press was, "None of my articles are very interesting. The other people don't write very interesting articles." I said, "Yeah, they don't research them. They just write them off the top of their head. They muse on a point. Who cares, really?" That gets old really fast. People want to learn things. And so, I really wanted the articles that were in The Valley Gay Press to be something that people would read it and go, "Huh," that was my thing. And I wanted almost every article either like that, or, "Oh, look, Kathy Griffin is coming to State Theater and we have a special gig for that," or, "We have special tickets to Lily Tomlin," or something like that. Or, "An organization is doing a special event that is important for the community," or, "The Pride Festival is going to be on August 16th," people would want me to tell them when the Pride Festival was because there wasn't any other way to find out what that was. So, that was very, very successful and it turned out to be a really positive thing. We produced a thing that was The Library Project. And we got grants. And a little bit of this was involved with Adrian doing this. He got some grants where we could place really significant LGBT books in libraries. But one of the things that we did was, there was a circumstance in Emmaus where a mom complained in The Morning Call, I think it was a letter to the editor, that she went to Emmaus and her little five-year-old child took out a book and when they got it home, it was King and King. And the book King and King is about a prince and his mother, the queen, wants him to marry a princess, but he doesn't want to marry a princess, he wants to marry a prince. And it's a beautiful book, actually. It's a great book to act out, and it would be a great little theater book. I tried to get the rights to do it. It was actually written in Switzerland. I couldn't get the people to respond to me. But it's a brilliant book. This woman made a big issue about it. So, what I did was, Trish and I created a program where, if you donated us 20 dollars, you could name any library and we would make that library take a gift of King and King. We placed about 40 copies. This woman goes, "How dare they have it in Emmaus," and now it's in 40 libraries. That was our thing. It was great. It worked out really well. They said, "I want this in Parkland Library," and we'd call up Parkland Library, we'd say, "This is a Caldecott Winner," and they'd say, "Sure." And we took it to Easton Library, we took one to Wilson Library, we did it all over. It was really great. And that was a big positive. So, I just wanted to add this one thing that happened that's going back a little bit. And it has to do with a lawsuit and all the ordinance passages, and even back to Gail Hoover's election, and Julio Guridy. Julio is still on city council now. We worked to get him a nomination and he supported our ordinance, and Gail, of course, introduced the ordinance and stuff. Well, because that happened, Emma Tropiano was not elected. And I mentioned in a previous thing that Emma Tropiano was a terrible racist and nobody could disagree with that. And she really was anti-gay and she [inaudible]. She was horribly anti-Latino. She had been on council for 18 years. She wasn't elected and a lesbian and a Latino man were elected. And when they were installed into office in January of that year, which I think was 2002, about five days later, Emma Tropiano died. And she wasn't old. She was 78. She apparently died of a bowel obstruction, meaning she died of constipation, and I think she could not live in a world where a Latino man and an out lesbian would be on a city council that she tried to make so negative. It was a relief because she had a following and I'm sure that she would not even be a Democrat anymore if it were today. The other thing that happened was that even after all of these different things, when with the ordinance and we'd pass the ordinance and then the effort for the referendum, referenda is still a possibility in the City of Allentown. And although all the other people were really, really intimidated by the fact that we had made them understand that they couldn't lie to have these ordinances anymore, Frank McVeigh was tenacious. And we really believe -- and I think he even said this at one point, "I'm just going to do it again," that he was going to do the whole thing again, and we would have to fight him forever. But while the lawsuit was going on, he was hoping that the whole law would be overturned. But it wasn't overturned, and it was kept in place. I think that was in 2005. And that year, he died. And I have to say, again, he was also 78, he was a very robust man. I was surprised that he died. When he did the work that he did, he had walked to everybody's house and everything. And some person in his family or something wanted him to get the Human Relations Award for the City of Allentown. I was the chair of the commission on it and we just laughed out loud. We said, "Yeah, sure. Somebody who's trying to overturn an ordinance that we passed in this committee and he wants to get an award for taking people's rights away? I don't think so." And I told people at the time, "I will tell you the whole story about Frank McVeigh," because some people on the commission then didn't understand. And then I said, "I don't want to talk about it, it's too much." But I was greatly relieved because I have to say that I did think that he was so mean and maniacal, that he was going to go on forever. He was just going to keep doing it. And he was gone. LB: So, on that note I'm done with this for this time. I think I covered everything but I wrote some stuff down, so we'll see. MF: It was just wonderful, Liz. It was really wonderful to hear the stories about that lawsuit, but then to really think about The Valley Gay Press and its impact. I guess I didn't realize it was 18 years. LB: Yes, 18 years. MF: That is amazing. LB: Let me say that we had a grant to distribute The Valley Gay Press. At one point, we got a grant from Berks County. And so, it went into Berks County, and we changed it to "Lehigh Valley and Berks County," and it was in distribution to all of the libraries in Berks County. We mailed them to libraries in Berks County for years and years and years. We also mailed them to a lot of other libraries, and a lot of other drop off places. So, we didn't just mail them direct to people. We mailed them direct to, ultimately it ended up being 300 or 400 people when we were doing it. When we did it through PA Gala, it was thousands of people. But once we had all the drop-off points that we did in the libraries, we would get responses from people that would say, "I saw this in the library and it was so exciting because this community, this rural community where this library is in Berks County, I was astounded that it would be there." I said, "Libraries are subversive places," and they are. But there was a membership form in there and then we would get the torn-out membership form and then they would get it so it was mailed directly to their house. And bringing that information to people and people would say, "I read every single word of that paper, every month." And the most hilarious thing was that people would quote me to me. So, they'd say, "I just heard this thing," and then they'd make this quote and then I'd go, "Yeah, I wrote that." Because it was about something that was happening in Allentown. PATRICIA SULLIVAN: They couldn't tell us apart. LB: And Trish really wants this, this is a big thing. Everything we did in The Valley Gay Press was very calculated. And we would place things in certain places, and all of a sudden we realized that people we knew well just didn't know us apart. They didn't know us apart, and they couldn't tell which one was Liz, and which one was Trish. And for the most part, we're pretty interchangeable. But we'd have to do a bulk mailing every time we did this. I should say this quickly. We would take the papers at the end, the last six or seven years, I'd finish the paper usually all night, in the morning, we would take it to EBC, which was the printer in Trexlertown, and they would print the papers through the presses, and as they came off the presses, we would grab the paper and fold it and put it in the envelope, and lick it, and stick it, and put it together. And we could do it as fast as the machine would do it. So, we could do a 400-piece mailing in the time it took for it to be printed. And then it would be ready to go. We'd put it in the big balers that you take to bulk mailing, and we'd go directly to the bulk mail place, and we would take it to Jerry in bulk mailing. And here's an interesting thing, is that almost everybody that works in bulk mailing is gay. I don't know why that is. But they were either gay or really, really pro. Sometimes, when we were doing political mailings and we'd had to put stamps on a little short, they would look around, they'd be behind the desk, and they'd look around, and then if there was nobody else, they'd come out and help us put the stamps on because they were our team. It was so great. And so, this woman Jerri, comes out. Ultimately, people couldn't tell us apart, so we put our pictures -- and I did this for everybody, but I put my picture on my column, and Trish's picture on her column. I did it with the other folks, too, so the people would know who we were. So, Jerri gets the thing, and everybody had -- they always got us wrong. So, Jerri opens it up and she goes, "You have your pictures wrong." I said, "No, that's really our names. I'm Liz, this is Trish," and I think hundreds of people were opening it and going, "Oh, that one's Liz and that one's Trish." So, Trish thinks that's really funny. It was really, really hilarious. So, that kind of stuff would happen. We were doing this stuff every day and people would say, "I volunteer for a day," like I pretty much volunteer all day, every day. It was a full-time thing. So, anyway. That's it. Is there anything else to throw in? Trish is saying no. MF: Well, it's such a pleasure to talk with you today. We'll set up another meeting. But we'll stay after and talk a minute after I stop the recording, but I just want to thank you now for giving me another two hours of your time. I really appreciate it. LB: Yes. Okay. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 02:02:32 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Liz Bradbury, July 27, 2020 Description An account of the resource Liz Bradbury describes PA GALA’s work in passing nondiscrimination ordinances throughout the Lehigh Valley and state, her relationship with Steve Black, and the creation and impact of The Valley Gay Press. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LGBT-18 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-07-27 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs. https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/4012f36fdac6cc66cdf94e62f722238c.png 42d88bb59e103394793744bfde1b65e4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Description An account of the resource This collection began in 2019 with the initial goal of collecting ten oral histories from older adult LGBT people in the Lehigh Valley. Topics explored include the childhood experiences of LGBT people, experiences within educational and religious institutions, coming out stories, understanding of the gay liberation movement (1960-1980s), experience of the early years of the AIDS epidemic and AIDS activism (1980s-present), and experience with the fight for marriage equality. The project has been a collaborative effort among faculty and librarians from Cedar Crest College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College, and members of the local community, under the direction of Dr. Mary Foltz, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University and Co-Director of the South Side Initiative. <br /><br /><em> The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.</em> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Mary Foltz Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Liz Bradbury OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-17.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 July 13, 2020 Liz Bradbury, July 13, 2020 LGBT-17 2:26:32 LVLGBT Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive Collection Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Liz Bradbury Mary Foltz video/mp4 BradburyLiz_20200713_video.mp4 1.0:|27(2)|62(8)|77(19)|106(9)|129(2)|152(4)|175(13)|202(7)|225(3)|248(8)|271(13)|296(2)|319(10)|344(2)|367(5)|394(8)|419(17)|446(7)|475(7)|498(5)|521(12)|548(4)|569(15)|598(18)|619(3)|648(9)|673(13)|702(5)|731(5)|760(6)|787(7)|814(4)|839(14)|862(12)|893(17)|920(10)|949(2)|974(11)|999(2)|1026(4)|1053(6)|1078(7)|1103(8)|1126(8)|1157(10)|1182(2)|1207(7)|1228(7)|1251(14)|1282(11)|1309(5)|1344(11)|1371(4)|1400(3)|1421(10)|1448(2)|1471(10)|1498(14)|1533(10)|1562(10)|1591(16)|1618(9)|1643(11)|1668(12)|1691(15)|1716(13)|1739(9)|1762(15)|1789(12)|1812(15)|1841(3)|1862(16)|1883(14)|1912(6)|1935(4)|1960(4)|1985(9)|2010(6)|2035(10)|2062(11)|2087(2)|2108(7)|2133(12)|2160(14)|2183(10)|2204(6)|2223(11)|2242(10)|2263(12)|2290(7)|2311(14)|2338(3)|2365(5)|2390(10)|2411(10)|2438(16)|2467(8)|2488(14)|2515(10)|2546(9)|2573(2)|2596(9)|2621(12)|2644(12)|2673(5)|2702(5)|2729(14)|2756(15)|2789(4)|2814(15)|2841(7)|2868(5)|2895(9)|2918(4)|2947(8)|2970(5)|2995(8)|3014(14)|3039(9)|3066(2)|3087(6)|3106(2)|3125(12)|3152(6)|3179(9)|3204(2)|3231(7)|3254(8)|3277(6)|3302(7)|3325(14)|3346(8)|3375(3)|3400(9)|3423(11)|3452(8)|3475(8)|3502(10)|3525(10)|3548(16)|3573(4)|3598(5)|3625(13)|3650(3)|3681(15)|3700(12)|3715(15) 0 https://youtu.be/4gjcd6L933Y YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz and I’m here with Liz Bradbury to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley and this is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Center’s Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and we’re meeting on Zoom because there is a pandemic going on and today is July 13th, 2020. Liz, thank you so much for being here with me today. &#13 ; &#13 ; LIZ BRADBURY: I’m so glad to be here. 0 109 Origins of Allentown’s Nondiscrimination Ordinance MF: Fabulous, thank you so much. So, we had a really wonderful interview last week about PA GALA and your work on voting guides that sort of lead up to the 2002 passage of the PA Hate Crimes bill. I’ll say we ended that interview with you gesturing towards the antidiscrimination ordinance, and you began work on that in 1998. So, I’d like to focus on that today. Could you give us an origin story of how you started in 1998 to work on this antidiscrimination ordinance? &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah. So, what was happening was now we had PA GALA in place, Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Alliance for Political Action. And we were producing voter’s guides and we were being very successful in doing that, I have to say. And we had a few people on the board, but all of the work was being done by me, and Trish, organizing the Lehigh Valley, and Steve Black organizing the bigger efforts, he was the CEO of the organization. 0 385 Mary Cramsey LB: happened -- a group of people who were running for office said that they were in support of an antidiscrimination ordinance. And one of them was a candidate named Mary Cramsey. &#13 ; &#13 ; And Mary Cramsey was a Democrat, and she was running for the nondiscrimination, so we interviewed her. And she was on. She was pro hate crimes bill ; she was pro hate crimes legislation if it was in the city. She was in favor of domestic partner recognition. She was in favor of the ordinance. 0 756 Finding a City Council Co-Sponsor LB: And at the same time, and I think that this was the same time, yeah, so this was in 1998 and this was when people were running for City Council, and at that time, there were three members of council that were running to retain their seats, Emma Tropiano, Terry Spinosa, and who’s the other one? I guess Todd Stevens. And they had all been on council and they were running to retain their seats as incumbents. Okay, so that stuff has happened. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, they’ve seen in effect that we had a very, very public way of humiliating, and I’m not afraid to get up and say, “I’m gay and what she did was lying and it’s wrong,” and it was hard to not see the community thought it was really serious that she had done that. How do you defend somebody who just lied potentially to both sides of the aisle in effect? 0 1139 Emma Tropiano LB: So, now, on council was Emma Tropiano. Emma Tropiano happened to live across the street from us. Emma Tropiano was notoriously the most anti-Latino person in the entire Lehigh Valley. Though she was a Democrat, she actually was so anti-Latino that she would go to City Council meetings -- and this is documented -- and she would just blatantly lie about the Latino population. &#13 ; &#13 ; She’d say, “Every single person who’s on welfare in Allentown is Latino,” and a person from the county would stand up and say, “Councilperson Tropiano, the statistics show that of the 14,000 people in Allentown that are on welfare, 70 percent of them are white,” and Emma Tropiano actually said to them, in this council meeting, “Don’t try to confuse me with facts,” which was a classic thing that she frequently said. 0 1580 Birth of Valley Free Press LB: So, now we begin to work toward this, decide that we’re going to push and have a City Council meeting anyway. So, one of the things we did was, that was the point where we decided to create the Valley Gay Press, and we created the Valley Gay Press for the sole reason -- the newspaper, it was called Valley Free Press then, this newsletter, newspaper, to create a circumstance where we’d be able to get information to people in a way that really explained stuff because most people in 1998 did not have email, we didn’t any social media, we couldn’t get information people in a very good way, maybe we could get information to 200 people. 0 1758 Finding Speakers for the City Council Meeting LB: But meanwhile, Felix Molina is working on this, too, he’s working with other community members, we’re setting up different people to speak, we’ve spoken to head of Equality Pennsylvania then, it was actually called the Gay and Lesbian Legal Aid Society, or something like that. It was the first permutation. &#13 ; &#13 ; And Andrew Park was running it, he had been an EEOC judge, he’s now a really big national activist. But he came to us and he said, “This is what I think you should do and how you should set up this meeting. You should have people who have been discriminated against, you should have ministers speak, you should have people in the community talk about these different issues,” and I found people. 0 2229 Pushing for a Nondiscrimination Ordinance at City Council LB: So, I speak first, and I say my little two minutes thing, and I say there’s all these people here, we want to see this happen, and people just over and over are saying, “We want to see this legislation introduced.” If you look in the Valley Gay Press, there’s actually a list of everybody who spoke, and it says what they were good or bad and basically what they said. It’s in the Valley Gay Press. &#13 ; &#13 ; And so, we’re having people speak and Felix Molina speaks, and Bob Smith speaks, and there were about 24 speakers. And at one point, and we can see how long the line is, and people are beginning to speak, and Ernie Toth says, “We’re going to have to cut this off.” 0 2604 Counteracting Hate at the City Council Meeting LB: And so, he was going to speak and so he was there, I think he was one of the last ones, and then Felix, and that was the end. And then, a guy got up who was standing behind them, and I went over to Steve and I said, “That guy’s going to be bad and that’s going to be a problem but who else do we have to speak?” &#13 ; &#13 ; And he said, “Do you know that guy?” He was a little person. And I said, “Yes, I do know that guy because Gayle Erich,” remember Gayle Erich who put together our Quark files for the thing, when her father died, we went to the funeral and he was a minister who got up at the end and said some of the most horrible things I had ever heard. 0 2902 Outcome of City Council Meeting LB: So, anyway now Trish has done this, everybody has their hands raised, they have the opportunity to do this, and they don’t. But Frank Concannon who’s sitting on the dais, he raises his hand, and he says, “I move to do this,” and they ignored him. And everybody else on council just sits there, they say no. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, we leave and quite frankly, we are very, very encouraged by this because we didn’t think it was going to pass. We didn’t think anything was going to happen. We just wanted to see if we could pull this off. And we did. 0 3021 Coalition Building for Nondiscrimination Ordinance LB: So, then we recognized -- Steve and Trish and I recognized that we cannot make this happen unless we have our own candidate. And we begin to now build coalitions. So, a couple of things happened that were really significant and the first thing -- just a bunch of stuff. 0 3074 Allentown Human Relations Commission Award LB: So, we’re moving along. We think we need a candidate who is actually going to push this legislation and we need a mayor who is going to speak from it in a positive way. The first thing that happens is that I won the Allentown Human Relations Commission Award. &#13 ; &#13 ; Bob Smith, who was the vice chair, put me up for the award and I won it and I got an opportunity to speak from the stage to a big group of people who were very pro-rights, because this is the Human Relations Commission. So, they’re people from all these different organizations. 0 3209 Relationship with Felix Molina/Puerto Rican Day Parade &amp ; Festival LB: But anyway, so I won that. That gave us a lot of momentum. People were paying more attention to us. There was an article in the paper about it, that was a significant thing. So, now, we end up recognizing that we have to do this. The next thing that happens is that we really developed a pretty good relationship with Felix Molina. &#13 ; &#13 ; Turns out, Felix is gay. He never even told us that. All through the time that we were doing the meeting, he never said he was, but he was. And it turned out that he was in a long-term relationship with the brother of somebody we knew who was at MCC, so then he outs himself to us. 0 3618 Hoover &amp ; Guridy City Council Election LB: Okay, so now things are moving along and we’re thinking we have to have a City Council member who’s going to introduce this legislation and we have to have a mayoral candidate that’s going to be supportive of it. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, we fasten on the idea that it has to be somebody who has a very flexible schedule, someone who works for themselves, so we fastened onto Gayle Hoover, and Gayle Hoover expressed that she would run for City Council if we did all the work for her. 0 4103 Primary Day LB: So, now we’re at the point of the primary where we’re campaigning and during the day of the primary, you’d go to various different sites and you’d hand out stuff, and we had people to hand out stuff for Gayle, and Gayle was working the sites and stuff like that. And I went to the South Side Youth Center, and that’s a big polling place in the city, and I was handing out cards for Gayle. &#13 ; &#13 ; And Candido Garcia, who is a guy I know very well, he’s part of the gay community, was standing next to me handing out cards for Julio. And we didn’t want to admit to each other that there was a big chance that one of them wasn’t going to win because it was against Tropiano, and there were only three candidates that could win, and I think one of them was Howells, and so, he was just going to win. He always won every election. He was this police chief, everybody voted for him. So, there was only two other slots in the primary. 0 4314 Mayoral Election LB: So, time goes along, and we get to the election and Roy Afflerbach is running against, I’m not sure, I don’t think Heydt ran again, then, so he was running against a different candidate. He was running against that guy who worked at Air Products. And he wanted me to endorse him. &#13 ; &#13 ; He was a Republican. I can’t remember his name. He was a nice guy, actually. He worked at Air Products. He wanted us to endorse him, and Afflerbach wanted us to endorse him. I said to Roy Afflerbach, who ultimately won, I said, “This other guy wants me to endorse him.” And he said, “Well, you need to go and interview him.” 0 4469 Electoral Success LB: So, we supported Afflerbach. Afflerbach wins the election, Gayle wins the election, all three of the Democratic candidates win the election. This is true. Remember the Mary Cramsey thing I was talking about in the beginning, we didn’t support her, and she lost the primary to Louie Hershman in her election which was two years before, and Hershman was on Council, I guess these are four-year terms. 0 4564 Getting the Legislation Passed LB: So, now, January 3rd, they’re installed into the position of the legislature, to be on City Council and Afflerbach is mayor, and Afflerbach said to us, “Pass the legislation right away we’re still in the sweetheart period. Don’t wait around for this. You need to pass the legislation now.” &#13 ; &#13 ; So, Mara Keisling comes to us, Mara Keisling is the head, now, of the National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington. She was working for an organization that she ran, she’s transgender and she was running this organization in the State of Pennsylvania. She sits with us in our kitchen, this top person in the state, and she writes the legislation. 0 5118 Citizens for Traditional Family Values Referendum LB: But the next morning, Frank McVeigh with Citizens for Traditional Family Values files a referendum in the city to overturn the past ordinance. So, the ordinance is in place, Afflerbach signs it into place right away, we have the pens, it’s in his signed thing, a copy of it is in our waiting room on the third floor, because I kept it, of the Bradbury-Sullivan Center. And we were happy. But right away, we knew that they were going to do this. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, the City of Allentown has an opportunity for people to be able to create a ballot initiative referendum on the ballot by getting 2,000 signatures of registered Allentown voters saying that they want something to happen. So, McVeigh gets his band of hatemongers -- and they really were -- to put together a petition. They filed a formal petition and they’re required to carry around the legislation itself and then get the 2,000 signatures. 0 6200 Fighting Back Against the Referendum LB: So, we went to have a press conference to say that we were fighting this referendum. So, we went to City Hall, and this is a great story. It’s going to go on for a while, though. So, we go to City Hall, I’m upstairs at City Hall, which is where the City Clerk is, Mike Hanlon. And I think he still is city clerk, he’s a great guy. And we are going to present these 80 documents, or 100 documents that say, “I want my name off the petition.” &#13 ; &#13 ; Now, the anti people also showed up. We had the news there, and we had the TV cameras, and we had the Morning Call, and also the other newspaper that was in Allentown at that time. And I had people to speak. One woman, she was a Catholic mom, she had eight kids in her house, and they’re all teenagers. And I said, “Well, you signed this petition,” she said, “I didn’t sign that.” I said, “No, you did. I have this thing,” and I said, “I can tell you what day it was and the person who signed it, it was a guy named Frank McVeigh, this is what he looks like, here’s a picture of him.” 0 7210 Collecting Petitions/Verifying Signatures LB: So, now we’re getting all of this mail back and we’re being very successful. And we’ve gotten hundreds and hundreds of letters back, I think we may have had about 700 of the things back by now. We’ve had enough to nullify their petitions. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, we’re going to Dan Anders, our lawyer, now to support us taking those petitions to Mike Hanlon, who was the City Clerk, to decide whether or not to take the names off based on these letters. So, I said to the city, “Do you need any kind of ability to determine whether or not these are real signatures?” Because after all, how do you know where the petition is? 0 7562 Lawsuit Against Citizens for Traditional Values LB: Okay, so Dan Anders says, “Okay, we’re going to stop this right now.” And I said, “What are we going to have to do?” He says, “We’re going to have you bring a lawsuit,” me, “against those people, against Citizens for Traditional Values, and it’s going to be the first four names of the people on the petitions,” and it was McVeigh, and Hartman and it actually says, “Liz Bradbury versus Hartman,” was the first name. &#13 ; &#13 ; We’d bring a lawsuit against them saying that they were abridging my civil rights by lying to people, and I would represent the rest of the LGBT community because I live here, and I’d be able to speak and stuff like that. I said, “Okay, do it.” 0 8076 Human Rights Campaign LB: So, I want to go back a little bit and say that one of the things that happened during this was the national organizations, particularly the Human Rights Campaign and one factor of the Victory Fund told us, “Don’t challenge the signatures, just let it go into place and let it go for a vote and raise 70,000 dollars and keep people from voting on it.” And I said to Trish, “We are not doing that.” &#13 ; &#13 ; And I’ve said this every time since then, ballot measures, which I am totally against in every possible way, there’s nothing good about a ballot measure because nobody in the legislature is responsible for it, and when people vote for it, they have no idea what the ramifications are. And then, the legislature, whomever the legislatures are say, “Well, I didn’t put it in place, that was a ballot measure. You did it. It’s in place.” They’re never good. They should never be in place. 0 8323 Importance of Passing of Nondiscrimination Ordinance LB: Sure. So, the lawsuit story is shorter because we weren’t fighting it. But it went on for quite a few years. I just want to say one more really important thing. During those 70 days, I actually lost 17 pounds. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I was absolutely hysterically worried about everything. And this is why. &#13 ; &#13 ; If we had lost that, if we hadn’t done what we’d done, because the depositions made it so that they would never do it again because they were afraid. Anti-LGBT people can never get other people, the general public, to be anti-LGBT people unless they lie. They have to lie to be able to get people to hate the minority. They have to misrepresent and lie to be able to do that. And that’s exactly what they did. 0 8520 Next Meeting Scheduling MF: Well, let’s start there. I’ll send a few times that would work for me next week. We’ll start with the lawsuit. You talked a little bit about the Valley Free Press a little bit today, and I’m curious if you have more that you’d want to say about that publication.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Oh, yeah. The paper is a whole other huge thing. I produced that for 18 years. And it had enormous effect for the community. 0 8665 Felix Molina’s Speech at the 1998 City Council Meeting MF: Okay, this is Mary Foltz. I’m back with Liz, and we just thought of a story that needs to be recorded from this period, so I’m going to turn it back over to Liz. 0 8783 Closing Remarks MF: We had to have that story on here.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yes, it was good for his passion. 0 MovingImage Liz Bradbury recalls the inner workings of Allentown’s non-discrimination ordinance, PA GALA’s impact in local elections and national lawmaking, and their lawsuit against Citizens for Traditional Values. INTERVIEW WITH LIZ BRADBURY JULY 13, 2020 MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz and I'm here with Liz Bradbury to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley and this is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Center's Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and we're meeting on Zoom because there is a pandemic going on and today is July 13th, 2020. Liz, thank you so much for being here with me today. LIZ BRADBURY: I'm so glad to be here. MF: And, to start, I'm just going to ask you to state your full name and spell it for me, again. LB: My full name is Elizabeth Bradbury, E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H, B-R-A-D-B-U-R-Y. MF: And, will you please share your birthday again? LB: 6/15/57. MF: Thank you. And prior to this interview we talked about consent, and I just want to return to that for a minute. Do you consent to this interview today? LB: Yes, I do. MF: And you consent to having this interview transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? LB: Yes, I do. MF: And do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, or things we haven't thought of yet? LB: Yes, I do. MF: And do you understand that you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review the interview, to identify parts you want to delete, or to withdraw the full interview from the project? LB: Yes, I do. MF: Fabulous, thank you so much. So, we had a really wonderful interview last week about PA GALA and your work on voting guides that sort of lead up to the 2002 passage of the PA Hate Crimes bill. I'll say we ended that interview with you gesturing towards the antidiscrimination ordinance, and you began work on that in 1998. So, I'd like to focus on that today. Could you give us an origin story of how you started in 1998 to work on this antidiscrimination ordinance? LB: Yeah. So, what was happening was now we had PA GALA in place, Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Alliance for Political Action. And we were producing voter's guides and we were being very successful in doing that, I have to say. And we had a few people on the board, but all of the work was being done by me, and Trish, organizing the Lehigh Valley, and Steve Black organizing the bigger efforts, he was the CEO of the organization. So, when we had these meetings, Steve would come and we would have these. Now, this was all out of our house. We're doing everything out of our house, and out of Black's Luncheonette, which was Steve's restaurant in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, in Northampton County. And so, one of the things we began to talk about was that we needed to pass an antidiscrimination ordinance in the city of Allentown, and we were serious about doing that and beginning to organize it. And one of the reasons that we were doing that is because we were beginning to see that we were getting more and more indication that there would be support of that. So, through the voter guides, we were interviewing candidates and some of the candidates, as I think I mentioned before, would say things like, "We don't have any gay people in our county," or something. But then, we were beginning to see that that was obviously not true and people were coming forward to say not only that they did have people that they were concerned about, most people didn't know that we weren't even protected by the law and they would come forward and say things like, "Of course, that should happen." So, we had a number of meetings, we talked about what it would have to look like to be able to move forward to create this piece of legislation and we were talking about this as sort of an abstract idea because one of the things you do when you pass pieces of legislation is, you try to be sure that your City Council or your municipal entity is in favor of it, that you have the votes to pass it, or at least you have the people that would support it. And so, some level of support, you have to drum up that support otherwise it's very devastating to try to bring it to a council and have them all say, "No, forget it. We're not going to do it." It's demoralizing to the community. So, we were working on that and one of the thing we were doing in the questionnaires that we were sending out to people with regard to the passage of an ordinance was, we would write to City Council members -- hold on a minute I have to close this because I'm distracted by the view -- and we would say, "Would you support a passage of an antidiscrimination ordinance in the city of Allentown," or candidates who were running for City Council. And we began to see a pattern of groups of people that said they would support this kind of thing. Also, Trish had a talk with Frank Concannon, who was on Allentown City Council and Frank, who's an older man like I think I've mentioned before, was pretty good about it. At first, he was saying, "I don't know anybody that's gay," and then Trish was saying, "Well, you don't know anybody who's gay who would be comfortable enough to tell you that they were gay." And he very thoughtfully, I mean, this guy was in his 70s at the time, very thoughtfully paused and said, "Well, you're right about that. I don't think that they would tell me that they've been discriminated." And people would say, "Well, these people are never discriminated against," and then we'd have horrendous instances of discrimination. So, what happened was that a person -- and I think this was the order of how this happened -- a group of people who were running for office said that they were in support of an antidiscrimination ordinance. And one of them was a candidate named Mary Cramsey. And Mary Cramsey was a Democrat, and she was running for the nondiscrimination, so we interviewed her. And she was on. She was pro hate crimes bill ; she was pro hate crimes legislation if it was in the city. She was in favor of domestic partner recognition. She was in favor of the ordinance. And she said she would actually sponsor the ordinance because that was one of the questions, would you sponsor the ordinance, would you cosponsor it, would you support it, would you vote for it? And she was indicative that she would do that. So, we were preparing the voter's guides and things were happening. And other things happened that spurred the ordinance at the time, but one of the things that happened was that Mary Cramsey had said all these things, and then somebody in the community came to us, one of our LGBT people in the community and said, "Have you seen this newsletter that's coming out from an organization called 'Citizens for Traditional Values,'" which was an the ultra, ultra-far-right organization, "and it quotes Mary Cramsey saying that she does not support the ordinance. Right here in writing." And I said, "Let me see that." I got the thing, and I looked at it and I said, "Well, this is a shock. Maybe they misinterpreted her." So, I called her up and I said to her, "Ms. Cramsey, I have your handwritten and signed questionnaire right here and you said that you would support this ordinance and you said you would support the hate crimes bill, and you'd support all these things. I've just seen this thing from Citizens for Traditional Values and you're saying exactly the opposite, which is the correct thing? You signed this thing." And she said, "Well, I don't support that hate crimes thing." I said, "What are you talking about?" She said, "Well, I think that what gay people do causes them to be victims of crimes and it's their own fault." And I said, "What?" And I said, "So, you're saying if somebody gets beat up because they're gay, it's their fault?" And she says, "Well, yeah, because you do bad things." And I said, "You lied on this questionnaire. You don't support a law that says that people can't be fired or can't be denied housing for public accommodation at all." And she said, "No, I don't." I said, "Well, why did you sign this thing that said you did?" And she said, "Well, I don't want to talk about that." So, in my mode, I immediately called The Morning Call, and because we had already produced the voter's guide and sent it out to everybody. And we'd endorsed her. So, luckily, we did have internet in that we had the ability to send out emails to people, which I immediately did, to say that this candidate didn't support this. But I also said to Bob Wittman, he was a reporter at The Morning Call, as you know, you know Bob, that this thing it happened. So, he came over to the house and he interviewed me. And I showed him the questionnaire and the Traditional Values thing, and I said, "I've got a big problem with this. This candidate lied to get votes. We've produced voter information. What are you going to do about it?" And so, he wrote a front-page, an enormous article with a picture of her, he said, "Where did they get the picture of her? She looks like a pin-up person in the picture," and he interviewed her and she absolutely said, "Yeah, I lied to them." So, she was absolutely clear. He said, "Did you fill this out?" And she said, "Yes, but I didn't mean it." And he said, "But you misrepresented to the voters." Well, up until that point, and one of the things about when you're working on Allentown City Council is that when you're in your own town you can really see if people have yard signs and stuff like that, and we had seen that she had had a lot of yard signs. And this was in the spring, actually. So, at that time, I actually was driving up the street and I had all of these yard signs, and I could see, the next day, after that article came out, the signs were gone. And I was thinking there's two things about that. One of these things is that this person was blatantly a bigot and anti-gay. But also, she blatantly lied just to get people to vote for her. And I don't think anybody is comfortable, any honest person, is comfortable with that level of hypocrisy for a person to run for office and then just say, "Yes," to every single questionnaire they get. "Yes, I support abortion rights, no, I don't support abortion rights." Come on, you can't have both sides. And you can't have no political consequences. So, we did this thing. We did it very, very publicly. And we were actually heartened by that, because this was the primary, and we were very heartened by that because we felt strongly that this was so wrong, and we were glad to see that she was losing support. And at the same time, and I think that this was the same time, yeah, so this was in 1998 and this was when people were running for City Council, and at that time, there were three members of council that were running to retain their seats, Emma Tropiano, Terry Spinosa, and who's the other one? I guess Todd Stevens. And they had all been on council and they were running to retain their seats as incumbents. Okay, so that stuff has happened. So, they've seen in effect that we had a very, very public way of humiliating, and I'm not afraid to get up and say, "I'm gay and what she did was lying and it's wrong," and it was hard to not see the community thought it was really serious that she had done that. How do you defend somebody who just lied potentially to both sides of the aisle in effect? But I think that it made political candidates concerned that we had a voice in the community. So all of a sudden-- So Allentown has a Human Relations Commission because we have a human relations law that was passed in 1965. It was at that time, the only community in the Lehigh Valley that had any non-discrimination law. Everybody else, Easton, Bethlehem, none of them had a non-discrimination law, they all relied on the federal law and the state law. But Allentown had its own law that was passed in 1965, but it did not include sexual orientation and gender identity. But because we have the law, we have a Human Relations Commission that had been functioning with appointed commissioners who were volunteer commissioners, and they'd been functioning since 1965. And this was 1998. And all of a sudden, we get a call from Felix Molina, who was the chair of the Allentown Human Relations Commission, and he said, "Last night, in the commission meeting, in front of the press, I and our assistant chair, the vice-chair, Robert E. Smith Jr., have announced that we are going to work toward the passage of an antidiscrimination ordinance addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to the Allentown Human Relations law." And I said, "You already announced this to the press?" And he said, "Yeah." I said, "So, what are you going to do?" And he said, "Well, we're going to bring it up in council in the next meeting." And I said, "Well, have you planned this out?" And he said, "Well, yeah." So, I said, "Do you have a sponsor and a co-sponsor? Because you can't introduce legislation unless you have a sponsor and a co-sponsor." And he said, "We have a sponsor, I think. I think Frank Concannon will sponsor it. We don't have a co-sponsor but there is a clause for Allentown City Council in its bylaws that says that if you can get a bunch of signatures, 35 signatures of Allentown voters, you don't have to have a second, you can use that as a second for the piece of legislation." And I said, "Okay. The meeting's on Wednesday. Do you have everybody?" He goes, "No, I want you to go out and get 35 Allentown voters to sign this list." I said, "Felix, I don't just have these people, it's Monday and you need it by Wednesday and these people aren't sitting in my living room. The bars aren't even open. Who am I going to get to do this?" So, of course we did it. We actually ran out and we got 100 signatures. Felix worked really hard on it. We didn't know Felix then, but he worked really hard on it. I was a little shocked that he didn't really have any preliminary, or that he told us, but now we had announced it to the press and it was in the paper, and now we had to deal with it. So, Felix said to me, "I want you to come and meet with Terry Spinosa who is running for office and he's already on office and we want to introduce the legislation, we should go ahead and do that." And I said, "But you don't have a second." And he said, "Well, we have these signatures," and so, he brought them to council, and Ernie Toth, who was the president of council then said, "That doesn't mean that. You can't just do that." Well, actually you can, but he was lying and he said, "You can't just push this piece of legislation." Anyway, Felix said, "Okay, well we should plan on doing this, on pushing this piece of legislation with these signatures. We should have a big meeting." I said, "After all, we have to have the room full of LGBT people, and our allies, not just show up in a meeting and hope a couple of people there are going to be in favor." He goes, "Okay, well, we'll postpone it. But I want you to talk to Terry because I think he will be the cosponsor." So, I go to meet, right at City Council chambers, and I meet with Terry Spinosa and Felix Molina. And Felix, I have to say, is a wonderful guy, a terrific organizer, English is not his first language, and he was not really understanding what Terry said. So, Terry comes into this meeting with us and I say, "So, would you cosponsor?" And he goes, "Well, I have to be sure about this piece of legislation. I have to be sure that it supports your rights," meaning you gay people, "but it also supports the rights of everybody else." And I said, "What do you mean by that?" And he said, "Well, you know they have rights with regard to this issue, too," and I said, "You mean the right to fire me because I'm gay? That's the thing that you want to support?" And he goes, "Well, I think that's important." So, I take Felix out into the hallway, and I said, "You realize he just said, 'when hell freezes over?' That's never going to happen. You can't say to some people, 'We'll support your right to fire gay people, but we'll also support the rights for gay people to not be fired because they're gay. That's opposed to each other. That can't happen." He goes, "Oh." Felix said, because he's not, and he's hoping. I said, "Well, who else do you think we can get?" So, now, on council was Emma Tropiano. Emma Tropiano happened to live across the street from us. Emma Tropiano was notoriously the most anti-Latino person in the entire Lehigh Valley. Though she was a Democrat, she actually was so anti-Latino that she would go to City Council meetings -- and this is documented -- and she would just blatantly lie about the Latino population. She'd say, "Every single person who's on welfare in Allentown is Latino," and a person from the county would stand up and say, "Councilperson Tropiano, the statistics show that of the 14,000 people in Allentown that are on welfare, 70 percent of them are white," and Emma Tropiano actually said to them, in this council meeting, "Don't try to confuse me with facts," which was a classic thing that she frequently said. She was well-known to say stupid stuff like that. She also furthered and instituted Allentown's law that was the English-only law. And it meant that every single piece of paper that ever was produced by the city could not be in anything other than English unless it was an emergency document. Well, the way they were able to get around that, thank goodness, was they pretty much said, "Everything that comes out of government is an emergency document." But it took a while to do that, and she was very loud about it and there were very many people -- there was not as big a voting population of Latino population in the city of Allentown in that time. She went all the way to Congress in Washington to talk about how important this English only -- she spoke in Congress to talk about how important this English only junk was. So, Felix said, "Well, she's not going to do anything she's horrible. She's really anti-minority." I said, "Well, maybe she's not anti-gay. I don't know. Maybe we could get her to sponsor. Maybe we should talk to her." And Ernie Toth was a really, really curmudgeonly conservative, again Democratic, because there are all Union Democrat types, but he was ultra, ultra-far-right, old-school, I think he was 80 in those days. And then there was also on, Council there's Frank Concannon who also was an old man but he was listening to us and he was very supportive in a lot of ways. And then, a guy named Todd Stevens who was a nonentity in some ways. He didn't say much during council meetings. He was on Council but he didn't say much. And David Bausch, who had been the county executive, he was very conservative. He was Republican. I think he was the only Republican. Maybe Terry Spinosa was a Republican, too, on council. And then, Tropiano. And David Howells, Sr., his son, now David Howells Jr., is a judge, they are all a police family, and David Howells had been the chief of police and then he had retired, but now he was on Council, and he was actually, at that time, I think Ernie Toth was president of council, but David Howells served as president of Council. He was a little bit more willing to listen to people because he was more used to public stuff, but he wasn't really on our side at that point. Later, he ended up voting for it, a long time later, but he was the only one on Council that was still -- well, he and Bausch were the only ones that were on Council when we finally passed it in 2002. But this was 1998. So, David Howells, he wasn't there. We were trying to think, how can we get somebody to do this? And Felix was insisting that this list that we had would allow for a vote, because we wanted people to understand that when they voted for this, they were voting against equal rights, because if we can get people on record -- people don't like to do that, particularly Democrats don't like to publicly vote. So, we met anyway, with Emma Tropiano and Terry Spinosa and David Howells. David Howells, we actually went to lunch. He took us to lunch and we talked about it and he listened to us. Emma Tropiano listened to us. She told another person in the community, "Why would I ever support this because every time you have sex you're breaking the law," because this was before Bowers, or this is after Bowers but before the Supreme Court decision and it was against the law. I said, "It wasn't against the law in the state of Pennsylvania for gay people to have sex, but it was in other parts of the United States," but that's making a presumption of how people are having sex, and that's true for straight people, too. But anyway. So, she said that. She just came out with things like that. She was in her early 70s, I think, at the time. And so, we met with those three people that were running, and Emma Tropiano said to us, right out in the meeting, in front of witnesses, "Okay, look. I will cosponsor this if you wait until after the election." This is the election that Mary Cramsey was running in. I think that's the way it worked. Maybe that Mary Cramsey election was a little bit later, but even so, she said, "If you wait until after the election." So, we said, "Okay. So, you're saying, let me just restate this, you are saying that you will cosponsor this if we wait until after the primary election," because there weren't really any other people running against her. If she won the primary and there was some primary challengers, but if she won the primary she would win the election, and that was pretty much true. So, we said, "Okay, we need to have a sponsor, so okay." So, we have the election. It's in May. She wins the primary. She's one of the people who wins the primary and then we say, "Great, now you're going to go co-sponsor." She said, "No, I'm not going to do it." I said, "So, you lied." And she said, "Well, I don't think it's a good idea." I said, "But you lied. You told us you would do it and we would push them --" so, anyway. Now we're really mad and we're never going to trust anybody. One of the things that happen with regards to Mary Cramsey and Emma Tropiano once they did this was -- and certainly this was true for the Mary Cramsey issue,was that we made a decision through PA GALA that we would never endorse somebody unless we talked to them in person, again. We would never endorse somebody based on just their questionnaire. We might endorse somebody based on their voting record because they'd actually voted in pro-LGBT circumstances, but we would never endorse somebody unless we absolutely knew that they were going to be this. And we would have known that for Mary Cramsey. Emma Tropiano is a bald-face liar, but I don't think that, if she had written the stuff, I think that would have been more serious, as well. So, now we begin to work toward this, decide that we're going to push and have a City Council meeting anyway. So, one of the things we did was, that was the point where we decided to create the Valley Gay Press, and we created the Valley Gay Press for the sole reason -- the newspaper, it was called Valley Free Press then, this newsletter, newspaper, to create a circumstance where we'd be able to get information to people in a way that really explained stuff because most people in 1998 did not have email, we didn't any social media, we couldn't get information people in a very good way, maybe we could get information to 200 people. But we wanted to be able to put this into the voter's guides, we wanted to be able to tell people exactly what was happening with regard to significant circumstances regards to the passage of this ordinance. And when we created the Valley Gay Press, we did it for several reasons. We did it for three major reasons, and I need to say this quickly. We did it to pass the ordinance, to bring political information to people, we did it to bring information in general for people so that organizations would stop having conflicting events. There was a time, right at that time, where Pride and the biggest fundraiser event that FACT had, they accidentally scheduled for the same day, which was a Sunday in June. And they were furious at each other and blamed each other for this enormous -- really, it was a devastating circumstance because you could not go. One of them was at the Berkleigh Country Club and the other one was the Pride Festival, and it was this terrible opposition. And I said, "We're going to create the Valley Gay Press with a calendar in it so people won't do that. They won't accidentally create events that were happening at the same time. We don't have that many events that are big events like that. We can't afford to have them at the same time." And then, the last thing was to answer people's questions, that we'd really be able to bring people information, bring people together that way, by advertising all the different events that not-for-profits were doing, and having articles that people were researching to talk about what was going on in the LGBT community, and how it affected people. But at this point, when we created the Valley Gay Press in 1998, we did that specifically to bring people information about the ordinance issue. So, what we started to do was, we started to try to gather people together by communicating with them and getting them and then picking a date of the City Council meeting, the City Council meets twice a month, and to have that meeting be the time when we would introduce this legislation. So, we did that. And we had a lot of telephone lists. So, we'd really call people up and say, "Can you come to this meeting? It's really, really important. We need to fill the room." So, I'm going to fast forward a little bit. We went through a lot of different steps to do this. But meanwhile, Felix Molina is working on this, too, he's working with other community members, we're setting up different people to speak, we've spoken to head of Equality Pennsylvania then, it was actually called the Gay and Lesbian Legal Aid Society, or something like that. It was the first permutation. And Andrew Park was running it, he had been an EEOC judge, he's now a really big national activist. But he came to us and he said, "This is what I think you should do and how you should set up this meeting. You should have people who have been discriminated against, you should have ministers speak, you should have people in the community talk about these different issues," and I found people. I found a woman whose child was discriminated against in daycare, and they told her that she couldn't call -- the child called their other parent "Poppy," and it was a person who had been identified at birth as female, and the daycare said, "She's not allowed to do that." This three-year-old kid was not allowed to do that in daycare, and this woman said to me, "I felt that was blatant discrimination, LGBT discrimination. I wanted to take my kid out of daycare, but I had paid for the daycare for the rest of the year, and so I couldn't do it," and several other people who had spoken about losing their jobs because they were LGBT, and circumstances like that. So, we're setting up these people to do that. I had ministers, a guy who was the minister of the Saint John's Lutheran Church on 5th Street, he was going to speak, he was great, actually, and a number of other people, heads of organization, a vice president from Air Products, first we were going to have Charlie Versaggi who worked at Air Products, he said, "No, no, I'm going to get the top vice president to have him come and speak." And he came, he was one of the main people that spoke there. And we were setting up this list of people that were going to speak and we figured that even if they didn't let us do this, you can always speak at courtesy of the floor, and so I was telling people, "You cannot speak for more than two and a half minutes, you have to practice doing that. If you go over, you'll lose it." We had people from all different minority groups, different parts of the community, and we also had Julio Guridy, who was, at that time, a young guy who had just moved from the Dominican Republic a few years before, he was working in the banking system, and he really wanted to speak in favor of this. He was actually from a very conservative Latino church, but he ended up saying to me, he didn't speak English really, really well but he said to me, "I really want to do this but I want you to help me write the speech because I can't write this." So, we worked together to write the speech so that it would be what he wanted to say but it would be in a form that he practiced it. And we had a bunch of other people. We had Dr. Elizabeth Goff, who's a pediatrician, and she wanted to get up and say, because people were saying, "That's going to just let pedophiles," because gay people are all pedophiles, so that's going to let people do that. Elizabeth Goff actually got up, she is a pediatrician, she got up and she was ready to speak. And we also wanted to fill the room with our people. We made buttons that said "Equal Rights" on them. They were blue buttons and if you see pictures of that, there's some photographs of those in the newspaper and stuff you can see these people wearing these buttons. So, the day is coming closer, Steve Black is ready to do this, he's going to speak, I'm going to speak, we have this list of who's going to go, and now we're hearing that the far-right side is organizing a little bit against us, and we're concerned about that because the newspaper has talked about us having this meeting. So, now the night of the meeting comes, and Steve pulls up in his car and he says, "There is an enormous rainbow over the," he said, "I was driving into town, I could see this rainbow over city hall." I said, "Well, that's a good sign." So, Steve and I, and Trish was in City Council chambers, helping people to be seated, we were trying to get older people that would sit in the front row because we wanted it to not just look like we've got a lot of young rabble-rousers, although we weren't young at that time, but Steve was in his 20s, then, I was in my 30s. I think, maybe. Maybe 41. And we were working on this stuff, and a lot of our friends were preparing to come and people from other organizations. So, Steve and I are standing outside greeting people that are coming in and we're giving them the button. And Steve was very, very nervous. He often got very nervous. I did, too. I was nervous enough, but he was very, very agitated doing things like that. He's also very, very excited. Because a lot of the people that are coming in were our people and they were thrilled to have the buttons, they were putting them on and our friends were coming, people coming in from ACCO, and Sandy Fluck, and Bev Morgan who ran ACCO, and Sandy's mother who was in her 80s were going to sit in the front row, we're all excited about it. And these people are coming in, there are people coming in and we're giving out the buttons, and we're thinking, "This is really good." Then, a guy comes through, and I go to give him a button and he goes, "No, I'm a Christian." And it was Frank McVeigh, who ended up to be our archnemesis, but he was one of the first ones, "No, I don't want it, I'm a Christian." I didn't even know it was him. But there were a couple of scary people who came in. There was a guy who was in army fatigues who was really scary. He was very edgy looking. He was wearing fatigues, he had camouflage underneath, really angry, wouldn't talk to anybody when he walked into council. So, there's more and more people coming in, they're packing the council chambers, we know there's hundreds of people coming in, and these people coming in. Steve is very upbeat about it, because there's so many of our people there and that's a very good way to push legislation, to fill the room with people who are your supporters. And they were at the City Council chambers, there's doors that go in, it's right along Hamilton Street and a car pulls up across the street and these three old people get out and Steve goes, "Oh, crap." They're very conservative looking people, middle-aged gray hair people, and two much older people. And Steve, in his mind he's thinking, "These are the far-right people." And he goes, "Oh, no. Look at those people. They're going to be trouble." And I grab him by the lapel, I said, "Those are our people. That's Melinda and Don Kohn. That's Harold and Roberta Kreider. Those are our people." [laughs] And he's so excited. He's so excited. And they come over and we're hugging, we're hugging everybody that's coming in, we're giving them the buttons, and we put Harold and Roberta right in the front row. They look like they do now. They were in their 70s then, they're in their 90s now, they're still around folks, if you're watching this, and they're in the archives, so watch their stuff. They probably didn't even talk about this because it's just one of the million things that they've done. But I'd already talked to Roberta, and I knew that she was going to be great. And she was set to talk. So, now we have this line of people signed up and we say that we want to push the legislation. And they said, "No, you can't do that." So, then we're going to be at courtesy of the floor. At that time, courtesy of the floor was at the beginning of the meeting. So, I speak first, and I say my little two minutes thing, and I say there's all these people here, we want to see this happen, and people just over and over are saying, "We want to see this legislation introduced." If you look in the Valley Gay Press, there's actually a list of everybody who spoke and it says what they were good or bad and basically what they said. It's in the Valley Gay Press. And so, we're having people speak and Felix Molina speaks, and Bob Smith speaks, and there were about 24 speakers. And at one point, and we can see how long the line is, and people are beginning to speak, and Ernie Toth says, "We're going to have to cut this off." Now, they're not really supposed to do that. They're not supposed to cut it off. It's supposed to go on forever if they want to. But they didn't want to because Ernie Toth is very conservative, and he didn't want all these pro-gay people speaking. So, we had about 28 speakers, and 22 of them were pro, and six of them were negative. And one of the people that got up that were negative actually had those pamphlets, some of them are in the archives, that say a horrible, horrible things about the LGBT community that says gay men eat eight pounds of feces a year, and they kill children, and they molest kids, all this kind of stuff. And two people had that, Frank McVeigh gets up and he says some kind of convoluted things like the state doesn't have this law and you can't do this and stuff. But our people who spoke about being discriminated, I had talked to them about what they were going to say, I think Lenore Johnson actually spoke about losing her job when she owned Diamonz, and she had a job at a transport company, when there was an article that said that she owned Diamonz and that Diamonz was a gay bar, she lost her job the next day. And she'd been there for 12 years and never had a negative performance review. So, she said, "Clearly, I was discriminated because of that." And so, people are talking about that. And I have to say that we didn't even know what the legislation was going to say. So, people could say, "You were only talking about the gay community," that wasn't really true. We hadn't written the legislation yet. That's one of the things about entering a piece of legislation. You first talk about the possibility of passing it, then you have committee meetings and stuff where they would have -- that's one of the things we should have done before we even brought it into fruition, we should have written the legislation and brought it to them and then had somebody who said they were going to pass it. But anyway, this is happening. All these people going through. And brilliant people are speaking, some people are beginning to say the same thing, though. And people in the room, there were loads of people there, everybody that we knew was there, people from FACT, Hoover was there, everybody, our friends [Laura Terrace?] and Judie Arndt and lots of women from the Girl Scouts who were there, and all sorts of really terrific people. And the people from Pride, I think, were there at the same time. They were really supporting this effort. And the room was packed. They have, I think, 200 seats in there and there was about 300 people. At the same time, the creepy guy in the army fatigues is walking around the back of the room, punching his hands like this, and he's walking up and down the street. And in the back of City Council chambers, I actually went over to security and I said, "This guy is a problem. What's going on? He's really scary," and they actually said to him that he had to stop doing that, or they would eject him. So, he kind of calmed down, although he wasn't that calm. He was scary. So, now the line is going along and our community, every time we hear somebody that's really anti, it's very upsetting, because they say terrible things. The guy gets up and he says all those horrible things about gay people, and Melinda Kohn gets up, and she'd never spoke in public before and her daughter, Sally Kohn, who's a famous person on television now, had come out recently. Melinda had never heard anybody say this, and she started to speak about this, and she just started to cry. She said, "I can't believe that people would say horrible things about people just because you don't want them to have the rights. It's awful." Roberta Krieder was brilliant, it was a very positive. And it's significant to say that when you have horrible, horrible people that say awful things you can point to those people and say, "Clearly these people would gleefully discriminate against somebody who was LGBT. This is evidence that this kind of discrimination exists. You can't say nobody will ever fire somebody or deny them housing if you have people who will get up and say these horrible, not true, cruel things." So, the line's going along, they don't let people speak twice, which is the rule, and Steve says to me, "It looks good because the last person that's going to speak, I think, is [Raphael Coneseres?], or maybe it was going to be Felix, and so he was in line, and he was going to say the summation of it, and that was going to be great. And we actually were saying to people, "Don't get up and speak if you're going to say the same thing as somebody else," and Raphael Coneseres was a brilliant artist, he's in Washington DC, a sculptor, he said, "I want to say that people are saying that we can't use the same turns over and over again that aren't in the state law but the state law doesn't have the clauses that Allentown's law has, and I want to point that out," which was a good point to make. And so, he was going to speak and so he was there, I think he was one of the last ones, and then Felix, and that was the end. And then, a guy got up who was standing behind them, and I went over to Steve and I said, "That guy's going to be bad and that's going to be a problem but who else do we have to speak?" And he said, "Do you know that guy?" He was a little person. And I said, "Yes, I do know that guy because Gayle Erich," remember Gayle Erich who put together our Quark files for the thing, when her father died, we went to the funeral and he was a minister who got up at the end and said some of the most horrible things I had ever heard. He said, "It's too bad that your father isn't going to go to heaven because he didn't take Jesus as his personal savior." I said, "If that guy said that there, he's going to say something horrible, now. Clearly he's ultra-far-right." So, Felix and Steve and I look around and we say, "What are we going to do? We've got to have somebody else speak and we've got to control the message." And I said, "Trish is going to have to speak." Okay, this really freaks out Trish. But I said, "Honey, you have to do it. You have to do it." She said, "Okay, but you have to write what I'm going to say." So, I'm out in the hallway trying to write this down and Felix is saying, "You need to say this, you need to say this," and I say, "Felix, shut up, I have to write this, she's coming to the end," and Erie Toth points to Trish, he goes, "Glasses lady, you're the last one." So, we know she's going to be the last one. So, now there's a bunch of people that still have to speak, so we know we have about 15 minutes, but I'm trying to write this thing that's really going to be punchy, and Felix is so worried that it's going to happen. So, what we decided was we're going to write a speech for Trish that's going to specifically say, "These people here all want you to pass this legislation. We want somebody to suspend the rules and to discuss this legislation and vote on it today. We want you to do that, or to at least let this piece of legislation be introduced, formally introduced." So, I'm writing out the stuff for Trish on like the back of an envelope and we're trying to do this thing and the places are getting closer and then Trish gets up and she's doing this [shakes hands], because she hates to speak in public. But she's also brilliant. She's really brilliant. She spoke in front of the legislature and she's brilliant. She's got a doctorate, for heaven's sake. So, she's getting closer and closer. She gets to the thing. This is what she says, and this is what we'd written out and she says this, and she says it so brilliantly. And the Morning Call reporters were there, and they reported on this. She says, "You have heard all of these people who have spoken in favor of these rights. And you have heard people who have spoken so negatively that it's clear that these rights are necessary. If you look around the room, you can see that there are people that vastly support this piece of legislation. So, I am going to ask everyone who supports this legislation to raise their hand, and then I hope that you will suspend the rules and introduce the legislation." Then she turns to the crowd and she says, "Raise your hand if you support this legislation," and every person in the room, and they said in the Morning Call, "A forest of hands raised across the room." You couldn't see for the hands. And you couldn't see the anti people, because there were hundreds and hundreds of people with their hands raised, and like six people who didn't have their hands raised. And Ernie Toth, when the little person spoke, he was a minister, he goes, "I'm a minister and I'm against this legislation. I don't really know why, and I can't really articulate why, but I'm just against it." And then he sits down. [laughs] And then Trish says this raise your hands thing. But before he sits down, points to him, and he goes, sir -- The first thing the little person said was, "I'm a little person, and I know what it's like to be discriminated against." And then he says, "I don't know why this legislation is wrong, but it's wrong." And then Ernie Toth points to him and he says, "Sir, you may be a little man, but you have a big heart." [laughs] What? After all this, and then that's what you say? So, Ernie Toth, he's a nutcase. So, anyway now Trish has done this, everybody has their hands raised, they have the opportunity to do this, and they don't. But Frank Concannon who's sitting on the dais, he raises his hand, and he says, "I move to do this," and they ignored him. And everybody else on council just sits there, they say no. So, we leave and quite frankly, we are very, very encouraged by this because we didn't think it was going to pass. We didn't think anything was going to happen. We just wanted to see if we could pull this off. And we did. And Andrew Parks said, "This was the best meeting I've ever seen. The orchestrated meeting of these people speaking, and everything was just perfect. You did a perfect thing." And so, Steve called me the next morning and he said, "I think we should call Frank Concannon and thank him." And I said, "I think we should do that, too." So, I call up Frank at his house, and his wife answers, and I can hear him in the background, and she says, "Who is this?" She had a great accent. She goes, "Who is this? Rita Concannon, who is it?" And I said, "This is Liz Bradbury," she goes, "Oh, just a minute. Frank, Frank, it's Liz Bradbury." She sounded just like that. And he comes to the phone, and I can hear him go, "Oh," but he thinks I'm going to yell at him because we lost. And he gets on the phone and I said, "Frank, I just wanted to tell you, we're gay. We didn't expect to win this. For heaven sakes, we don't have any rights. Why would we think that this was going to work? People who are straight who have never been discriminated against might think that this would work, but we knew this wasn't going to work. Don't worry about it. We did fine. We did fine. And we're really grateful for what you did." And we were allies with him pretty much through the rest of the time. He was terrific. He became comptroller. He didn't run for city council again, he ran for city comptroller, and he was city comptroller for years and years, and he was great. He was very liberal and very supportive. So, then we recognized -- Steve and Trish and I recognized that we cannot make this happen unless we have our own candidate. And we begin to now build coalitions. So, a couple of things happened that were really significant and the first thing -- just a bunch of stuff. So, we're producing the Valley Gay Press, we're producing voter information, we're building our list, we now have 700 people on our list of Allentown voters who are registered voters, 700 people could swing any election in Allentown because you put 700 on one side, and you take 700 away, that's 1,400 votes, people don't even have 1,400 votes to win elections in the city. So, it's very, very significant. And these are people who are craving our voter information, they're voting, they're super voters, they're developing voting. So, this is very significant. So, we're moving along. We think we need a candidate who is actually going to push this legislation and we need a mayor who is going to speak from it in a positive way. The first thing that happens is that I won the Allentown Human Relations Commission Award. Bob Smith, who was the vice chair, put me up for the award and I won it and I got an opportunity to speak from the stage to a big group of people who were very pro-rights, because this is the Human Relations Commission. So, they're people from all these different organizations. And when I spoke from the stage, Bill Heydt, who was the mayor, then, came up and gives me the award, he said he would sign the legislation but not unless Council brought it to him, but he had lobbied Council to not bring him the legislation. He was not pro the legislation and he wouldn't speak publicly in favor of it. So, he comes up to me to hand me the award, he's got this smile like that, and I say, "Yeah, thanks a lot, this would be great, but I'd rather have actual rights." And I regret to this day because he said, through his smiling teeth, "Well, they didn't bring me the legislation. I can't change things." Well, actually, he could have changed some things. He could have done executive orders. But he didn't do it. He was never positive, he never really supported us, and he was a Republican. He did very little, actually, as the mayor of Allentown. So, I go and I speak and I say, "This is great to have this but I haven't had these rights, and I am pledging my life to work for this," we had three tables of people there, people were very enthusiastic but I rue the day that I didn't say, "I just want to tell you all that Mayor Heydt whispered to me that he's going to support this legislation for the next three years, let's give him a big hand." I really wanted to do that. I wish I had said that. I just really wish I had said that. And I still wish I had said that because I don't think he could have gotten up in front of these people and said, "No, no, I don't support that legislation at all." He did a couple of really stupid things. He didn't support the Martin Luther King holiday, and he made some very foolish remarks about that in public meetings in front of folks like this where he really looked around the room and realized he made a big mistake, which was kind of funny, actually. But anyway, so I won that. That gave us a lot of momentum. People were paying more attention to us. There was an article in the paper about it, that was a significant thing. So, now, we end up recognizing that we have to do this. The next thing that happens is that we really developed a pretty good relationship with Felix Molina. Turns out, Felix is gay. He never even told us that. All through the time that we were doing the meeting, he never said he was, but he was. And it turned out that he was in a long-term relationship with the brother of somebody we knew who was at MCC, so then he outs himself to us. I'm producing more Valley Gay Presses, and I have the who's who, and he was in the who's who of the Valley Gay Press, that's one of the Valley Gay Press articles. He gets up and he says, "We're going to have the first Puerto Rican Day parade and festival, and I'm going to be the CEO of this. And I want you to have a float in it, and Pride to have a float in it." So, Pride had this float, we were all on it, we all worked together to make this float, and this thing happened. So, this, I think, was a year and a half later, in 2000. So, we're at the parade route, and Felix was a great organizer. He doesn't live in the Lehigh Valley anymore, but he was a terrific organizer. The parade started in the parking lot of the Sacred Heart High School, which is down the hill, down Gordon Street, at the bottom of Gordon Street, and we're going to gather there, gather all the floats, it was going to come up that steep hill on Gordon Street, and then go all the way along 4th Street to Jordan Park. It's a huge festival, way bigger, 20,000 people go to that festival. It's enormous. But this was the first one, and it was very exciting. And Felix had done a great job bringing lots of people together, and sometimes people who were a little edgy, people in the community who were a little edgy, different, car groups, and motorcycle groups, and stuff like that. And it's very, very exciting. We're all there early in the morning getting the stuff ready to go and we're going to be on, I think it was a float, actually. We were in the parade several times. Don Kohn had, in those days, a really terrific antique truck that we used to ride on the back of, we were going to throw Mardi Gras beads, we always had thousands and thousands of Mardi Gras beads to throw to people or to hand out, or something like that when we were doing events like this, or at the Pride festival. So, everybody's getting ready, and Felix is there, and he looks great but he's nervous because this stuff is all happening. I see him talking to some suit, and then he comes over to me and he's standing there, and he has this look on his face of hysteria. I said, "What's wrong?" And he said, "That guy's from the city and he says that I have to give him 1,000 dollars for an insurance policy right now or they're going to cancel the parade and the festival." And I said, "What would happen if you did that?" He said, "Well, look around," meaning that there could be a riot if that happened. And he said, "They're so worried that there's going to be violence and stuff like that because it's Latinos, it's all prejudice and bigotry," and he's just furious. And I said, "Well, can't you give him a check?" And he said, "I don't have my checkbook. I left it at home." I said, "Why did you do that?" And he said, "I didn't expect them to do this. This is a complete surprise. They hadn't said anything to me, but they're going to cancel it. He's with the police, there's a bunch of police over there." I said, "He wants a thousand-dollar check?" And he said, "Yeah." And I said, "Okay." So, I reach in my pocket where I keep my checkbook because in those days I was in the antiques business, and one of the tools of the antiques trade, and we had just done big shows, is you have a lot of cash in your checkbook, you often carry a lot of cash. I wasn't carrying a lot of cash. So, I opened my checkbook and I have 1,014 dollars in my checking account. I said, "Okay, I'm going to write you this check but you better damn well give me this money because I can't afford to give you this money." And he said, "Oh, no, no, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll give it to you tomorrow, I'll give it to you tomorrow morning." I said, "Okay, okay. I understand how important this is." So, now I've got my shaking hand and I'm filling out this check and the guy from the city, so he goes over to the city guy and goes, "I've got somebody that's going to give you a check." He said, "You're kidding." And the guy comes over and he goes, "Let me see your bank balance." I said, "I'm not going to show you my bank balance. You can't ask everybody what their bank balance is when they give you a check. I'm giving you a check and the check is good, that's all you need to know." Well, it was Sunday morning. So, even if my check hadn't been good, he couldn't have done it. Felix could have written him a bad check, which could have been good by the next morning, he just didn't have his checkbook. So, I write him the check and I hand him this thing, and then the guy is chagrined because he really thought that he was going to cancel the whole parade. And Felix did pay the money back the next morning. We walked along. It was not only that there were 20,000 people that were going to be the thing, but along the parade route, there were thousands and thousands of people. It's an enormous, wonderful parade. Or, it was in 1998. And it was so exciting, because it was the first one. So, we do the whole thing. We actually didn't do the festival because we didn't have a booth there, and we didn't have the money to pay for a booth because they actually charge quite a bit, people really do. It's more like now, with our Pride festival. But we did the parade, and we were happy about it, and that worked out. That was an enormously significant moment to cement our communities together to say, "We're here for you, and we're really supportive." And that was a really good thing. Felix and I were already working together, but this was a big deal that this happened. And also, he had specifically invited us to come. And I have to say that the reception of people on the sidelines was jubilant. People were cheering us from the sidelines. Nobody said anything negative or turned their back or anything like that. It was very, very significant. So, that happened. Okay, so now things are moving along and we're thinking we have to have a City Council member who's going to introduce this legislation and we have to have a mayoral candidate that's going to be supportive of it. So, we fasten on the idea that it has to be somebody who has a very flexible schedule, someone who works for themselves, so we fastened onto Gayle Hoover, and Gayle Hoover expressed that she would run for City Council if we did all the work for her. And so, I said, "Okay, I'll be your campaign manager, we have our big double house now, we will do all the mailings, I will help you with speeches," Gayle doesn't like to read speeches but every time she spoke, she would come over to me and I would say, "Say this, this, and this," and then she could get up and she can speak quite well off the cuff if she knows what she's supposed to say. She was quite good at speaking in situations like that. So, we begin to raise money for the campaign and stuff like that and we introduced the campaign. And you have to get signatures for people. And the people in the community did really support her. They gave money for her. We had to go around get Allentown voters to sign the petition for her candidacy. And so, she was working on it, a couple of other people were working on it, and Trish and I were working on it, and you have to have 100 signatures, so we wanted to be sure that our petition had at least 100 signatures on it so that everybody else's would go together, and we would have no challenges on the circumstances. So the other thing that happened at that time -- we were trying to get national organizations to support us, we asked the Victory Fund if they would support Gayle's campaign, they ultimately did. They were very slow and dragging their feet. One of the things that happened was that, also Julio Guridy decided to run for City Council. And we really liked Julio. He spoke for us, he had been very, very vocal. There was no person on Council who was -- Marty Velazquez was on Council but he was born in the United States and although he was pro Latino, he didn't speak Spanish and Julio would be the first Spanish-speaking person on Council that was really representing that part of the demographic of the city. So, we really supported his campaign. So, I said to Trish, "I'm going to circulate a petition for Julio, too." I think we did it for somebody else, but I can't remember. It was somebody who was running for school board, so we were circulating that petition as well, it was somebody who was LGBT. And Julio, although he's certainly not part of the LGBT community, he has members of his family who are not only gay, but also transgender. And at that time, he had a transgender person who was out in his family. So, now we begin to work with Mara Keisling to write the legislation before we move into the introduction of it. But first, we had to get Gayle to win. Well, we processed 35,000 pieces of mail through our house to make Gayle win this election. We got the voters list of Democratic super voters, it was important for her to win the primary, first of all. We had letters, a letter from Frank Concannon, his people directly, he was already elected as comptroller. We did all sorts of different things to make her -- I created some very good advertising documents. In those days, I don't think you can do this anymore, but you could send just a piece of paper that was folded over and people spent a lot of money on glossy stuff. I don't think that's necessary I think people think that people have a lot of money that they can do that. We were able to raise about, I don't know, 20,000, 30,000 dollars to run her campaign over the time of her campaign. I think Gayle Erich actually served as her treasurer for the election and that's a complicated thing to do. So, we did all of these things and we got her in position to do this. I was also circulating Julio's petition. And we had to get her on the ballot, she got on the ballot with no problem, there was about 300 signatures for her. On the day we turned in the signatures, that was the day that every candidate had to turn in their signatures, and I had 67 signatures for Julio, as well. The morning after everybody had turned in their petitions, Julio called me up and he said, "I circulated my own petition, I had 100 signatures on it, no more that. I had 100 signatures," and he said, "I was sure that Emma Tropiano would challenge my signatures, and all they would have to do is get one person who wasn't currently registered to vote, or who might not have been a Democrat or something like that." And he said, "And then I got in there and I saw 67 more signatures from you." And when he called me, he was laughing. He couldn't even speak. He goes, "I can't believe it, I can't believe it," and he was so happy that I did that. I have to say that Julio is still on Council. He's still on Council and every single piece of legislation, he's voted for us, even though he's from a very, very conservative church, and he stood up to his church and he's spoken for us and everything. I've never regretted that for a minute. But the Victory Fund said to me, "So, you've got a Latino guy and a gay woman. Can they both win?" I said, "I don't think so," because during this time, Emma Tropiano had run for mayor. And this was the time when she ran for the nomination against Marty Velazquez who ended up on Council. He was on Council, and he ended up running for Council and he was on Council at that time. But he had run for Council for the primary against Emma Tropiano. And we had endorsed Marty and we worked hard because Tropiano was a horrible, horrible far-right candidate, even though she was a Democrat. When the votes came in, it turned out that she was three votes ahead of Marty in the primary. But when they recounted the votes, when they counted the absentees, and they removed absentees from people who had actually voted, because once somebody had voted and absentee voted, so they took that out, Marty won the election against Emma Tropiano by one vote. And that was the one vote election, 2,640 to 2,641. And so, I said, I used that for years by saying to people, "If you voted for Marty Velazquez, you cast the winning vote." Now, the bad thing was that when they ran for mayor, Heydt won because Marty was a newcomer, he sounded like he was Latino, he didn't run a very good campaign, and so he didn't win. But we established ourselves very significantly as in the ability to win a candidate, a new candidate, against an old-time candidate. Now, Tropiano at the same time, in the next election, so she was on Council, the next election, she ran for City Council, and State Representative at the same time. Well, she lost both things because people didn't really think that she should do that. But she had an enormous following. So, she's been off Council for two years, but she was going to run for Council again, and she had, what we believe to be an enormous following in the City of Allentown because she'd been on Council for 18 years. But during this time some information would come out, she was a landlord, that she was a slumlord. She really was. And she was. She was a slumlord. She lived across the street from us. So, now we're at the point of the primary where we're campaigning and during the day of the primary, you'd go to various different sites and you'd hand out stuff, and we had people to hand out stuff for Gayle, and Gayle was working the sites and stuff like that. And I went to the South Side Youth Center, and that's a big polling place in the city, and I was handing out cards for Gayle. And Candido Garcia, who is a guy I know very well, he's part of the gay community, was standing next to me handing out cards for Julio. And we didn't want to admit to each other that there was a big chance that one of them wasn't going to win because it was against Tropiano, and there were only three candidates that could win, and I think one of them was Howells, and so, he was just going to win. He always won every election. He was this police chief, everybody voted for him. So, there was only two other slots in the primary. So, there were going to be three people in the primary, and ultimately, those people would probably win because there's far more Democrat voters in the city than Republicans. So, I'm there with Candido, and we're chatting, but we're trying not to be in this adversarial position because we're really in trouble because one of us is going to cut the other one's throat. So, we did this. It was cold. We did the whole thing, and we go home and Candido, he's back at his place. And then there's going to be a victory party at a restaurant in South Allentown, that I think Afflerbach had set up. And he was also running as the candidate for mayor. He was running against Sam Bennett. And after a while, we had figured out that Sam Bennett was not a very good candidate and that we really wanted Afflerbach, who said he would absolutely the passage of the ordinance, he would absolutely do it. And he spoke in favor of it. So, anyway, but this is the Gayle campaign. So, now, it's the end of the thing. So, I have to say, we don't like to go to the party until we already know who's won because we don't want to be there to see everybody crying when they don't win. And this is a tense one, I have to say that. I had worked the whole day ; I think Trish was at a different polling place. So, we'd worked the whole day at the polling places. So, we're watching the thing, we're watching the vote tick, vote tick, vote tick, and Julio and Gayle both won. And Tropiano was kicked off the ballot. So, we rush over to the party, and I go into the room, and I see Candido Garcia, and I throw myself into his arms, and we're jumping up and down chanting, "No more Emma, no more Emma," it was so great. He was crying, we were so happy. It was a wonderful moment. I'll never forget that. That was the City Council thing. We go over to Afflerbach's thing with a whole bunch of our people, and Afflerbach has won the nomination by 125 votes, I said, "I just brought your 125 votes in, and don't you forget where you have to be on this piece of legislation." He said, "I know exactly that I would not have won if you hadn't endorsed me." So, time goes along, and we get to the election and Roy Afflerbach is running against, I'm not sure, I don't think Heydt ran again, then, so he was running against a different candidate. He was running against that guy who worked at Air Products. And he wanted me to endorse him. He was a Republican. I can't remember his name. He was a nice guy, actually. He worked at Air Products. He wanted us to endorse him, and Afflerbach wanted us to endorse him. I said to Roy Afflerbach, who ultimately won, I said, "This other guy wants me to endorse him." And he said, "Well, you need to go and interview him." So, I interview him, and I say to him, and I can't remember this guy's name but, "The biggest problem with your campaign is that you are supporting to have your city solicitor be Robert Daday Jr., and Robert Daday Jr.'s father was a big PPL executive, but Robert Daday Jr. has publicly said that he doesn't support the antidiscrimination ordinance, vehemently. In fact, he even ran for office on that platform, 'I'm anti-gay.'" I said, "Why would you do that?" And so, the guy said, "I want you to meet with me and him, and I want you to [inaudible]." So, we go into the room, and I'm meeting him, and Daday's there and he's a lawyer, probably a little younger than I was, and the guy who wanted our endorsement said, "You don't have to not endorse the other guy, but you can endorse us both." I said, "Well, let me think about it." I said, "But the problem is, you want to have Daday." He said, "Well, yeah. He's going to be my city solicitor." So, I turn to Daday and I say to him, "So, do you support this ordinance?" And he said, "You can't have an ordinance like this unless the state has it," and I said, "People don't agree with you on that. People simply don't agree with you on that. Philadelphia has nondiscrimination ordinance ; how can you say that?" And he said, "Well, that's my position." And I said to Robert Daday , "Would you agree that other people don't have that position?" And he said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Other lawyers, other people in the state don't agree with you." And he said, "Well, yes." So, I turned back to the guy who's the candidate and I said, "So, get somebody else. Get somebody who supports it because I'm not going to support you if you're going to have a city solicitor that's going to constantly say you can't have these rights. Forget it." And so, he says, "Okay." So, I left. So, we supported Afflerbach. Afflerbach wins the election, Gayle wins the election, all three of the Democratic candidates win the election. This is true. Remember the Mary Cramsey thing I was talking about in the beginning, we didn't support her, and she lost the primary to Louie Hershman in her election which was two years before, and Hershman was on Council, I guess these are four-year terms. So, Louie Hershman was on Council, and Cramsey had lost. We didn't know where Hershman stood on the circumstances, but Louie Hershman had been comptroller of the city for a long time, and now, he was City Council member. It turns out he was also really, really anti-gay, and we probably would have done better with Mary Cramsey. But anyway. So, now, he's on Council. There's a guy named Tom Burke, who's a Republican, Julio's on Council, Marty Velazquez, Gayle Hoover, David Howells Sr. is still on Council, and Louie Hershman and David Bausch, who was another Republican who was also on Council. Bob Lovett was the guy who was running for mayor. He was a nice guy. He just recently died ; I think. But he was supporting a person that -- so, we didn't do it. Anyway, they won. We were really excited. So, now, January 3rd, they're installed into the position of the legislature, to be on City Council and Afflerbach is mayor, and Afflerbach said to us, "Pass the legislation right away we're still in the sweetheart period. Don't wait around for this. You need to pass the legislation now." So, Mara Keisling comes to us, Mara Keisling is the head, now, of the National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington. She was working for an organization that she ran, she's transgender and she was running this organization in the State of Pennsylvania. She sits with us in our kitchen, this top person in the state, and she writes the legislation. She said, "This is all about the definitions, and so we're going to write this legislation, we're going to write the definition of gender identity, as this," and she writes "gender identity is the," and the language in the law is specifically what she wrote on our kitchen table, that language is in every law that has passed since we passed the ordinance in 2002, and Mara has worked on these things all across the country. She's a major, major activist. But she was working for us, there. It was great that she did this. She was out of Harrisburg, actually. And she helped us do this. Now, we do the same thing. We get everybody ready to speak and to do all of these things and to do these speeches in council. And finally, we go ahead and Steve comes to the council meeting and we're working on all of this stuff. And Steve was involved in all of this stuff, too, and he comes and we're at the council meeting, we're standing up to speak, now I have to say the person who was the head of the anti people, now it's called Citizens for Traditional Family Values, they're totally in the way there, and it's Frank McVeigh, he's the head guy. He had been a Muhlenberg Professor. I think by then he was retired, but he had been the Muhlenberg Professor who was tenured, he was so conservative and he said such horrible things that were not true that they told him he could never teach classes again. But because he was tenured, he got to still get paid for the college for years until he finally retired. And he was a horrible person in every possible way. But he was pretty active. He was in his 70s, then, and he was quite well-spoken because he was a college professor. So, he gets up and he says some stuff about they're never really discriminated against, and it's beyond what the law says, and all this stuff. But then there are also horrible people who say pedophile, stuff like that. But we still have really, really good speakers, terrific speakers. and we had talked to each member of council, we had lobbied the members of council, we're going to introduce a piece of legislation that had sexual orientation and gender identity to add to the Human Relations Commission's Ordinances of the City of Allentown. This was the first time that the words "gender identity" would be used in any piece of legislation in the state of Pennsylvania, at all, ever, for civil rights. And so, Philadelphia didn't have it, Pittsburgh didn't have it, it was covered by some legislation simply by the extension of the definition of what it was to be sexual orientation, but there was no use of the words gender identity. And people in our own community said to me and other people, "You shouldn't try to pass this with gender identity, you're never going to get this through. Just go with the gay stuff," and I said, "You know, we get discriminated against all the time based on gender identity. People are really discriminated against on it, it's more likely that's going to be what happens. Everything that people say in terms of discrimination is couched in those terms anyway, so I think we need to do it. I think it's wrong to leave people behind and I don't think we'll ever be able to add it in if we don't do it. So, we have to do it." And the other thing that hit me at that time was a piece of information that I had read someplace. We still didn't have Facebook or anything, we had email then, but I had read a thing that said that our enemies would deny us oxygen if they could, so we might as well ask for all our rights because asking for less is not going to get them on our side. It's not a compromise that's going to make them okay with it. They're still going to find a reason to say no, so ask for everything. Don't leave any part of the community behind. And I agreed with that. So, we went with that description of sexual orientation and gender identity. So, Tom Burke, who was a Republican on Council took the legislation that we have proffered to them and he wrote five amendments to it that would be voted separately by Council. So, Gayle introduced it, I think Julio was the second, he wanted to be the second. We were pretty sure that we could get Marty, although at one point to me he said, "Well, this thing about gender identity is so new and leading-edge," and I said to him, this was 1998, I said, "Minneapolis has had this in place since 1976." And he said, "But that was just two years ago." I said, "No, '76, not '96. This has been in places in the United States for 22 years and there have never been any problem with it, Marty. It's not cutting-edge. It's now. This is what needs to be done." And in fact, Gayle said, "As a real estate agent are we going to update the 1950s house to the 1970s or are we going to update it to the 1990s? We need to be doing this now. This needs to be current. We don't have to go and make this something that's going to appease people from the '70s, that's ridiculous. We need to make it current." And she said that publicly. So, we had the piece of legislation written, Mara had written it great, Tom Burke wrote these amendments to it and some of them we didn't agree with. One of them was that nobody would have to give approximation of marital benefits, or domestic partner benefits based on this legislation. We didn't agree with that. But they had it. And some of them were procedural. And one of them was that mission-driven organizations would be exempt from the law. Well, that's actually a federal thing, mission-driven organizations like churches are always exempt from a law. If you're a mission-driven organization like Cedar Crest College for the mission is to be pro women, they can say, "We're not going to have men in the dorms." It's their right to do that, that's what a mission does it's perfectly okay for mission-driven organizations like the NAACP to say, "We're just going to give scholarships to Black kids," that's racial discrimination, but it's their mission, so it's okay. That's not against the law, it's based on the Constitution of the United States, and we don't have an argument with that. So, that was fine that they were going to put that in. And they had a bunch of other things in there. Okay, it's been 90 minutes now. Do we have to stop? Can we go another half hour? MF: Yes, let's finish this arc. LB: Okay. So, there's all these different things that are happening, but in essence, Steve and I are watching the people on Council and Gayle is doing what she used to call a bend over, which is where they lean back and they try to talk behind the backs of the other people on Council so they can have a conversation and she's talking to Marty, and I can see her talking to Marty, we knew we had Julio's vote, we had one other person's vote, David Howells wanted to do what the mayor wanted him to, so even though he'd voted no before, we thought that he could be a yes vote. We knew that Hershman was anti, and we knew that Bausch was a stodgy Republican, even though many people would suggest that he's part of the LGBT community. Many people have suggested that, allegedly. So, I think he's still around, lives on 7th Street. So, Steve comes over to me and he goes, "They're going to pass it. We've got four votes. I can see them. I can see the four votes up there." So, Gayle says, "Okay, we're going to vote," and then Julio seconds it, and they vote, and we win. We win the legislation and we're just jubilant. And we felt a lot of positive things about that. I wrote stuff in the Valley Gay Press about it. But the next morning, Frank McVeigh with Citizens for Traditional Family Values files a referendum in the city to overturn the past ordinance. So, the ordinance is in place, Afflerbach signs it into place right away, we have the pens, it's in his signed thing, a copy of it is in our waiting room on the third floor, because I kept it, of the Bradbury-Sullivan Center. And we were happy. But right away, we knew that they were going to do this. So, the City of Allentown has an opportunity for people to be able to create a ballot initiative referendum on the ballot by getting 2,000 signatures of registered Allentown voters saying that they want something to happen. So, McVeigh gets his band of hatemongers -- and they really were -- to put together a petition. They filed a formal petition and they're required to carry around the legislation itself and then get the 2,000 signatures. So, they get about 15 people to do this. And one of them was Lou Hershman who was on council at the time. He said he was going to do this. Bausch didn't do it, which I think was good, at least, that he didn't do that. So, this is the interesting part, actually. They had these people, they were running around. The way the procedure works is, they have 50 days, or maybe 40 days, to get 2,000 signatures. Yeah, this is right. They have 40 days to get 2,000 signatures. Then, the other side, our side, gets 20 days to disprove the signatures. Then, they get 10 days to go back and get more signatures to undo the disproved signatures, and we get five days to disprove those signatures. It all comes out to about 70 days, which was 70 days in hell. So, luckily, we have our big house. We know that Frank McVeigh is running around town getting people to sign this petition. And I start thinking, "What are we going to do about this? We've got to get people to not do it." And so, we work hard to try to stop people from doing it. At one point, I figured that he has done this in his own neighborhood, which is in the west side of Allentown, the northwest side, he's on 19th Street, the northwest side of Allentown. And I actually went door-to-door in his neighborhood just asking people to not sign the petition. It was very hard to do. I still feel uncomfortable about going in that neighborhood at all. Some people said, "Oh yeah, I think I signed that." I mean it was horrible. But the thing that happened was we will begin to realize that he was being successful. He was getting a lot of signatures. And I was sitting at my computer one day at my office in my house, because we were doing this all out of our house, and all the sudden, I saw that the Senior Fest was happening in the city of Allentown. And I thought, "McVeigh's going to be at the Senior Fest. He's going to be working the room to get seniors to sign this thing." The Senior Fest is three days. So, I just drop everything, and I run over there, and in the parking lot is Frank McVeigh. He's there. Trish and I are there. So, I said to Trish, "You, keep him busy," and I rushed back to our house and I sent out an email, and that's all I could do, was send an email to my list and I said, "Emergency, we need supporters to come immediately to Ag Hall's parking lot, immediately, to show up. I need people to back me up." I get back there, and by the time I get there, Steven Ziminsky, Joe Canto, and [Tom Andy?] were all big, tall, heavy guys, very sweet guys. One of them is a schoolteacher. Steven Ziminsky was a music teacher in Allentown City School System and he was a teacher then. And they said, "Here we are." And they stood behind me, and every time somebody walked up to McVeigh, he would try to get them, I would follow him up and say, "Please don't sign that." I'd just keep doing that, "Please don't sign that. Please don't sign that. It's really anti," and people would say, "I don't want to deal with this at all." Well, great. That's what we wanted. The next day, we go to the Senior Fest, and we go in and we see that Pat Toomey, who at that time was our congressman, had a Congressional table, and Frank McVeigh was running the table, and I saw him get somebody to sign the petition. Now, that's a completely illegal thing to do. Completely illegal. To push biased legislation from a taxpayer paid table. Trish and I are both there. So, I go over to the Republican table where they were registering people to vote, and I scream at the top of my lungs, "How dare you have my taxpayer money supporting that guy over there. He's working on anti legislation. He's breaking [every law for me?]," and I'm doing it and doing it and doing it, I'm yelling and yelling, and they're like, "What are you talking about?" I said, "There's a guy over there doing that." So, they go over to McVeigh and they say, "You can't do this here. Stop it. You cannot do this here. You're going to get us all in trouble. You're not allowed to do this. You're going to get Pat Toomey in trouble." And McVeigh was actually a Democrat. And by the way, I remember standing at one point at the table keeping people from signing him and I said, "You know, aren't you divorced? And you say because you're Catholic that's why you're anti-gay?" And he said, "Well, I tried to get the church to annul it, but they wanted 10,000 dollars." I said, "You're just so full of crap. You walk out on your family," he goes, "I didn't walk out on my family," I said, "Look, I've never been divorced and you're telling me that my relationship is no good." I would have said anything to him. And at one point, Trish was standing with him, and she says to Frank McVeigh, and remember, this is a 70-year-old guy. She's standing there, and Frank McVeigh turns to Trish and she was older then, it was a while ago, and he says to her, and I think this was the most telling thing, he says to her, "Aren't you embarrassed that you're a lesbian?" See what that means? Because somebody said to me, "Why is McVeigh doing this?" And I said, "Why do you think? Who is the person who has the most hate for LGBT people? It's internalized homophobia. Nobody does this unless it's internalized. Nobody goes this far unless it's internalized." So, we call Steve, who was a brilliant strategist. So, he, that night, goes to the bar. He goes to the Stonewall and he gets all these people at the Stonewall to call Pat Toomey's office on Monday morning, dozens of people, over and over and over again, every office, "How dare you use my taxpayer money to be able to do this. I'm going to bring ethics charges against you in the state of Pennsylvania for allowing people to do this," and I said, "Steve, how did you get all these people?" He goes, "I'm a bar queen. It's one of my strengths." He worked both bars. He went to Diamonz and Stonewall, and he got literally dozens of people. And they were hilarious. [Donna Masara?] was recounting to me how she had called and had just screamed on the phone at Toomey's office, at both their Harrisburg office and their local office. Pat Toomey, he's a congressman, calls Steve up and says, "How can I get people to stop calling my office?" And Steve says, "This is how you do it. I want you to write to us a statement that we can put on a letter to everybody that signed this petition that says, 'Pat Toomey does not support the overturning of this ordinance, and that the current ordinance should stay in place.'' So, we got him and State Senator Pat Brown and State Representative Jennifer O'Mara. Pat Brown is a Republican, Jennifer O'Mara's a Democrat, she was our State Representative. And the mayor of Allentown, and four city councilmembers, and the head of the Human Relations Commission, and the chief of police, and all of them signed this letter. And we had this letters and we were using it to hand out to people. We would say to people, "Look, you know some of these people. You voted for somebody on this list. They don't want you to sign this petition." And that's what it said. And Pat Toomey said, "Yeah, go ahead. Put my name in it. I don't disagree with this to overturn legislation that's already been in place, especially by misrepresenting it in my space." So, okay. Now we begin to find out that McVeigh is lying to people about what this ordinance is about. And all the other people that are working with him, none of them were as good as he. He ended up getting 1,000 signatures, and the rest of them, altogether, got about 1,500 signatures. And there were 14 of them and one of him. And another thing that happened was that one of the days to get people to sign that kind of petition is during the primary because you had to have registered voters do it. So, if you're standing at a polling place that person that's coming into vote is absolutely registered to vote so you can count on them being registered to vote. So, he and some of his people, he had a woman named [Diane Barra?] who was really active in doing this as well, she was involved with Saint Peter's and Paul's Catholic Church [on Saint John's Street] and she was working that area. And McVeigh was working his neighborhood and he was trying to get people. Well, we got 70 volunteers to cover every single polling place in the Lehigh Valley, in Allentown, keep just say, "Don't sign that petition," and to be sure that their people wouldn't be there to get these signatures. Because if they weren't registered voters, their signature was no good. So, they had to get registered voters. And it's hard to guarantee that people are registered voters, or even from Allentown when you're just on the street or something like that. We had an enormous group of people that were doing this, very, very significant. And Roberta Meek trained all of the people who were doing this. She helped us to do that, to train everybody to act in the right way to people in a positive way, so all of these people that were our volunteers were trained to be pleasant to people, but to say, "Please don't do that," to not be aggressive and not be inappropriate. And we began to raise money for this campaign to make this happen. Gayle Hoover was speaking publicly in a positive way for us. So, did Roy Afflerbach, the mayor. But they were telling people, "This will give you a chance to vote in favor of gay rights." Well, we were finding that McVeigh, what he would do is, he would go into somebody's driveway and he'd look at the bumper stickers on their car, and then he would tell them when he'd go into the door, the petition was about that issue, "This is about green space." "This is about literacy." "This is about honoring Jesus." "This is about pro-life." And they were saying, "I'm pro-life, sign this petition." And they were saying this. We were finding, now, that his people were taking it and putting it as the Bingo sign-in sheet at Catholic churches. They were telling people, "If you don't sign this you won't be able to vote in the next election." It was complete voter fraud. It was absolutely illegal to do that. They were saying to people all sorts of different things and the most dastardly was, this would allow people to vote on a ballot for gay people to have rights. Well, we already had the rights, it was to vote against the rights. And Diane Varra was particularly heinous. She was scary. She was a scary person in a lot of ways. So, one of the things was, each weekend we would go to churches because they would hit all the Catholic churches ; both of these people were Catholic, and they really believed that they could get people to sign. So, we'd hit the Catholic churches. We would go to Saint Peter and Paul's. Diane Varra was awful. But one time, she came up to me and she hugged me. I said, "Don't touch me. Why are you doing that? You're going to make people so they can't get housing and their jobs. Why would you do this?" And she goes, "Well, this is about separation of church and state." I said, "No, it isn't." And she said, "Well, if people sign this," she had this whole theory about how the Human Relations Commission are judge and jury, and they're legislative. But I said, "No, they're not. That's not true. And it doesn't matter anyway, because all this is going to do is take the phrase that we added into the ordinance out." And she said, "No, that's not what --" I said, "Look, if that is what it is, will you stop doing this?" She said, "Yes." I said, "Give me your petition." So, she gives me the petition, and the legislation is on it. I said, "Everything that's underlined is what's going to be removed. There's nothing in here that's underlined that's going to remove how the Commission runs. So, you're lying to people to get them to do this." It was very scary. And later, someone told me that she, allegedly, somebody told me this, but allegedly, that she had actually, again, internalized homophobia situation, where she has been involved with somebody, had been thrown out of her church and then some other things. She'd try to have these serious conversations and I didn't want to talk to her. She was scary. And she was lying, too. But they're getting more and more signatures, it's really scary. But our plan was at that point, once they have all the signatures, then it becomes public information. We can get the signatures and we can try to disprove people who may have signed more than once, or may have not been Allentown voters, or not actually lived in Allentown. So, the next thing that happens is that I get a telephone call from a guy named Dan Anders. He lives in Philadelphia and he was a lawyer at Pepper Hamilton, which is an enormous law firm. And he says, "I am going to work for you for nothing." No, he says, "I can help you fight this. I have a lot of experience in doing this. I'm a Constitutional lawyer, I can do all of this stuff. I can help you fight this," and I said, "We don't have any money," and he said, "No, this is a good thing. Not only am I pro bono for you, but Pepper Hamilton will pay me to do it, so it doesn't matter. I'm not losing any money. I can just do it for you, and they'll pay for every aspect of this suit, no matter what we do." I said, "Yay." He said, "Pepper lets everybody do one big, serious case, and this is mine for the year." So, the next step was that he said, "What I'm going to do was, I'm going to create what is known as a legal document that's an unsworn document that you can mail to people, or they can sign, that says they're requesting their name to be removed from the petition. And this is a legal document. It's not notarized, but it's a legal document. And so, now, when you go around to people, you can get them to remove their name in this way. You don't just have to disprove them ; they can remove their name." So, the next stage was that they filed petitions and hundreds of people, literally hundreds of people, volunteered to come into our house, take the petitions and manually enter them into a format where, because they were handwritten, and manually enter them into spreadsheets so that we could track the names and addresses of these people and then write the telephone numbers. Then, we would call the people, ask them if they wanted to have their name taken off the list, and then if they said yes, I or another Allentown resident, would go to their house and have them sign this removal thing. Well, after about three or four days, we had 150 of those things. No, we had about 100. So, we went to have a press conference to say that we were fighting this referendum. So, we went to City Hall, and this is a great story. It's going to go on for a while, though. So, we go to City Hall, I'm upstairs at City Hall, which is where the City Clerk is, Mike Hanlon. And I think he still is city clerk, he's a great guy. And we are going to present these 80 documents, or 100 documents that say, "I want my name off the petition." Now, the anti people also showed up. We had the news there, and we had the TV cameras, and we had the Morning Call, and also the other newspaper that was in Allentown at that time. And I had people to speak. One woman, she was a Catholic mom, she had eight kids in her house, and they're all teenagers. And I said, "Well, you signed this petition," she said, "I didn't sign that." I said, "No, you did. I have this thing," and I said, "I can tell you what day it was and the person who signed it, it was a guy named Frank McVeigh, this is what he looks like, here's a picture of him." She goes, "He didn't tell me what that was about." I said, "That's to remove the rights of gay people." She said, "I would never have signed that. I have nephews who are gay." And then, one of her kids came in, it was a teenager, she said, "Can you believe that somebody would get me? This is terrible." And I said, "Well, would you speak in front of cameras to say that?" And she said, "Yeah, I would. I would. I'm very angry that I did that." And actually, a woman who ended up to being on school board and then on council, Jeanette Eichenwald had signed because she had been told that it was about freedom of speech. And so, she wasn't there for that thing, but I did have another young woman who was told at her church, she was instructed to do it by her priest who believed that it was for gay rights. And it had been misrepresented and she said, "I would not have signed this. I think that's wrong." And she was a young Latino woman who lived on 7th Street, she had a whole bunch of kids, and she came and she spoke. And then this woman, this mom, this Catholic mom. And so, one of the reporters said, "Well, why did you sign it? What did he tell you to get you to sign it?" And she said, "Well, I'm in favor of that piece of legislation," and he said, "What are you talking about?" And she said, "Well, he told me it was about green space." And that was a huge, significant thing, because she's like, "I'm in favor of green space, of course I would sign a petition like that. He told me that's what it was about." So, now that's happened. So, now all the people who are typing, and Beth Goudy was one of the people, Reverend Goudy, they were amazing during the time. Beth went by she, then. They were amazing during that time. And Beth Goudy can type faster than anyone. She could have done that as a job. And she was one of the main people. And she was entering this data, pages and pages, there were thousands of pages of things. She was really good. And [Stott Lobner?] was doing it, and we had a whole bunch of people that were working on that end. And then, we had people who would get the names, they would look up the persons in stacks of telephone books we had around, to get their name and telephone number. Then, they'd get their telephone number, then they'd call them up and say, "Did you mean to sign this?" And if they said, "No," then we'd go get it. Now, that was a very hard thing to do. Roberta Meeks daughter-in-law, Jenna Azar, who works at Muhlenberg, she is straight, and she said, "This is not bothering me as much as the other gay people," but one guy, Earl Schneider, he was there and we had rooms throughout the house set up with phone lines. Because we had four landlines and then people just were beginning to have cell phone so some people could call on cell phones. But you had to pay for cell phone calls, for every call you made. But people would come in with their cell phones to do that, too. But people were on the landlines and they'd have these lists, and then they'd call the people. Every time we finished a list, then other people would look up the telephone numbers, and then that person would take the list, and they would make the calls. If you call one person and they were anti-gay, "I want my name to stay on there, I hate you gay people," and then you called another one, and that person said that, too, and then you called another one, and that person said that, too, you couldn't do it anymore. It was the end of it. It was too devastating. And every person who had that many people in a row do that, made people devastated. It was just devastating. Unless they were straight. And then it just made them mad. So, the straight people allies that were doing this, like Jenna Azar said, "It's not affecting me because it's not me. They're not talking about me it's just making me mad, so it makes me want to call more people." Most people said, "I didn't sign that," and then they'd say, "Well, you did," and then most people we could get on the phone, at least half of them would take their names off. It was hard enough to get people on the phone. But in those days, we didn't have cell phones. We couldn't have done it if it was cell phones, because we can't get people's cell phone numbers. And people don't answer the phone if they don't know who it is. Then, everybody would answer the phone. So, we would just keep doing that and doing that. Sometimes people would call us back. We'd leave a message and people would call us back and say, "I didn't mean to sign that, I want my name off of it," and then we would deal with it. So, now we were getting more of the sheets. But we finally got to the point where we had entered every one of the 2,500 names, it was a little bit over 2,500 into a spreadsheet. And we did a mailing to every one of those people. And the mailing had the unsworn statement, and then an explanation of what happened, and a letter that came from all of those people that they knew, the chief of police, and all these different people, saying, "You should take your name off it." And we mailed out the letter. We had all these people working to make the letter and mail it, and everything. So, we sent it out in a big, bulk mailing with a stamped envelope in it, with a stamp on it, so people could just sign the thing and send it back. And some of the people who were calling, I remember [Carol Pasquale?] she was talking to a guy and she said, "What? Well, donations," and the guy said to her, "Where are you getting so much money to be able to do this?" And she said, "Donations." Some people would be very negative when we'd call them, and they'd be really horrible and we'd be shocked by that. It was painful when that happened. I tried not to do it because it was hard enough when we went to the churches and the people would just say horrible things. I have to backtrack on this. One time, we were at the Cathedral Church, and we would go and McVeigh was there, and he had this guy who was a man who was Black, which is significant, I can't remember his name, but he had worked in the effort in Cleveland to overturn their non-discrimination ordinance that had happened about eight years before. And this guy, who didn't live in Allentown, so he couldn't really do as much activism as a person who was in Allentown, and he couldn't speak to council and stuff like that he looked like a ringer." He had gone to Liberty University where they actually say that white people and Black people are not allowed to marry while they're students there. And he was married to a white woman. The whole thing was so weird. And so, at one point, he told McVeigh -- or he was going to videotape us all as we worked to try to get people to not sign. I think this is important to point out because it's anecdotal. And Steven Ziminsky was there, and he was a teacher. And this guy, and I can't remember his name, but he pans over to Steven Ziminsky, and Zaminski goes, like that. He didn't care. He was totally out. He had written letters to the editor about being an openly gay man as a teacher, specifically about the Boy Scouts and how it was negative for the LGBT community. He was out. We were out. We didn't care. So, apparently when he was doing it in Cleveland, people were uncomfortable about being in the video and he thought we would be, and we weren't. And he's standing up at the top of the steps and he drops the camera, and it rolls all the way down the steps, and I'm like, "Well, you know, I think maybe this is God." But all of the things that were happening there had enormous numbers of devastating things, but positive things. So, three things. I'll give you one devastating thing. This woman comes up to me, she's coming out of the church, and she looks, to me, as a gaydar circumstance, she looks like a lesbian. And McVeigh runs up to her and says, "Sign this thing," and she starts to sign. And I say, "Please don't sign that. Please don't sign that. It's going to take rights away from the gay community." And she turns to me, and she says, "This was bad. This was a bad piece of legislation. They never give anybody a chance to even know anything about this, they just passed it," and she walked away, and she had a leash for her dog, which I don't know why she was, but she was angry, she was really angry. But then, a few minutes later, a man walks down the steps, a middle-aged man, an older, like my dad's age kind of thing, and she walks down the steps, he comes up to me and he puts his arms around me and he's crying, and he says, "I love my lesbian daughter. I would never sign something like this." And then I see McVeigh go around the side and there's a nun standing in the corner, an older nun, looked like one of those big, heavy, stereotypical nuns. And she's standing down in the corner of this thing next to the steps. And McVeigh goes up to her with the petition, and she goes, "Psh." to him, and I said to Charlie Versaggi, who was a big donor to that church, he said, "Oh my god, you know, I've given so much money to this church, I could kick a priest down the steps, and they'd still listen to me here. They'd never give me a hard time. That nun is one of my best friends. She would never sign a piece of this stuff." So, there was that kind of stuff happening every day. These terrible things where McVeigh was saying all these things, saying you can't vote and stuff like that. So, now, we have these letters, and we mail them out to everybody. And we do it through the bulk mail place, so it goes really fast and gets to people by the next day. So, we had a big post office box at the hub mail place in Bethlehem, so Steve and I, it's only two days after we mailed the letter, but he goes, "Well, let's go and check the mail, and maybe we've gotten some checks from people, and maybe there's some of these return letters back." And I said, "Well, it's been so soon." He goes, "Yeah, but if people did it right away, we could have a few." So, he goes into the post office, I just pulled up to the post office because he was going to go get the mail and just come back and jump in my car, so I'm in the car, he goes into the post office. And about five minutes, 10 minutes later, comes back out, and he has a huge thing of envelopes, and he's screaming, "There's hundreds of envelopes in here. There's hundreds of envelopes. These are back to us. These are return envelopes to us." And we're sitting in the car opening them and they're just one after another saying, "I never would have signed this, this is a terrible thing, I'm totally pro," there was about 300 envelopes in that. And every day for the next 30 days, at least for the next 20 days because we needed them soon because I think we only had 20 days to disprove this stuff. So, during that time we're getting this huge number of stuff coming back, many, many envelopes coming back. And it's very significant. We're also finding out that people like Lou Hershman was a total idiot in that he was getting people at his church to sign the stuff, but he was actually filling in the information himself. And in some instances, he would get them to sign and then he would fill in their address at a later time. He was using his signature, bright blue ink fountain pen, so it showed on every sheet. And sometimes, he would forget and write in his own address. And he did it over, and over, and over again because he just wasn't thinking. He was just being nutty. And he wasn't telling people what it was about. He was making them think that it was his petition to be able to run for office. But he had actually signed some people's names. We could tell he signed people's names because you could tell by the pen. And you could tell by the handwriting. And so, I actually went to David Howells Sr., and I said, "Does Lou Hershman know that if he's misrepresented this, he could go to jail for doing this by signing people's names?" So, he actually told Louie Hershman that, and he reported back to Gayle that Hershman was devastated. He actually blanched and was sitting with his head down thinking, because he knew he had done it. At one point, Ricardo Montero who published the Latino newspaper, El Torero, was notoriously antigay. And Montero and his daughter, who was an adult, were very, very vocally anti this and they said some terribly negative things about Julio, really rude things, implying he was gay and implying he was a child molester, and all sorts of things like that. So, Montero was notorious for this. He was very, very conservative, and oddly, because most Latinos are not that conservative. In this city, most Latinos are Democrats. But he wrote in his paper a lot of editorials that were very negative. And we met with him on call about that, because The Morning Call disbursed El Torero, they gave them away free and we went and said, "Now, this is wrong for you to do this," because The Morning Call had a very positive editorial for us, and so, "This guy is doing this and why are you giving out this paper for free?" they weren't paying him. So, they discontinued it. They stopped giving out El Torero for free. There was another Latino newspaper in town, and we contacted them. And [Maria Lavandere?], who did all of our translating for us, was really terrific in being able to do outreach. She worked at one time, with CASA Guadalupe, and then did lots of really good translating because she could understand a lot of idioms that were from various different communities that different Latino communities would use. And she was one of the main volunteers, too. [Laura Guiteras?] worked with us in every part of us and fundraising and everything, so she created a system that we could enter the names of people who took off their names on the sheet and that we could track the people so that every time we were entering their names and taking off the names and saying, "These are the people," and then we'd make a notation, "Name removed," and Trish and I were going for the voter place, and it was a very complicated than that she created but it was easy to use, this instrument that Laura created. We went to City Hall to the voter registration and found that loads and loads of the people were not registered to vote, many, many of them were not from Allentown. You could see by their addresses that they weren't in the city. They lived in Emmaus, or something. Multiple people, because they were told this was different things, they signed many, many times. Trish went to the house of one guy who said that he was a World War II veteran and that he had been in a foxhole with a gay man who had saved his life, and he would never ever have signed this thing. And he was honoring this person. It was very serious stuff. So, now we're getting all of this mail back and we're being very successful. And we've gotten hundreds and hundreds of letters back, I think we may have had about 700 of the things back by now. We've had enough to nullify their petitions. So, we're going to Dan Anders, our lawyer, now to support us taking those petitions to Mike Hanlon, who was the City Clerk, to decide whether or not to take the names off based on these letters. So, I said to the city, "Do you need any kind of ability to determine whether or not these are real signatures?" Because after all, how do you know where the petition is? We had developed a system based on all of the petitions which were physically in their offices, but we had copies of, to figure out how to designate and find the name of each person. Frank McVeigh had maybe 12 petitions, and then most other people had one or two. So, there would be a sheet of names and it would say on it, "This is McVeigh number one," and McVeigh number one is the one that has the first signature is this person's name." And so, if we say that this person is taking their name off, they are on McVeigh number one, line 17. So, what Mike Hanlon did was, he ultimately said, because he had hundreds and hundreds, so he couldn't check everyone, so he checked every tenth one, and every tenth one was absolutely there. The name was there. And so, he figured that they were all legitimate and there wasn't one single one that was a fake petition, because they claimed that we could have faked the petition. And in the meantime, they had done articles and stuff that made them look terribly bad. They'd done an article with a young reporter from the other paper, it was called the Allentown Times. And he had audiotaped all these things, and he'd printed what they said, and then they insisted that he had made up the things, and he hadn't. He hadn't. He had the tape of them speaking and stuff. And Diane Varra wrote a letter to the editor at one point that was so fraught with lies that The Morning Call wouldn't print it. It was just inflammatory and wrong. At one point, I contacted a woman, I called her and she said she wanted her name off of the petition, so I went to see her and she was over in an interesting part of town. She's an older woman. And she said, "A lot of people wanted to tell me stories about how they were not racist," and she was telling me because she didn't believe in discrimination. She said, "I can't understand. I don't know how my name got on this petition." And I said, "Well, maybe you were told it was a Bingo sign-in sheet." She said, "No, that wouldn't have happened." And she said, "I want you to know that when I was 16, I would go to the canteen for the soldiers and I would dance with the Black soldiers, even though I was white, even though none of the other white girls were because I didn't think that people should be prejudiced against them." And I thought that was so cute. And so sweet. And I said to the woman, "Where did you get this?" She said, "I don't know where this signature --," and I said, "Do you know Diane Varra?" And she said, "Oh yeah, I know her very well." I said, "Well, she got you to sign this." And she said, "Really?" Meaning, you know, Diane Varra who, allegedly, anyway. And I had one woman who said that Diane Varra had pressured her into signing because she went to church every day and she said, "She met me at the church, but I want to take my name off, it was just easier for me to sign because I didn't want her to pressure me, just take my name off. I'm very glad to take my name off." It was interesting. So, anyway, now we have all these letters. So, now Dan Anders says to me -- is there any other stories that I need to tell that are significant? Because there's a million stories. This went on for days and days and days. So, Dan calls me up, and he's calling us every day, and Steve's calling me every day, but mostly Trish and I led this effort. We were really doing this effort. Steve was in Pen Argyl. He really worked on the hate crimes bill, but he was helping us, and he would come up with great ideas but for the most part, we were on the ground here. And Steve really wasn't very good at cajoling volunteers. Now, let me say this. This was one of the worst possible things that you could ever imagine. People would come into our house at 7:00 AM, and they would work on these typing things whenever they had free time and they would stay until midnight every day for 70 days. The only time that we could get away from this was when I would read a book in bed at 12 o'clock because every other minute of the day, I was afraid Frank McVeigh was out getting signatures during this time. And we had all sorts of people working for us to make that not happen, but it was very, very hard. Okay, so Dan Anders says, "Okay, we're going to stop this right now." And I said, "What are we going to have to do?" He says, "We're going to have you bring a lawsuit," me, "against those people, against Citizens for Traditional Values, and it's going to be the first four names of the people on the petitions," and it was McVeigh, and Hartman and it actually says, "Liz Bradbury versus Hartman," was the first name. We'd bring a lawsuit against them saying that they were abridging my civil rights by lying to people, and I would represent the rest of the LGBT community because I live here, and I'd be able to speak and stuff like that. I said, "Okay, do it." I said, "Why is that going to stop them?" He said, "Because we're going to subpoena every one of them, and we're going to make them explain why all these people are saying that they lied to them to get their names. We're going to depose them. We're going to depose everyone." So, people who don't know, when you get deposed, it's like being on the stand. You cannot lie. If you lie, it's perjury. You're there with other lawyers, and now, Pepper Hamilton is paying for all this, and they produced these enormous lawsuits with these booklets and books and stuff, and all this stuff, it's going to cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. The actual cost of it, for Dan's hours and everything, was about 150,000 dollars that Pepper Hamilton ate for us. At least that much. He would normally get 350 dollars an hour, in those days. So, they had a lawyer, too, and their lawyer was part of that Focus on The Family group where they train lawyers to do this kind of anti-gay effort. It was really gay in those days, to be anti-gay laws. And I want to say the thing about Louie Hershman, so don't forget about that. So, he was advising their group of people. And their group of people came to him and said, "We just got these deposition requests. We're going to be deposed." And he said, "Yeah, you better get a lawyer." And they said, "Well, you're our lawyer," and he said, "Well, I can't do this for every one of you. There's 15 of you. I'm working for myself here, nobody's paying me. I'm just working pro bono. I'm not charging you, but nobody's paying me. But you don't have to worry because you didn't lie to these people, did you?" And they said, "Well, what do you mean?" He said, "Well, you didn't tell them that this was about something else, you just said this was to get this on the ballot to remove the law," and they said, "Well, what if we didn't say that?" And he said, "Well then, you may have broken the law. She could win. She could bring a huge lawsuit against you and make millions of dollars. What the hell? Why would you lie to them? That was wrong. You can't do that. You can't lie to people on this kind of thing." Well, McVeigh had lied to hundreds and hundreds of people. But every one of them had lied. And we actually had a guy who's first name was Mark, he was a Methodist minister, I can't remember his last name, and he was one of our spies. And he would go in his minister garb to all their meetings, and then he would tell us what was happening. And he said, "I saw these people and they were as blanched white as could be. They were scared to death. One woman started to cry. And one of the women took her name, signed the thing," she was a petitioner, she took her name off of her own petition by sending in the form from Dan Anders. It was her own thing. She, in effect, is admitting that she lied. And every one of them had had people take their names off. So, we had the ability to prove that they had done this. Well, now they're absolutely petrified. They're absolutely petrified. And the lawyer says, "I can't help you. If you lied to these people, you're really in trouble." Now, we did that because Mike Hanlon did take, just from those letters, and that didn't even count this huge amount of detective work we found, it didn't even count sending him lists of people who weren't Allentown voters, who didn't live in Allentown, who had voted more than once, he didn't even count those. And that was probably another 200 people. So, we were well within that. So, he was going to take all those names off. The next step was, though, that they got another 10 days or whatever it was to go out and get more signatures. Luckily, Frank McVeigh was on vacation, and he went out of state, so he didn't have an opportunity to do that. And the guy who was from Cleveland, the self-loathing guy from Cleveland, allegedly, said to the newspaper, "Well, he's like my best player and he's out of commission," he was out of town. So, they tried to get more signatures. They would have needed, at the very least, to get 150 signatures, and they got 50. Or they got 60. We disproved about, with those letters, we rushed in, set it up, did a mailing to them all, and we were able to disprove another 20 of those. So, they didn't have the number of signatures. And Mike Hanlon presented that to City Council. There was a guy named Ken Kirker, whose initials were KKK, by the way. PATRICIA SULLIVAN: Kirshner. LB: Kirshner. His son and his grandsons' initials were KKK, as well. PS: Karl LB: Karl Kirker, Karl Kirshner. And he was there and he was so angry he ran up the aisle like he wanted to punch Mike Hanlon. Luckily, he didn't live in Allentown, either. But he was so angry he had to be restrained because he was so angry. And they lost. So, they lost. And there were a load of other issues. One of the things that Louie Hershman did at one point, and I want to point this out because this was so based on discrimination, Louie Hershman at one point was at a church in East Allentown, and we went there and he was there. There weren't very many people. He wasn't really getting people to sign this petition, but he was trying to get people to sign the petition. And I went up to him and I said, "Hershman, why are you doing this? You said you would support this." He goes, "Well, you didn't talk about that gender thing." And I said, "But why are you doing this? People would be discriminated against, and you think they should be?" He goes, "Well, I want to protect the Boy Scouts." And I said, "What do you mean by you want to protect the Boy Scouts?" He said, "Well, the Boy Scouts," which had a policy that was anti-LGBT, "they wouldn't be protected." I said, "Give me your petition." And he gives me the petition, and I open it up to the amendments, and I said, "You see this amendment? This amendment that Tom Burke wrote, it says right here, including the Boy Scouts that would be exempt from this ordinance. And you voted for this. You voted for this. So, that's not even an argument. They're exempt from the law." And he looks at it and he goes, "Well, that wasn't on there before." I said, "Lou, you voted for it. You're a bad legislator for this city." He believed that this kind of work would guarantee that he would be elected in every subsequent election. He was never elected again, for any position. Even though he ran, many times, he was never elected again. So, we were successful with that but the next day --. PS: [inaudible] LB: So, I want to go back a little bit and say that one of the things that happened during this was the national organizations, particularly the Human Rights Campaign and one factor of the Victory Fund told us, "Don't challenge the signatures, just let it go into place and let it go for a vote and raise 70,000 dollars and keep people from voting on it." And I said to Trish, "We are not doing that." And I've said this every time since then, ballot measures, which I am totally against in every possible way, there's nothing good about a ballot measure because nobody in the legislature is responsible for it, and when people vote for it, they have no idea what the ramifications are. And then, the legislature, whomever the legislatures are say, "Well, I didn't put it in place, that was a ballot measure. You did it. It's in place." They're never good. They should never be in place. And at one point, I went to take a person's name off who was a prominent Black family in Allentown. I was talking to this woman, she was about my age, and she said, "Take my name off, but I really do think that this should have been voted on by the people." And I said, "No, you don't. You don't think that. Why would you say that?" And she said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Look, you understand about civil rights. Do you think people who -- If you're in a place where everybody that votes is white, do you think they should be the ones who determine whether or not you get the vote? That's not right. You should have the vote, you should have the rights, because everybody has rights in Allentown. Everybody has rights in the United States. This is a Constitutional thing. This is a civil rights thing. This isn't something that's decided by the majority, because the majority is always in power." And she says, "Yeah, you're right. You're right." Anyway, we ask for money from the Human Rights Campaign because we're fighting this on the ground, and Human Rights Campaign rarely does anything. They've never really done anything successfully like this. They've never passed a piece of legislation. The only thing they ever did was, occasionally, they'll give money to other organizations to fight for rights. And I'm very negative about the Human Rights Campaign, and here's why. The day after we passed this ordinance and kept it in place, both the day after we passed it and we won to keep it in place, the Human Rights Campaign sent out a fundraising letter saying, "Allentown has passed this antidiscrimination ordinance, we are so proud that these rights have passed, please send us money." And they did it on both instances. Now, the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce did send us two people who had fought this kind of effort in Maine, and they were working on a campaign of another legislature, and they came to us. They came in our kitchen and said, "Do not let this go to a vote because you will be at each other's throats. You will hate this city," and it's true. If you're walking down the street, even if you win, if six out of 10 voters voted for my rights, when I'm walking down the street, every time I pass by 10 people, I'm going to think four of those people didn't vote for my rights. I wouldn't want to stay in this city if that's the case. And that kind of stuff happens all the time, if the city has barely voted for your rights. And then, we went into the next phase, and that was the lawsuit. Should I stop here, or should I go on? MF: I think we should stop, but I'm curious about the lawsuit and I wonder if we could schedule something for next week and maybe start there. LB: Sure. So, the lawsuit story is shorter because we weren't fighting it. But it went on for quite a few years. I just want to say one more really important thing. During those 70 days, I actually lost 17 pounds. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I was absolutely hysterically worried about everything. And this is why. If we had lost that, if we hadn't done what we'd done, because the depositions made it so that they would never do it again because they were afraid. Anti-LGBT people can never get other people, the general public, to be anti-LGBT people unless they lie. They have to lie to be able to get people to hate the minority. They have to misrepresent and lie to be able to do that. And that's exactly what they did. We needed to make it so that they couldn't do that again. They couldn't lie. And we needed to show everybody in the state, "You cannot do that." You can't tell people that this is about using horses for dog meat, or using horses for dog food and have people sign a petition and get away with it. And so, we made it so they couldn't. So, that effectively stopped any petition effort, any referendum effort like this in a local circumstance. And all the time that this was happening, since I was really leading this effort and, for the most part, I was the person who made all of the decisions. We had about 10 people who were absolutely essential to make this happen. Certainly, Trish was one, Nadine Anderson was a major component at the churches, Beth Goudy, Steve Black, Laura Gutierrez, Roberta Meek, and certainly Dan Anders, who was stellar, he's a judge now, in Philadelphia. And by the way, when he was successful in this, all the partners at Pepper Hamilton came out of their offices to shake his hand because he was successful in making this happen and it was a big deal because the thing is, it changed precedence across the state. And so did the lawsuit. And all the time that I was worried about this, I thought, "If we fail, every community that gets a nondiscrimination law in place will be at risk. If we succeed, they won't be." And so, I felt like this really, really mattered because it's really easy to pass an ordinance in a place where everybody's for you. But if you're passing one where you have an undercurrent of negativity, you need to show that it can't just be easily overturned. And we did that. But it was really hard. Okay, so that's what I want to say about that. But yeah, the lawsuit stuff, I'm happy to talk about that. That was very significant. And it dovetails into a bunch of other things, including marriage equality. It has to do with marriage equality, too. MF: Well, let's start there. I'll send a few times that would work for me next week. We'll start with the lawsuit. You talked a little bit about the Valley Free Press a little bit today, and I'm curious if you have more that you'd want to say about that publication. LB: Oh, yeah. The paper is a whole other huge thing. I produced that for 18 years. And it had enormous effect for the community. MF: Yeah, so I think we should definitely talk about that, too. If you could just think about this week what a nice arc would be, is the lawsuit a whole 90 minutes, or if the lawsuit leads into something else, maybe you could just think about the structure that would work best for that next one. LB: I think the lawsuit and the paper go together pretty well. MF: Okay. Let's do that, then, next week. I just want to say this was so fabulous to hear this story. You know I've heard it before, little pieces of it at your house for dinner, but this was nice to hear the whole thing. I'm so grateful that you talked with me, today. LB: I'm so glad to talk to you. It was wonderful. I'm very happy that people will be able to hear this story and how significant it is for not just our Allentown community or our Lehigh Valley community, but it really had an enormous impact on the state because I want to say that before the passage of the antidiscrimination ordinance in Allentown, there were six communities, Erie passed it about the same time we did, but they didn't have gender identity in theirs. When we passed this, only six communities had nondiscrimination ordinances that included sexual orientation, none of them included gender identity. Within three months of our passage, Philadelphia passed theirs, immediately addition of gender identity because they were embarrassed that Allentown did it. And since then, 50 communities in the state of Pennsylvania have passed ordinances that have been inclusive. It was really a cascade after that, including three other communities in the greater Lehigh Valley. MF: Well, thank you so much. I'm going to pause on record and then we can talk for a minute. LB: Okay. MF: Thanks, again. [break in audio] MF: Okay, this is Mary Foltz. I'm back with Liz, and we just thought of a story that needs to be recorded from this period, so I'm going to turn it back over to Liz. LB: This is really a definite story, the wonderful Felix Molina who was such an important activist at the beginning part in 1998, when we were trying to pass the ordinance and he was really leading the Human Relations Commission and instigated the first effort to do this, and so, Felix, when he was speaking at the City Council meeting and he gets up to speak, you only get two and a half minutes, and he gets up and he's so angry because council had been doing this long, long meeting after meeting after meeting to discuss the circumstances where a person in the community had a potbelly pig, and they had it as their pet. And literally, four council meetings had been devoted to that issue. And Felix gets up and he goes, and he has a very strong Puerto Rican accent, and he was saying, "You can't even talk about this, you can't even introduce this piece of legislation and you spent weeks and weeks and weeks describing whether pork is a pet or a farm animal, and it's ridiculous." He was furious. And it was ridiculous, because the issue really was, if it was a farm animal, you can't keep it in your house in Allentown. But if it's a pet, you can keep it in your house in Allentown, as though that really mattered. And it had been front-page news. He was furious. He went on and on about it. It was hilariously funny, and brilliant, actually, because it pointed out the absurdity that happens in council all the time. MF: We had to have that story on here. LB: Yes, it was good for his passion. MF: I'm going to thank you again and I'm going to pause the recording. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 02:26:32 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Liz Bradbury, July 13, 2020 Description An account of the resource Liz Bradbury recalls the inner workings of Allentown’s non-discrimination ordinance, PA GALA’s impact in local elections and national lawmaking, and their lawsuit against Citizens for Traditional Values. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LGBT-17 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-07-13 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs. https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/3162bb3c835c18fd05f6afe6e3c9e236.png e9b93323a6c929b9ac22e6d50d678460 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Description An account of the resource This collection began in 2019 with the initial goal of collecting ten oral histories from older adult LGBT people in the Lehigh Valley. Topics explored include the childhood experiences of LGBT people, experiences within educational and religious institutions, coming out stories, understanding of the gay liberation movement (1960-1980s), experience of the early years of the AIDS epidemic and AIDS activism (1980s-present), and experience with the fight for marriage equality. The project has been a collaborative effort among faculty and librarians from Cedar Crest College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College, and members of the local community, under the direction of Dr. Mary Foltz, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University and Co-Director of the South Side Initiative. <br /><br /><em> The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.</em> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Mary Foltz Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Liz Bradbury OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-16.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 July 2, 2020 Liz Bradbury, July 2, 2020 LGBT-16 1:50:53 LVLGBT Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive Collection Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Liz Bradbury Mary Foltz video/mp4 BradburyLiz_20200702_video.mp4 1.0:|25(11)|62(4)|83(10)|106(16)|129(15)|156(11)|183(16)|212(11)|243(7)|270(7)|293(11)|324(6)|353(5)|378(11)|403(14)|434(13)|463(9)|490(11)|519(12)|544(13)|573(2)|598(2)|625(5)|650(3)|673(2)|702(4)|731(10)|760(4)|783(4)|804(2)|827(11)|854(16)|881(10)|904(3)|927(10)|956(10)|987(15)|1020(5)|1047(12)|1068(10)|1099(13)|1128(14)|1153(13)|1186(5)|1215(11)|1246(6)|1275(5)|1300(7)|1323(7)|1352(10)|1379(4)|1408(14)|1435(7)|1464(9)|1495(11)|1522(16)|1547(3)|1572(6)|1599(13)|1628(8)|1657(4)|1682(11)|1705(3)|1724(13)|1751(12)|1780(4)|1811(3)|1834(16)|1863(4)|1888(15)|1909(10)|1938(15)|1967(5)|1994(5)|2023(11)|2054(3)|2077(13)|2108(5)|2133(5)|2162(6)|2189(8)|2216(6)|2243(16)|2274(14)|2301(8)|2326(11)|2353(8)|2382(4)|2413(6)|2444(3)|2469(3)|2494(6)|2521(13)|2542(6)|2565(16)|2594(8)|2623(6)|2648(8)|2675(6)|2702(4)|2725(4)|2750(2)|2775(17)|2804(8)|2835(2)|2858(9)|2887(9)|2906(7)|2929(7)|2952(11)|2981(5) 0 https://youtu.be/zUyMG9-SpyY YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz and I’m here today with Liz Bradbury to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and we’re meeting on Zoom because there’s a pandemic going on. Today is July 2, 2020. And I wanted to start by saying Liz, thank you so much for your willingness to speak with me today.&#13 ; &#13 ; LIZ BRADBURY: I am so glad to be here. I’m raring to go. 0 118 Early Work on LGBT Activism in the Lehigh Valley MF: Okay. Wonderful! So, we’ll go ahead and start the interview, and I’m wondering Liz, if would you mind telling me a little bit about the early years of your life?&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Nope. [laughs] I am perfectly willing to do that, but I really prefer to talk more about right now. I’ll talk about that another time, because, you know, my life is so fascinating, I don’t think it’s drastically different than many other privileged young people, white young people in Connecticut in the 1960s, but I do want to talk about, I want to start by talking about what happened when we started to work on activism, LGBT activism, here in the Lehigh Valley, and when I met Patricia Sullivan, Trish Sullivan, my wonderful beloved partner 33 years ago, and talk about how we worked with other people in the community to further HIV/AIDS work and, but particularly LGBT civil rights work and stuff like that. So, should I just do it [laughs]? 0 281 1993 March on Washington LB: And so, one of the things that happened was that in 1993, we had done a little bit of stuff, we were aware of some events that were happening. FACT was having some events, Fighting AIDS Continuously Together, that were fundraising for AIDS, and we went to a couple of things like that, but in 1993 was a big march on Washington. Both Trish and I had been to the March on Washington in 1987, which was enormous. Just very big. &#13 ; &#13 ; We were not together then ; it was just before we met. It was about four months before we met, but we were both there, we probably, you know, in the television video we probably walked right by each other, but there were hundreds of thousands of people there. In 1997 a million people came to Washington, DC to speak out for and to demand equal rights for the LBGT community. And we drove, we had some friends that live in Baltimore, so we stayed there. 0 539 Returning to the Valley / First Pride Festival LB: It was so empowering that what happened in 1994, well at the end of that, all these buses that came back from the parade in DC, back to the Lehigh Valley, groups of people got together, and they began to talk about how we need to have something here in the Lehigh Valley that’s like that, and that’s how the Pride Festival was born. &#13 ; &#13 ; And I believe, because they told me this, that it was [Terry Courtney?] and [Renee Bennett?] who talked, they got off the bus and they talked for like two hours, and they said, “This is what we need to do,” and they began to organize various different -- it was a different kind of feeling of organizing. It wasn’t like fighting AIDS, which was really important and very significant, but this was mobilizing groups of LGBT people so that we could get rights, and that’s what that parade was about, and that’s what people were beginning to look at. 0 775 Joining the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters (Eastern PA) / Meeting Steve Black LB: So, we walked around, and we visited a lot of different booths, and one of the booths that was there was a booth by the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, and we wanted to be involved with a political organization, because we firmly believed, and we still believe this, that political change is actually the most significant. &#13 ; &#13 ; To make political change requires political action. And you have to work within the electorate, with elected officials and law-making and the courts, and stuff like that. You have to work within that to make that happen. You can’t just have a bunch of fundraiser parties. 0 949 Work with the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters LB: And that was the first start, that always gets a laugh when I say that in public, but so the first thing we did was, Steve said, “I have all these envelopes. I’m doing this to have...” -- I think it was for a fundraiser that he was going to do, sort of a “Meet the Candidate” fundraiser event, and he had about 100 envelopes, and he had labels to put on them with people’s names, and he had collected some mailing lists and stuff like that. He had already done that. 0 1031 League of Gay and Lesbian Voters Dances LB: So, he realized that we were going to be really good volunteers, and we met with him, and we said one of the things we want to do is we want to create a group of events that will bring people together that aren’t bar events. And they can have refreshments and stuff in it, but this would be an opportunity to have a dance. What we really wanted to do was meet more lesbians in town, because we wanted to know more people in the community and have a reason for everybody to get together. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, we created -- Trish and I, and Trish and I really did the work to create a series of dances and events that would be at the Celoron Fire Hall -- Cetronia! Cetronia Fire Hall. See? Good. Trish helped me with that. The Cetronia Fire Hall, out near, it’s just past the park, the Lehigh Parkway. 0 1173 Steve Black One of the things we realized was that Steve, so Steve Black was, he was in his early 30s, maybe his late 20s, he might have been 29 then. He was a lawyer, he had gone to law school, but he didn’t have a lot of confidence in his ability as a lawyer. He did have a little law office that he paid $60 a month for in Bethlehem, and he would do people’s wills and, you know, Powers of Attorney and stuff like that, but he was really not comfortable with the court idea. He didn’t do that kind of stuff. &#13 ; &#13 ; On the other hand, he was a brilliant lawyer. He passed his bar exam the very first time he took it. He was really smart, and he was really politically savvy in a lot of ways. One of them was, he had been on School Board in North Hampton County. He was from Pen Argyl, and his family lived in Pen Argyl, and they owned Black’s Café. 0 1331 League of Gay and Lesbian Voters (Western PA) / Hate Crimes Bill So, Steve wanted us to, he wanted to really organize -- so, let me say this. The League of Gay and Lesbian Voters was run by a guy named Chris Young who was in Pittsburgh, and Chris Young had started the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters to collect voter information and disseminate it to people in the Pittsburgh area, and the Western part of Pennsylvania. &#13 ; &#13 ; And he and Steve had met at a Democratic Committee meeting. Steve had been on School Board in, I guess, the Pen Argyl area, in the Pen Argyl School District, he was on School Board. He was openly gay, so he was an openly gay elected official in the state of Pennsylvania. It was a big deal. It was very early, and he was very openly gay. 0 1582 Organizing the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters in the Lehigh Valley / Voters’ Lists LB: Anyway, I’m digressing here, but Chris was running this organization, he was doing it very well, and he was in Pittsburgh, which is a huge city with three million people, and the only way that he raised money was that he would have these skating parties, and he would charge people to come in, and there were a lot of drag people in skating, it was really terrific, and he had these roller skating parties, and he would make like a thousand dollars at these things. &#13 ; &#13 ; But it was in Pittsburgh, it was 1994, there was nothing else to do that was really queer that wasn’t a bar thing, so it was very, very popular, and he said, “You should do that in Allentown too. That’s how you can raise money. You can make...” Well, [laughs] Allentown’s a little bit smaller than Pittsburgh, in the Lehigh Valley, but we considered that, and we didn’t do it, actually. 0 2061 Creating the Voters’ Guide So, now we had this really comprehensive list and it was from the Eastern part of the state, but we had a lot of names. We ultimately had about 40 thousand names on that list, which was colossal. It was really significant. There were elections that were being won, state-wide elections that were being won with, you know, 400 votes, and we had 40 thousand names. So, it was very significant. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, we ended up working with Chris on League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, and we began to -- so what we would do is, we would collect the voter information. So, we would -- this is the process. 0 2411 Obstacles Faced by the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters (Eastern PA) LB: So, go back a little bit, back to the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, and we’re talking about how it was sort of hard, so we would -- Trish would do a lot of this work all through the time that we were running the organization, she would get the candidates, we would send the questionnaires, they would send the questionnaires back. &#13 ; &#13 ; If we decided that we were going to, we ultimately decided that if we were going to endorse a candidate, we would actually interview them because we wanted to be sure that they understood the questions. 0 3247 Creation of PA-GALA LB: people that there is a person who volunteered named [Gayle Erich?] who happened to live a block from me and Trish, who said, “I am extraordinarily capable with Quark. I use it every minute of every day, and that’s my job.” And she’s a lesbian. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, we go, “Great! Okay, well,” so we go to Gayle. She’s actually quite a, she still lives there, she’s very reclusive in a lot of ways. Hard to get her to be in any situation where there’s more than two or three people, she would never go to a party, she would never come, she would have dinner with us once in a while. Not really like to do that, but she was willing to work. Sometimes you’ll get people who will volunteer, and they’ll do the volunteer work, because they’ll think like, “This is my task. I don’t even have to social. I don’t have to be social. I just do the task.” And she’s a wonderful person, really love Gayle. 0 3484 Gay Skating Parties / Service Electric Ads We had the information, but my father died. We were about to have a fundraiser-- so, I do want to say, let me just digress a little bit and say this: One of the things we did was, we did have the skating parties. We had skating parties at roller rinks, and they were called “Gay Skating.” [laughs] &#13 ; &#13 ; We actually called them “Gay Skating.” You didn’t say “LGBT” in those days, so just like, “Gay Skating Parties,” right? Wasn’t that it? And I made a little, you can see pictures of the different, because we have these things, and we, they were great! I mean, they were like, you know, drag queens would come, and they’d be dancing and skating, and they had, and Steve was a very good skater, and I can’t, I’d never skated because [laughs] I said I like being able to use my arms, and I didn’t want to break anything, and so Trish and I didn’t skate, but the other folks were just, they were terrific, and it was very, very fun. 0 3686 Candidate Nights LB: So, we have Gay Skating, and we did, we made some money from it. It wasn’t as successful as, what we did, was we had Candidate Nights, and we would invite candidates to come and talk to people, and they were often in John Cochran’s office. He was a chiropractor in Bethlehem, and he would let us use his whole big office space, which is enormous area, to have these, and it was great. 0 3746 Father’s Passing LB: So, now we create -- so my dad dies, and it’s two days before a skating party that was going to be in that Morristown skating rink on the Ben Frank – it’s still there, the Ben Franklin Parkway there, and it was all set up, and wonderful Laura Guiteras our good friend, and my dad had died at St. Luke’s, and you know, it was a very calm death. 0 3870 PA-GALA Voters’ Guide LB: Anyway, the thing that happened with Gayle and Trish’s work, that’s not the issue that my dad died. My dad had died, that was the year before. I know this is the chronology. So the next year is when we were not with League of Gay and Lesbian Voters anymore, and we were PA-GALA, and I think that was around 1996, and so Trish and Gayle are working on the new voters’ guide, and it’s very hard, because it’s not just creating the templates, it’s entering all the information into it, because it wasn’t just Lehigh/Northampton, it was seven counties that had all these different -- every town could have a race in it, and in fact we covered every single race, and if people didn’t send the information in, we’d just say no information came in, but if we had people working there, we would have significant information. 0 4032 Death of Best Friend's Husband LB: Then, so they’re working on the guide and stuff, meanwhile we have bought the second house, so we have our second house, and we’re scheduling the guy to break through the walls and put, the new side of the house has no electricity in it, there’s no plumbing, we’ve got holes through the wall, there’s all this dust and everything, we’re working on that, and then my best friend from growing up, who is still one of my dearest best friends, husband suddenly dies. &#13 ; &#13 ; And she called me up, she said, “Paul is very, very sick.” And I grew up with her, she’s like my sister. And I said to her, “What’s wrong?” And she said, “We don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he’s in Mass General, and he’s in a coma, and it’s looking very bad.” So, I was very worried, and I said, “Do you want me to come there?” And she said, “No, but if he dies, I want you to come.” And I said, “Okay.” 0 4435 Getting the Voters’ Guide Printed LB: Now I come back, you know, Trish and Gayle are pretty much done with the thing, and the walls are finished with all the dust and everything, and I’m so sorry. Trish, I was just reminding her about that, and she was going, “Oh yeah, I forgot about the walls. Yeah, that was a mess.” Because everything was covered with dust and everything, and we’re still trying to do all this stuff. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, we produce the voters’ guide. Now we’ve got the voters’ guide, we’re about ready to print it. We take it over to Roblin Press, and Roblin Press is a gay-owned organization that they had done lots of stuff for the FACT guys, and they said, “We’ll print this, we’ll give you a good deal on it,” and they were very generous about this, and then Robin, of Roblin Press, Rob calls me up and he goes, “I just got this fax from Chris Young who says you’re not going to pay your bill.” And I said, “What?!” And he said, “Well, first of all I know that’s not true, but I think you should see this letter.” 0 4810 Voters’ Guide Mailings / Ads for Pride in the Voters’ Guide So, we did two things that happened in the middle of that, and one of them was that we recognized that Pride, which was running its Pride Festival since 1994, wasn’t doing very good outreach to places to tell people when the Pride, even when the Pride Festival was. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, we allowed Pride to print a piece of, a flyer, a folded flyer, that we would put in that mailing that would tell people where, about the Pride Festival, because we were sending it out to 35,000 people, and Steve used to say, he lived in Philly then, he’d say, “People in Philadelphia love to go outside of the city in the summer, so they could go someplace cooler and go to a fun gay event! So, this will be very successful.” 0 5052 Lobbying for the PA Hate Crimes Bill LB: Another thing that happened was, and I was talking about how we collected names, what we did was we were trying very hard to pass the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity to the state Hate Crimes Bill, and that was our first big effort, and that was Chris Young’s thing, he really had wanted to do that, and he had advocated for that, and he was working on that right from the beginning in 1994, and when we were working on it, and one of the things about Steve Black was, he was pretty good at lobbying. &#13 ; &#13 ; One of the things I said that I never really wanted to do was I didn’t want to go to Harrisburg and talk to legislators. I don’t like doing that. I look like a dyke. They’re not comfortable with pushy women. Those kinds of guys aren’t. It just didn’t work very well. And we actually did it a few times, but we did it, we ended up doing it for other reasons. We weren’t really lobbying for -- we were helping people lobby, helping our own community of people lobby, because they would often go, they were nervous, so we would go with them. But we didn’t want to do that. 0 5467 Impact of the Voters’ Guides LB: So, soon we began to see that voter information like this was winning elections. That people who were running for office were very impressed at the number of supervoters that we had. And one time, Roy Offerbach was running for Mayor, and he was running as a Democrat, and he said that he would support the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to the non-discrimination ordinance in the city of Allentown. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, one of the things that people who are running for offices have, is a list of registered voters, and it’s something you buy for your campaign, that’s completely public. And you can actually sort the list to see if they’re supervoters. So, Roy Offerbach said that he was going to share the list with PA-GALA for a couple of reasons, and it had to do with being able to figure out how to send certain information to people. 0 5828 Passing an Anti-discrimination Ordinance in Allentown LB: Meanwhile, while that was happening, in 1998 Trish and I decided, and Steve and Trish and I decided, that it was time to try to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance in the city of Allentown, and one of the reasons we were going to do it in Allentown was because Trish and I lived in Allentown, we had worked on campaigns, we had people that could help to make that happen, and we had the largest number of our people on our list in Allentown. But also, because we lived here. Because you can’t push a piece of legislation unless you have local people. And we lived here. &#13 ; &#13 ; So, the city of Allentown already had an anti-discrimination ordinance that was passed. It was the only city in Lehigh Valley that already had an ordinance, and the ordinance was passed in 1965 in conjunction with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that was in the United States. 0 6109 Assistance from the Allentown Human Relations Commission LB: All of the sudden, the Human Relations Commission of the city of Allentown, and at the time it was the only city in the Lehigh Valley that had a Human Relations Commission, because you have to legislate that, usually with a non-discrimination law. The guy who was the head of the Human Relations Commission of the City of Allentown was a guy named Felix Molina, and we knew Felix. We had known Felix. 0 6200 Interview Time Check /Scheduling Next Interview MF: Well, what I’m wondering, so really, we probably shouldn’t go over 90 minutes, but I’m wondering if this isn’t a good place to stop, because we kind of have that PA-GALA arc right to the Hate Crimes Bill in Pennsylvania in 2002. What if we set up our next interview, we start here with the Anti-Discrimination Ordinance in 1998? I mean, that adding to the Civil Rights legislation, does that seem like a good plan?&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yes. Did I say anything wrong that I should..?&#13 ; &#13 ; PS: No, you didn’t. 0 6314 Closing Remarks MF: Well, I am so grateful to talk to you today, and I’m going to stop recording, but then I want to talk to you for a minute out of the recording. Thank you, Liz! 0 6319 Importance of a Voters’ Guide LB: I want to add at the end of this that that model of, that voters’ guide with that voter information, I firmly believe, and I’m not even done talking about it, but I firmly believe, that if progressives in every state had that kind of organization, we could win every election. We just could. And we did! We changed the entire direction of civil rights and of progressive politics in Allentown because of that thing, frankly. So, yeah. I would love to keep talking about it, and I love talking about this, this is great, and you know I can go on forever, so...&#13 ; &#13 ; MF: Well, Danielle and I talk about that frequently, like if one of us didn’t have a full-time job, we would do that voters’ guide. I mean, every -- I can’t tell you, every time we go to vote, and we’re supervoters, you know, we’ve done our research, but we have friends consistently, even my parents, “Who should we vote for? I can’t find it in The Morning Call.” You know, it’s a huge issue, and you really gave that incredible model and as you already have articulated, it was transformative! 0 MovingImage Liz Bradbury recounts her early activism with the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, the creation and work of PA GALA, and the passing of an anti-discrimination ordinance in Allentown. INTERVIEW WITH LIZ BRADBURRY JULY 2, 2020 MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz and I'm here today with Liz Bradbury to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and we're meeting on Zoom because there's a pandemic going on. Today is July 2, 2020. And I wanted to start by saying Liz, thank you so much for your willingness to speak with me today. LIZ BRADBURY: I am so glad to be here. I'm raring to go. MF: I'm so glad you're here too. So, just to start, could you please state your full name and spell it for me? LB: My full name is Elizabeth Ann Bradbury. E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H, A-N-N, B-R-A-D-B-U-R-Y. MF: Thank you. And will you please share your birth date? LB: 6/15/57. MF: Prior to this interview we talked a little bit about consent and I'm just going to ask you a few questions about the consenting to this interview, so the first one, really basic, do you consent to this interview today? LB: Yes! MF: And do you consent to having this interview transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available in online formats? LB: Yes! MF: Do you consent to the LGBT Community Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, and whatever else might come along? LB: Yes! MF: And do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review the interview, identify parts that you want to delete, or withdraw the interview from the project? LB: Yes. MF: Okay. Wonderful! So, we'll go ahead and start the interview, and I'm wondering Liz, if would you mind telling me a little bit about the early years of your life? LB: Nope. [laughs] I am perfectly willing to do that, but I really prefer to talk more about right now. I'll talk about that another time, because, you know, my life is so fascinating, I don't think it's drastically different than many other privileged young people, white young people in Connecticut in the 1960s, but I do want to talk about, I want to start by talking about what happened when we started to work on activism, LGBT activism, here in the Lehigh Valley, and when I met Patricia Sullivan, Trish Sullivan, my wonderful beloved partner 33 years ago, and talk about how we worked with other people in the community to further HIV/AIDS work and, but particularly LGBT civil rights work and stuff like that. So, should I just do it [laughs]? MF: I will follow your lead! LB: Oh, okay [laughs]. So, Trish and I met in 1987, and we fell in love in 1988, and we made plans as to how we could live together. She was living in Eastern New York, outside of New York City, and I was living here in Allentown. I had just moved here to Allentown in 1987. And so, finally we decided that it would be the best plan, she was going to retire early from her job, to move here to Allentown, so, and to do some things to be able to sustain ourselves. And so we moved into a rowhouse in Allentown that I had already owned, and after about six years we realized although we had LGBT friends, we had gay and lesbian friends that we had met in the community, we didn't feel like we were doing enough activism to support Civil Rights. And both of us really were very firm about being out, and being outspoken, and working for the rights of the LBGT community. We frequently had said in the past, you know, we work for ourselves, and our parents are dead, so what the heck? I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen to us? Nobody, even at that point some of our family was still alive, but our family was supportive. We worked for ourselves ; we weren't going to lose our job. We would often say, like, how could we expect other people to be out if we weren't 100 percent out? So, we started to really do out activism right away. And so, one of the things that happened was that in 1993, we had done a little bit of stuff, we were aware of some events that were happening. FACT was having some events, Fighting AIDS Continuously Together, that were fundraising for AIDS, and we went to a couple of things like that, but in 1993 was a big march on Washington. Both Trish and I had been to the March on Washington in 1987, which was enormous. Just very big. We were not together then ; it was just before we met. It was about four months before we met, but we were both there, we probably, you know, in the television video we probably walked right by each other, but there were hundreds of thousands of people there. In 1997 a million people came to Washington, DC to speak out for and to demand equal rights for the LBGT community. And we drove, we had some friends that live in Baltimore, so we stayed there. You couldn't get a room in Washington. We tried to months -- six months in advance we called the travel agent and said we would give them $400 to get a room for one night [inaudible] [laughs] "Oh, we won't have any problem with that!" And then she -- I could hear her, like, flipping through the thing and then she's going, "There's no rooms! We could get you one in Baltimore." I said, "Well, we know people in Baltimore, we'll just stay with them." So, we stayed with a person, a good friend of ours in Baltimore, we went to the March, and at the same time in Allentown and Bethlehem, the bars -- we're not bar people. We don't drink and we don't smoke, and that was a big problem because people smoked so much in bars then, it was really hard to hang around in bars where people were smoking all the time. But we -- so we didn't know a lot of the bar folks, and we weren't involved with the community that way, but the bars had organized a series of buses to go to The March on Washington in 1993, and we were very energized when we went there. We actually saw people that we hadn't seen for like 10 or 15 years. I saw, like, a really good friend of mine that I hadn't seen. Would you know, there'd be like parades of people walking by. At one point I was on -- Trish and I and our friend Wayne, were on one of those elevated trains going in -- I think we were coming out. It was the end of the day. We were in the train car, and people were just cheering and screaming you know, everywhere you went, on the subways and everything, they were screaming, you know, "We're here! We're queer!" You know, "get used to it!" And then there were parades, and there was like contingencies of veterans and people from all these different states and countries, and there were like, the guys from Canada were saying: "We're here! We're queer! We're cross-border shopping!" You know, it was just, the whole thing was hilarious, and then every once in a while, you'd see some little, you know, white, cisgender, straight family from Iowa who came to Washington, you know, for their weekend. I heard one kid say, "Why are they making so much noise?" And I said [laughs] "Get used to it, kid. This is going to be the whole weekend for you." MF: [laughs] LB: It was really, really fabulous to have it that way. So, we're on this train car and I look over, I was sitting with Wayne and Trish, and I look over and I say, "Oh, there's somebody I went to kindergarten with!" And I went all through high school, and I wave to her, and she jumped up. She came over. She's my Facebook friend now, this is from Connecticut, I grew up in Connecticut, and she came running over and I said, "When we were at the ten-year reunion ten years ago, I KNEW you were a lesbian!" She goes "I wasn't out then! I didn't even, I wasn't out to myself then!" I said, "You shoulda asked me!" So [laughs] and this is a person that I'm I contact with all the time now, because we're Facebook friends, thank goodness for social media, but and that was happening over and over. We saw about 15 people that we knew from all different parts of our lives because we'd been out for a long, long time. Trish's been out since the 60s. So, it was very exciting, and it was very empowering, and brilliant people were speaking from the stage, and you know, it was just terrific. It was so empowering that what happened in 1994, well at the end of that, all these buses that came back from the parade in DC, back to the Lehigh Valley, groups of people got together, and they began to talk about how we need to have something here in the Lehigh Valley that's like that, and that's how the Pride Festival was born. And I believe, because they told me this, that it was [Terry Courtney?] and [Renee Bennett?] who talked, they got off the bus and they talked for like two hours, and they said, "This is what we need to do," and they began to organize various different -- it was a different kind of feeling of organizing. It wasn't like fighting AIDS, which was really important and very significant, but this was mobilizing groups of LGBT people so that we could get rights, and that's what that parade was about, and that's what people were beginning to look at. So, in 1994, that was the first Pride Festival, and Trish and I did not organize that Pride Festival, but we had friends who ran a little ice cream parlor called Jaffrey's at the corner of Tilghman and Seventh Street, and they had been in contact -- they were lesbians, that's one of the ways I got Trish to move here, I said "There's lesbians running a vegetarian ice cream parlor at the corner of Tilghman and Seventh, and I think we could be friends with them," and actually it's pretty much how we know everybody, because I became friends with them, Trish came there, and we're still friends with both of them, even though they're not together anymore, we're still friends with them and they introduced us to almost everybody we knew. All that lesbian camp Girl Scout connection, actually. But [Barb Locke?], who was the head of that restaurant, said that the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which was run by a woman named Rita Addessa, wants us to have a booth at the Pride Festival. They have paid for it, we're going to cover the morning of the booth, and would you cover the afternoon? And I said, sure, you know, what the heck? We'd love to do that. And then I said to Trish, you know, if we do this, there's gonna be lots of booths there. What we should do is work the room, we should go around at all the different booths and figure out which organization we think is really doing stuff that we want to be involved with to make change, and we should volunteer with that organization. So, there's a video in the archives of that Pride Festival, and the person who took the video, which was part of the time was Rob Hopkins, because I've actually talked to him about that, and he -- and I think [John Early?] was the other person who was making the video, and there's a lot of people I know in the video, but I kept thinking, like, where are the rest of the booths? But they sort of stayed up near the stage, and we were farther back from the stage. This was in the park, at Cedar Beach Park in Allentown, that was the first Pride Festival, and that was in 1994. And there were a lot of booths there, it was about 800 people there, it was a significant event, and P-Flag was there, the people from P-Flag, there were people from different corporations, and the Gay Men's Chorus had already started, ACCO which was a lesbian -- or which was a women's chorus, that we ended up to be really good friends with a lot of people that were involved with ACCO, we're still friends with those people. They performed on stage. There were people from the Harrisburg Pride Festival that were there, and there's a video of this happening, and in one section, I watched the entire two-hour video, and in one section way in the back, I'm thinking, "Yeah, I think that's me. I remember those pants." And I was sort of standing off, I was watching the stage, and you could see me there. You could see a lot of other people that were involved in that. So, we walked around, and we visited a lot of different booths, and one of the booths that was there was a booth by the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, and we wanted to be involved with a political organization, because we firmly believed, and we still believe this, that political change is actually the most significant. To make political change requires political action. And you have to work within the electorate, with elected officials and law-making and the courts, and stuff like that. You have to work within that to make that happen. You can't just have a bunch of fundraiser parties. And really, at that time, and Pride Festival was wonderful, a wonderful, wonderful event, but it was never a political event. The thing that it did was it created a framework for loads and loads of different organizations to get together so that people could learn about those organizations, and that's what we were doing. So, we became fascinated by this, the idea that this organization, which was called the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, was producing voter information for voters, specific to how did candidates vote and support specific issues that were of really significant interest to the LGBT community. And really just LGBT issues, so we weren't talking about other progressive issues. We're talking about, you know, gay rights, hate crimes legislation, the potential of registering relationships-- we didn't even talk about marriage then in 1994. And so, at that time, we decided to -- the guy that was running that booth was Steve Black, and we told Steve that we would volunteer with him, and we liked what this seemed to be doing, we thought this was a really good idea: to create voter information and interview candidates and stuff like that, so we told Steve that we would work with him. We saw the paper printed out, so he didn't have a very good booth, but he had like a box of books, and we talked to him for a long time. He was great, and very dynamic. Young, blond guy. He was upbeat. But he spoke very well. Steve Black was a lawyer actually, and he was really very aware. He went to Temple to get his law degree. So, the next part of this was that after the Pride Festival-- Pride Festivals are always very hard, especially if you're working booths, you get very tired at the end of the day. But the next day we talked to Steve about, he said, "I want you to come to," -- I said "We would do work for you. Like, what do you want us to do?" And so, Trish and I, and this is the hilarious part, at that point we said okay we're going to volunteer with this organization, we're going to get involved with this, but the only thing we ever want to do is stuff envelopes. And we really said that. And that was the first start, that always gets a laugh when I say that in public, but so the first thing we did was, Steve said, "I have all these envelopes. I'm doing this to have..." -- I think it was for a fundraiser that he was going to do, sort of a "Meet the Candidate" fundraiser event, and he had about 100 envelopes, and he had labels to put on them with people's names, and he had collected some mailing lists and stuff like that. He had already done that. And he said, "These have to be stuffed, and here's the pieces of paper that go into it." He just gave us all the stuff, and then he said, "I'm going to have a stamp for the return address, and then you can seal the envelopes and then we'll stamp the return address, and then they'll be ready to go, and we then we can mail them next week." This was Sunday, actually. No, it was the Monday after the Pride Festival. So, we brought the stuff home, and we stuffed all the envelopes right then, that night. He said, "We'll get together and stuff them." He always thought that mailings were harder to do than they were, because he hated to do them. So, we stuffed all the envelopes, we put all the stuff in, we didn't have the return address stamps so we just hand-wrote the return address on everything. There were stamps on it. They were all ready to go. So, when he came over and said, "Here, I'll help you to work with this," we said, "We're done! We're done. Here they are." So, he realized that we were going to be really good volunteers, and we met with him, and we said one of the things we want to do is we want to create a group of events that will bring people together that aren't bar events. And they can have refreshments and stuff in it, but this would be an opportunity to have a dance. What we really wanted to do was meet more lesbians in town, because we wanted to know more people in the community and have a reason for everybody to get together. So, we created -- Trish and I, and Trish and I really did the work to create a series of dances and events that would be at the Celoron Fire Hall -- Cetronia! Cetronia Fire Hall. See? Good. Trish helped me with that. The Cetronia Fire Hall, out near, it's just past the park, the Lehigh Parkway. And they had a big space, and a stage and stuff. We had to pay for it. I think we ponied up and paid for it for the first six, I think it was like $100 that we had to rent it each time, and we had a mailing list, and we invited all these people to come, and we had like "Get To Know You" events, and it was sort of a dance, and we had music, and people got to know, and we think we did about six of them. They sort of changed as we were going along. But the first few of them were just that, it was that [Laura Guiteras?] who we already knew helped us come up, because she was part of the Girl Scouts then, she was one of the head people at the Girl Scouts of Greater Leigh Valley, the Girl Scouts council, and she had a lot of games that would get people to be comfortable with each other. We met DJ there. We already kind of knew DJ, but we, you know, you go around with the sheet -- you'd have to check off who has a tattoo. DJ, as you know, has a lot of tattoos. So, she was very, that was DJ Landis -- she was DJ [Golba?] in those days. And Steve was there. And we were getting people's names and addresses on our mailing list. So, the main thing that moved along on this, and this was really significant to recognize, that we began to realize that if we were going to produce this voter information, and that's what we did. We began to see how you produce voter information. How to do fundraising, how to organize people, how to organize volunteers to do mailings and stuff like that. One of the things we realized was that Steve, so Steve Black was, he was in his early 30s, maybe his late 20s, he might have been 29 then. He was a lawyer, he had gone to law school, but he didn't have a lot of confidence in his ability as a lawyer. He did have a little law office that he paid $60 a month for in Bethlehem, and he would do people's wills and, you know, Powers of Attorney and stuff like that, but he was really not comfortable with the court idea. He didn't do that kind of stuff. On the other hand, he was a brilliant lawyer. He passed his bar exam the very first time he took it. He was really smart, and he was really politically savvy in a lot of ways. One of them was, he had been on School Board in North Hampton County. He was from Pen Argyl, and his family lived in Pen Argyl, and they owned Black's Café. And Steve worked and ran Black's Café, but he lived in Philadelphia in the Gayborhood, on Camack Street, and he worked at Susanna Foo's, which is a really fancy, REALLY fancy, five star Chinese restaurant run by this woman named Susanna Foo, who had books and stuff like that, and Trish when she found that out said, "I want you to get" -- She had the cookbook! She said, "Go take this and have Susanna Foo sign the cookbook!" And he was a waiter, and he made a lot of money, and half the week he would work there, and he had a tiny apartment that was about the size of this office. It was just one room, on Camack Street, and then he had, then he would stay at his mother's house in Pen Argyl the other half of the week and run Blacks' Café with her. She ran it the other part of the week. And, I have to say that I don't think he had a terrific relationship with his family. They weren't very positive about his being a gay man. They were kind of in denial about that. His mother was married to someone who was very, very conservative. Not his father. And he had to sleep on the couch, I mean, it was very uncomfortable, but he did that for a long time. He did that for several years. So, Steve had figured out how to do some very significant fundraising by like, if he'd have a cocktail party for his -- if he had a birthday party, he'd make everybody pay to come in, and then he would donate all the money, and he would have the party, he did that all the time. But he wasn't great at fundraising. It turned out that we were much better at it. So, Steve wanted us to, he wanted to really organize -- so, let me say this. The League of Gay and Lesbian Voters was run by a guy named Chris Young who was in Pittsburgh, and Chris Young had started the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters to collect voter information and disseminate it to people in the Pittsburgh area, and the Western part of Pennsylvania. And he and Steve had met at a Democratic Committee meeting. Steve had been on School Board in, I guess, the Pen Argyl area, in the Pen Argyl School District, he was on School Board. He was openly gay, so he was an openly gay elected official in the state of Pennsylvania. It was a big deal. It was very early, and he was very openly gay. And so, he met Chris, and Chris told him about this organization and asked him if he would run the Eastern part. So, that's why he was in the booth for the Pride Festival. They knew the Pride Festival, and Steve said, "Yeah, I'll be the Director of the Eastern part of the state." And Chris was a very savvy tech person. Remember, this was 1994, so this was just the beginning of the internet, just the beginning of email. Most people didn't have email. We had a computer, it was like, you know, the, it was a Mac Classic, it was like, you know, and the printers were those "eh-eh" digital ones, and everything was dial-up, and it was very, very slow still, but Chris had a lot of ability to do high-tech things, because he worked for a university, and he had a lot of savvy for that. So, he talked Steve into doing this, and Steve was very excited about that, and he wanted to do this, and he realized the potential of gathering really cohesive and really clear information about where candidates stood on issues, and then giving that to voters. Because, so, let me say that the model of this was that we would not just talk about presidential candidates or senators or congress people. We were going to talk about and give people information about every single office they would vote for. You know, School Board, City Council, Rural Boards of Supervisors, Row Offices like, you know, the Auditor of Deeds, the County Clerk's Office, any elected office. The Coroner's Office. And the model was there were these questionnaires, that we worked on the questions, and the questions evolved, depending on what the issues were and stuff, and there were instances, there were votes and stuff in the state with regard to pieces of legislation, particularly on the Hate Crimes Bill, that was one of Chris' big things. He wanted to pass the Hate Crimes Bill. Actually, in the state of Pennsylvania, we have what's called the "Ethnic Intimidations Act." It is a Hate Crimes Bill, and it has a list of protected classes, but it doesn't include sexual orientation and gender identity, nor does it include a couple of other classes that should have been included, and Chris, his initial thing was he wanted to get the legislature to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the law. So, Steve also said that you know, that was a good idea, and we could do a lot of lobbying from that point of view. Hate crimes law is hard to argue with, and so it's a very positive thing. And one of the things we would say to people, is they'd say, "Well, that doesn't make people to stop hating people." I said, "Well, one of the things about passing a Hate crimes law, is there is not one single piece of legislation at that time, in the state of Pennsylvania, or any mention state-wide of sexual orientation and gender identity. Gay people don't exist for this state. Once we pass the Hate Crimes law, then we say, 'Well, you shouldn't beat them up. Well, if you shouldn't beat them up, don't you think you should also not discriminate against them in employment?' You open the door for that." Anyway, I'm digressing here, but Chris was running this organization, he was doing it very well, and he was in Pittsburgh, which is a huge city with three million people, and the only way that he raised money was that he would have these skating parties, and he would charge people to come in, and there were a lot of drag people in skating, it was really terrific, and he had these roller skating parties, and he would make like a thousand dollars at these things. But it was in Pittsburgh, it was 1994, there was nothing else to do that was really queer that wasn't a bar thing, so it was very, very popular, and he said, "You should do that in Allentown too. That's how you can raise money. You can make..." Well, [laughs] Allentown's a little bit smaller than Pittsburgh, in the Lehigh Valley, but we considered that, and we didn't do it, actually. But so, he had created this model, and Steve thought it was a pretty good model, and it was. And a lot of that stuff is in the archives now. Some of the earliest voter guides that are from the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters. So, Steve said to me and Trish, "I want you to be the coordinators of the Lehigh Valley. I'll be the Executive Director, and we'll try to get other people that will coordinate other parts of the Eastern part of the state." And we did it by two county areas. So, Lehigh/Northampton was our area, and we were the coordinators of that. But we also helped Steve make a lot of big decisions about what was going to go on in the community. We're almost done. No, so [laughs]. I'm only talking about this very beginning part. So, the main thing that happened then, and I'll talk about the Voters Guide in a second and how we ultimately became PA-GALA, but at that point, we were becoming very, very aware that Steve's lists of people were just piles of paper that had like people's names that he was trying to put into a sort of Excel format, and he had some names in Excel, and then he had like stacks of cards and junk, and you know, and I said, "You know, we have to get this list together," because no one had a queer list of telephone numbers and contact information and addresses, and we had to mail things to people, so we really needed to be able to have an automated list. So, one of the volunteers that we had was a woman named Joan [Tadero?] and she now lives in New Hope, but she was living in Easton then, and she worked for a company that was very high tech. And Joan, who was a wonderful activist at that time, I'm so sad that she moved out of the area, said, "You know, if you get me that stuff, I will scan it into a list." Because, and that was just the dawn of scanning capabilities. And nobody had -- you couldn't scan anything yourself. You had to have a big thing to be able to do that kind of stuff. And I said, "Okay, well, let's try to do that." Well, the thing is that Steve was scared to death that if he left, gave me the list, or he gave Joan the list, he would lose the list. It would get lost. He also, finally I said to him, "Is this, the reason that you're not giving this to me because you're afraid it's going to get lost, or because it's just a bunch of crap lying around your apartment and you don't know how, you know, it's just junk?" And he said, "Yeah, it's that. It's that." And I said, "Steve, get a big box, and put every piece of paper that has people's names into it, because the excel sheet will even weed out the duplicates!" Because that was a problem we were having too. It took me a month of pestering him. He was so reticent. He was a stubborn guy, and he was hard to work with, I have to say, but he was way easier to work than Chris Young. I wrested this stuff from him. I gave it to Joan. She went to her office in the, you know, dark of night, on the weekend, and fed little slips of paper through the scanning machine for hours and hours and hours and developed a usable list of about a thousand names. Which was extraordinary that we had the ability now to reach a thousand people, and we could even, we even sort of by names knew whether people identified as male or female, we could do all sorts of sorting with this, and then we began to use this list, and Steve did this in a very positive way, when we would collect names at events, he would code the event so that if there was another similar event, we could invite people to those events. Like, the Pride Festival used to have a film festival in it, and so if people, if we collected the names at the film festival, and there was another film festival, or another film, or Theater Outlet in Allentown, which is not there anymore, used to have film festivals all the time, and they would be fundraisers for us, and we could invite people who'd already gone to film festivals, and it was just brilliant the way he did that. And we also began to collect and meld that information with voters' lists, because whether or not you vote is a matter of public record. Your voter registration is a matter of public record, and so is whether or not you have voted in each election. And if you vote in every election for five years, primary and... PATRICIA SULLIVAN: General. LB: General election, that is a -- and you do that for five years, so it would be ten times voting, you are a Super Voter. And elected officials are impressed by Super Voters. If you write them a letter, and you say, "I want you to do this and this," they'll look on the voter rolls to see if you voted in the last five elections, and if [laughs] "this person never votes! I don't care what they say!" And that's true. It's really true. So, we were beginning to encourage people to vote in every election, and how important that was. And we wanted to produce information that we could send directly to the ones, send them this booklet so that they could vote, and also have an endorsement card, so now we had that list. And once we had that list, our organization, League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, and actually, it was PA-GALA that really codified that list, we became gold. Because no one had that kind of list. People -- the only other kind of queer list you could get, this is kind of funny, you could buy a list from the Advocate, of LGBT people who, or no -- of people who got The Advocate. The problem is that The Advocate, publishers of The Advocate also published gay porn magazines. A lot of gay porn magazines. So, a lot of times it's not that the person's name was on The Advocate list, it was on -- their name was on the gay porn list, and a lot of those people are very closeted people who may not identify publicly as gay. Dad. So, if you mail to those lists, sometimes those people feel like they're colossally being outed. On the other hand, we -- our list was people who were at gay events, and we actually asked them if we could use their name. We would say, we'd hand out a card that said you know, and we had a way of collecting those names that said if you don't want to be on a list, make an x here, and then we wouldn't put them on the list. But we'd say, if you do want to be on the list, we will send you really important information. So, now we had this really comprehensive list and it was from the Eastern part of the state, but we had a lot of names. We ultimately had about 40 thousand names on that list, which was colossal. It was really significant. There were elections that were being won, state-wide elections that were being won with, you know, 400 votes, and we had 40 thousand names. So, it was very significant. So, we ended up working with Chris on League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, and we began to -- so what we would do is, we would collect the voter information. So, we would -- this is the process. People would have petitions, they would become candidates, they would file to be a candidate for a primary election, and when they filed, that's a matter of public record, and we would go, and usually this was Trish that would do this in Lehigh Valley, she would go the voter, county voter places and get the names of all the people who had just filed to be a candidate in the next election. And then we would get their addresses, and sometimes their addresses weren't in their filing, so we'd have to get their addresses, and then we would send them the questionnaires. And the questionnaires are actually in the archives, because there were earlier questionnaires and then they changed, and we would keep the questionnaires on file forever, so that we could say, "Oh, you said this in 1994." So, the person would be asked all these questions, where do you stand on these issues, and then Steve would collect information, and Trish would do this too, collect information on how people who were already elected officials had already voted on issues. So, a lot of times potential voters would say, "Well, people can say anything!" I'd say, "Yeah, but we're not just telling you what they said. We're telling you how they've already voted. How they've already voted on the Hate Crimes Bill. How they voted on a resolution for a Pride flag. What they said in specific things. If they'd written articles that were anti-gay. If they'd espoused a position absolutely anti-gay, we'd put a little skull and crossbones next to them. And then we had a grid that would have, like if they were part of an organization that was just, the whole, they were Focus on the Family, this was their -- they were anti -- that was their issue: They wanted to keep gays from having rights. Then we'd put a skull and crossbones. We would have a grid where we would have all the candidates, and we would say the categories of what they were voting on, and it would be like Rights, and then we'd have a different level of, you know, a one, a two, a three, and this was a five, they were really good, and then we'd put a skull and crossbones if they were really-- I think we did it with checks, actually. You know, and then if they didn't answer, we'd say, Did Not Return the Questionnaire, and we'd encourage our voters to say, to actually take the voters' guide to the voting booth, and when they got there and there would be like somebody there saying, like, "Oh, vote for me," and we'd go "Well, you didn't even turn in the thing, so I'm not voting for you at all. Screw this." You know, "Well, I can't answer everybody." "Well, too bad. I can't vote for everybody." And this began to make change. And it was very significant, it was really making a difference for people, and it made it a lot easier for people to vote, because most people have absolutely no idea where School Board people stand, for example, and you can't even just pull a Democrat lever, because in the Lehigh Valley, and in the state of Pennsylvania, people who run for School Board can cross-file. They can file as a Democrat and a Republican. So, you have no idea where they stand on issues. And we would ask issues, you know, would you fire somebody who was a teacher who said, and it actually said, "In Elizabethtown, PA, a teacher who was teaching a course on concentration camps during the Holocaust, asked his students in any of them were Jewish and would have had to go into this. None of them said yes. So, he said, I am a gay man, and I would have had to have been in a concentration camp because of it." And then he was fired, because he said he was gay in a public school. So, my question, our question for a School Board person was, "Would you support this teacher for using this as an educational circumstance, or not?" And it created a lot of significant conversations, and people hadn't thought about that before. "Well, nobody should talk about their sexual orientation." Well straight people talk about their sexual orientation all the time. They can't shut up about it. "Look! I got married!" You know, they just talk about-- "Here's my husband!" You know, they talk about it all the time. So, we pointed that out to people, and it became these pieces of information that people could have on candidates they had no idea about, and it was making a difference, and when you're talking about an election in Allentown, we actually had an election that we were involved with, where in the primary, the person who was running for Mayor as the primary candidate, so it was Emma Tropiano who was notoriously, she was a Democrat, but she was notoriously anti-gay. She was horribly anti-minority, and anti-Latino, and she was running against Marty Velazquez who was a very positive candidate, and Marty won the primary by one vote. And we had sent voter information to about 600 people, right before the election, and caused people to know that he was a positive person. And, by one vote. It was 2,640 to 2,641. Every single person that voted for him, cast the winning vote. And I used that as a thing to vote, you know, as an impetus to vote, for years. So, go back a little bit, back to the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, and we're talking about how it was sort of hard, so we would -- Trish would do a lot of this work all through the time that we were running the organization, she would get the candidates, we would send the questionnaires, they would send the questionnaires back. If we decided that we were going to, we ultimately decided that if we were going to endorse a candidate, we would actually interview them because we wanted to be sure that they understood the questions. We would take that information ; we would put it into a useable format and then we would send it to Chris Young who would put it into a Quark program, print the voters guides for the West and the East, but the East was a separate one, he would pile it up, he would rent a van, and then he would drive back across the state, give us 10,000 guides, of those booklets, that had about 75 pages in them, they were the size of a TV Guide kind of thing, like that big, and then we would have to hand them out to 10,000 queers who were going to vote. So, what was happening was, that Chris was taking a very long time to process the information, and he would show up like, three days before the election with 10,000 booklets, going "Okay! Hand these out to people!" As though we had 10,000 people sitting around. And the only place that we could really hand out these things at that time was in bars. And frankly, frequently, people who were in bars may not be the most likely people to rush out and vote on Tuesday. So, we needed -- so we were seeing that he wasn't giving us enough time. We had a group of volunteers that would disseminate the information, they would be ready, "Here's the booklets!" And they would take them to Delaware County, they'd take them to New Hope, they'd take them to Philadelphia, we'd take them to all the bars here, we'd take them to the Unitarian Church, and MCC, and all these other places. We'd stack them up in various places, but there wasn't even an opportunity to stack them up for them to be there at any time, because it was only a few days before the election. And then what happened was, this was the second Clinton election. So, we produced these booklets for every election. So, it's twice a year. So, including off year elections. But this was... The Clinton election. I think. Yeah, we did it for Governor, so one year it's the big Governor's race, two years later it's the President's race, two years later it's the Governor's race, because those are four-year terms. Okay. So, we get all the information together, we send it out to Chris, and, I don't know, like three or four weeks in advance, and we're waiting, and we're waiting, and we're waiting, and we're waiting. And finally Chris shows up in his van with, you know, 20 boxes of these guides, and he's at our house, and we're helping him bring the boxes in because the next day, some of, I think we had some on the porch, because the next day, or even that night, I think it was during the day, and it was like a Friday during the day that he'd taken the day off from work and then brought this stuff out. And he was exhausted because he'd stayed awake for hours and hours and hours to -- days! To process this work, and then he had to drive all the way across the state. So, he brings the boxes in, and they're there, and I call Steve. Steve was in Pen Argyl, and he goes, "Okay, I'll be there in a little while." And I said, "Well, Chris has to go because he has to take this stuff to Harrisburg. He just brought them here, and then he's going to drop them off on the way back," and he said, "Okay." So, Chris leaves, and Steve gets there, and we open up the boxes, and I give Steve one of the guides and he looks at the front of the guide and goes, "Is this a joke?" And I said, "What do you mean?" And he said, "Well, this is the Clinton Presidential Election, and the front of this guide says Rendell, which was the Governor election from two years before, and the date was wrong, and what Chris had done is he'd used the template for the cover -- the covers were very drab, actually. They just kind of had a little bit of writing on them, and then they said League of Gay and Lesbian Voters Guide, and it said, you know, Presidential Election, and then it had the date, this was the wrong year, it was for two years before, everything was wrong on it, on the cover. And Steve said, "Is the whole thing wrong?" Everything was right in the guide, but the cover was wrong. So, [laughs] I said, "What are we going to do? We've got three days! And people are here to get the things!" And he said, "Well, we're gonna have to, let's see if we can get a label, we'll put it on the front, and it'll say the correct information. I said, "Steve, I have to tell you that I don't know how to set this up. You know, to print these labels. We're going to have to get labels. I can, we can go and get the labels, I think we have some," you know, we're thinking like, how? Where can we go? We'll go to wherever, you know, some stationary store and get boxes and boxes of labels, because we have 10,000 guides. I said, "I can put the labels on, but I don't know how to set it up." He said, "I got two guys here who are tech guys, who live such and such," and they came over to our house, and they set it up, and we printed out the labels, and as the sheets were coming off, Trish and I had stacks of these books, and we didn't have time to call volunteers. It was just going to be me and Trish. So, each one, each things that came off, you know it had about, you know, it had 33 labels on it, we'd take the label off, I would stick it on, Trish would pull the book out of the way, we figured out we could do, I think we could do 1,000 books an hour, and we did it for 10 hours, so that the next morning, all the books were done. And then, we had people come out Saturday morning, so we missed Friday night, Saturday morning all these people come to take the books, they take it out, and they're out of our hands now. You know, there's nothing we can really do, but we're thinking "That was a fiasco!" I mean, you know, 10,000 books and we had three days to get them to people. It was ridiculous. So, so we were mad, and Steve was really mad, because we, one of the things that we did to finance these books was there was advertising in the voters' guides. Well, people who paid for the advertising were hoping for a little bit more exposure than a couple of days, and Steve wasn't even there to do the books. This was the kind of stuff that Trish and I always did. We were always doing things like, you know, staying up all night to label stuff, or doing colossal mailings in a very short amount of time. We did that for 18 years ; we did these enormous mailings. And actually, that was before we'd even gotten the second house, so we were really -- we had a row house, and then ultimately, I'll talk about this at another time, but we bought another row house next door, so we could have bigger space to do [laughs] more mailings. It was really the deal. We had two big open rooms so that we could do enormous, we could have lots of people in the house, to do mailings, and to do volunteer work, and we really did that on purpose. We created spaces where we could fit a lot of people with a lot of tables, all working at the same time. So, soon after that we actually, because Steve was really running the Eastern part of the state, but Chris was in charge, and he said we needed to have a meeting of the board. So, we had about seven people on our board, and he had about six people on his board, which is kind of funny, since he was in Pittsburgh where there's a lot more people, but we had a meeting in State College, and one of the people who was in State College got a room, it was actually at the college, and we were able to have a big board meeting. And Steve, we had a woman named Ruth Rose who was running the Bucks/Montgomery part, she was in charge of the Bucks/Montgomery area, and she was a pretty active volunteer for quite a long time. And she said that, so she was working with, and she also recognized that this was, she said, "You know, look, I ended up with, I have 2,000 unused guides in my house because I couldn't give them out in time. I gave out," you know, "I gave out 700 guides in three days," which is, a lot! But to have all of those guides, the cost to print each guide was a dollar, so it was a huge waste of money, and it was very depressing for us, and we were upset. So, we all, so, we were going to say to Chris, we wanted to print and compile the voters' guides in the Eastern part of the state. We would take the information and we would do that. So, we wouldn't have to wait until the last minute and have him do it all. So, we went to the meeting, and Chris was there with his, I guess boyfriend, and then his other four board members, and we had our seven people, and I can't remember who the other people were. I didn't really know them that well, but they were Steve's friends, and so, I think one of them was Ruth's friend and then there was three other people. We'd all converged on this space. And Steve and I and Trish and Ruth had talked about that we were really going to say this to Chris, that we couldn't do this kind of -- it was embarrassing to us, and it wasn't working. So, we, at one point, so Chris went on and on. The first part of the meeting was him talking about how tired he was, and how hard it was to compile the guides, and how he had to stay up all night, and then he had to drive across the state, and then we said, "You know, there was this mistake, and stuff," we pointed out that there was this mistake at the meeting, we said, "We're very concerned about that," and stuff. Now we get to the point where Ruth is supposed to say to Chris, she's supposed to say, so we're all board members, so she's supposed to say, "I would like to move that we're going to have a discussion to have the voters' guide for the Eastern part of the state compiled and printed in the Eastern part of the state." So, she goes, so she comes to the point where there's going to happen, and she raises her hand, and she says, "I want to make a motion to do this." And Chris says, "Yeah, I don't want to talk about it. I don't think it's a good idea." So, she says, "Okay." [Laughs] And Steve is like... So, Trish, Steve, and I all go-- like this, and Steve looks at me, and he looks at me like this--. That's all he did. And I said, "Yeah, I understand that's a problem Chris for you, and you're not comfortable with that, but I would like to move that we are going to discuss this. And I'm going to move that, and I think we're going to discuss this, and here's why: You have just told us how hard it was for you to compile the Eastern part of the state. How you had to say up all night. How you had to drive across the state. And you made a colossal mistake on the -- because you were so tired. That's what you said. Because you were so tired." He said, "Well, that's my working style." I said, "Yeah, but you made a big mistake because you were so tired. That's why you said it. So, what we're talking about is that we're going to, we'll get all the information, we'll compile it into the booklet template, we'll have it, and once we've done that, we'll send the finished information to you to look over, you can decide whether you think it's all right, and if it's all right, then you can send it back to us. If you want to make changes, you can make changes, so then send it back to us, then we'll take it to the printer and we'll have it printed. You won't have to do all this work. All you'll have to do is look over the book and be sure that it's done right." He said, "No, I don't want to do it that way." I said, "Okay, but I have already moved that we've had this discussion, and now I'm going to move that we're going to vote on it." There was more discussion, but in effect, "I think we should do it this way. I can't see how this would be a bad thing for you. It takes a lot of pressure off you. It will make it easier for everyone. We'll have a better circumstance. It's easier for us to get the advertising. And it just won't be a problem. All you have to do is give us the template from what you've been using for the Western guide." So, he says, "No. I don't want to do it." So, I said, "Okay, well, I'm going to call the question. I want to have a vote on this, because this is the Board, and we have 13 people here, it's not just you." So, Steve seconds it, or somebody seconds it, maybe it was Trish, and then the next thing is we vote, and 11 of the 13 people there say yeah, we should do it that way. Of course! It doesn't make any sense. Including his board members all thought that that was a good idea, except for him, except for Chris, and his little boyfriend. So, I said, "So, this is a decision that's been made. So, all you have to do," and you know, one of the things about two elections a year is they're always coming up. You know, the next one is coming up soon. The minute the primary is over you've got about a month and then people are filing again, to collect the petitions for the election in November, and then it happens again for the election in the spring. So, I said you know, "You're just going to have to give us the template, and that's the deal. That's all you have to do." Well, we go back to Allentown, we're waiting around, and he's not giving us anything. This actually happened in the fall, so the next election was going to be a spring election. It was going to be in May, so that would be the Primary. So, he doesn't give it to us, and he's just ignoring us, and he's not paying attention to the emails, and he's not sending it, and he's saying, "I don't think you can do this, you won't ever be able to do this, and you won't be able to compile it." Well, meanwhile, Steve has found in some of the stuff that we've been handing out to people that there is a person who volunteered named [Gayle Erich?] who happened to live a block from me and Trish, who said, "I am extraordinarily capable with Quark. I use it every minute of every day, and that's my job." And she's a lesbian. So, we go, "Great! Okay, well," so we go to Gayle. She's actually quite a, she still lives there, she's very reclusive in a lot of ways. Hard to get her to be in any situation where there's more than two or three people, she would never go to a party, she would never come, she would have dinner with us once in a while. Not really like to do that, but she was willing to work. Sometimes you'll get people who will volunteer, and they'll do the volunteer work, because they'll think like, "This is my task. I don't even have to social. I don't have to be social. I just do the task." And she's a wonderful person, really love Gayle. So, she says, so she comes over, and we've also never been in her house, and we've known her for 20 years, and she lives a block away. But she comes over and she looks at the book, and she says, "Sure! Piece of cake. I do this every day. This is nothing for me to do, I know how to do this, I can set it up, it's not a problem." She said, "If we're going to do it, we'll have to -- it's going to be a little bit complicated, but we'll do it." So, now we say to, because Chris is saying, "There's no way that you have somebody that knows how to do this." I said, "Well, we do. We have somebody." He says, "She's not going to be able to do it." He says, [inaudible]. So, Steve comes to us, and he says, "Okay, he's not going to do it." So, he said, "I'm blowing him off, I'm starting a new political organization, are you with me?" And we said, "Of course! Of course, we're with you." He says, "We're going to call it PA-GALA, because I want it to be an alliance. I want this imply allies, and we will, we'll do this, and I made the logo for it, and we'll just do it, and do you think Gayle can do it?" And I said, "I really think Gayle can do this. I mean, I saw it, she sets up whole books!" You know, at her company they made preliminary books for when you're doing a book before it's published, when they used to not have print on demand, they would do short runs for critics and reviewers and she just, she did it every day. So, she said yeah, she can do this. So, now it's like the winter, and we say to Chris, "We're gone. We're done. Nobody's going to run League of Gay and Lesbian Voters Eastern part of the state." Chris kind of got Rob Hopkins to do it for a while, but nobody would produce the information because you have to be on the ground to do it, and it's really hard. So, we go to Gayle, and we say we're going to have a new guide, and you can see that the, what are we called? PA-GALA Guides, they're called Gay and Lesbian Vote, and they're really dynamic. They have really dynamic covers, they're very different looking that the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters. And we came up with a couple of other things about how we wanted to set up the book, but for the most part it was pretty similar. So, we input the information, and we also talked about past information too, which was, you know, for the previous books that we had, from League of Gay and Lesbian Voters. So, Gayle and Trish are working on it. Trish does-- at that time, I really couldn't type. I never really was able to type very well. I'm better now just because I have to do it all the time, but I can't, but Trish could really type, and Gayle and Trish just start to work on it, and it's March, we have to have this ready and printed by May. We had the information, but my father died. We were about to have a fundraiser-- so, I do want to say, let me just digress a little bit and say this: One of the things we did was, we did have the skating parties. We had skating parties at roller rinks, and they were called "Gay Skating." [laughs] We actually called them "Gay Skating." You didn't say "LGBT" in those days, so just like, "Gay Skating Parties," right? Wasn't that it? And I made a little, you can see pictures of the different, because we have these things, and we, they were great! I mean, they were like, you know, drag queens would come, and they'd be dancing and skating, and they had, and Steve was a very good skater, and I can't, I'd never skated because [laughs] I said I like being able to use my arms, and I didn't want to break anything, and so Trish and I didn't skate, but the other folks were just, they were terrific, and it was very, very fun. And we would advertise, and one of the places we wanted to advertise was on the Service Electric has a little line that goes under it, when you watch the weather, and the news thing, and then at the bottom is has announcements and stuff, so I went to Service Electric to say, "We want to advertise Gay Skating." This was the first really public thing. And the woman at the desk said, "We can't do that." And I said, "Why?" And she said, "Well, it's taking sides." I said, "What do you mean it's taking sides? What do you mean by that?" And she said, "Well it's a political thing." I said, "No it isn't! It's gay people skating! You have, you know, you have church skating, that's okay." She said, "But it's political." I said, "You have political advertising! Vote for Pat Brown! It's on the thing!" You know, and she goes [laughs], "Well, we can't do it." So, I say, now this is me, because, I'm the wrong person to say this to, instead of me going, "Oh, okay," I call up the CEO of Service Electric and I say, "I've just been denied this," there was no law, so we weren't protected by law at all, there's no law in Allentown at that time, but I call up the head and I say they're telling me that we can't have this skating thing, and I don't understand. He said, "Well, is it a political thing?" I said, "No! It's a skating party! It's a gay skating party! It's for-- we're not telling people they can't come, it's just, it just says Gay Skating!" He said, "Well, it's just skating, why are they saying no to you?" I said, "I don't know, I guess they're anti-gay!" So, he calls the woman back and tells her she has to do it. So, then I go back in, because now I'm all, you know, "Up yours!" And I got the stuff, and she says, "Well, just for this as long as it's not political." I'm like, "Okay..." So, now we're like every day we're watching, like "There it is again!" As it's going on the little thing, and we got a lot of people that came to that because, for some reason people watch that all the time. [laughs] Oddly enough, in those days. So that was one of the first, and we used that as an example of public accommodation and discrimination frequently. Also, one of the things I said is, "You know, if people say no to you, ask somebody higher up. Because it might often be just a middle management martinet, who's decided that they're not going to be supportive of you when that's not the policy at all. And making up the policy." And that was very successful, to be able to point that out. So, we have Gay Skating, and we did, we made some money from it. It wasn't as successful as, what we did, was we had Candidate Nights, and we would invite candidates to come and talk to people, and they were often in John Cochran's office. He was a chiropractor in Bethlehem, and he would let us use his whole big office space, which is enormous area, to have these, and it was great. It was in a mall in Bethlehem over in the middle, near where the Carmike Theater is. And they were very well-attended, and they would get bigger and bigger, and lots of people would come and they would talk to candidates, and sometimes candidates would say really bad things, and I would accuse them in the voters' guide. One person said that the "n" word wasn't a bad word to use. She was white, and I said, "Okay, I'm going to be writing that down." [laughs] Because it was wrong! So, anyway, it was really wrong. But and we would get people to get this information. So, now we create -- so my dad dies, and it's two days before a skating party that was going to be in that Morristown skating rink on the Ben Frank -- it's still there, the Ben Franklin Parkway there, and it was all set up, and wonderful Laura Guiteras our good friend, and my dad had died at St. Luke's, and you know, it was a very calm death. He had emphysema, and I held his hand when he died, with my sister, and Trish was there for most of the time too, but I was upset, he'd been sick for a long time, but he was perfectly lucent at the end of his life, but Laura and another friend of hers and ours, Lynn Rogers who was a member of ACCO, said, I haven't seen Lynn in a while, but she lives in Easton, she said, "We will cover the skating thing. Don't come, don't worry about it. We'll take care of the whole thing." Well, we were working on the voters' guide at that point, and this was actually earlier then... I think that was still League of Gay and Lesbian Voters. Or maybe this was a later one. I think this was a later one, because this wasn't the first one that we did, this was a later one. And Steve said to me, this was an example of Steve being hard to work with, but he actually said, "Don't worry, I know this is very upsetting for you. Don't worry about doing any of the work for the voters' guide, just don't do it, we'll cover it, it won't be a problem." So, the punchline of this is, he didn't do any of the work, and once I, you know, a week after he's figuring I should be okay now, and then I would come back and do all the work, so he just didn't do anything. You know, it's sort of like when somebody says, "Oh, take a day off." Well, you still gotta get your work done! You know? And so, that was the thing. Anyway, the thing that happened with Gayle and Trish's work, that's not the issue that my dad died. My dad had died, that was the year before. I know this is the chronology. So the next year is when we were not with League of Gay and Lesbian Voters anymore, and we were PA-GALA, and I think that was around 1996, and so Trish and Gayle are working on the new voters' guide, and it's very hard, because it's not just creating the templates, it's entering all the information into it, because it wasn't just Lehigh/Northampton, it was seven counties that had all these different -- every town could have a race in it, and in fact we covered every single race, and if people didn't send the information in, we'd just say no information came in, but if we had people working there, we would have significant information. So, Trish and Gayle are working on this, and in the meanwhile, Chris Young is furious that we're doing this. So, he is actually saying, "There's no way that you're going to be able to do this, and you don't have a right to that, you've stolen the information, it's proprietary, it's against the law for your to do that," and Steve Black, who is a lawyer, goes to the bar, because as he used to say, "I'm a bar queen, and that's my strength!" And he talked to another lawyer, it was in Philadelphia, and he said, "Do you think it's illegal for us to take information and then, in our new organization, create a similar guide that uses some of the information that was public information that we gathered, and produce this again?" And this woman, who was a business lawyer, said, "It's absolutely illegal. You're going to get sued. You can't possibly do this." And Steve comes back to me and says that's what she said, I said, "Steve! We're not a business! We're a not-for-profit that gives this information away for free!" So, I go to my lawyer, who was Susan Mauer, who is a wonderful lawyer, who had always been very supportive, and she says that she was a lawyer for not-for-profits, she said, "Not-for-profits that produce free information have no rights to that information. If you give information away on the street, you have no rights to that information." And so, therefore, somebody could take his guide, tear off the cover, put their own cover on it, give it out, and it would be completely legal to do that. There is no way, nobody's making any money from it, nobody's losing any money from it, all of us were volunteer. There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing it. I come back, and I say that to him, and he goes, "Is she sure?" [laughs] I mean, he's the lawyer! And I said, "Yeah, I actually researched it. I'll research it some more, but I think it's really true." Then, so they're working on the guide and stuff, meanwhile we have bought the second house, so we have our second house, and we're scheduling the guy to break through the walls and put, the new side of the house has no electricity in it, there's no plumbing, we've got holes through the wall, there's all this dust and everything, we're working on that, and then my best friend from growing up, who is still one of my dearest best friends, husband suddenly dies. And she called me up, she said, "Paul is very, very sick." And I grew up with her, she's like my sister. And I said to her, "What's wrong?" And she said, "We don't know what's wrong with him, but he's in Mass General, and he's in a coma, and it's looking very bad." So, I was very worried, and I said, "Do you want me to come there?" And she said, "No, but if he dies, I want you to come." And I said, "Okay." Well, three days later she called me up, it was about seven in the morning, and she said, "He died." And I said, "I will be right there. I'll be there today." And I packed a bag, I didn't even ask her how to get there, I had been there a couple times, but it's hard to get to, it was in Cambridge. He worked at Emerson, he was a professor at Emerson, and she worked at Harvard. She still works at Harvard. And so, I said, "I'll be there right away." So, I dropped everything, I said to Trish and Gayle, "I am really sorry, but I have to go." And so, I went there, and she was a mess. She was really devastated. He had a superinfection, which is like the kind of infection that Jim Henson died from, the creator of the Muppets. It just ripped through his body and killed him, and also Mass General lost his tests when he first got there, and actually didn't treat him fast enough. He couldn't breathe. His last words were, "Tape Chicago Hope!" I mean, he had no idea. He said, "I can't breathe," they rushed him to the hospital, and three days later he was dead. So, I went there and I -- she had a terrible time. There were a lot of people there, his friends had come. He was friends with Mark Jepsen, who was the head of the senate of Connecticut, and he had gone to Harvard, so he had a bunch of friends from Harvard. Another guy was there who was the Attorney General of the state of Arizona, and they were all staying there. And after a while, after a few days I said, "Why are these guys staying here? We've already had the memorial service. Why are they here?" And she said, "Well, you know, they're taking a break." I said, "They're not helping." They were expecting her to make food for them, to clean up after them, they were guys. They were also hitting on her. They were all hitting on her. This happens all the time apparently when straight women's husband die, their friends hit on the widow. So, this really happened. So, anyway, I was very proprietary as far as this went. I was there for a week, and then I came home, and I mean, I settled some things, and I helped her do stuff. I covered the -- I actually negotiated the cremation and... When my dad died, we inherited some money that was -- made it so I didn't have to work as hard, and we had, I was able to, you know, cover some of the stuff that she needed, and it was tax time, and he had to do his taxes, and I actually took, I called up my tax person here, this is an important plug for her, Cindy Ernst who works in Emmaus, and I explained this stuff. She said, "Take everything she has, put it in a big envelope mail it to me, and I'll take care of it. You don't have to do anything, I'll even --" and then she actually said, you know, "I'll cover everything, I'll do an electronic signature, you don't even have to do anything." And Cheni actually used her for years after that because she was so terrific. We use her still. And so that, but she needed somebody to tell her that. People were hard on her. Other people were wonderful. I mean, people would just come in the door and say, "I'll wash all the dishes." You know, or "take care of everything." You know, people brought food over, like they do. But people get tired of grief, and they don't, they're not always there as long as the person needs it. So, I came home after a week, and then she called me three days later, and she said, "I can't do it. I can't... I can't..." And I said, "Okay, I'll come back. I'll come back! Don't worry about it! I'll be there -- I'll come back tomorrow." And she said, "Well, actually I'm so relieved that you're coming back, take a couple of days." So, I said to Trish, I have to go back, had to pack more clothes, and I said, "I don't know when I'll be able to come back." She was at risk. She was really at risk. So, I went back, and I did a lot of things that she wanted, and I ended up sort of taking apart, like he had an office, he was -- Cheni used to say that he was like me, and it was a little creepy, right, that we were similar to each other. When I went back, she kept calling me Paul. And I said, okay, you can't do that. You have to recognize that I'm not Paul. But I did stay there, and she said that she'd always had a hard time with the way his office was, it was very cluttered, so I actually went through every single -- ruthlessly! Went through every single paper in his office to be sure that he didn't have any bills. He had a problem with buying stuff and running up bills, and I found everything. And I thought, and people were, like one of his friends said, "Well, I don't think it's really appropriate that you're reading through his notes about his psychologicals." I said, "I don't care! I don't care. I'm not here for him. He's dead. And he didn't take care of himself when he had an infection, and he died. And now, she's alone, and she's my sister, and I don't care about anybody but her. So, I'm going to do all this stuff, shut up unless you're going to do it." So, I did all the stuff, and I moved the things for her and everything. It took about three weeks, and at the end of the three weeks, so I'd been there four weeks about, she said, "Okay, you can go now." Truthfully, she really wasn't okay, and she needed a lot more support, but other people were supporting, and she had other things. Now I come back, you know, Trish and Gayle are pretty much done with the thing, and the walls are finished with all the dust and everything, and I'm so sorry. Trish, I was just reminding her about that, and she was going, "Oh yeah, I forgot about the walls. Yeah, that was a mess." Because everything was covered with dust and everything, and we're still trying to do all this stuff. So, we produce the voters' guide. Now we've got the voters' guide, we're about ready to print it. We take it over to Roblin Press, and Roblin Press is a gay-owned organization that they had done lots of stuff for the FACT guys, and they said, "We'll print this, we'll give you a good deal on it," and they were very generous about this, and then Robin, of Roblin Press, Rob calls me up and he goes, "I just got this fax from Chris Young who says you're not going to pay your bill." And I said, "What?!" And he said, "Well, first of all I know that's not true, but I think you should see this letter." So, I go over, and I get the letter, and I think, "How dare he say that!" First of all, we had the money, and second of all, I would have paid the bill out of my own pocket if I had to, but it was absolutely libel. So, we went to Sue Mauer, our lawyer, and she wrote Chris a cease-and-desist letter and said if you ever do this again, we will -- I mean this is, it's one thing if somebody says something about you. It's another thing if somebody writes to a business contact and says they're not going to pay their bill! It's the definition of libel. So, we turned around to Chris and said, "cut it out. If you do this again, we will sue you, and you're going to be really sorry." Because this was a personal thing, you can't do that. And obviously that's not true. So, we didn't have any trouble. I said to Robin, "I will pay you right now. I've got the money in the thing." It was $1,000 to pay for those books, and we paid. So, we were very successful in doing that. The books were much better, we had them there, we were able to get them out to people. But after a while, Trish and I began to realize that the booklets were a problem. Because the booklets had lots and lots of information, and people really didn't need to know who was running in Abington if you lived in Carbon County. Who cares? You know? Who cares about the School Board in an area where you're not voting? So, what we suggested to Steve was, that we would no longer print -- also it was expensive to print the booklets, and there was a lot of storage and stuff like that, so what we decided -- Oh, we're already past, oh we've got a little bit more time. So, we decided that we would print just a page of interest to the person based on their own district, and where they lived, and what town they lived in, so that they wouldn't have to look up in the booklet. You looked in the booklet by the number of your state representative district. Do you know what the number of your state representative district is? I'm asking you. Just nod or shake your head. You do?! Good for you! Because most people don't. Most people don't. Because congressional district numbers, state representative district, and state senate districts are all different numbers, and if you had to look through that, nobody knew that! They'd be like, and then people would immediately turn to their partner, and they'd say, "Well, what's our district?" And they'd say, "I don't know!" So, what we wanted to do was send a letter to people, and in the envelope, it would say, "This is your district. These are the people that you're going to vote for." And then the label on the front said you're registered to vote, or you're not registered to vote, register now, voter registration must be done by this time. At the top it said their polling place, where they voted, because that was a matter of information, so it actually said, "Your polling place is in the 400th block of Seventh Street at St. Luke's church. You go there to vote." And then, it had their name and address, and then on the inside it had these are the people, this is how they stack up against their candidates, that are the people that they're running against, and then there was an endorsement card, these are the ones we really think you should vote for, but you can go back, and lots of people said, "You know, you endorse a per -- I don't want to just go by your endorsement. I want to know where they stand." Well, we were sending information that told them. This is their past voting record, this is their current voting, this is what they say they're going to do, this is a quote from them, this is that kind of information. And we were able then to, then we mailed that directly to people, and we also had an envelope in there that they would give us, a donation. To mail a donation. Pennsylvania, PA-GALA was a 501c (4) organization, which means that they can endorse candidates, but donations to that organization are not tax-deductible, because you can't, we don't want people to be able to tax-deduct, in effect, lobbying for a candidate, because in effect that looks like you are paying the candidate to do something. Businesses could do that, and we don't, that's not able to do. So, we didn't have sponsorships, and stuff like that. What happened in the middle of that was two things, because we were doing now colossal mailings. They were enormous mailings ; we'd have sometimes have 20 or 30 people be in the house to do the mailings. They were going to seven different districts, seven different counties, sometimes it would be 30, 40 thousand pieces of mail, and each piece of mail had different pieces of information in it. We'd actually have the cards that were the endorsement cards be color coded, so we didn't accidentally put the endorsement card of the wrong place into somebody else's envelope, so we had to keep those, we had to have enough space to really make that separate. We used to do the mailings -- before Trish and I had the two houses, we would do the mailings at the Unitarian church, because they used to let people use space like that. They got so that they didn't do that anymore, but then we intentionally set it up so that we could do it in our own house. So, we did two things that happened in the middle of that, and one of them was that we recognized that Pride, which was running its Pride Festival since 1994, wasn't doing very good outreach to places to tell people when the Pride, even when the Pride Festival was. So, we allowed Pride to print a piece of, a flyer, a folded flyer, that we would put in that mailing that would tell people where, about the Pride Festival, because we were sending it out to 35,000 people, and Steve used to say, he lived in Philly then, he'd say, "People in Philadelphia love to go outside of the city in the summer, so they could go someplace cooler and go to a fun gay event! So, this will be very successful." And it is true that once we started to do those mailings, the numbers of people going to Pride jumped from about 3,000 to about 7,000 in the next year, because we're mailing to thousands of people! And the deal was that they would then help us with the mailing. They would print their own flyer, and then we would all get together, stuff the whole mailing together, and you know, that's when we had the 20 or 30 people, and then they would do this. Those were the biggest mailings that we were doing. We did a couple of other things for other issues, but that was particularly for that. And that was very successful for a while, although Pride frequently would not quite get the need to -- like, they wouldn't fold, I would say to them, "Pay for the printer to fold the piece of paper, because otherwise all the work that your team will be doing, is folding your flyer. We want everybody to work together." And one time I remember having an argument with a guy who was supposed to be in charge of that. I can't remember his name, he was a problematic guy on the Pride board, he ended up quitting the Pride board on the day of the [laughs] festival for some reason, not very smart, but he wasn't responding, and he was the one who was supposed to be giving me the information, and he just wasn't responding and stuff, so I couldn't make public the information -- I couldn't even tell people when the festival was, because we didn't know what day it was going to be. So, he would, so he said that he was printing the things, and I said, "Okay, we're going to do a mailing that's about 35,000, so you're going to need 35,000 or 30,000 pieces of paper that have your information but pay for them to fold it." And he said, "We don't want to do that." And I said, "Well then fold it before you get here." And then he said, "Well, I don't know that we'll have time." I said, "Well, look. I will pay-- I personally will pay for the folding machine so that you can fold the papers before." And he said, "No, we don't want to do it that way." I said, "So, you're going to come to my house with 1,000, you know, 30,000 pieces of paper and sit there and fold your folder, how does that help us to do the mailing?" But they did it. They did that, and it was very stressful for us. I really, when they showed up, they actually came and they had the papers and I said, "These are supposed to be folded." And they said, "Well, we'll fold them now." [laughs] They were also really slow, so one of the things that we found out that was really terrific was that some people can do mailings really fast, and some people can't. And if you have people, like Jill DeLong was one that was a friend of ours, and she had several other friends, Lauren, Judy [Arden?] and a bunch of other people could do these mailings pretty fast, and they could do fast, but Jill could -- she was amazing! And she could do the work of five slow people. Well, we didn't need to have the five slow people around they were in the way. So, we were trying to develop a team of people who could really do fast. Now, Trish and I can do mailings very, very quickly although we haven't done them in a while. But so we were very successful in doing that, and doing those mailings, and we set up the house to be able to do that. Another thing that happened was, and I was talking about how we collected names, what we did was we were trying very hard to pass the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity to the state Hate Crimes Bill, and that was our first big effort, and that was Chris Young's thing, he really had wanted to do that, and he had advocated for that, and he was working on that right from the beginning in 1994, and when we were working on it, and one of the things about Steve Black was, he was pretty good at lobbying. One of the things I said that I never really wanted to do was I didn't want to go to Harrisburg and talk to legislators. I don't like doing that. I look like a dyke. They're not comfortable with pushy women. Those kinds of guys aren't. It just didn't work very well. And we actually did it a few times, but we did it, we ended up doing it for other reasons. We weren't really lobbying for -- we were helping people lobby, helping our own community of people lobby, because they would often go, they were nervous, so we would go with them. But we didn't want to do that. Steve, on the other hand, was quite good at doing it, and he was working on the Hate Crimes Bill, and he figured out that Charlie Dent, who ended up being a congressman, he was a state representative at the time, and he was Republican, and he was supportive of the bill, and we also had a prime sponsor, and I can't remember that guy's name, but he was a prime sponsor of the bill, but Charlie Dent said that he would work behind the scenes as a republican to get republicans on the legislature to pass the Hate Crimes Bill. So, and he and Steve really worked on that together, and one of the ways we lobbied state legislators was that we would take a sheet of yellow card stock, bright yellow card stock, and we would, and you could make two four by six cards next to each other, so it was a long thing. One to the representative and one to the senate, and you would get, we would get people -- it would say we want you to pass the Hate Crimes Bill, in effect. The other side would say, "Dear State Senator", "Dear Representative", and then there was a blank, and then there was a space that said we want to add sexual orientation and gender identity for the Hate Crimes Bill, you know, stuff like that, and then it had your name and address and your other contact-- I think your telephone number. And so, we would get those, and then at the top there was a place for an X if they didn't want to be on our mailing list. Well, we were going to Pride festivals and we were collecting like four or five, six hundred cards from people at every festival. Trish and I were particularly good at getting people to do that. We would call people over to do that. We would stand in the middle of the road at the Pride Festival and say, "Come and do this!" Other people who were working on those kinds of efforts would sit at a desk and hope somebody would come over to them. They would get 20 cards done, and that was the way Chris Young was. He would sit there, he would get a booth, he wouldn't have a table, he wouldn't have a tent, he would take off his shirt, he would sit in the middle of the thing with a box of cards, no pens, nothing, and then hope that somebody would come up to him, and Steve Black said, "You're really good at the booth." Well, we were antique dealers. We had a tent, we had tables, we had black table cloths, we had signage, we had things that stood up, we had water that we would give away to people, we knew everybody. We would say, "Come over here! Come over here! No, you have to do this today! Look, you can have fun, but you have to do this thing today. This is the one thing that you have to do." We'd have 15 people in a row signing the cards. We did it at Reading Pride, as soon as Reading Pride opened, we did it at Reading Pride, and we would get, you know, hundreds and hundreds. Like at the end of the day we'd have stacks of cards like this, we'd put them in the thing, and there would be the representative and the senator, and then Steve, this was one of his strengths, he would look at the person's address, and he could tell what legislative district they were in. Almost always. And he would sit down, and he would, we would like "district" the cards. We were calling it districting the cards. People could call him up and say, "This person lives on such and such a street," I mean, Allentown has three, four districts, and he could figure out which district it was by where they lived, by looking at their address. He was really good at that. And he understood the districting maps too, which are very gerrymandered. Much better than even people in Harrisburg. So, he would be able to do that, and that was one of his big jobs to be able to figure out the district. We would district all the cards so that the representative and the senators' names were, and people said, "I don't know my senator." We said, "We'll put them in. Don't worry about it." Because they'll put the wrong, they put the US senator. "No, no. We'll write that in, don't worry about it." And then we would send these stacks in big envelopes to the state representative. Oh, 700 people just told me they wanted, you know, this Hate Crimes Bill to pass. But at the same time, we were gathering those people's names on our mailing list for to be able to send them voter information. That's how we were growing the lists up significantly. And Steve actually would sit at, he ended up, he stopped living in Philadelphia. He kept the apartment for a long time, but he stopped, it was very expensive, he stopped living there and he just was running Black's Luncheonette. He took half of the Luncheonette, and it was set up as his political office. And all day when he had a break, he would sit down at his computer, which was in the Luncheonette, and he would type into, he would type the names and addresses into the mailing list, and he did that. Trish also managed the membership list. We had a membership list too, and Trish managed the membership list, I think for a long time. And did that, it's very hard to do that, actually. It's very, very time consuming. It's a full-time job. But Steve was doing that, and he actually got a lot of PR from that, and he was in The Advocate as one of the Out 100, and there's a picture, I have it in my office actually, of him and me, sitting at his computer in Black's Luncheonette with his tie one, which he never wore in any other situation, and he is typing in to the, you know, from these stacks of cards that we had this voter information, and it was really significant that we had this enormous list, because nobody else in any other state nobody had lists like this, so this was a big deal. So, soon we began to see that voter information like this was winning elections. That people who were running for office were very impressed at the number of supervoters that we had. And one time, Roy Offerbach was running for Mayor, and he was running as a Democrat, and he said that he would support the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to the non-discrimination ordinance in the city of Allentown. So, one of the things that people who are running for offices have is a list of registered voters, and it's something you buy for your campaign, that's completely public. And you can actually sort the list to see if they're supervoters. So, Roy Offerbach said that he was going to share the list with PA-GALA for a couple of reasons, and it had to do with being able to figure out how to send certain information to people. So, he was showing me how to use the list, I was in his legislative office, he was running for, I think that was when he was running for, he was running for Mayor of Allentown. So, I sit down with him, and he says, "Well, let's just take your city district, which is the eight one ward." And I said, "Okay." So, he puts it in, and he goes, "So, we're going to just take the Democrat supervoters out of this." And this was because I was working on a campaign. I was working on Gayle Hoover's campaign to pass the ordinance. So, he shows me this thing and what pops up is there's ten supervoters, okay? Because most people are not supervoters, and I live in a small district, so at any given time we'd maybe only have 125 people who actually vote, sometimes less. Maybe 57. But of those, are supervoters. It's a small district, though. We have a small population. So, the ten people who pop up, I look at the list, and there's me, and Trish, and Gayle Erich, and then there's I think Ann [Slechter?] and Jim Gallucci and Gayle Hoover lived in the district, and I said, at the end of it, I said, "Seven of those ten supervoters are on our list as LGBT people." And I could sort of see his face blanch. Now, he wasn't afraid of us, because he was on our -- but he was realizing that we had become an enormously successful and significant block vote. We could control the vote by giving people information. We could win elections for people. Now, we ultimately did that, but one of the things was that Marty Velazquez and Emma Tropiano election where Marty won by one vote, there was no question, that he -- would not have won the primary had we not told people to vote for him. Because even if just four people voted for him, he won the election based on that thing. So, people were becoming aware of that, and it was very successful and significant. So, let's see, I've talked about that, so we're collecting the information, we're collecting this, okay. So, now we get to the point where Steve says, so in 2002 there's a vote for the Hate Crimes Bill, and it passes, and it was a big deal. And I remember Steve says that Charlie Dent, after it passed, he was dancing a jig, because he made it pass. Even though our prime sponsor was someone else, he had taken guys out to dinner, it was the quintessential lobbying, you know, "You really should do this," you know, and we were able to pass that, and Steve was very, very happy about that. At the same time, Chris Young was furious. Because Steve, everyone knew, state-wide, and there was another organization called SPARK that was kind of working on it, but they didn't -- they weren't very effective, and they ended up dissolving, they were a state-wide organization. They dissolved after six months and they'd done some, they had some problems and stuff, but there were people involved that were pretty significant. And but Steve was the one that was working on it. Also, there was an organization in Philadelphia called Gay and Lesbian Legal Defense and then they became Equality Pennsylvania, which ultimately Adrian was involved with. They're not really running anymore. At that time, it was just a Philadelphia organization and Stacey Sobel who was a lawyer in Philadelphia was the one that was the executive director of that organization, she was working on this too, and trying to work on this piece of legislation, but really it was Steve Black who made the Hate Crimes Bill pass, because he, we just chipped away at that. I mean we sent to legislators 10,000 lobbying cards to support the passage of that piece of legislation. It's an enormous amount of people. It's hard to ignore something like that. And it was to every, and Steve said it was to every single district. Every single district across the state got at least one card. Now, one of the things that we had at the beginning, when we were saying to people, we want you to fill out this questionnaire that said, so that gay and lesbian voters could vote for you, they would say, "We don't have any gay and lesbian voters in our district." And we were showing people that that was absolutely not true, because here we have these 10,000 cards. And people frequently said, "We don't have any gay people!" I said, "Yes, you do. You really do." And there were a number of things that proved that, but one of the things was, we were in the 90s, we were generating thousands and thousands of cards for people, and so it passed in 2002, and Steve was really, really happy about that. Meanwhile, while that was happening, in 1998 Trish and I decided, and Steve and Trish and I decided, that it was time to try to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance in the city of Allentown, and one of the reasons we were going to do it in Allentown was because Trish and I lived in Allentown, we had worked on campaigns, we had people that could help to make that happen, and we had the largest number of our people on our list in Allentown. But also, because we lived here. Because you can't push a piece of legislation unless you have local people. And we lived here. So, the city of Allentown already had an anti-discrimination ordinance that was passed. It was the only city in Lehigh Valley that already had an ordinance, and the ordinance was passed in 1965 in conjunction with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that was in the United States. And the primary reason that those acts were passed, was to support people based on race. Because people were discriminated against routinely who were black, frankly. It was really about that, it was the time of Martin Luther King, responding to Martin Luther King's death, all that kind of stuff happened. And it was true that people who were black were rampantly discriminated against, so the state, so our law and the state law and the federal law said we'll protect people based on religion and race and national origin and sex and creed I think, and ancestry I think that's what the Allentown law said. So, we were going to have to add sexual orientation and gender identity into that law. We also wanted to add the words "actual and perceived," and by the way, the hate crimes law when it passed also had the protected classes of disability, because people who are disabled are often discriminated against as hate crimes, and we also had actual and perceived in the law, because that was a loophole, people would say "I was beating up that person because they were black, it turns out they weren't black. So, I'm not," or "I beat up somebody outside of the gay bar. The person wasn't really gay, so even though I beat them up, I didn't do it as, it wasn't a hate crime because I perceived them, it doesn't matter, because they aren't really gay." Well, actual and perceived takes care of that circumstance. At the time that the Hate Crimes Bill passed, it was the absolute most progressive Hate Crimes Bill in the United States at the time. It was very, very significant, and we talked about that at length all over the place. It was a big deal. And it was a big feather for Steve, he was really, really happy about that. Meanwhile, I just want to toss in, that Chris Young was furious about it. But [laughs] and he said stuff about it, and he said like you know there's problem with it, and there was a problem with it, in that it was put into another piece of legislation that as actually a farm terrorism bill, and it was supposed to protect, as Steve said, they gutted it. They took out the farm terrorism, but they put in that you can't discriminate against gay people. And that's actually a technique that legislators do all the time. Steve said, "It's too bad that vegetables are no longer protected, but fruits are." So [laughs] I thought that was very funny. Steve also said that Chris Young was furious about the passage of this because, [laughs] and Steve said, I remember him calling me up, and he goes, "Yeah, I can hear Chris now: 'Steve stole my bill! And he passed it!'" [laughs] Because Chris had been trying to pass this bill for eight years. So, it passed. And there were some problems, some very serious problems with the way they passed it, but it did pass, and it was in 2002. Okay, so, go back to 1998 when we were talking about adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the Hate Crimes Bill, and we really wanted to do that. I mean to the Civil Rights Bill in the city of Allentown. And we talked about doing it, but we weren't ready to do it. I mean, for one thing you shouldn't really try to pass that kind of bill unless you're pretty sure that you have the votes to do it on a council, because losing is really debilitating. All of the sudden, the Human Relations Commission of the city of Allentown, and at the time it was the only city in the Lehigh Valley that had a Human Relations Commission, because you have to legislate that, usually with a non-discrimination law. The guy who was the head of the Human Relations Commission of the City of Allentown was a guy named Felix Molina, and we knew Felix. We had known Felix. And he calls me up and he goes, "Last night at the Human Relations Commission, we made a public announcement that we're going to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Non-Discrimination Bill." I said, "How are you going to do that?" And he goes, "Well, we're going to get City Council to support it." I said, "Have you talked to anybody on City Council about this?" And he goes, "No." And I said, "Well, how do you know that they're going to do that?" And he said, "Well, there's a way to do that that is, in Allentown where if you have 35 signatures from voters in the city, that they will introduce a piece of legislation." Because you can't introduce a piece of legislation unless you have a sponsor and a co-sponsor. They have to be a sponsor and at least a second, to move the legislation, and then a second, and then it goes to committee, and then it goes to a vote after the committee passes it through. Well, they didn't do any of that! They had no idea as to whether or not it was going to pass! So, okay. So now it's 12 o'clock, does that mean we're at the end [laughs]? MF: Well, what I'm wondering, so really, we probably shouldn't go over 90 minutes, but I'm wondering if this isn't a good place to stop, because we kind of have that PA-GALA arc right to the Hate Crimes Bill in Pennsylvania in 2002. What if we set up our next interview, we start here with the Anti-Discrimination Ordinance in 1998? I mean, that adding to the Civil Rights legislation, does that seem like a good plan? LB: Yes. Did I say anything wrong that I should..? PS: No, you didn't. LB: [laughs] She says no. So, yes. See how long? I can go on forever, Mary. I can talk for the rest of the day. MF: It's so great! I mean, the kind of stories you share are so fabulous. And I like this idea that we're sort of seeing from the Gay and Lesbian League of Voters to PA-GALA, it's sort of a nice arc for the story, and maybe we it, we can take as long as we want on the Anti-Discrimination Ordinance. LB: Well, the ordinance and 2002 were significant, because when we started the ordinance in 98 it didn't pass until 2002. And several other things happened in 2002 that were very significant, so, it is probably a good idea to stop here. MF: Okay. LB: No, I can go on forever. But, yeah, that would be tiresome for somebody to watch [laughs]. MF: So, I know you're busy next Friday, so what I'm going to do is, and I'm busy next Friday afternoon, I'm going to send a few times to see if we could, because we have good momentum, I think if you're available to try and do it once a week, I think would be good. LB: Sure! MF: Okay, so I guess just to end, although now we've had a conversation about dates, I'll just say it is such a pleasure to hear this sort of deep history of those two organizations, especially the information about the voters' guide, I mean, I'm just so grateful that you took the time today, thank you so much. LB: I want to add at the end of this that that model of, that voters' guide with that voter information, I firmly believe, and I'm not even done talking about it, but I firmly believe, that if progressives in every state had that kind of organization, we could win every election. We just could. And we did! We changed the entire direction of civil rights and of progressive politics in Allentown because of that thing, frankly. So, yeah. I would love to keep talking about it, and I love talking about this, this is great, and you know I can go on forever, so... MF: Well, Danielle and I talk about that frequently, like if one of us didn't have a full-time job, we would do that voters' guide. I mean, every -- I can't tell you, every time we go to vote, and we're supervoters, you know, we've done our research, but we have friends consistently, even my parents, "Who should we vote for? I can't find it in The Morning Call." You know, it's a huge issue, and you really gave that incredible model and as you already have articulated, it was transformative! LB: Yeah, it was totally-- MF: -- For our region, for our state! I mean, you have that arc to the 2002 Hate Crimes Bill, I mean, that is an arc that shows like that kind of work really changes things! But also, what you show, and I think this is the piece that Danielle and I keep talking about, like oh we'd love to do that as a kind of model, is like how much time it took [laughs]. LB: Oh, God. Remember, that in effect, for Trish and me at that time, we were antique dealers. We started doing that antique dealer thing when... And we were landlords. So, and we all through the 90s and the end of the 80s that's what we did, up until, until my dad died in 1997, we stopped doing it in 1997. We were able to do this stuff because we didn't have a regular job. And Steve didn't have a regular job. He worked for himself, he was doing it in his business, and we can see as I go on to talk about this, some of the other people who were key to do this, they had to have the kind of jobs that allowed them to be extremely autonomous, and that's one of the things about elected officials. You know, if you have a fulltime job, it is really hard to run for office. So, but yeah, to produce that information, it worked particularly well -- well, I can go on and on. But in producing that information, it worked particularly well to mail it to people, because sometimes when you put that online, it can be exploited in a negative way, and you have to be careful about that. Plus, it was really significant for people to get this in the mail. It was another thing that Trish, that I haven't even mentioned, but the day before the primary, we would get a whole group of volunteers to call up every single person on our list and tell them, thousands of people and say, "Tomorrow is the primary election. Do you have your voters' guide, do you have your endorsement card? Don't forget to vote." In those days everybody had answering machines. Nobody had cell phones. Or few people. Really nobody had cellphones. We would pray, I would PRAY that no one would answer the phone, because I didn't want to talk to them. I just wanted to remind them. Because it's hard for me not to talk. But I could do a hundred people in an hour, and if we had, if I had -- if my job was to call 1000 people, then I could finish it in 10 hours, but if I got someone on the phone and I talked to them for ten minutes, it blew the whole thing. So, now, it would be much harder, because it's much harder to get people's telephone numbers. I mean, we can, but people don't answer their phone unless they recognize the number. Many people don't. And many people don't even pay attention to their messages. So, on the other hand, social media makes it much easier to reach large amounts of people by pressing a button. And that is very significant. I think most people are more aware of when the primary election is now than they were then. I remember one time Candida, who is now a City Councilwoman, we were driving by the bar, and she was standing on the steps of the bar, I rolled down the window and I said, "Did you vote?" It was a primary day, and she goes, "What?" And I said, "It's primary day!" And she said, "It is?" I mean, and now she's a councilperson! And she didn't even know that it was a primary day. Now she's, you know, a savvy political person. So, you know, lots of people don't know. Lots of people don't even know there is a primary, or off year elections. That you vote for coroner [laughs]. You know. And that there can be LGBT issues with regard to being a coroner. So. Anyway. MF: Well, I am so grateful to talk to you today, and I'm going to stop recording, but then I want to talk to you for a minute out of the recording. Thank you, Liz! LB: Bye! Thank you. It was great. MF: So, let me-- Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:50:53 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Liz Bradbury, July 2, 2020 Description An account of the resource Liz Bradbury recounts her early activism with the League of Gay and Lesbian Voters, the creation and work of PA GALA, and the passing of an anti-discrimination ordinance in Allentown. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context LGBT-16 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-07-02 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs. https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/b69b20af2ca3fb81a4900417b8507a75.png a93bd24828832186eba0cf19ecc86158 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: HIV/AIDS Description An account of the resource In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism. The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Liz Bradbury Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Mitch Hemphill OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_12.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 June 17, 2020 Mitch Hemphill, June 17, 2020 PH40_12 01:02:34 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg AIDS (Disease) Mitch Hemphill Liz Bradbury video/mpeg HemphillMitch_20200617_video.mp4 1.0:|25(5)|42(5)|71(3)|94(10)|113(7)|138(2)|159(5)|180(4)|199(5)|220(4)|245(3)|270(5)|293(6)|316(16)|339(14)|364(18)|387(16)|408(2)|429(14)|456(9)|479(8)|508(2)|533(6)|562(9)|583(9)|612(8)|633(2)|660(4)|685(7)|706(15)|727(8)|750(8)|775(2)|806(13)|827(10)|850(15)|875(12)|902(2)|927(3)|948(13)|971(13)|996(4)|1017(13)|1040(10)|1067(6)|1088(18)|1111(10)|1144(5)|1165(4)|1192(4)|1213(16)|1242(13)|1269(10)|1292(7)|1319(5)|1342(10)|1361(11)|1384(13)|1411(18)|1442(7)|1475(5)|1506(13)|1533(5) 0 https://youtu.be/09bpVqt3Ywo YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: -- do -- great, and there we are. So, I have to start out by saying this project, with this project, the Bradbury Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. And so, I start out by saying, and this is all on and everything -- I’m supposed to, let’s see, I want to be sure I’m going to do the right thing here. Yes. So, this is the first one I’ve done. So, that’s why --&#13 ; &#13 ; MITCH HEMPHILL: Oh, okay. &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: (inaudible) [a little hesitating? ]. My name is Liz Bradbury and I’m here with Mitch Hemphill to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community -- oh, this is the wrong one.(laughs) No. During this -- oh, I see, the LGBT community, during this time of the COVID-19 epidemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT archive, our project was funded from the Lehigh Valley engaged consortium. We’re meeting on Zoom and so today’s date is June 17th --&#13 ; 0 187 First time hearing about HIV/AIDS LB: Great. So, here’s the deal: we’re just going to start right out. And so, what I’m going to -- just start with this little prompt and then say in the midst of the current health crisis that we are experience-- we want to take this opportunity to look back and reflect and to capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the nineteen eighties and nineties. So, we just have three things to prompt you. I’m going to start you right out to say do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease and just talk about that? &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: Sure. I may have heard of it before but I wasn’t really aware of it until about nineteen eighty-four or nineteen eighty-five. That’s at the point that people that we knew were starting to get sick. And I believe -- and in nineteen eighty-five, when Rock Hudson, when it was on the news that had HIV and then died shortly after, I think that really brought it to the attention of a lot more people. 0 329 Living in the Lehigh Valley/ Moving to Florida LB: Yeah. So, at what point in the crisis were you living in the Lehigh Valley? So, you were at the Stonewall, you were living there -- here the whole time and can you speak -- so, talk about that and then also talk about -- can you speak to what resources or communication or attitudes were going on at the time? &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: Well, I actually lived in the Lehigh Valley all of my life with the exception of three years where I lived in Florida, which was from nineteen eighty-seven to nineteen ninety. So, actually, right in the middle of the peak. But before that, before moving to Florida, in the -- like I said, around eighty-five is where you started hearing more about it. There didn’t seem to me -- I didn’t see a lot of information out in our area at that time. 0 562 The formation of FACT / The Bar Olympics LB: Yeah. When you were talking about FACT being formed, that was before you went away in eighty-seven? &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: That was actually before I went away. FACT was formed in nineteen eighty-six. It came out of a friendly competition between the Stonewall bar and Candida’s bar. The staff on both, at both bars, were always doing things with friendly competition and it kind of built up to what we decided was going to be a bar competition. At the time, we called it the Bar Olympics. 0 726 Educating the public about HIV/AIDS LB: Yeah. In nineteen eighty-six, when these things were happening, do you think that people were -- they were changing their behavior? I mean, you were raising money with FACT. What was the money for? Because in eighty-six, I don’t know whether there was medication. I was just moving to Lehigh Valley then, so I wasn’t as aware of that. But, like, when they were trying to raise money, what was the money for? Was it for education? &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: The money at that point, as I understood it, with my involvement with them, in the beginning, was a lot of it, it had to do with helping people that were HIV-positive. It had to do with educating the public. It had to do with getting materials like condoms out in bars and literature out in bars and making people more aware of it within the community. 0 831 Being young and not thinking about the effects of AIDS LB: I think there was, perhaps, a time, and maybe you could comment on this, where people didn’t know where it was coming from. They just thought it was a gay disease that gay people were getting but they didn’t really know how it was communicated. Were you sort of aware of --&#13 ; &#13 ; MH: Definitely was the case, especially in the earlier days. And I think a lot of us -- and like I say, I was young and a bit selfish, you know, with my own life at that time. Had it been happening when I was in my forties, perhaps I would have been different. But a lot of people really just thought this was something that affected a small group of people in other places, you know? 0 1320 Emotional toll on caregivers LB: Did you know people that were taking care of other people, who were -- you know, people who were caring for people that were dying or sick? &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: Just indirectly, for the most part, you know? And, yes, and that was -- in the nineties, there were numerous people I -- that took such a toll on the people that were the caregivers. I can only relate to it having taken care of my father until he passed [at the? ] first of the year. But there is quite a struggle for a lot of people that not only had to, you know, deal with this -- and from the entire community as a whole, you know, that were taking care of people like that and having to watch them waste away, especially in the early days, you know? 0 1390 Starting Above Ground Magazine LB: So, when you were doing the -- talk a little bit about the magazine because [I think it? ] --&#13 ; &#13 ; MH: Well, when I did come back -- like I said, I helped with the formation of FACT and I was doing that. That was my involvement and I was a little bit, you know, involved with some of the work on the fundraisers and things like that in the early years, then I moved to Florida. When I came back, like I mentioned, in the early nineties, that’s when people were being more affected/ 0 1524 Working at the Stonewall LB: Oh, yeah, no question. So, what do you think, in terms of activism, I mean, you did some significant things with activism and we saw the continuation of FACT over all of that time. And things began to change in terms of medications and stuff. In about nineteen ninety-three, I think that really began to change. How did that seem different to you? Did you see any kind of difference or did you see people still being actually more aware of things? &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: I actually believe people were -- after I came back from Florida, I did go back to work at the Stonewall again and I worked there for another eight years or so. And so, you know, just having to see the view of how people are reacting in the bar scene, do you know what I mean? There was a difference made. You know, the work of FACT and other organizations like that actually was working and people were being less promiscuous, in my opinion. I think people were starting to show, you know, safe sex practices more. They were involved. 0 1694 Social life in the bars LB: So, how did you think -- with the competition between the bars that really began FACT and began those kinds of things, that part atmosphere that made things more fun in some ways, do you think that that was something that really encouraged people to become involved? &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: Oh, absolutely. To be honest with you, if it was less fun, you wouldn’t have had people coming to it. You know, sometimes you have to kind of make things fun to make it worth people to do things, you know? It’s difficult. Right now, (inaudible) we’re looking at the pandemic, with the COVID-19, how do you really encourage people by doing something fun to do the right thing or to -- you know, it’s a totally different situation in that it really can affect anyone and everyone. 0 1793 Being young at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and parallels to COVID-19 pandemic MH: One of the things that was a parallel that I see was to the way I felt when I was younger and AIDS came out, we were young. And, you know what? We’re strong and we will get through this and it will not affect us and if I get it, I will beat it. I saw that, especially if they close down things and I’d see big groups of people on the basketball courts: younger people, still playing, you know? And that feeling that you’re invincible when you’re younger, it’s difficult with younger people, you know? So, it’s such a different situation now than the AIDS crisis was. 0 2318 The beginning of the Pride Festival in the Lehigh Valley LB: I think that the Pride festival in the Lehigh Valley grew out of that. So, were you involved with Pride during the beginning times of that? &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: I was. And when Pride first started, one of the ways I was actually involved with Pride was doing graphic work for them. Now, let’s see, Pride started --&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Nineteen ninety – &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: around nineteen ninety-four, three, ninety-four? Yeah, at that time, ninety-four, I had started the magazine. And before that, I was actually doing a newsletter for the Stonewall. 0 2505 The Summer Games / Competition between the bars LB: [Tell me a? ] little bit about the summer games because people in the future should hear about that because they were pretty wonderful. &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: They were fun. First of all, like I say, they came out of a fun competition between competing bars. And they built into a much larger thing. At first, it only included Candida’s and the Stonewall, which, you know, because of our friendship with each other and our competition with each other -- but then, after the first year, then it was decided that we were going to make an event and it was going to be a FACT event now that FACT had been formed. 0 2691 Bringing together the community and strengthening it MH: Yeah, it brought our community together, too. I mean, beyond the AIDS epidemic and, you know, it strengthened our community as we moved forward looking into our own rights. So, some of the things that came out of that epidemic were then -- we as a community became stronger. We became used to getting together and doing things together, which made us stronger going into the nineties with the elections and as we go down the line. And then, the different organizations that -- you know, has the voter’s guide that came out and the -- now with the Bradbury-Sullivan Center, you know what I mean, there’s so many things that would have been unthought of actually years ago. 0 2826 Growing up in the Lehigh Valley LB: Where did you go to high school? &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: I went to school in a high school in Emmaus, just outside of Allentown. So, I grew up in a pretty small, somewhat privileged area. And then, like I said, I was in a big hurry to move out to the big city of Allentown as soon as I could and I hadn’t even turned eighteen yet, yeah. &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah. &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: [You know? ]? 0 2871 Moving to Florida LB: Yeah. So, is the reason that you came back to the Lehigh Valley because you just missed it so much? Or was there some reason why --&#13 ; &#13 ; MH: Because everybody comes back (laughs) that’s from here. I moved to Florida with a boyfriend at the time. Things didn’t work out so well and then you come home, you know? Actually, while I was here on vacation, I met my current husband and came back to be with him. And then, like I said, we’ve been together for thirty years now. So, it’s not a bad area and it’s not -- we don’t get as much cold weather as up north. (laughs) So, that’s why I came back to this area. It’s home. 0 2954 Thoughts for future generations LB: Well, I think -- so, here’s one thing I think everybody should ask and -- because we hope that someday in the future, somebody will look at this and get a sense of, you know, various different people’s experiences with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And it is true that we Baby Boomers are the ones that went through this in our twenties and now we’re at a different age. We’re about to go through the aging epidemic, as well, since that’s another thing. But what would you want somebody in the future to know, like, in terms of what that was like? I mean, if you were just going to sort of describe what the AIDS epidemic was like to somebody who had no sense of what it was like -- and I think there are young people today who really don’t have any sense of what it was like. 0 3084 Rock Hudson having AIDS LB: Yeah. I want to ask you one more thing because you brought it up because you were talking about how you became aware of this sort of -- of HIV/AIDS because of Rock Hudson. And I think people don’t have an understanding of how significant Rock Hudson’s circumstance was. And there were some other famous people that -- &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: Yeah. &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: -- spoke out about -- but you want to say a little bit more about that? because I don’t know if people would always really get what happened. 0 3349 Comparisons between HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 MH: No, no. I wish I -- like I said, I thought to myself I didn’t know that I would be a good candidate for this because I wasn’t one of those heroes that walked the straight and narrow. But I think I’m more an example of how a lot of people were back then, you know? Like I say that the knowledge wasn’t there in the beginning and then it was a bit sketchy as we did get it. And a lot of us still carried on, thinking this won’t affect me. 0 3534 Using Corel for Above Ground and the Valley Gay Press / Above Ground Magazine as an inspiration LB: I just want to say, Mitch, that when you were doing Above Ground and I was writing an article for it, I remember one time me sitting in your office and you were showing me how to use that program that -- Corel. &#13 ; &#13 ; MH: Corel Draw that I used to use, yeah. 0 MovingImage Mitch Hemphill talks about the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. He focuses on working in the local bar ; the rise of the Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT) organization ; and creating and running his newspaper "Above Ground," which covered AIDS information. MITCH HEMPHILL LIZ BRADBURY: -- do -- great, and there we are. So, I have to start out by saying this project, with this project, the Bradbury Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. And so, I start out by saying, and this is all on and everything -- I'm supposed to, let's see, I want to be sure I'm going to do the right thing here. Yes. So, this is the first one I've done. So, that's why -- MITCH HEMPHILL: Oh, okay. LB: (inaudible) [a little hesitating? ]. My name is Liz Bradbury and I'm here with Mitch Hemphill to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community -- oh, this is the wrong one.(laughs) No. During this -- oh, I see, the LGBT community, during this time of the COVID-19 epidemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT archive, our project was funded from the Lehigh Valley engaged consortium. We're meeting on Zoom and so today's date is June 17th -- MH: June 17th, 20-- LB: -- 2020. And thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? MH: Certainly. My full name is Mitchell Hemphill, spelled M-I-T-C-H-E-L-L H-E-M-P-H-I-L-L. LB: Great. And will you please share your birth date? MH: Yes. September thirteenth, nineteen sixty. LB: Okay. So, this is the consent part. So, do you consent to this interview today? MH: I do consent. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? MH: I do consent. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for this -- educational purposes in other formats, including films, archives, websites, presentations, and other formats? MH: I do consent. LB: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and identify parts you would like to delete and/or withdraw from your interview from the project? MH: I understand. LB: Great. So, here's the deal: we're just going to start right out. And so, what I'm going to -- just start with this little prompt and then say in the midst of the current health crisis that we are experience-- we want to take this opportunity to look back and reflect and to capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the nineteen eighties and nineties. So, we just have three things to prompt you. I'm going to start you right out to say do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease and just talk about that? LB: Sure. I may have heard of it before but I wasn't really aware of it until about nineteen eighty-four or nineteen eighty-five. That's at the point that people that we knew were starting to get sick. And I believe -- and in nineteen eighty-five, when Rock Hudson, when it was on the news that had HIV and then died shortly after, I think that really brought it to the attention of a lot more people. Honestly, even at that point, still, it wasn't very much a part of our life, it seemed, you know? It was still happening to other people, more so before that, too. And it seemed like it was happening more so to other people. It was only happening to people that were very promiscuous or using drugs and so -- even at that point. And I have to admit, at that time, I was very young. I was in my early twenties. I had only really come out a few years before that. And so, I was exploring my own sexuality and really kind of self-focused on my own life and what was going on with me, with work, and relationships, and things like that. But in eighty-four, I started working at the Stonewall and that's really when I -- by working there, that's when I started hearing more about it, although it wasn't -- there wasn't a lot of focus, still, yet and I didn't see much about it. LB: Yeah. So, at what point in the crisis were you living in the Lehigh Valley? So, you were at the Stonewall, you were living there -- here the whole time and can you speak -- so, talk about that and then also talk about -- can you speak to what resources or communication or attitudes were going on at the time? MH: Well, I actually lived in the Lehigh Valley all of my life with the exception of three years where I lived in Florida, which was from nineteen eighty-seven to nineteen ninety. So, actually, right in the middle of the peak. But before that, before moving to Florida, in the -- like I said, around eighty-five is where you started hearing more about it. There didn't seem to me -- I didn't see a lot of information out in our area at that time. And it may be my own guilt of not noticing things that were out there but I wasn't paying a lot of attention to. And I know a lot of people like myself and my circle of friends, we were more focused on partying (laughs) and enjoying each other's company than we were about the issues. Also, at that time, I wasn't much of a news watcher and things like CNN were still in their infancy. So, you weren't hearing about it on the news and it was considered still a gay disease, you know, that was affecting gay people only. So, you really didn't hear anything and you didn't get any support from the government about it. In the early days, there was an organization I was aware of, the AIDS Service Center, although I was not involved with them other than seeing some of their literature and things like that. The time, as far as the way people felt at that period of time, and this going -- before eighty-seven, when I moved, in the early years. To be honest with you, I think, like myself, a lot of people were still of the opinion of this was an isolated thing. It wasn't something affecting me, it wasn't going to affect my lifestyle, and as long as you weren't -- if you were in a monogamous relationship where you weren't sleeping with somebody that looks sick, you were fine, you know? Something we all learned later was not really going to be the case. But there didn't seem to be a lot of resources at that time. But if you weren't looking for them, you weren't going to find them. Until about nineteen eighty-six, when FACT was formed, that's when things really developed as far as information getting out there, activism being there. And so, that's when it became more -- I became more aware of it, myself. That's pretty much -- like I said, I think, still, like I said in that period of time, there wasn't a lot going on that you could see, going up to eighty-seven. Then, I did go -- eighty-seven to nineteen ninety, I lived in Florida. There were some activities going on there, too, some fundraising events and stuff like that. But to be honest, being around Orlando, which was a vacation spot, promiscuity, et cetera was in full swing, you know? There was more focus on having fun and the shows and things like that then there was, actually, on activism about this disease. LB: Yeah. When you were talking about FACT being formed, that was before you went away in eighty-seven? MH: That was actually before I went away. FACT was formed in nineteen eighty-six. It came out of a friendly competition between the Stonewall bar and Candida's bar. The staff on both, at both bars, were always doing things with friendly competition and it kind of built up to what we decided was going to be a bar competition. At the time, we called it the Bar Olympics. LB: Right. MH: And a few forward thinking people, not necessarily that were part of the actual activities, thought to use this event to actually do something more with it, raise awareness about AIDS and things like this, and started FACT. So, that was in eighty-six, eighty-seven I moved to Florida, and then didn't return until nineteen ninety. So, when I came back in nineteen ninety, things were -- we're seeing results of the disease within my community and my circle of friends and things like this. LB: Well, I want you to talk about that but I just want to get an idea, like, when FACT was forming in nineteen eighty-six, do you think that that was happening because people were hearing about the disease or because people had it? MH: In eighty-six, when it was actually formed, it was -- FACT was formed in our area because we were seeing people we knew who were being affected by it, that had it, and were already passing away, you know? LB: Right. MH: And within our community, we knew that the government wasn't really doing much of anything for it. The health departments really weren't doing anything. And to raise awareness and do something about it, we kind of had to do it on our own. And that was one of the reasons, you know, with founding FACT, although it was supporting the entire community, not just gay and lesbian, you know, people and LGBTQ, but it opened itself up, knowing it had to do everything for the entire community and have those services for everyone. That was a big step forward, you know, and drove a lot of things, I think with, like, the Allentown Health Bureau and different -- made more things available and brought more information out there as a result of it. LB: Yeah. In nineteen eighty-six, when these things were happening, do you think that people were -- they were changing their behavior? I mean, you were raising money with FACT. What was the money for? Because in eighty-six, I don't know whether there was medication. I was just moving to Lehigh Valley then, so I wasn't as aware of that. But, like, when they were trying to raise money, what was the money for? Was it for education? MH: The money at that point, as I understood it, with my involvement with them, in the beginning, was a lot of it, it had to do with helping people that were HIV-positive. It had to do with educating the public. It had to do with getting materials like condoms out in bars and literature out in bars and making people more aware of it within the community. And, like I said, obviously, they, you know, were open to the entire population of our area. However, that was where the focus needed to be because our community was being affected in a higher ratio than the community at large. So, that's really where their focus was, to educate, to -- there was money, as they went down the line, that was made available, like, through grants for different other organizations. So, they're almost, like, a parent organization to other organizations. But the main thing was to get the word out, to get the materials out so that people understood better what was going on and how to help prevent it from spreading. LB: I think there was, perhaps, a time, and maybe you could comment on this, where people didn't know where it was coming from. They just thought it was a gay disease that gay people were getting but they didn't really know how it was communicated. Were you sort of aware of -- MH: Definitely was the case, especially in the earlier days. And I think a lot of us -- and like I say, I was young and a bit selfish, you know, with my own life at that time. Had it been happening when I was in my forties, perhaps I would have been different. But a lot of people really just thought this was something that affected a small group of people in other places, you know? Like I say, it's only the people that are going to the bathhouses or, you know, that have way too many partners or, you know, people that were IV drug users, we heard about it, and were also being affected by it. But I don't think it was something that we thought of as a community so much was going to affect us individually. It's not going to get me. Kind of like the young people right now with this pandemic. I'm strong, I'm young, and if I do get it, I'll beat it, you know? And I think that attitude, it wasn't -- I think I had that attitude and I believe a lot of other people did, as well. And, you know, coming from the freedom of the seventies and the sexual freedom and everything we experienced as a community that you were able to do without having to worry about somebody getting pregnant, you know, that's one of the reasons that it was spreading so rampantly through the community. But we really didn't think that it was going to affect me personally. And I think a lot of my circle of friends and a lot of people that I waited on as customers and knew from the bar, I think they felt the same way until, like I said, around eighty-six -- was when we were starting to see people we actually knew getting sick with it. And back then, with what little you did hear about it -- was that if you did get it, it was a death sentence, you know? because people were getting very sick and people were dying rather quickly in the beginning. LB: Yeah. MH: You know? So, that was eighty-six, when FACT was formed. And then, by the time I came back from Florida in nineteen ninety, a lot more people were affected and a lot more people that I knew were affected. And I went to a lot of funerals and I got to the point, in the early nineties, where I just felt I can't go to one more funeral because I had been to so many where I had seen friends and people that I had known, you know, pass away from this thing. But even then, to be honest with you, the mentality of myself, even -- I'm guilty of this. I'm one of those lucky fools because I wasn't even tested myself. I didn't get tested until about nineteen ninety-one . In 1990, I moved back to be with my current partner of, where -- my husband and we've been together for thirty years. But before -- and to be honest with you, I'm not proud to say this but I tried to have monogamous relationships throughout my life but in between those relationships, I lived a free life and I did a lot of things that were not safe and I was a bit of a hypocrite because even after the formation of FACT, I would encourage people to use safe sex, and -- if it's abstinence and everything that was involved with trying not to get this disease. But myself, I was not following the rules. And when I took that test in -- around nineteen ninety-one, I was actually of the opinion and thought I'm definitely going to show up positive because I did too many things that were too risky. I drank too much in those days and I made some very poor decisions. And I knew of some people that I had been involved with that actually had contracted the disease and then later passed away from it. So, I thought it's a given and my only protection was not to do things with my current husband that could put him at risk. So, when I actually got the test back negative, I was actually kind of surprised, you know? LB: Wow. Is that why it took you a while to get tested, because you were afraid -- MH: I think so. I think I was kind of, in my head, it's going to be positive, you know? But ignorance is no excuse, you know? And I can't really relate that to something that's going on in this situation other than the -- my behavior, I was a hypocrite. It's like telling somebody you should be wearing a mask but then I go out and don't wear one myself, you know? So, yeah, it was a hard time within my own mind, too, and I don't know if a lot of other people struggled this way. I contemplated -- like, this interview, I'm not the best example of it because I wasn't the best hero, definitely, through that period. I was doing the things that I was telling other people not to do and I was the lucky fool in this case. LB: Weren't there other people that were doing that too, though? MH: Oh, I know there were, yes. There were multitudes of people doing that. But, you know, when you look at it and you think of the things you have done to try to help with the epidemic and stuff like that -- but while not following your own words, you know? And I was guilty of that, you know? It was something that I think a lot of people within my age group, you know, that are now coming on sixty and, you know, a little younger and older, we were all pretty much doing the same thing and we were very quick to be a part of the organizations, go to the fundraisers, do these kinds of things, and go to the fun things, you know? The Summer Games were fun, you know, to be a part of them, to be there. Going to the Snowball, the FACT Snow Ball, that was fun. You got to dress up. It was kind of like just another event. And you all often lost sight of why you were actually doing it while there were people in the background always working. You know, some of the people, you know, that I've known through time, like Carl Mancino and David Moyer and people like this that were doing all the hard work through all of that, you know? But it's a time I look back on and say I didn't deserve to make it through it, in some ways, you know? And I'm sure there's a lot of people that feel the same way, you know? LB: What was the hard work? I mean, what were some of the things that you saw -- MH: The hard work is actually living what you're saying, you know? Doing -- not only just doing the fundraising and actually doing the work of an organization but also walking the walk and talking the talk. Not just saying this is what you should do, you should be safe, you should be using condoms, you should be doing this and then going out on your own and doing otherwise, you know? And like I say, I know a lot of people, they -- we've talked about this, you know, looking back, and it's, like, how did we survive this when our friends who were less active, even, didn't, you know? We knew people that actually had had one sexual encounter and that was it, you know? But this was all before they had the medications that they have now to make it that it is not a death sentence. LB: Yeah. MH: You know? LB: Did you know people that were taking care of other people, who were -- you know, people who were caring for people that were dying or sick? MH: Just indirectly, for the most part, you know? And, yes, and that was -- in the nineties, there were numerous people I -- that took such a toll on the people that were the caregivers. I can only relate to it having taken care of my father until he passed [at the? ] first of the year. But there is quite a struggle for a lot of people that not only had to, you know, deal with this -- and from the entire community as a whole, you know, that were taking care of people like that and having to watch them waste away, especially in the early days, you know? There wasn't -- the drugs that were out there really weren't extending life and it wasn't making life better, you know? So, the early days were really rough and a lot of us, people like me, sometimes it was easier to look the other way. But then, when a friend of yours died, it brought it right back to the forefront and it was, like, you know, why are we forgetting about this, you know? LB: Yeah. MH: Was a lot of that. LB: So, when you were doing the -- talk a little bit about the magazine because [I think it? ] -- MH: Well, when I did come back -- like I said, I helped with the formation of FACT and I was doing that. That was my involvement and I was a little bit, you know, involved with some of the work on the fundraisers and things like that in the early years, then I moved to Florida. When I came back, like I mentioned, in the early nineties, that's when people were being more affected. But I started Above Ground magazine and launched that in November of nineteen ninety-four. And the reason for launching the magazine was because the LGBQT (sic) -- the community in Lehigh Valley no longer had a periodical, you know, that -- and it was something that was needed, it was missing for a period of time, since other things had fallen apart. So, it was an entertainment and information monthly magazine that I put out. And one of the things that I made available through it was access to the HIV/AIDS groups so they could advertise their events, put in articles, you know, different things like that. And I would actually always go to the big events and give them some publicity and things like that so people kept aware of it. And the magazine I had ran for -- I had it for three years, until I sold it in nineteen ninety-seven. And then, shortly after, it stopped being published. But it was filling a need at that time, which was filled by other things in the meantime. Some, notably -- (laughs) but at the time, there was really nothing out there, so you didn't know about these events other than that. And that was one way that it actually spread throughout the community and into the surrounding areas and people were made more aware of these different events, as well. So, I hope to think that it did something to help in that way. LB: Yeah. MH: [You know? ]? LB: Oh, yeah, no question. So, what do you think, in terms of activism, I mean, you did some significant things with activism and we saw the continuation of FACT over all of that time. And things began to change in terms of medications and stuff. In about nineteen ninety-three, I think that really began to change. How did that seem different to you? Did you see any kind of difference or did you see people still being actually more aware of things? MH: I actually believe people were -- after I came back from Florida, I did go back to work at the Stonewall again and I worked there for another eight years or so. And so, you know, just having to see the view of how people are reacting in the bar scene, do you know what I mean? There was a difference made. You know, the work of FACT and other organizations like that actually was working and people were being less promiscuous, in my opinion. I think people were starting to show, you know, safe sex practices more. They were involved. Over time, after the medications became better and treatment became better, I think there was less urgency with a lot of people. Like, we have to do something and we have to do something about this now, you know? However, I think that it did make a change. Now, whether that change is still relevant today is a little different. For a short period of time, sometime after two-thousand, for a very short period of time, I worked part-time in the Stonewall's coat check, for their underage night. LB: Ah. MH: And all of the materials are there. I think that they have a different sense -- the younger generation definitely has a younger sense and they're more aware of how easy they can contract the disease from another person, although they don't have the same fear that a lot of people did, especially in the nineties, you know, because of the advances that have been made, you know, through medicines and treatments. LB: Yeah. MH: So, I wouldn't say that they're ignoring it. I think they're still behaving better than we did in the early '80s, I really do. I think in a lot of ways, they're more responsible. But, like I say, good medicine also makes you little more comfortable with thinking that if I do get it, they can take care of it, you know? Which does nothing to stop the spread. LB: Right, right, right. MH: Yeah. LB: So, how did you think -- with the competition between the bars that really began FACT and began those kinds of things, that part atmosphere that made things more fun in some ways, do you think that that was something that really encouraged people to become involved? MH: Oh, absolutely. To be honest with you, if it was less fun, you wouldn't have had people coming to it. You know, sometimes you have to kind of make things fun to make it worth people to do things, you know? It's difficult. Right now, (inaudible) we're looking at the pandemic, with the COVID-19, how do you really encourage people by doing something fun to do the right thing or to -- you know, it's a totally different situation in that it really can affect anyone and everyone. It's an even more invisible thing and it's, you know, so much easier spread that people just don't -- they don't realize how severe it is, you know? What we had to deal with with the AIDS epidemic was kind of compartmentalized, you know what I mean? It was only affecting people that were having sex with each other or transferring blood, you know, through the use of different needles and stuff like that. But it was something that -- at least you weren't going to get it just by walking up to somebody and talking to them, you know? One of the things that was a parallel that I see was to the way I felt when I was younger and AIDS came out, we were young. And, you know what? We're strong and we will get through this and it will not affect us and if I get it, I will beat it. I saw that, especially if they close down things and I'd see big groups of people on the basketball courts: younger people, still playing, you know? And that feeling that you're invincible when you're younger, it's difficult with younger people, you know? So, it's such a different situation now than the AIDS crisis was. But, at the same time, there are a lot of parallels that we see and one of the things, if we as the gay community hadn't kind of taken hold of it ourselves, it would have been left to just run rampant, you know what I mean? We weren't getting support from the, you know, Reagan/Bush government. We weren't getting support by a lot of people in general because they thought this was a gay disease. It was only affecting gay people and it was only affecting drug users, so better to it. I mean, even leading to some conspiracy theories, you know, that it was actually put out there on purpose to wipe us out, you know? But one of the parallels I see to this and our situation now is actually the way that a lot of people in the government are trying to make it seem as if it's a non-issue, it doesn't exist, you know? We can look the other way, it'll just go away, you know? And that, we saw when we had the AIDS epidemic. It was, like, this is a small, isolated thing. It's only affecting, you know, this type of people. It's nothing for us to worry about, you know, until it started going into the population as a whole and heterosexual couples had to worry about it, too, and it was, like, this is something that could be spread that way. So, it was a difficult time going through that. But, unfortunately, I'm one of the examples of the, like, I say the lucky fools that, even though I was doing everything I could to help promote information about it and promote people to do the right thing, I wasn't necessarily doing the right thing, you know? And so, I'm fortunate that I can look at that in hindsight and know that I didn't contract it myself. And, more importantly, I didn't pass it on to someone else, you know? This epidemic here, you can get it, you may not even get very sick. But you can pass it on to so many other people, so -- LB: Yeah, in terms of contagion, really, HIV is very hard to pass on just to another -- MH: Correct. LB: -- [you know, to? ] -- MH: You can't pass it through the skin, it's not breathed in. It's something that has to be done through a bodily fluid. LB: But do you remember a time when people had no idea how it was passed and so there was [no? ] -- MH: Oh, yes, I do. You know, at first, when you'd first heard about it -- and like I say, I was mostly -- really became aware of it around eighty-four, eighty-five, when I started working at the bar because that's when you'd actually hear some inklings about it and people that were a little bit more aware and actually took the time to look into this when they were hearing about it and reading about it in the news. Before that, like I say, I believe I'd heard of it, you know? And then, in the beginning, we really didn't know what was happening. In the early days, I think, from when it came out around eighty and eighty-one that they saw the first cases of this, they were just telling us they didn't really know what was happening but it was affecting heterosexual males I mean, homosexual males more than other people and so it was kind of focused on the group. So, no, we didn't know and, to be honest, we didn't know that it wasn't the government or some group trying to actually wipe us out. We didn't know that. That's why these theories come up. Until science took a hold of it and funding came in, we didn't really find out all the details of what caused it, where it came from, and how it was transmitted. One of the things -- I wasn't very politically motivated until leading up to the elections in nineteen ninety-two. And one of the main focuses of that was because of the way the government was responding to the AIDS epidemic and it was important that, then, Bill Clinton got into office and got the Reagan/Bush era over so that we could see something done. And we did, you know? That's when you really saw a lot more information come out from the scientists. LB: And maybe there's a tie-in, do you think, between that and when people were really understanding about it? I guess people who had been infected, people who were scientists, people who were doctors had enough information then and they could begin to make scientifically informed -- MH: Oh, definitely. And, well, there was more motivation -- there wasn't a lot of motivation to push for it, to give money for the funding into the research into it in the beginning because of who it was affecting. Had AIDS been only affecting rich, white businessmen, they would have had funding a lot quicker. But like I say, there wasn't -- a lot of funding has to come through the government. And so, if it's not being funded for the research and to find out what this is, to actually look at it and say this is going to be a problem and we got to take care of it, in the early days, that wasn't there, you know? And so, as a result, none of us knew, really, what was going on. And if there was science coming out, it wasn't coming out to us. LB: In the Lehigh Valley, do you remember any kind of political response or any kind of elected officials who talked about it or didn't talk about it or supported the rights and stuff that had an effect on that? MH: I really don't have a big memory of that. And perhaps during the time from eighty-seven to ninety, when I was actually out of the Lehigh Valley, there may have been more of that. I knew that there were people within the health department that were very focused on it. But that was actually coming a little bit later, once there was more knowledge of what it was. But I didn't really notice a feeling of support or denial or anything like that coming from, you know, government. It almost felt, to be honest with you, back then, it felt like this was our problem, we had to take care of it. Nobody else cares, nobody else is even looking at it, and so if anything's going to be done, we have to do it as our own community. And I honestly believe that communities across the country, that's how a lot of this got done. Philadelphia having a bigger city and a lot more different groups and stuff like that and activism, that kind of filtered to us, some of that. They were more active before we were in this area, I think, in a lot of ways. LB: In nineteen ninety-three, people in the Lehigh Valley who -- and this really came out of the bars -- organized a bunch of buses to go to the March on Washington in nineteen ninety-three. MH: Yes, yes. I actually didn't go on that march. But, yeah, that was a big thing. It really was. Wish I had gone. It was one of those things that I didn't go, probably because something was going on with one of my relationships at that time. No, actually, no, that was ninety-three, so, you know, I think I was just too focused on work and things like that. But after hearing about it and seeing people bring back pictures and stuff and [come back with? ] camaraderie -- it was a wonderful experience for a lot of people that I wish I'd been a part of, you know? LB: I think that the Pride festival in the Lehigh Valley grew out of that. So, were you involved with Pride during the beginning times of that? MH: I was. And when Pride first started, one of the ways I was actually involved with Pride was doing graphic work for them. Now, let's see, Pride started -- LB: Nineteen ninety -- MH: around nineteen ninety-four, three, ninety-four? Yeah, at that time, ninety-four, I had started the magazine. And before that, I was actually doing a newsletter for the Stonewall. And so, I was doing some kinds of graphic things. And some of the board members from Pride actually came to me and I did their, like, their booklet for the day of Pride and things for the first two years. And then, obviously, with working within the bar situation, we were able to promote things to a lot of people. And the bar itself making -- was very supportive of all kinds of things, always showing -- actually, all of the bars were as far as getting literature out there for people to read, making announcements, doing fundraisers within their own bars. And so, yeah, that, I think the Pride event grew out of that and some other things and our community already coming together because of the AIDS crisis. So, I think that helped strengthen that, as well. LB: Yeah, I think that's a big deal. MH: Yeah, it is. LB: So, as things went on and the various different stuff kind of wound down for the AIDS community, I mean, I think if we look back at that, there were some pretty key people that were making things happen in those days. And can you mention some of those folks and what they -- MH: Oh, yeah, in the early days, I mean, we lost some people that actually were -- Ken [Tall? ] was an example. But Dave Moyer, Carl Mancino. There were people that were just part of -- they weren't part of the LGBTQ community but they were actually close friends and stuff and they became very instrumental, as well. Off the top of my head, coming up with names, those are two people that did a significant amount in those days, especially with FACT and things like that. But there were so many people involved and, to be honest with you, I wasn't as involved with the organizations other than, for instance, with the startup of it, promoting their events, perhaps, and like I said, helping with organizing some of the events. And I did concession stand -- I was in charge of concessions and stuff in the second Summer Games and things like that but -- LB: [Tell me a? ] little bit about the summer games because people in the future should hear about that because they were pretty wonderful. MH: They were fun. First of all, like I say, they came out of a fun competition between competing bars. And they built into a much larger thing. At first, it only included Candida's and the Stonewall, which, you know, because of our friendship with each other and our competition with each other -- but then, after the first year, then it was decided that we were going to make an event and it was going to be a FACT event now that FACT had been formed. And so, other bars were invited, as well, from outside of the Lehigh Valley. There was bars from Reading, there was bars from Wilkes-Barre, Scranton. So, you had bars from other areas coming in and bringing more people in and learning about these things. One other thing about the summer games was it was a lot of fun. It was fun to watch, it was fun events. There was swimming, there was, you know, things like a drag competition where people would have to do a relay race getting into different outfits and stuff. A lot of fun. But one of the things that I remember the most we would get to the end of the competition and there would be a ceremony at the end and that is when everybody had time to actually remember what we were doing there with candlelight vigils, sometimes the naming of names and remember what we were doing there and take time to reflect on that. And that was a very heartwarming part of those events. So, like I said, the different events were always a lot of fun. You want people to do things, you want people to participate, you got to make them fun. The Snowball, a lot of people didn't do the Snowball as they thought it was a little bit elitist because everybody was renting tuxes and going like this. So, they said, well, I can't afford to rent a tux and if I don't wear one -- you know, and over the years, that changed somewhat. There was a lot less people worrying so much about what they looked like and just enjoying the event. But the summer games was one thing where everybody could just show up, was a big ol' picnic, kind of atmosphere. And Rainbow Mountain resort in the Poconos hosted it for most of that period of time until it moved past that. But, yeah, for people that didn't experience that, at a time in our community, it was just something where you could bring all kinds of bars from all different areas and people from those areas together, just have a great day. But at the same time, you're doing something for a wonderful cause. And that makes people feel good, that you can actually still have fun and you're doing something good. LB: Yeah, great. MH: Yeah, it brought our community together, too. I mean, beyond the AIDS epidemic and, you know, it strengthened our community as we moved forward looking into our own rights. So, some of the things that came out of that epidemic were then -- we as a community became stronger. We became used to getting together and doing things together, which made us stronger going into the nineties with the elections and as we go down the line. And then, the different organizations that -- you know, has the voter's guide that came out and the -- now with the Bradbury-Sullivan Center, you know what I mean, there's so many things that would have been unthought of actually years ago. There was little fringe things here and there but they never got a full acceptance and support of community. And so, like I say, our community is actually better off -- not that we had the disease come through us but how we came together for it. LB: Were you involved with Le-Hi-Ho? MH: Le-Hi-Ho, that goes back pretty far and I don't have a lot of memory of that. I believe Le-Hi-Ho is back in the late seventies, perhaps? LB: The eighties, I think. MH: Was it eighties? LB: Yeah. MH: Yeah, there was some -- I have to be honest, I'm not the best one for an interview because a lot of my time was spent inebriated. (laughs) Let's just get right to it. When I was young, I drank a lot. I had a lot of fun. But those were the days. I graduated from high school at seventeen, moved out of the house at seventeen into my first apartment. Had just realized that I was gay, finding out what gay was, and was living to -- exploring myself, you might say. It was a different time coming off of the craziness of the seventies, so -- LB: Where did you go to high school? MH: I went to school in a high school in Emmaus, just outside of Allentown. So, I grew up in a pretty small, somewhat privileged area. And then, like I said, I was in a big hurry to move out to the big city of Allentown as soon as I could and I hadn't even turned eighteen yet, yeah. LB: Yeah. MH: [You know? ]? LB: I didn't ask a whole bunch of demographic questions on this. I don't think this really -- oh, well, it does ask you what your zip code is. We're supposed to day what your zip code -- MH: Oh, well, right now, I'm in one-eight-oh-five-two, which is the Whitehall area, but -- LB: Yeah. So, is the reason that you came back to the Lehigh Valley because you just missed it so much? Or was there some reason why -- MH: Because everybody comes back (laughs) that's from here. I moved to Florida with a boyfriend at the time. Things didn't work out so well and then you come home, you know? Actually, while I was here on vacation, I met my current husband and came back to be with him. And then, like I said, we've been together for thirty years now. So, it's not a bad area and it's not -- we don't get as much cold weather as up north. (laughs) So, that's why I came back to this area. It's home. LB: Yeah. And I guess, see, in this list, they didn't -- they ask, in the COVID thing, that you're supposed to identify yourself within the community. So, in other words, how do you identify your LGBT-ness? And so, you would say what -- how would you identify your -- MH: Within the current situation, really? LB: No, no, just, like, I would identify myself as a lesbian, in other words. MH: Oh, I identify as gay, I'm -- you know, but -- LB: [That's? ] easy, okay. MH: Yes. LB: Well, I think -- so, here's one thing I think everybody should ask and -- because we hope that someday in the future, somebody will look at this and get a sense of, you know, various different people's experiences with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And it is true that we Baby Boomers are the ones that went through this in our twenties and now we're at a different age. We're about to go through the aging epidemic, as well, since that's another thing. But what would you want somebody in the future to know, like, in terms of what that was like? I mean, if you were just going to sort of describe what the AIDS epidemic was like to somebody who had no sense of what it was like -- and I think there are young people today who really don't have any sense of what it was like. MH: I think more so than anything, I would like them to know that hopefully sometime in the future when there's no real recollection of that, I hope that we as a community are accepted just as -- the same as anyone else in the community, that our -- as the gay community is no longer the gay community, you know? I'm hoping that would be that but the case would be that we were at a time then where we still considered less than, being part of our community. And we had something that struck us really hard but we showed a strength that probably would not have been imagined. And we pulled ourselves up by our boot straps and we took care of it on our own when the government wasn't there to do so, you know? It was a time of a lot of pain but there was a lot of camaraderie and a lot of good things actually did come out of the situation, so -- although it was a difficult time for a lot of people, we lost a lot of friends, we lost family members, a lot of good actually did come out of the situation for us because we became stronger. LB: Yeah. I want to ask you one more thing because you brought it up because you were talking about how you became aware of this sort of -- of HIV/AIDS because of Rock Hudson. And I think people don't have an understanding of how significant Rock Hudson's circumstance was. And there were some other famous people that -- MH: Yeah. LB: -- spoke out about -- but you want to say a little bit more about that? because I don't know if people would always really get what happened. MH: That was actually something, by somebody of his stature coming out. And for somebody of my age, we thought of him as McMillan from McMillan and Wife, you know, even more so than the movies, in the black and white movies and stuff. But he was a leading man. He was everything. So, from a gay person's point of view, I almost wonder if -- he brought attention to it but we were also looking as, like, well, look, he was gay, you know? And we were almost more focused on that when the whole thing arrived than we were on the fact that this guy has HIV. And at that point, we thought, well, he came out -- that he had HIV. It's, like, oh, he must be gay because this is a -- you know, we were still being told this was a gay disease. But for somebody like that, somebody in the public eye like that, that meant so much to older people, too, older than us at that time. That meant a lot. It's, like, oh, wow. LB: Yeah. MH: He's, like, Rock Hudson and he got this disease. And I think it made people think, you know what? I can get this, too. It was really big. Other people did talk about it frequently. You know, we had Magic Johnson come out, that was very big, to have somebody that wasn't homosexual get the disease, come out publicly about it. I think that was really a big turning point because this wasn't somebody that was gay, to our knowledge, at least. And so, when celebrities or famous people like this actually can show that "this can happen to us, too" and then they relate their story and they actually speak out in support of a cause like that, it means the world, it really does, just like right now, with this epidemic, you're seeing so many famous people, celebrities, whatever you would call them actually speaking up: "Wear a mask, you know? It's not that hard. This is very important. This is a serious issue. " Without that, a lot of people would actually ignore it completely. So, that was an important turning point and it really was and -- as were some of the people that got -- contracted it and came into public view after that, even more so -- there's other people that may have been more known to the gay community but not to the entire population of our country that -- that's why, to me, that was extremely important and that's why it made you notice it right then and there and this is a real thing. LB: Yeah, it' pretty -- it was remarkable. And even Elizabeth Taylor's response and -- MH: Yeah. LB: -- you know, that kind of stuff, too. MH: Yeah. And when, like, for instance, when Liberace died, he didn't do a lot for -- the fact that he denied that he was gay throughout his lifetime. He didn't talk about having AIDS throughout his lifetime. It was done -- all that came out posthumously. So, that did nothing, really, to help in eradicating the disease. It takes a lot for a celebrity, even knowing that he's going to pass away soon to know that everything he's done and the way he wants to be remembered, this is what you may be remembered for but this is important. So, that actually was something that really meant a lot at that time and especially, like I said, to be a leading man like that, a heartthrob to so many heterosexual Americans, you know what I mean? It was a very important -- yes. LB: Great. Well, is there anything else you want to add that you're thinking -- MH: No, no. I wish I -- like I said, I thought to myself I didn't know that I would be a good candidate for this because I wasn't one of those heroes that walked the straight and narrow. But I think I'm more an example of how a lot of people were back then, you know? Like I say that the knowledge wasn't there in the beginning and then it was a bit sketchy as we did get it. And a lot of us still carried on, thinking this won't affect me. When we look at this pandemic right now, I have a whole different world of thought. Not only did we hear right away from experts and scientists of what it is, how dangerous this could be, but every person that I know that's in the medical profession says this is serious. And these are Republicans and Democrats and Independents, you know? But when it came to this disease, they weren't hedging on it. And so, to see people not take it seriously is scary. It is scary. Like I say, the AIDS epidemic was a little bit different, you know? It wasn't as easily transmitted by any measure. But when you see some of the ways -- you know, I think about -- I somewhat had a somewhat cavalier attitude back then and I see that to the nth degree right now with something that's far more contagious, you know? So, that's just fuel for thought, you know? LB: It is, it's -- MH: I believe, to be honest with you, too, as far as our own community, I think we're more -- I see very few people that I know from the LGBTQ community that aren't watching this closely, aren't very cautious about it, and a lot of that may come from the fact that we went through this. We went through an epidemic of our own, on a smaller scale, but we know this is serious business. And, like I say, with that community, I'm not seeing the same kind of divisiveness I'm seeing through people in general and the way they ignore it, you know what I mean, and don't take it seriously. So, [I don't know? ]. LB: Hashtag not our first virus. MH: What's that? LB: Hashtag not our first virus. MH: Not our first virus, absolutely, absolutely. LB: [Thanks that we're? ] -- MH: And although we may not have individually dealt with it so well then, now that I'm older, more mature, now more so than ever, my biggest fear is that I get it and give it to someone else, you know? That was something that was part of our epidemic at the time. With maturity comes the understanding of that. LB: I just want to say, Mitch, that when you were doing Above Ground and I was writing an article for it, I remember one time me sitting in your office and you were showing me how to use that program that -- Corel. MH: Corel Draw that I used to use, yeah. LB: (inaudible) [and hook it, yeah? ], and when I was watching you set up the graphics on it and then, soon after, the magazine, your magazine was over and I started the Valley Gay Press and I used Corel for eight years. MH: Did you? (laughs) LB: So, well, I could probably do this. And Mitch is doing it and he's -- and I really -- I wrote the paper in Corel -- MH: Yeah. LB: -- and typed it in in Corel and [part of it was? ] just because you were doing it that way. And I ran that paper for eighteen years. MH: Yes. LB: So, it grew out of [the stuff you learned? ] and I thought Above Ground was a huge inspiration to a lot of people. People really paid attention to it and read things in it. And, you know, Steve Black wrote political articles in it and we really covered information to a lot of people and we began -- MH: Steve Black, there's another one who was so involved with so many different things, especially in the political field with us -- LB: Yeah, yeah. MH: -- [another one? ]. LB: Yeah, [just? ] Steve in my office and at the center. He was amazing. MH: Yeah, yeah. There was actually so many people that we've lost over the years that -- and, like I say, you almost become numb to it. And then, when you think about somebody, it was -- it took a lot of people that it shouldn't have. LB Yeah. MH: There's a lot of people that passed away that never allowed it to even be said that that's what they passed away from, you know? LB: And Steve died of AIDS. MH: I know he did, yeah, yeah, because -- yeah. And he had said something to me about it. But he did not want that to be out as public knowledge, either, and a lot of people didn't, you know, that were suffering through that. It was [a pitiful? ] -- LB: [Yeah? ], that he had it. MH: Yeah. LB: It was too late by the time -- MH: Yeah. LB: It was [clear? ] that he had it. MH: So, it was too late and also too early as far as the medical advances they had made, yeah, yeah. LB: Yeah. So, well, thank you very, very much for talking to us about this. This is really terrific that you've done this and I -- let me just remind you again, I'm supposed to do that, to say that, let's see, that, you know, you -- we're going to -- this Zoom meeting is private and so it has a password entry so there's no, you know, other people on this or anything like that. And we, I just want to remind you again, that once this is done and I upload this and then they'll send it to be transcribed and then you'll be able to review it. We'll send it to you in an email so that you can read through the whole thing. And if there's things in it that you want to change or add or rearrange or [look at? ] -- MH: Absolutely. Will they look at it at any point and say we should edit certain parts of this or -- LB: [Not -- not? ] -- MH: No? Okay. All right. I just wonder if -- I get a bit long-winded sometimes. LB: No, and I don't think that's the case at all. I thought that you were really great and fascinating. But I think that, you know, people may listen to this in the future and what they would do -- and I think I'm going to stop it now because we're just chatting. MH: Okay. LB: Turn this off -- END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:02:33 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mitch Hemphill, June 17, 2020 Description An account of the resource Mitch Hemphill talks about the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. He focuses on working in the local bar; the rise of the Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT) organization; and creating and running his newspaper "Above Ground," which covered AIDS information. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PH40_12 Subject The topic of the resource AIDS (Disease) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-06-17 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs. https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/4b5ee30f5f2b167362fc6f290c5046e8.png 115da40609f2094f07ad42c7e31740bd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: HIV/AIDS Description An account of the resource In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism. The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Liz Bradbury Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Larry Kleppinger OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_02.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 June 18, 2020 Larry Kleppinger, June 18, 2020 PH40_02 01:30:55 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg AIDS (Disease) Larry Kleppinger Liz Bradbury video/mpeg LarryKleppinger_20200618_video.mp4 1.0:|25(5)|58(2)|93(2)|120(2)|145(5)|170(7)|199(16)|232(9)|269(13)|296(9)|333(2)|356(15)|385(7)|422(14)|451(13)|482(6)|513(4)|534(15)|567(3)|602(3)|627(11)|660(4)|687(8)|726(12)|759(8)|800(8)|835(8)|866(5)|899(6)|914(17)|941(4)|968(8)|997(15)|1018(6)|1041(13)|1078(3)|1113(3)|1138(15)|1163(15)|1204(12)|1229(3)|1256(12)|1285(3)|1306(8)|1343(5)|1366(14)|1391(5)|1418(14)|1445(11)|1476(10)|1499(14)|1528(9)|1559(12)|1588(5)|1613(3)|1636(6)|1659(5)|1696(9)|1725(5)|1754(5)|1787(3)|1812(12)|1849(2)|1880(10)|1907(3)|1926(4)|1949(4)|1978(3)|1999(4)|2022(5)|2055(13)|2092(13)|2129(7)|2164(5)|2197(12)|2222(3)|2247(2)|2272(18)|2297(3)|2324(13)|2351(7)|2380(12)|2409(10)|2446(3)|2469(7)|2496(16)|2535(4)|2562(12)|2595(7)|2628(7)|2663(5) 0 https://youtu.be/Lp28TrvOJX0 YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: So, there we go, and then I’m going to do that. Good. So, I need to say with this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College, will collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. 0 133 First time becoming aware of HIV/AIDS LB: Okay! So, we’re all ready to go. The very first thing I always -- supposed to say, in the midst of this current public health crisis we’re experiencing, we want to take this opportunity to look back and reflect, to capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties. This starts out with a question that says, “Do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease?” So, I’m going to tell you that and then you’re going to just say -- go ahead and go. Say whatever you want.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Are you ready? (laughs) 0 207 People disappearing and speculation about who was ill LK: And once it did, then it just took off. I mean, there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of stigma. And I never really saw any of the ostracization that took place, which -- there was plenty of that later on, especially. But I noticed that people disappeared on us. They would just vanish. And people would be talking to one another and saying, “What happened to” so-and-so, you know? “Do you think they have the gay cancer?” And there was just rumor and speculation. So, that’s basically what transpired at the very beginning of that, yeah. 0 342 Fear turning into anger/ ACT UP forming LK: I remember there’s -- a lot of that fear turned into anger because, basically, there was nothing being stated by our government on any level, really, about AIDS at the time. I mean, we were on our own. And I know that we looked to ACT UP in New York, which was formed later on in the eighties. And they were quite instrumental in giving everybody a voice and setting the tone and making inroads in all kinds of ways. And so, all the cities in the country, I guess, picked up on that and there was this movement, basically. And so, that was inspiring. 0 391 Bar wars between Candida's and the Stonewall becoming a sporting event to benefit AIDS LK: I didn’t really participate in the activism. What we did in Allentown at a certain point, there was a stupid, silly bar wars thing going on between Candida’s and the Stonewall at the time and we were just doing silly things back and forth, just as we were trying to have some fun with life. And so, at a certain point, we decided that we would turn this into a sporting event to finish this off so we wouldn’t have to keep doing this back and forth thing. (laughter) And we decided to do an AIDS benefit. And that was nineteen eighty-five that took place. 0 467 Giving money from the Bar Olympics to the AIDS Services Center in Allentown LK: And then, we had to decide what we wanted to do with that, you know? Who we going to give this to? And we had come to discover that the AIDS Services Center at the time was serving a client roster -- I believe in nineteen eighty-five, there were fifty-three cases that they were serving.&#13 ; 0 518 Starting FACT, an organization to fund HIV/AIDS patient needs LK: And he also did theater productions and all -- he was involved in all kinds of things in life. What a spirit he was. He came to us and said, “You know, you guys did a really good thing here. You should create an organization to do fundraising.” And I was, like, “We don’t know anything about organizations for fundraising.” And he said, “Don’t worry, you’ll learn.” And he was right. So, he actually helped to spearhead that effort. We arranged to have meetings every week with a group of people and we pulled more people in. There were people like Micky Katz from the 13th Street Pub, Candida from Candida’s, Marky Cummings, Billy Leh from the Leh department store fortune, Larry Roth, Georgeann and Laura, Matthew [Stitzer?], Robin [Cook?]. I’m probably missing many other names at this point because it’s been thirty-five years now. 0 686 Saying goodbye to friends with AIDS LK: And the hardest part was when we had to say goodbye because I got the call and -- saying, “You should come over and say goodbye.” And I hadn’t done this before. And I walked into his bedroom and I sat down and I’m thinking to myself: what am I going to say? What do I say to him? And he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move, and he was definitely -- he had the wasting and he was so thin. &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah. 0 849 Bars becoming the community's family / People rallying to help LB: When people -- you know, I was talking to a couple of other people because really, in those days, bars were so essential because there wasn’t much else and -- because Le-Hi-Ho had become AIDS Services Center, so it was really not a social place anymore. And in the bars, I think, in some ways, because of ostracization of family, they were replacing people’s families.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Oh, yeah, definitely. Most definitely. 0 1133 Anger at federal government for lack of investment LK: Until we had more information. I was personally quite upset with the federal government, especially Ronald Reagan at that time, because he didn’t mention anything for at least the first six or seven years of his term. I think it was nineteen eighty-seven when he finally actually mentioned the word AIDS. So, that, there was a lot of anger at the time for that. And so, we just used all that fear and all that anger and channeled that into: let’s just take care of people. Let’s do what we can do for people. Let’s do what we do best: throw some parties and make some money for people.&#13 ; 0 1164 People investing their time in volunteering to help LB: Yeah. Did you know people that were -- I mean, I would guess that people were coming in and saying, “What can we do?” I mean, [I was?] doing that in nineteen ninety-two or ninety-one, saying, [you know?], “What can we do?” and that kind of stuff.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: There were some key players in that. I mean, the board members, of course, really were invested as far as utilizing every contact that they had to pull in. And if they heard of anybody -- say, “What can I do?” they would immediately pull them in and say, “Hey, you can be on this committee, you can help us set up for this event, you could sell tickets for this.” 0 1304 Events at the Summer Games LB: -- at Rainbow Mountain when they had the Rainbow Mountain stuff? What did you do there, what were you involved in?&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: No, I didn’t work at Rainbow Mountain, I worked at the Stonewall. But --&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: No, I mean --&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: -- at Rainbow --&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: -- for the Summer Games.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Oh, (laughs) well, it was actually quite a large set of -- we needed all those volunteers for that because the -- I remember Larry Roth had gotten a band shell for the opening and closing ceremonies and we had to set up the different areas for the games. 0 1553 The Stonewall as community gathering space LB: Who owned the Stonewall then?&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Back then, it was David Bischoff. And, yeah, he was the sole owner at that time. And he was right behind us, which was -- he was actually a very supportive owner and I liked that about him because we actually had a victory party at the Stonewall when we won and we invited the other bars to come and we would buy cocktails for the other bar reps and things like that. So, he was definitely onboard with all of that, which was great. Good man. 0 1690 AIDS Services Center LB: Who was the person who was running AIDS Services Center then? Who was the first -- was that Dixie White that was the first person that was the leadership at -- was she the first AIDS Services person?&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: I don’t recall her. I do know Ed Verba was there at the time that we had -- [was from?] --&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: [Ed Verba?]? Oh, okay, yeah.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Yeah. Is he still around?&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah, he is, yeah. He’s on Facebook, so I see him now and then, sure. 0 1747 Side effects from medications LB: Were you aware of things that were happening with -- we’re talking to some people about medications that people had to take and how that influenced their lives and that they (inaudible) were aware of it and stuff.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: I heard a lot about side effects, whether it was diarrhea, constantly being tired. Like I said, most of the people that actually did admit to having AIDS were -- they put on one of their best faces. They were strong people. They were the fighters. The ones that disappeared, that’s not to say that they weren’t strong, they just disappeared. 0 1850 Having conversations about safe sex and putting out condoms LB: It’s true. In terms of, you know, encouraging people, what kind of stuff did the bar do to encourage people to have safe sex? I mean, was there anything that -- I mean, I know that that happened because I was around. But I think there was a lot of (inaudible) information through (inaudible) people couldn’t get any [of the pamphlets?].&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: There was definitely -- I know there was conversations about using condoms. Some bars would put out condoms and eventually that became a mainstay, actually, you know? Condoms were there, period. 0 1944 Feeling energized to fight and be involved LB: So, talk about, like, how -- I mean, I would guess that things would -- like, how that was nuanced, the nuances of how that changed your life, I mean, just sort of the awareness of it and stuff --&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: What? The awareness of what?&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Just that this was happening and people you knew might have gotten it or things like that. I mean, how did that -- just sort of an open-ended question to let you talk about anything you want.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Well, it pretty much galvanized me and many others, many others, to do something about it and to be useful in this fight because no one was doing it for us, like I said. And I just -- it energized me. It gave me the energy that -- and, like I said, we used that fear and anger to fuel that so that we actually could spend that second job doing this benefit experience to pull it through. 0 2222 FACT emergency contingency fund / Where funding was going to benefit patients LB: So, when people were concerned about healthcare and circumstances like that, because I know that that must have been -- I had friends that couldn’t get healthcare because they were HIV-positive. Like, a doctor wouldn’t see them. Was FACT doing any kind of thing like that where they [would?] (inaudible) [for people?] or hooking up doctors? I mean, some of the doctors were really involved.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: We were helping to pay for doctor’s visits but we didn’t know anything about getting hooked up with doctors and things like that. That may have come later on, as well. Like I said, the first two years were pretty much the set-up years as far as getting the events in place and adding to that one single event the first year, then we had three events the next year, and the next year was that many more. So, that’s where the focus was in the very beginning. 0 2410 Celebrities coming out with their positive HIV status / Celebrity support LB: Well, so, let me think now. Oh, so, I was going to say -- so, I asked about that kind of stuff. So, when you were hearing about HIV and AIDS [and how?] -- before, I mean, people didn’t know anything about it. Then, you started to hear about the gay cancer thing, because I certainly remembered that. Did you start to hear about, you know, famous people talking about it or, you know, the sort of breakthroughs, when Reagan finally said something about it, was that something that people were sharing and people talking about that? What do you think about that?&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Wow. I don’t recall any famous people back at that time, back in the early to mid eighties or even beyond that that were coming out. I don’t recall that there were any because that would have been a career destroyer for them, let alone being gay. I mean, you saw what happened when Magic Johnson made his admission. I think that was in the nineties. 0 2523 Parallels between HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 LB: How do you see this, when you think about this stuff, it’s really hard not to think about this in relation to what’s happening now with the pandemic. And some of the things are very, very similar and some of the things are totally different, you know? Completely different. Do you have any insights on that? Have you thought about that and how that has a relationship and stuff?&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: I would agree there’s, like, a parallel there. And unfortunately, it seems that this administration doesn’t seem to be taking this pandemic quite seriously enough. And yet, it’s not as deadly as AIDS was. I mean, with AIDS, it was pretty much a death sentence at that time, before they came up with cocktail therapy. 0 2714 Stigma of being gay LB: Did you have other people in your family around you that were, you know, straight people, whether they were family or other people that you knew that just, like, that were becoming aware of AIDS and you were educating them or you would talk to them about it or something like that, like (inaudible)&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Well, actually, no. At that time, I -- because there was the other stigma of just being gay, itself. And some families just didn’t react well with that. And that’s not to say that my family disowned me or anything. But some were religious, so I knew where they stood. And so, there was not a close bond there at that time. I stayed away because I knew that they were not really all that accepting. And it’s funny because over time, you see various things that do change. 0 2851 Le-Hi-Ho Newsletters LB: Yeah, it’s interesting. So, when Le-Hi-Ho was producing this newspaper and had information in it, you were talking about reading that stuff, were they talking about HIV during that time in that newspaper or --&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: There were articles on it, yes, and then there was also -- I mean, it was pretty much a lot of different things. They also would report on the Summer Games, you know, how much money was brought in, the events and all that. There were all the bar advertisements in there, of course. There was a gossip column, which was run by Rob St. Mary, another character (laughter) who also we lost -- yes, we lost him, as well, I think in the nineties. 0 3070 The Stonewall as a safe space LK: But, yeah, I know at the Stonewall, I remember there were some straight people coming in and we put up with nothing. (laughs) It’s, like, you will come in here and you will behave properly, you will not insult anybody, you will not bring up anything as far as, you know, AIDS and -- there were two guys, actually, they called us butt pirates, which was an odd phrase. And they were basically ejected from the club, you know? We didn’t put up with -- we brooked no disrespect whatsoever from anybody. That was our safe place. This is our last safe place. You’re not going to take that from us. 0 3469 Comparisons of COVID-19 to HIV/AIDS LB: So, in terms of seeing sort of parallels to the -- I mean, one of the things about COVID, the big difference about COVID-19 compared to HIV/AIDS is that, although lots of people had HIV and lots of people were getting it, particularly when people didn’t know how you got it, COVID is -- you know, you can just walk by somebody and get it, so it’s a totally different circumstance and situation. And I think that the other big glaring difference is what you were saying about, you know, the president not saying anything about it for seven years, whereas because this is affecting straight people, COVID’s --&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Yes. 0 3781 Going to funerals LK: No, it was different places, it was different towns. But, yeah, lot of funerals. In fact, there were two on the same day and I was, like, oh, my God, how am I going to make both? They were both at the same time, too, so it was, like, impossible to make both, which was really bad, you know? And I worked with both guys but their families had set things up and we tried to, like, tell them, “Look, we want to be there for both of them,” you know? So, how horrible it is to have to make a choice, you know? It’s, like, jeez all mighty! Not only did we lose them, now we can’t get together for the funeral. Or one of them. That was a mess. 0 3851 Who volunteered to help with FACT LB: Yeah. Did you see, through FACT, family members that were coming forward to help with FACT?&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: No, not in the beginning. That, I think that was an eventuality. There was definitely -- I think there was more of that, but not in the beginning, no. That was more just people that we knew and people that volunteered from the bars, friends of people that worked in the bars, friends of people that were helping us. It was a whole community effort on that. But, no, it wasn’t -- I didn’t see a lot of family members reaching out. I think eventually they did. 0 3929 Stigma around those with AIDS/ Being there for friends with AIDS LK: And people didn’t want to touch them. So, I don’t know how people do that.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah. Had you actually found information that it was okay? I mean, was it pretty clear to everybody that it was okay to touch people and be around people and, you know, stuff--&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Yeah, I think so. But at, you know, with Joe, I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I loved him and I didn’t want him to feel like he was being shunned. And I know that some people were shunning him. And I didn’t want him to have any more of that than he had to, you know? &#13 ; 0 4099 Going to see the AIDS Memorial Quilt in Washington, DC LB: Yeah. Life was rough.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: [Yeah, I?] -- (laughter) it was, truly, you know? And so, I can only imagine how all those -- the persons with AIDS felt at that time. I can only imagine how difficult a time that was for them to -- I mean, we were stressing out, to have no idea about resources and to have to actually talk to strangers to get information and reveal yourself. I mean, I -- Joe was pretty good-natured about it, though. He was a tough cookie. (laughs) Later on, when I was at Woody’s -- (laughs) I lost about five or six people there while I was there but they’d already lost, like, nineteen people. We’d gone to see the AIDS quilt in Washington for the last time, when it was on full display. 0 4354 Discussing current HIV/AIDS medication, PrEP LB: Yeah. Are you familiar with -- I was talking to somebody else about PrEP. Are you familiar with PrEP? You know?&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Crap?&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: PrEP. PrEP (inaudible) (laughter) &#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Okay.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: (inaudible)&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: I have a hearing aid, too. (laughter) &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: No, I was talking about -- I was talking to Dave Moyer about PrEP and [said?] (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) ask him what he thought about how that was going to help people, the [pill?] -- 0 4480 Educational campaigns regarding medications LK: Something like that. So, you hear about that and then they’re -- they’ve developed other drugs for it, so there’s other PrEP drugs, so that’s great. But I still think there needs -- there’s no real education about that. If this government was truly serious about eradicating AIDs like President Trump has said he wants to do --&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: -- well, then you would have this massive educational campaign and stop being such prudes in high school because, to me, knowledge is power. That gives you the power to make the great decisions in your life -- and actually good decisions so that you can live. I’m appalled that we don’t have more of an effort in that direction as far as prevention. 0 4676 Violence against the gay community LB: Well, we’re coming to the -- almost to the end but we still have some -- several minutes and the concept of this archived thing is [support?] people to ultimately look back at this -- you know, twenty, thirty years from now, people can look at this and say, you know, some of [the things you’re?] saying, people will never imagine that that was the way things were. And so, I was wondering if you had any other things that you might want to be sure that are covered that you sort of think, like, people wouldn’t believe that this actually happened or that this is still happening. But then, things happened that -- you look back and you think I can’t believe that happened.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: The thing that immediately comes to mind is just the violence against gays and whether that was because they were afraid of AIDS or they were afraid of us or they -- which, a lot of that is fear but also, I think, closet cases will act out in anger because they feel something inside and then -- but society’s saying that’s not okay. 0 4859 FACT as an active organization at a time when there few LB: (inaudible) [off of this?]. And I love that we’re talking about the work that FACT did because what an organization to rise to the occasion. Because a lot of places didn’t [have that. I mean?], we can look around at other towns around the Lehigh Valley and they didn’t do that. There wasn’t any organization like that in Reading, there wasn’t organizations like that in Scranton. So, you know, and those are big cities, good size cities, too. So, it really happened, I think, in the Lehigh Valley. 0 5008 Recounting of pranks between Candida's and the Stonewall / Stealing of the bar mascots LB: What were some other things that were happening between the bars?&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Oh, my God. Well --&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: The silly things?&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: -- for example, one night, the Candida’s crew raided the Stonewall. The front doors burst open and I was behind the bar and Rob St. Mary was there. And he’s looking at me and all of a sudden, [yeah?], boom-boom-boom-boom-boom, all these water balloons. 0 5195 Stealing the "Candida" record from Candida's LB: I think I remember Dina saying something about people stealing the “Candida” record out of the jukebox.&#13 ; &#13 ; LK: Yes! We tied up her bartender and we actually left her tied up, with the business open. I mean, we did things that I can’t believe -- to say that we did, you know? But we tied her up, we made her give us the key to the jukebox, we stole -- and I had gone to all the stores in the Lehigh Valley and bought out every copy of “Candida.” (laughter) Little did I know that Candida was an egomaniac and she had twenty copies upstairs. (laughter) 0 MovingImage Larry Kleppinger talks about the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He focuses on working at Allentown's Stonewall Bar ; the formation of Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT) and his participation as the president of FACT ; the FACT Summer Games ; and people working together to create support and funding during years of government inaction. LARRY KLEPPINGER LIZ BRADBURY: So, there we go, and then I'm going to do that. Good. So, I need to say with this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College, will collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I'm here with Larry Kleppinger to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley community during this time of COVID epidemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We're meeting on Zoom and today is June eighteenth, right? June eighteenth, twenty-twenty. LARRY KLEPPINGER: Yep. LB: So, I need to -- let's see. Thank you so much for being willing to share and speak with us today. I need to ask you to state your full name and to spell it for me. LK: My name is Larry Kleppinger. It's L-A-R-R-Y and it's K-L-E-P-P-I-N-G-E-R. LB: Okay. And will you please share your birth date? LK: Yes, June fifth, nineteen fifty-nine. LB: Okay. So, now, this is the consent part. So, I just have to ask you these questions. Do you consent to this interview today? LK: I do. LB: Okay. Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitalized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? LK: I do. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, archives, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? LK: I absolutely do. LB: (laughs) Great! Do you understand that you will thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you'd like to delete and/or withdraw from your interview from the project? LK: Yes. LB: Okay! So, we're all ready to go. The very first thing I always -- supposed to say, in the midst of this current public health crisis we're experiencing, we want to take this opportunity to look back and reflect, to capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties. This starts out with a question that says, "Do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease?" So, I'm going to tell you that and then you're going to just say -- go ahead and go. Say whatever you want. LK: Are you ready? (laughs) LB: Great (inaudible) yeah, yeah. LK: The first time that I heard of AIDS was back, I believe, in nineteen eighty-one and it was through The New York Times. They had published a small article about the gay cancer. LB: [I know?]. LK: And I saw that and I was, like, wow, what's that? I didn't know why they were calling it a gay cancer. I was, like, why is it gay? And coming to find out that basically gay people were affected by it at that time, I guess. So, people started to talk about it. I worked in the Stonewall nightclub in Allentown at the time. And people were concerned but it wasn't, like, it wasn't a big thing until it actually did become a big thing. LB: Yeah. LK: And once it did, then it just took off. I mean, there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of stigma. And I never really saw any of the ostracization that took place, which -- there was plenty of that later on, especially. But I noticed that people disappeared on us. They would just vanish. And people would be talking to one another and saying, "What happened to" so-and-so, you know? "Do you think they have the gay cancer?" And there was just rumor and speculation. So, that's basically what transpired at the very beginning of that, yeah. LB: When that happened and people were disappearing, did you figure out later what had happened? Were they just afraid or were they dying or sick or what do you think? LK: I think that because of the symptoms that came along with developing AIDS, they didn't want to show themselves in public, whether it was Kaposi sarcoma, the wasting syndrome, all of that. It didn't really show up in Allentown at the Stonewall until probably around nineteen eighty-five or so. There were some people -- actually were brave enough to admit that they had it and -- but even then, people were still, like, a little antsy because nobody really knew how this was, still, contracted at the time and they weren't sure. So, people were, like, mm, you know? In the gay community, it was definitely much more accepting, of course. But, yeah. LB: Yeah. You think that -- were you surrounded by -- I mean, like, did anybody you know have it or [some?] -- LK: Yes, yes. And after a while, it became quite a few that we knew because at a certain point, people were definitely much more willing to admit it. In the very beginning, it was a secret because people would disappear. They'd -- or either ostracized by their families we later found out or they couldn't work for jobs anymore, that type of thing. There were some good friends, I guess, of some of them that took care of them. But it was definitely a difficult time at that time. LB: Yeah. LK: I remember there's -- a lot of that fear turned into anger because, basically, there was nothing being stated by our government on any level, really, about AIDS at the time. I mean, we were on our own. And I know that we looked to ACT UP in New York, which was formed later on in the eighties. And they were quite instrumental in giving everybody a voice and setting the tone and making inroads in all kinds of ways. And so, all the cities in the country, I guess, picked up on that and there was this movement, basically. And so, that was inspiring. LB: Did you go to New York? Did you go to any of the ACT UP things? LK: No, I actually never went to the ACT UP things. I had seen things on the news about them but I never went to them. LB: Yeah. LK: I didn't really participate in the activism. What we did in Allentown at a certain point, there was a stupid, silly bar wars thing going on between Candida's and the Stonewall at the time and we were just doing silly things back and forth, just as we were trying to have some fun with life. And so, at a certain point, we decided that we would turn this into a sporting event to finish this off so we wouldn't have to keep doing this back and forth thing. (laughter) And we decided to do an AIDS benefit. And that was nineteen eighty-five that took place. We called it the Bar Olympics and it was crazy events that were -- and Laura and Georgeann, who owned Rainbow Mountain Resort in the Poconos, the gay resort, allowed us to be on their premises for that event and they put a buffet together. They didn't realize, though, the scope that we were thinking of as far as doing this. LB: Yeah. LK: And so, we promoted this only in-house, basically, in Stonewall and Candida's. We sold over four hundred tickets at ten dollars apiece and then we had raffle tickets and we had businesses donate things for a raffle, that kind of thing. We sold t-shirts. So, there was this whole, like, collaborative effort between the two bars to put this together. That first event raised over six thousand dollars, I believe. LB: Yeah. LK: And then, we had to decide what we wanted to do with that, you know? Who we going to give this to? And we had come to discover that the AIDS services center at the time was serving a client roster -- I believe in nineteen eighty-five, there were fifty-three cases that they were serving. LB: Wow. LK: Persons with AIDS at the time, in Allentown. And so, we decided to give them the money. And their annual budget at the time was ten-thousand dollars. So, the six-thousand dollars went quite a long way for them. So, that was really amazing. LB: That was a separate organization, right? It wasn't -- because, [the ultimate?] -- LK: It was separate. LB: (inaudible) [hospital?] but, yeah, right. LK: Yeah, it was definitely separate. It was run by Ed Verba at the time, and I think he was pretty grateful for that. And then, one of the community elders came to us, Larry Roth of Lawrence Roth's -- he had a hair salon. LB: Yeah. LK: And he also did theater productions and all -- he was involved in all kinds of things in life. What a spirit he was. He came to us and said, "You know, you guys did a really good thing here. You should create an organization to do fundraising." And I was, like, "We don't know anything about organizations for fundraising." And he said, "Don't worry, you'll learn." And he was right. So, he actually helped to spearhead that effort. We arranged to have meetings every week with a group of people and we pulled more people in. There were people like [Micki?] Katz from the 13th Street Pub, Candida from Candida's, [Markie Cummings?], Billy Leh from the Leh department store fortune, Larry Roth, Georgeann and Laura, Matthew [Stitzer?], Robin [Cook?]. I'm probably missing many other names at this point because it's been thirty-five years now. (laughter) And so, we actually formed this organization, which was an empowering event for us. I mean, it felt so good to be doing something for people. And one of the biggest, I think, achievements of that organization was not just the growth through the years but the fact that we decided that fifty percent of our money that we brought in was going to be given to an emergency contingency fund that the board would vote on every week for people requesting money for rent, for food, for utilities, because they had no jobs, they couldn't work, they couldn't get up to work. LB: Yeah. LK: So, we thought that that was a real important part of the work. LB: Did you have people coming in and sort of outlining what their situations were or did they just -- did somebody bring, like, someone on the board bring it to you or -- LK: Somebody on the board would bring it to us. I think a lot of things came through the AIDS Services Center if I remember correctly, so -- and that was funneled through us, right straight through to us and we were -- and we bought air conditioners, things like that, things that people needed because they just didn't have any money. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: So, did you have specific instances where you were talking to people that, like, you had to help them take care of somebody or you knew somebody that was sick or anything like that? LK: At that same time, there was one individual who had admitted that he had AIDS and he was -- wonderful, another wonderful spirit. And I know that Candida was instrumental in taking care of him. She hired him at the bar because I guess he couldn't work his other job anymore. And that allowed him to be able to work when he could. And she actually, I believe, had some in-house bar benefits for him for money, as well. And I didn't really get to take care of him. I spent time with him, a lot of time with him. LB: Yeah. LK: And the hardest part was when we had to say goodbye because I got the call and -- saying, "You should come over and say goodbye." And I hadn't done this before. And I walked into his bedroom and I sat down and I'm thinking to myself: what am I going to say? What do I say to him? And he couldn't speak, he couldn't move, and he was definitely -- he had the wasting and he was so thin. LB: Yeah. LK: And I just looked him in the eye and I said, "I'm here." And I said, "Everybody's here to support you and it's okay to go. It's okay." And so, that's one of the closest things that I got to with it. But over the years, we've met many people and there were people that were grateful for what we were doing. And we were just throwing parties and that's what we did, you know? And then, with the guidance of some other people that -- like, Joseph Simonetta was another person who actually helped us formulate the 501(c)(3) so that could actually be a non-profit. And the other thing that I loved about the organization was that it was completely volunteer. There were no paid positions. LB: Sure. LK: So, every dollar that came in went right back out to people that needed it. LB: Yeah. When was that, when you were talking about people that were passing away? When was that in the epidemic? Was it near the beginning or -- LK: I remember the second annual Bar Olympics that we did, that person I just described to you that I said goodbye to was at those games and we actually did a balloon release that year to symbolize the people that have left us. LB: Yeah. LK: And we let the balloons go, and that was before we knew that balloons were bad for the environment. (laughs) LB: Yeah, I know, [right?]. LK: And so, I remember watching the balloons. I looked up and the sky was a bright blue and he looked up at the sky at the balloons, as well, and he looked at me and he said, "I might be a balloon next year." LB: Wow. LK: And I just -- LB: Yeah. LK: -- that was -- and then, a couple other friends were there and they heard it and so we're all a mess. And it's just -- LB: (inaudible) LK: -- okay, let's pull it together, we've got to pull this whole event off for today. So, let's just do this. And I think he died the next year. So, that would have been nineteen eighty-seven that he passed away. But there were plenty of others that just, like I said, have disappeared. LB: Yeah. LK: Oh. Excuse me. LB: When people -- you know, I was talking to a couple of other people because really, in those days, bars were so essential because there wasn't much else and -- because Le-Hi-Ho had become AIDS Services Center, so it was really not a social place anymore. And in the bars, I think, in some ways, because of ostracization of family, they were replacing people's families. LK: Oh, yeah, definitely. Most definitely. LB: (inaudible) seeing, like, people were coming in and stuff? LK: It was just an incredible experience to watch people rally and to join in that fight and to want to do things and to contribute money, to contribute prizes, and just time and energy, sit on committees, and all the work that it took. And believe me, I know, it was like having another full-time job. And I had actually worked with FACT for two years. They actually -- I was the president. And I had never done any of this before. I think second year, we raised over thirty-three thousand dollars and we had three events that year. There were two balls, two dinner balls that we did, which were pretty fantastic. And then, Billy Leh, I think, took it over the third year. And that year, I think he -- well, he had so many community connections, he brought in well over, I think, one-hundred thousand dollars that year. I was, like, oh, my God! This is amazing! Oh, my God! LB: Yeah. LK: So, it was definitely, like I said, empowering. It was a very positive thing amidst all the tragedy that we were going through at the same time. So, propelled us forward. LB: I know there was a lot of funerals and you were talking about that on the phone, I think. And people have told me about it. I haven't been able to talk to anybody directly about this, but about planting trees down in the park? Did you know about that, when people were planting trees? They planted the trees because they couldn't get -- people didn't want to have headstones because they didn't want the stigma or the relationship of people thinking that it was a negative thing. They didn't want to [deal with?] that, so -- [and there?] -- LK: And there were people who didn't want to have open caskets, either, because it was just they didn't want to -- they wanted to remember them as they were, not as they ended. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: What kind of stuff was the -- let me think what I'm going to say. You were living in the Lehigh Valley the whole time. Are you from here? LK: I'm originally from Lehigh Valley, yes. I left the Lehigh Valley in nineteen ninety-two to come to Philadelphia. So, I was there, I actually was at the Stonewall from, like, nineteen seventy-eight through nineteen ninety-two. So, I saw a lot in that whole time period. LB: Yeah. So, do you think that there was a -- times that were frustrating because of education? Like, people just (inaudible) to take the extra steps to take care of themselves? Do you think people were afraid to be out, to be around other people or they changed their behaviors significantly? Did you see any of that? LK: I think that people were talking about changing their sexual behaviors because once it was discovered what the main mode of transmission was, people would basically refrain from that behavior. And then, when people were told to use condoms, then condoms were a part of our lives and there were just things that we didn't do. And, I mean, yeah, absolutely, people did talk about it. LB: Yeah, yeah. Did you have anybody tell you that they had instances where they [were just falling through the gaps?] because people found out that they were HIV positive [or anything or things about?] -- LK: [I couldn't?] -- LB: -- [they?] -- or anything -- LK: There were families that shunned them. You know, if anybody did -- I think that most people tried to keep this a secret because of the reactions that they would get. I mean, whether you were drinking out of a glass, you know? I mean, there was actually a little bit of fear in the very beginning, even in the bars, as far as drinking out of the same glasses, you know? Did you wash that good enough, you know? That kind of thing. So, there was all kinds of -- a greater fear that, because of a lack of knowledge, that people would just, you know, freak out about anything. So, it was definitely a tough time and -- until we found our footing. LB: Yeah. LK: Until we had more information. I was personally quite upset with the federal government, especially Ronald Reagan at that time, because he didn't mention anything for at least the first six or seven years of his term. I think it was nineteen eighty-seven when he finally actually mentioned the word AIDS. So, that, there was a lot of anger at the time for that. And so, we just used all that fear and all that anger and channeled that into: let's just take care of people. Let's do what we can do for people. Let's do what we do best: throw some parties and make some money for people. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: Yeah. Did you know people that were -- I mean, I would guess that people were coming in and saying, "What can we do?" I mean, [I was?] doing that in nineteen ninety-two or ninety-one, saying, [you know?], "What can we do?" and that kind of stuff. LK: There were some key players in that. I mean, the board members, of course, really were invested as far as utilizing every contact that they had to pull in. And if they heard of anybody -- say, "What can I do?" they would immediately pull them in and say, "Hey, you can be on this committee, you can help us set up for this event, you could sell tickets for this." There are all different kinds of (inaudible) people and it was just they all felt good to do that. They all wanted to do their part. So, it was an amazing outpouring from the community. And I always wondered, you know, jeez, if we can do this for AIDS, what else could we do on this planet? (laughter) LB: (inaudible) Tell me who some of those people were and some, like, something that you remember about them. LK: You mean, the people that actually volunteered? LB: Yeah. LK: It would be hard to really pick out just individuals because there were so many. Their willingness, their spirit, their joy, their energy, it was just inspiring to see all these people coming together for a common cause. It just blew me away. And, you know, today, in twenty-twenty, to feel what we've been going through for the last three or four months now and three-and-a-half years, you know, the spirit kind of feels a bit weakened at this point. And I draw on that experience, I carry that with me all the time. And those people all contributed to that. And that will buoy you the rest of your life. It's amazing. But, yeah, I mean, they were just regular folks that would just help and do anything. They would pitch in and do anything. LB: So, when people started FACT, did you think that -- was there some specific thing that made people -- it was the bar games that made people do that, right? Did you used to work --LK: Yeah. LB: -- at Rainbow Mountain when they had the Rainbow Mountain stuff? What did you do there, what were you involved in? LK: No, I didn't work at Rainbow Mountain, I worked at the Stonewall. But -- LB: No, I mean -- LK: -- at Rainbow -- LB: -- for the Summer Games. LK: Oh, (laughs) well, it was actually quite a large set of -- we needed all those volunteers for that because the -- I remember Larry Roth had gotten a band shell for the opening and closing ceremonies and we had to set up the different areas for the games. We actually, the very first game, we had actually had a softball game. And the lesbians were so much better at softball, (laughter) let me tell you. All I remember of that softball game, because I actually participated in the games for the Stonewall, was running into the woods when they were hitting the balls to go get the balls because they were just socking 'em out of the park. I was, like, oh, jeez all mighty, come on! But there was a drag relay race, there was a tug of war, there was an uphill race, there was pool volleyball. There was an inner tube relay race, which actually was kind of bar-themed because basically the one person had to sit in the inner tube, another person propelled them across the pool, and they had to drink their beer before they got out of the tube for the next person to get in and do it. So, it was crazy, stupid, silly, funny events and -- but people were prepped for this only because of all -- like I said earlier, the stupid bar wars that we had going between the two bars earlier, the people, the customers actually got involved in that, you know? They were, like, "Oh, my God, what's going on? This is great!" You know? I mean, they were enjoying the show. So, we thought, okay, let's take this show on the road. (laughs) LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: And we did. So, those were some of the games that we did and it was [a lot of fun?]. And then, of course, you had -- we had, like I said, four hundred people show up for the first event, which Rainbow Mountain was unprepared for. They thought it was just going to be us and a couple friends. LB: Yeah! LK: But it was four hundred people. And they had a buffet and then they ran out of food, so people were a little upset because there wasn't any food. But thankfully, they had a restaurant, so [people ordered?] -- restaurant and they realized it was for a good cause, so everybody left okay, I guess. So, it was definitely a Herculean task, though, to set that up. LB: Yeah. LK: And then, the second year, we got rained out and that was unfortunate because we had pulled other bars in. I mean, we had 13th Street Pub, we had Candida's, Stonewall, we had Woody's from Philadelphia -- actually came out because I had a contact with them. But unfortunately, they couldn't participate and they couldn't make our rain date, so that was a shame. LB: Yeah. LK: And then, Rumors, there was Rumors and there were, like, oh, at least -- probably, like, eight bars at the time that participated in, like, the SummerGames. So, it was a lot of fun. It took forever to do it, though. (laughs) All the [events?]. LB: How was that, when you had the money? Did you just funnel that money directly into AIDS Services Center or what was it, A-- was that what it was? LK: No, once -- the first year we did. I think we apportioned some money to the AIDS Services Center after that but it depended on what other things came up as far as what the board would appropriate. So, I don't have all the records and I don't remember everything that we did. But like I said, we still had the fifty percent that went to the emergency contingency fund. That was a given and that was never changed. LB: Right. LK: And then, the other fifty percent went to various organizations. And then, later on, actually, there was a chapter that was developed in Bucks County, in New Hope. LB: Right, yeah, was familiar with that, yeah. LK: Yeah, so it was fascinating. And then, they actually went off on their own, which was probably a bit better for them. LB: Yeah. Were you involved with Le-Hi-Ho? LK: I was not, no. The only thing that I, the only involvement that I really had with them was reading their publication, the Lambda Valley Monthly -- LB: Yeah, [I just?] -- LK: -- which I told you about. Yeah, I have to give you this copies. LB: Great, that's good. LK: Yeah, and that was one of the only sources of news that we had at the time, too. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: So, local people would do, like, articles and editorials and Bobby Sweeney from Candida's would do -- actually, he was one of the editors, I believe, yeah. LB: Who owned the Stonewall then? LK: Back then, it was David Bischoff. And, yeah, he was the sole owner at that time. And he was right behind us, which was -- he was actually a very supportive owner and I liked that about him because we actually had a victory party at the Stonewall when we won and we invited the other bars to come and we would buy cocktails for the other bar reps and things like that. So, he was definitely onboard with all of that, which was great. Good man. LB: You think that the bar itself was a great place where you could congregate and get people involved? LK: The bar was a hub. LB: [You must really?] (inaudible) LK: That was the hub of -- LB: -- everything else, you know -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- [with the?] bar LK: It was definitely our island of freedom, first of all, and it was a hub of activity. It was our community activity place, yes. And everything pretty much happened from there, you know? Yeah, that was amazing. LB: Yeah, when you were working with FACT, did you have any outreach to, like, government officials or anything for information or to share information with them? LK: That didn't happen in the beginning. That may have happened under the leadership of Billy Leh. But not in the beginning, no. We were just basically trying to get everything together, get -- because we were creating events as we were going along. So, I mean, the only event that we started out with was the Bar Olympics and which turned into the Summer Games because I guess we weren't allowed to use their Olympics thing, term, whatever, [I was?] -- LB: Right, that's right, yeah. LK: So, it was summer games at the third one. And so, I forgot where I was. (laughs) You have to excuse me. I just turned sixty-one. Memory's going. LB: [We are old?]. LK: (laughs) Yeah, I don't believe there was that much government outreach in the very beginning, no. It was just a matter of putting events together. And then, there were people who actually volunteered their homes and they would do picnics and bingo and there -- so, people from all over, just, you know, adding to the mix and just creating a larger pot of money for everybody, which is great. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: Who was the person who was running AIDS Services Center then? Who was the first -- was that Dixie White that was the first person that was the leadership at -- was she the first AIDS Services person? LK: I don't recall her. I do know Ed Verba was there at the time that we had -- [was from?] -- LB: [Ed Verba?]? Oh, okay, yeah. LK: Yeah. Is he still around? LB: Yeah, he is, yeah. He's on Facebook, so I see him now and then, sure. LK: Okay. I didn't know he was still around. I don't know if he moved away. LB: No, he's still around. because most of those people you mentioned, I know them. A couple of them I didn't know but then most of them are still in this area. It's good, because a lot of people aren't still around, so that's one of the things. I mean, people died, was one of the things that was -- happened, too. LK: Yeah (inaudible) LB: Were you aware of things that were happening with -- we're talking to some people about medications that people had to take and how that influenced their lives and that they (inaudible) were aware of it and stuff. LK: I heard a lot about side effects, whether it was diarrhea, constantly being tired. Like I said, most of the people that actually did admit to having AIDS were -- they put on one of their best faces. They were strong people. They were the fighters. The ones that disappeared, that's not to say that they weren't strong, they just disappeared. We didn't know what happened. So, yeah, the efficacy of the drug was not really that great because I think that Joe [Keppel?] found out that he had AIDS in, I think in eighty-five, probably eighty-four, eighty-five, and he died three years later. So, it wasn't like there was a long lifespan after that diagnosis. LB: Who was Joe Keppel? He was part of the -- LK: He was the person I told you about earlier that Candida'd hired and she actually did the bar benefits for. A lovely man. I actually have a picture of him still in my bedroom. A character and a half. Witty, funny, sarcastic. (laughs) But a lovely man. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Yeah, we carry them with us all around, all the time now at this point, yeah. LB: It's true. In terms of, you know, encouraging people, what kind of stuff did the bar do to encourage people to have safe sex? I mean, was there anything that -- I mean, I know that that happened because I was around. But I think there was a lot of (inaudible) information through (inaudible) people couldn't get any [of the pamphlets?]. LK: There was definitely -- I know there was conversations about using condoms. Some bars would put out condoms and eventually that became a mainstay, actually, you know? Condoms were there, period. Use these, you know? And then, the large cities would put together kits, you know, with lubricant, the condom, instructions, you know, things like that. But there were educational materials. But people were definitely alerted to it. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah, and so that was your information center, as well, the bar, yeah. It was your activity center, your fundraising center, your island of freedom to have fun. It was an interesting time. LB: Were you working there every day? LK: I was. LB: That was a regular thing, [your work there at the bar?]? LK: Yeah, pretty much. We were open six days a week at the time. We were closed on Sundays. So, yeah, I was there pretty much -- at least five days a week, yeah. LB: So, talk about, like, how -- I mean, I would guess that things would -- like, how that was nuanced, the nuances of how that changed your life, I mean, just sort of the awareness of it and stuff -- LK: What? The awareness of what? LB: Just that this was happening and people you knew might have gotten it or things like that. I mean, how did that -- just sort of an open-ended question to let you talk about anything you want. LK: Well, it pretty much galvanized me and many others, many others, to do something about it and to be useful in this fight because no one was doing it for us, like I said. And I just -- it energized me. It gave me the energy that -- and, like I said, we used that fear and anger to fuel that so that we actually could spend that second job doing this benefit experience to pull it through. Because I sat on every committee, you know, because I wanted to know what was going on and what people were doing and I wanted to encourage people and I wanted to make sure that things were going in the right direction and that if anybody had any questions, I could find out answers for them if I didn't have the answers. So, it was definitely, you know, one of those types of things. But the remarkable thing is is all the core people that were involved at the time were of that same mindset. And that energy was just incredible. I mean, to know that you could -- you don't really have to say anything to anybody. You can count on them to do their part and to do everything that they need to do, whether it's pulling people in and beefing up other committees. And so, there was communication going on but you didn't have to do much of it because these people just were of a mindset, like, we're going to get this done. We've got this. And then, as you enjoyed the events that took place and you saw the funds coming in at each event, it was, like, that much more of a reward. So, it's, like, yeah, let's do more! Come on, we can do this. We've got this now. So, it was definitely exciting. I also had an eye on the cities, as well. Like, Philly was doing their own thing. I know that Woody's was doing a [Roll-AIDS?] benefit -- was a roller skating party, which was a lot of fun. And I'd never gone to it but I had talked to them about it because he would come up to Allentown every year to visit us and -- because he had a college reunion at the time, once a year. So, we would talk to him about that and I saw the advertisements for that. And he would tell stories about what was going on down in Philly. And so, we would share stories. It was interesting to hear what was going on in the big city, as well, yeah. LB: Did you -- LK: [So, we got, like?] -- LB: (inaudible) LK: Go ahead, I'm sorry. LB: Go on. LK: I was just going to say we -- there were a lot of great mentors for me at the time. That was inspiring, as well. People that, you know, knew that I needed help in this area or whatev-- it was just such a concerted effort. It was -- I can't say anything other than inspiring. LB: Yeah. LK: Even to this day. I treasure that time. LB: Yeah. So, it was interesting when -- because I hadn't heard this before but I'm not surprised that when Billy Leh was involved that there was a different fundraising, you know, capability. And I [have?] that that also came out of Ardath Rodale being involved with David Rodale and [inaudible] Rodale. So, was he around then? Was he -- LK: Yes. LB: (inaudible) LK: Yeah, I believe so. LB: Yeah. LK: I believe so. But he was quite instrumental, though, in pulling in all these community members, you know? Yeah, the straight community. And it was, like, yes, we've got some more help. Yay! And he just took it to another level. So, that was truly amazing to me and it was amazing to watch him in action, yeah. LB: He's still around isn't he? Billy? LK: He's actually in Florida now. LB: Oh, okay. LK: I saw him last year. I actually stopped down to visit him and he's doing well. He's retired ; he's amazing. (laughs) LB: So, when people were concerned about healthcare and circumstances like that, because I know that that must have been -- I had friends that couldn't get healthcare because they were HIV-positive. Like, a doctor wouldn't see them. Was FACT doing any kind of thing like that where they [would?] (inaudible) [for people?] or hooking up doctors? I mean, some of the doctors were really involved. LK: We were helping to pay for doctor's visits but we didn't know anything about getting hooked up with doctors and things like that. That may have come later on, as well. Like I said, the first two years were pretty much the set-up years as far as getting the events in place and adding to that one single event the first year, then we had three events the next year, and the next year was that many more. So, that's where the focus was in the very beginning. And then, there may have been more outreach as far as trying to hook people up with various resources within the community. But I do know that we definitely helped pay medical bills. That was another thing -- from the emergency contingency fund, that people couldn't afford their prescriptions, you know, all different kinds of things. So, that's where a lot of that went, yeah. LB: So, who was it that helped you set up the 501(c)(3), the not-for-profit thing? Did you say somebody helped? LK: His name is Joseph Simonetta. He was actually living in New Hope at the time back in that day. And they called him the senator of New Hope because he was quite the impresario. He also was a lobbyist in Washington. Very, very smart man. And he saw the potential in what we were doing, so he wanted to help, as well. So, it was just -- all these gifts came [forward?] and I was, like, oh, my God, this is kind of overwhelming, you know? And so, he was definitely a boost. I remember him also describing to me about ACT UP. Because I remember at the time, there were some members of the gay community -- were kind of turned off by ACT UP because they thought they were too aggressive. And, of course, the general public at large thought they were way too aggressive. LB: Yeah. LK: But he described it to me like this: he said, "You know what?" He said, "ACT UP is performing a vital mission. What they're doing is they are creating all this mayhem and noise and then people like me get to walk in the door with the politicians and say, 'We're not like that. But this is what we're looking to do.' And you bring in the reasonable voices. So, that way, you scare the bejesus out of them and you get them to do what you want, what should be done." LB: Yeah. LK: So, I loved that description. It was, like, God, he's good. (laughs) LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: And he was out of New Hope? He was living -- LK: Yeah. LB: (inaudible) yeah. LK: Yeah, he still actually has a house in New Hope. He lives in Philadelphia, as well. And I think he has a house in Florida. He's done well with his lobbying. He's done very well. I've had many, many conversations over the years, I still see him here in Philly every once in a while. Yeah, great man. LB: Well, so, let me think now. Oh, so, I was going to say -- so, I asked about that kind of stuff. So, when you were hearing about HIV and AIDS [and how?] -- before, I mean, people didn't know anything about it. Then, you started to hear about the gay cancer thing, because I certainly remembered that. Did you start to hear about, you know, famous people talking about it or, you know, the sort of breakthroughs, when Reagan finally said something about it, was that something that people were sharing and people talking about that? What do you think about that? LK: Wow. I don't recall any famous people back at that time, back in the early to mid eighties or even beyond that that were coming out. I don't recall that there were any because that would have been a career destroyer for them, let alone being gay. I mean, you saw what happened when Magic Johnson made his admission. I think that was in the nineties. LB: Yeah. LK: And that sent some shock waves through the nation, unfortunately. I don't know why. But, no, I don't know of any celebrities back then that were -- I think there was -- jeez, I don't actually even remember the celebrity support, except Elizabeth Taylor. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah, she was one of the big advocates. But even she was later, I think. LB: Yeah, she was (inaudible) LK: It was later eighties? LB: -- it related to Rock Hudson and that was later (inaudible) so, certainly that was true. What, let's see, what kind of -- so, how do you see this, when you think about this stuff, it's really hard not to think about this in relation to what's happening now with the pandemic. And some of the things are very, very similar and some of the things are totally different, you know? Completely different. Do you have any insights on that? Have you thought about that and how that has a relationship and stuff? LK: I would agree there's, like, a parallel there. And unfortunately, it seems that this administration doesn't seem to be taking this pandemic quite seriously enough. And yet, it's not as deadly as AIDS was. I mean, with AIDS, it was pretty much a death sentence at that time, before they came up with cocktail therapy. LB: Yeah. LK: So, but I mean there's still -- I'd say it's a pretty high death rate with this, as well, and it's unfortunate that we don't have that leadership today, once again, which is -- strikes me as odd that that parallel's there because we could probably be saving that many more lives if he was setting an example for people and wearing a mask and telling people to wear a mask as opposed to this macho bravado that he puts off. I don't quite understand that at all, you know? I think you're much more macho when you have information that you give to people and that you actually care about your people. And that was the same thing with Reagan, really. I mean, he -- there was nothing said, nothing done, really, on his behalf. So, there's definitely that parallel as far as the leadership goes. As far as the diseases, not exactly, no. But I'm also struck by the indifference by, seemingly, a large amount of people, by not wearing a mask and being considerate of others, and a lack of kindness, a lack of consideration for others, especially for elderly, who are much more at risk. LB: Yeah. LK: And since we know that, though, I'm surprised once again -- I shouldn't be, I guess -- that this administration also can't say, "Okay, here's our national plan," which -- we need one, actually. We do need that kind of leadership. LB: Right. LK: "We're going to take care of the seniors. All the nursing homes and all the nursing care facilities, all the elderly, all the people with preexisting conditions, and all the people that are generally affected by COVID-19, we are going to take special care for them, okay? Young people, you definitely still need to wear masks. You're going to get it and some of you will die, as well." And, I mean, that message is not even out there because, I mean, how do you rate a person's life versus the economy? And they're saying you have to open the economy. I don't know. LB: Yeah. LK: You know? And I think that back in the eighties, you know, there was also some argument, oh, you know, do we have enough money for AIDS? You know, there's always a budgetary concern. And I was, like, how do you sleep at night making that statement? How do you sleep at night, not wanting to take care of people. I don't understand that. That's foreign to me. LB: Did you have other people in your family around you that were, you know, straight people, whether they were family or other people that you knew that just, like, that were becoming aware of AIDS and you were educating them or you would talk to them about it or something like that, like (inaudible) LK: Well, actually, no. At that time, I -- because there was the other stigma of just being gay, itself. And some families just didn't react well with that. And that's not to say that my family disowned me or anything. But some were religious, so I knew where they stood. And so, there was not a close bond there at that time. I stayed away because I knew that they were not really all that accepting. And it's funny because over time, you see various things that do change. I know that my one sister who is very religious, it turned out that her son is gay. And so, that, she did a one-eighty on that. I was, like, wow! And I figured that she would and I thought her husband would have more of a hard time with it. But he actually -- they're both advocates now for gay people and for their son and I'm so proud of them. In fact, I actually worry about them because they're in an area that is very conservative and they're very outspoken. And I said, "You have to be careful." I said, "There are people who will hurt you for what you say." And I said, "I know this for a fact. I've seen it for decades. So, please, listen to me." I am concerned about her. But I applaud her vim and energy and want to support that son every which way. So, there are positives that come out of it. But that's one of the things that I was fighting back then. So, no, there was no real exchange with my family because there was also some ignorance. Yeah, in fact, a fair amount of ignorance. And some of those people just can't be reached. You can try. (laughs) Facebook's also a teller of that. (laughs) LB: Yeah. LK: That'll tell you a lot about your family. (laughter) So, yeah, so, I -- no, I -- it wasn't really that I shared a whole of information with them. That was more for our community. LB: Yeah, it's interesting. So, when Le-Hi-Ho was producing this newspaper and had information in it, you were talking about reading that stuff, were they talking about HIV during that time in that newspaper or -- LK: There were articles on it, yes, and then there was also -- I mean, it was pretty much a lot of different things. They also would report on the Summer Games, you know, how much money was brought in, the events and all that. There were all the bar advertisements in there, of course. There was a gossip column, which was run by Rob St. Mary, another character (laughter) who also we lost -- yes, we lost him, as well, I think in the nineties. LB: Yeah. LK: He was more of a long-term survivor. But, yeah, he wrote the gossip column and it was funny as hell. He went under the surname, the pseudonym of Myrna Louise. (laughter) So, yeah, so there were a lot of different things in there. But there were some AIDS articles but it wasn't like, you know, any kind of medical go-to. You know, like, this is what you got to do. There were just, yeah, things that were happening, basically, whether it was governmentally or not governmentally and statewide and things like that. LB: Did people have a sense of where they could get any kind of medical help? I mean, could they go -- hospitals were letting people in? because you're really -- I've been talking to different people and they were sort of at different times of the epidemic. So, like, I was talking to Dave Moyer and he was later in this thing and then he was involved in some of the testing and some of the stuff. But I was also talking to a couple people and you're really talking about right at the beginning, when they didn't know anything and things, like, they wouldn't -- like you were saying, that, you know, is this glass clean enough or could you go into the hospital room? My Trisha's -- is a very good friend whose brother was -- so, at the very beginning, [yeah, then?], and he was in New York and they wouldn't bring the food into his room. They'd leave the tray out on the sidewalk, you know, out in the hallway. LK: Yeah. LB: And did you see any of that kind of stuff here where -- LK: I, no, I never had the chance to visit anybody in the hospital. Like I said, a lot of those people just disappeared. So, there was no information really given, I mean, to know what the resources were. And I would imagine they went to a doctor and they were perhaps referred to somebody who was much more up on AIDS in the very beginning. And I don't know that there were that many. So, yeah, that was probably a bare bones kind of time for gay people that had AIDS because -- I can't imagine that. I mean, just the fear that you had this, alone, knowing that it's a death sentence, and then having to just climb through everything, every obstacle, every obstacle to get the things that you need, you know, whether it's basic medical care, money, housing, support, I can't imagine. But no, I didn't get to see any of that. I heard stories, once again, because, I mean, people would come -- the Stonewall was more of a regional bar, so people come in from Reading, they would come in from Scranton, Wilkes-Barre area, from Philadelphia. So, it was really like a whole melting pot of just southeast Pennsylvania. And so, when you'd talk to different people, you would hear some of these stories. But I never got to see it firsthand, unfortunately. But I heard about it. LB: Yeah. LK: But, yeah, I know at the Stonewall, I remember there were some straight people coming in and we put up with nothing. (laughs) It's, like, you will come in here and you will behave properly, you will not insult anybody, you will not bring up anything as far as, you know, AIDS and -- there were two guys, actually, they called us butt pirates, which was an odd phrase. And they were basically ejected from the club, you know? We didn't put up with -- we brooked no disrespect whatsoever from anybody. That was our safe place. This is our last safe place. You're not going to take that from us. LB: Right, right. I remember that sign in the lobby that said, you know, "This is a gay establishment. If you don't like it, don't come in." I liked it. I remember Steve Black saying he didn't like that that sign was there and I thought it was great. (laughs) [Made me feel comfortable?]. LK: Yeah, it was crazy back then. I mean, there was actually -- somebody shot something through our door. It was a wooden door in the very beginning, when I first started there. And that actually pierced the door -- I don't know if it was, like, a pellet gun, but it actually came through the door and it hit various customers. Some got hit in the neck. And it came back, actually, pretty far in the club. And that's why we actually put, like, a metal coating over the doors at that point because, like, this is ridiculous. So, yeah, there was all kinds of crazy things happening back then. LB: Yeah. LK: We had to hire off-duty police officers to protect us. That was a whole 'nother added expense to -- so people would feel safe, because people were getting beat up in the back parking lot. Yeah, that was the other thing: the religion, the religious right was -- that was another thing that fueled our anger. I mean, telling us way back then that this was God's cure against homosexuals, you know? I was, like, whoa, whoa, the vitriol, the hate, the lack of empathy, that didn't seem very religious to me. So, that, basically, that -- disintegrate any respect I had for religion at that point. I'm spiritual but I'm not religious. LB: Did you have -- were there instances where people directly -- brought that kind of information to the bar? You know (inaudible) made letters to the editor -- LK: Yeah. LB: (inaudible) LK: No, we had a pretty secure team at the front door. If there was anything, I was never even aware of it, you know? And I actually worked at the back bar at the Stonewall and then later on, I was deejaying. So, I was more towards the back. So, anything that went on, I found about at the end of the night. And most things were not even worth commenting about because they had everything under control at that front door. That was like Fort Knox. And that was Markie Cummings and Barry Eastwood. They were amazing together. (laughs) Nothing got by them. Nothing, yeah. LB: They were the bouncers? LK: Markie actually was the person -- took the money at the door and Barry was the bouncer. But they were extremely protective, observant, and they could spot trouble in a heartbeat. I know that one person actually came in and for some reason, she wasn't letting them in. I forget what it was. And the person said, "You're prejudiced, that's why you're not letting me in." And she said, "I'm prejudiced against assholes." So, that's where that stood. He didn't get in. (laughs) But I've just -- my heart breaks still to this day for all those people that, A, disappeared and never really had a chance to live their lives or to enjoy the life or to enjoy those islands of freedom. And I fantasize sometimes what it'd be like today to have more -- those people around, if they were still around. Because my age group was pretty much decimated, you know, which made dating really hard. (laughs) But I do fantasize about that every once in a while, thinking about that. I think there was -- actually, in one of the movies, where somebody had that fantasy scene towards the end of the movie where everybody was alive again. And that was powerful. LB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, in fact, doing any kind of -- because of that, I mean, you know, sometimes, when I think through our Pride festivals or stuff like that -- I mean, MCC has always been there -- it's been around almost as long as FACT, Metropolitan Community Church, you know? There was a link, I think, through the Pride festival there where people had some kind of spiritual support and (inaudible) were you seeing any kind of outreach? I mean, I remember way back in, well, it was, like, nineteen ninety-three when we were trying to [insert?] laws and stuff. And there were a couple of ministers that were working with us, directly working with us. And that was really good because it was hard to -- I feel the same way as you do. It's hard to be enthusiastic about religion and people using it to [say negative things you?] -- not really getting anything on the other side, so -- but I think there's a big variety of people that used to go to the Stonewall. I think one of the things that would frustrate me in (inaudible) years of when I went to bars when I was younger -- that there were people that were so closeted -- that they could've really helped but they were really just there to hang out and then leave, who weren't there for the community. And -- LK: Yeah, and that's another reason why a lot of people disappeared, though, too, because they were closeted. They did not want that to be known. They didn't want anybody to know. And that's quite the statement, you know, when you have to hide your life. LB: Yeah. LK: And actually, for me, it's always been a matter of: it's none of your business what I do in my bedroom and you shouldn't be concerned about it. And why are you so concerned about it, you know? So, it is what it is. Or it was what it was and it still is what it is to some degree today. LB: Well (inaudible) LK: It's definitely better. LB: Yeah. LK: We have a lot of work to do, still. LB: True. It's true. LK: Lot of work to do still. LB: So, in terms of seeing sort of parallels to the -- I mean, one of the things about COVID, the big difference about COVID-19 compared to HIV/AIDS is that, although lots of people had HIV and lots of people were getting it, particularly when people didn't know how you got it, COVID is -- you know, you can just walk by somebody and get it, so it's a totally different circumstance and situation. And I think that the other big glaring difference is what you were saying about, you know, the president not saying anything about it for seven years, whereas because this is affecting straight people, COVID's -- LK: Yes. LB: -- straight people, they're [allied?] all over the place. And even if the president isn't saying stuff about it, everybody else is. They're talking about it every -- constantly. The similar-- LK: I believe that that's -- [you?] -- that was one of the beliefs of the government at that time. It was, like, oh, it's just affecting the gays, you know? So, you know, let's just make them go away. I really believe that because I -- to me, it's just inexcusable that for seven years and with the mounting toll of deaths that you do nothing, you say nothing. You could have used that bully pulpit to educate people. You could have used that to save lives. To me, that's just inexcusable. I still haven't forgiven Ronald Reagan for that. And I know you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead but I intensely dislike that man, bordering on hate. And I don't like to hate. LB: Yeah. Makes you angry that you have to feel [like that?]. LK: That wells right back up. It doesn't go away. LB: Yeah. LK: And I've come to terms with it but it's still there and it's still kind of fresh. And so, it's amazing. And I can draw on that to motivate myself to do things once in a while, you know? But, yeah, that was -- and once again, though, it's -- that parallel makes me a little crazy and it definitely reminds me and brings that feeling back where we have a leader who's not really doing what he should be doing, although there has been some response. But also, the fear. LB: Right. LK: People, there was definitely a fear out there. There still is, to a large degree. I mean, you have some people going around, you know, "Give my liberty back," all that kind of crap, whatever. The reality is that there is still a lot of fear out there in the population. So, they're pretty much where we were back in the eighties. So, that's another kind of parallel. Kind of. LB: Yeah, yeah. The interesting thing was that when we were dealing with HIV/AIDS, we were in the middle of the epidemic, people our age, because we're about the same age, is -- a little older than -- but the big similarity or interesting thing is we are the same group of people. We Baby Boomers who are moving into senior citizen land and who are at higher risk for COVID are the ones that were fighting the HIV/AIDS (inaudible) LK: Interesting. LB: -- we were kids. LK: Yeah. LB: We were twenty-three -- LK: Yeah, that's right. LB: -- and it's a big difference about life then. LK: Yeah, yeah. It's weird to kind of be under attack again, though. It's, like, wow, okay, here we go. That's kind of weird. Not quite the same, though, but still -- LB: Yeah, it feels different, yeah. One of the things that we had during the AIDS epidemic, we found, is these chosen families that came to help people who were HIV-positive, that came to help people who were alone, who came to help people that had been ostracized. The bad thing is that people presume that these chosen families are something that will continue to take care of us into our eighties. The reality is, we were the age of the people that we were taking care of, yeah. When lesbians were taking care of their gay male friends, when I was doing that, I was twenty-five and they were twenty-five. LK: Yeah. LB: Now I'm sixty-three and they're sixty-three. LK: Sixty-one here, yeah. Yeah, I get you. LB: And when we get to be eighty, we can't go, well, our chosen family -- we're all going to be eighty! And it's a -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- that, in a way, we did such a great job coming together, helping each other during the AIDS epidemic and -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- the presumption is we can all do it in our eighties and we can't. LK: No. LB: It's not the same. LK: No, it's not, you know? And, you know, as we get older and we lose the people that are still with us, thankfully, but we lose them now and so you do lose your chosen family. So, you are much more alone now. It's, like, oh, okay. Now what do I do next? I just remember going to too many funerals, though. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: What was that -- LK: Hmm? LB: Was it usually the same place? LK: No, it was different places, it was different towns. But, yeah, lot of funerals. In fact, there were two on the same day and I was, like, oh, my God, how am I going to make both? They were both at the same time, too, so it was, like, impossible to make both, which was really bad, you know? And I worked with both guys but their families had set things up and we tried to, like, tell them, "Look, we want to be there for both of them," you know? So, how horrible it is to have to make a choice, you know? It's, like, jeez all mighty! Not only did we lose them, now we can't get together for the funeral. Or one of them. That was a mess. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Interesting, though, because, like, some families just -- it was very small representation of family and it was much more chosen family, though the chosen families were the ones that were there to actually support them and to be there to memorialize them. LB: Yeah. Did you see, through FACT, family members that were coming forward to help with FACT? LK: No, not in the beginning. That, I think that was an eventuality. There was definitely -- I think there was more of that, but not in the beginning, no. That was more just people that we knew and people that volunteered from the bars, friends of people that worked in the bars, friends of people that were helping us. It was a whole community effort on that. But, no, it wasn't -- I didn't see a lot of family members reaching out. I think eventually they did. But, like I said, that was all way back in the beginning when everything was still so stigmatized, so heavily stigmatized that people were definitely ostracized from their families or the families couldn't be bothered with them. It was, like, "I don't want to catch that," you know? I don't know how you do that. I don't know how you sleep at night. Because I -- you know, Joe [Keppel?] was one of the first people that I actually got to make sure that he got his hugs and kisses and that he felt that love because a lot of them felt like they couldn't be touched anymore. LB: Yeah. LK: And people didn't want to touch them. So, I don't know how people do that. LB: Yeah. Had you actually found information that it was okay? I mean, was it pretty clear to everybody that it was okay to touch people and be around people and, you know, stuff-- LK: Yeah, I think so. But at, you know, with Joe, I didn't care. I didn't care. I loved him and I didn't want him to feel like he was being shunned. And I know that some people were shunning him. And I didn't want him to have any more of that than he had to, you know? And so, I know that Candida was there for him. I know that [Cathy Kaiser?] was there for him. She used to work at Candida's, she -- another character, whoa. And she actually took him into her home and he stayed there with her. And, yeah, and I remember I stayed overnight there a couple times and, yeah, those people needed love just like everybody else, especially then, at that time. Oh, my God. They had enough to deal with. LB: Yeah, yeah. Did you have, like, a routine to see people like that if you, you know, [call 'em up?] and -- LK: I'm sorry? LB: Did you have a routine where you [had?] people that you were calling and checking on and stuff like that? Or was that something that people just shared with each other [and?] -- to go and see these people? LK: Oh, yeah. I mean, definitely. I mean, there had to be a comfort level, I think, for the persons that had AIDS for that. But, I mean, Joe was definitely in that whole thing. (laughs) And Katie would call me and say, "Hey, you know, let's do something with Joe," whatever, and I'm, "Sure, okay. I'm not doing anything. Let's go." So, it was just one of those types of things where it was just a family kind of thing, yeah. And that chosen family, wow, that got me through life. All of those people. I mean, whether it was just an acquaintance with a great conversation or the core group of friends that I still carry with me today, amazing, amazing people. But they're my -- they were my chosen family because, like I said, I left my family because I knew that most of them would not understand what I was about. And I was not about to subject myself to that, no. LB: Yeah. Life was rough. LK: [Yeah, I?] -- (laughter) it was, truly, you know? And so, I can only imagine how all those -- the persons with AIDS felt at that time. I can only imagine how difficult a time that was for them to -- I mean, we were stressing out, to have no idea about resources and to have to actually talk to strangers to get information and reveal yourself. I mean, I -- Joe was pretty good-natured about it, though. He was a tough cookie. (laughs) Later on, when I was at Woody's -- (laughs) I lost about five or six people there while I was there but they'd already lost, like, nineteen people. We'd gone to see the AIDS quilt in Washington for the last time, when it was on full display. LB: Yeah. LK: And that was overwhelming. And we got to see the -- Woody's quilt with all the names of all the Woody's employees that had passed. And I went by a number of the quilts and there was one panel that struck me. And there was, like, a butterfly on it and there was a sun and the words were sewn on it, "Not a day goes by." And that just hit me, the feeling, because it was so true that not a day went by that you wouldn't think about these people, that you didn't -- they made you smile, they made you cry, made you mad. But not a day that went by that you wouldn't think about them. So, that panel, particularly, struck me hard. And I treasure that memory, too. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: Was that in the March on Washington or just when they had the AIDS quilt there? Do you remember when that was? LK: It was just when they had the AIDS quilt and I -- it was the last time they were having the whole thing in its entirety on display. LB: Yeah. LK: So, we had organized a bus trip from Woody's to go down and see it. That was the early nineties. And, yeah, that was powerful. LB: Yeah. LK: That was powerful because you imagined that each one of those panels was a person. And so, that just filled the entire -- I think it was on the Mall. LB: Yeah. LK: And it was incredible. It was an incredible sight. Overwhelming. LB: Yeah. Well, I know that FACT brought the quilt to Lehigh Valley several times as [a program?]. It was part of the Summer Games and other events, too. But, yeah, seeing the whole thing, I think that was nineteen ninety-three when that -- when it was there, when I was there for that. LK: Yeah, that's after I had left. LB: Yeah. LK: Right after. LB: Yeah. LK: I was just so glad to see that organization continue on, though, and to this day, you know? LB: Yeah. LK: And kudos to the people that are still there today: Carl Mancino, Brian Marx, just that whole cast. I mean, they've been fighting the good fight for a long time. And I told them, when -- I was living in Allentown once again from two thousand, two thousand thirteen and actually asked me to be part of the board members again. And I said, "No, I don't really have the time to do that," I said, "but what you do need to do is get some younger blood in -- (laughter) we need to recruit some new people because you guys need a break, first of all. And secondly, we got to get the next generation going here and show them what to do." So, I don't know if they took [the pep talk?] but -- so, that what was where they needed to be -- LB: It's hard. I think it's hard. They've had some younger people but I think it's hard to do. LK: Well, it's because everything's changed, too, you know? I mean, you have the medications now, you know? It's one pill a day. And so, I guess that makes a whole difference in life for people. But there are still people who need help. I don't know exactly what those numbers are but -- yeah. LB: Yeah. Are you familiar with -- I was talking to somebody else about PrEP. Are you familiar with PrEP? You know? LK: Crap? LB: PrEP. PrEP (inaudible) (laughter) LK: Okay. LB: (inaudible) LK: I have a hearing aid, too. (laughter) LB: No, I was talking about -- I was talking to Dave Moyer about PrEP and [said?] (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) ask him what he thought about how that was going to help people, the [pill?] -- LK: I just wish there was more education about that because there are people that are afraid of that or were afraid of that because they didn't know the efficacy of it. LB: Yeah. LK: And also, the cost, does your -- can you afford it, will your prescription plan cover it? So, healthcare in this country still, to this day, is still a major issue. LB: Yeah. LK: I think that Obama had the right idea with Obamacare but he didn't get everything that he wanted in that bill, you know? He had (inaudible) the pharmaceutical industry, the lawyers, the healthcare lobby. So, we lost out on a lot of things as far as -- eventually, it's going to have to go single payer. There's no way that we can afford to keep going in this direction for that. So, yeah, that's paramount at this point, you know, as far as the healthcare end of that. But PrEP, yeah, I mean, I even have my own doubts about it and it wasn't -- you know, you can actually Google things but -- anymore, who knows what's real and what's not any-- so, we've been thrown into a whole different dimension, it seems. I'm, like, what is going on anymore as far as information goes? It used to be you look things up, there's your information, that's the way it is. Well, not necessarily anymore, you know? So, I think there's a lot of people out there that had doubts about it and some still do. And then, we come up with, then -- I think PrEP has been -- or Truvada. Truvada is the one that was canceled because -- LB: Truvada's the company that produces PrEP.LK: -- bone problems. They had bone problems. LB: Yeah. LK: Something like that. So, you hear about that and then they're -- they've developed other drugs for it, so there's other PrEP drugs, so that's great. But I still think there needs -- there's no real education about that. If this government was truly serious about eradicating AIDs like President Trump has said he wants to do -- LB: Yeah. LK: -- well, then you would have this massive educational campaign and stop being such prudes in high school because, to me, knowledge is power. That gives you the power to make the great decisions in your life -- and actually good decisions so that you can live. I'm appalled that we don't have more of an effort in that direction as far as prevention. LB: Right, yeah. LK: I mean, you have the information, so -- and you have the medication. So, what are you doing? Back in the eighties, we didn't have education in the very beginning. We had nothing to go on. We had rumor, innuendo, fear, that's it, you know? So, just don't have sex. Okay, all right. That's all we had to deal with. At least now, you have the permission -- get the information out there, dammit! LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: I think in your larger cities, you have definitely good resources for that. But even that, I mean, the -- that should be supplemented with a national campaign to actually -- you could eradicate [this?]. I mean, you see the effort that we're putting into a vaccine for COVID-19, hello. LB: Right. LK: We still don't have a vaccine for AIDS. LB: Right, yeah, yeah. LK: Do you wonder sometimes that maybe that's because they don't want to have a cure for it? I don't know. Call me old-fashioned, call me suspicious, call me a conspiracy theorist, which I try not to be, because I can't stand that. But I, you know, when it comes to gays, we seem to have been on the lowest part of the totem pole along with minorities. And so, therefore, there's a lot less care given our way, a lot less though given our way. It's true. So, I don't trust them. (laughs) Still. LB: Well, you go through, you know, an epidemic like HIV/AIDS where you have the kinds of information that was kept from our community for seven or eight years and still (inaudible) [ways?], it's hard not to be suspicious [that every?] (inaudible) LK: Yeah. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah, which, you know, I mean, in the current environment, also, not to get off the topic, but -- I mean, but with minorities -- I mean, with black people, you know, I can understand their mistrust of the system, completely. So, I identify with that and I'm sure that that's magnified probably tenfold for them. I mean, God! But, yeah, education would be definitely a place to start to try and put your money where your mouth is. LB: Well, we're coming to the -- almost to the end but we still have some -- several minutes and the concept of this archived thing is [support?] people to ultimately look back at this -- you know, twenty, thirty years from now, people can look at this and say, you know, some of [the things you're?] saying, people will never imagine that that was the way things were. And so, I was wondering if you had any other things that you might want to be sure that are covered that you sort of think, like, people wouldn't believe that this actually happened or that this is still happening. But then, things happened that -- you look back and you think I can't believe that happened. LK: The thing that immediately comes to mind is just the violence against gays and whether that was because they were afraid of AIDS or they were afraid of us or they -- which, a lot of that is fear but also, I think, closet cases will act out in anger because they feel something inside and then -- but society's saying that's not okay. So, they will lash out because they have that anger and conflict inside themselves. So, they have to try and get -- let some of that out. So, they would take it out on the gays. I was amazed at the amount of violence. You know, just senseless violence and the fact that it would take two, three, four, five guys to beat up one guy. That just -- what? Why? It was also senseless, you know? LB: Yeah. LK: And I like things like this because I think that people do need to have that time capsule, look back and say, oh, can you believe this? Oh, my, I don't believe this at all! Because I know that -- I had spoken to one of my coworkers who has now left us all. So, he was eighty-three when he passed a couple years ago. And he had told me a story back in the day in Philadelphia in, like, the fifties and what it was like to be gay then. And at one of the bars here, I'm not sure if it was Raffles or if it was Drury Lane, but they had a system where, if the police were coming into bust them or to check on them, you know, they had -- the front door man had, like, a light switch and he would flip the light switch in the bar. And so, the lesbians were dancing with the lesbians, the gays with the gays. They would switch and dance with each other, man and woman, so that when the cops came in, everything looked okay. So, it blows my mind to have that story told to me about the fifties, so I can only imagine thirty years from now what it would be like for someone to hear about the '80s and how we survived the disease and how we were treated in the beginning with this disease. Yeah, I think this is really important. LB: Yeah, it's good to get this information. I think it's very important and I really, really -- LK: Yeah. LB: (inaudible) [off of this?]. And I love that we're talking about the work that FACT did because what an organization to rise to the occasion. Because a lot of places didn't [have that. I mean?], we can look around at other towns around the Lehigh Valley and they didn't do that. There wasn't any organization like that in Reading, there wasn't organizations like that in Scranton. So, you know, and those are big cities, good size cities, too. So, it really happened, I think, in the Lehigh Valley. LK: Liz, it gives me chills to this day thinking about it because it just seemed like magic to me. It was an experience, like I said, that I will always treasure, I will cherish, I will never forget. I carry it with me and it propels me forward. Those people propel me forward. They were an inspiration. LB: Right. LK: So, yeah, I mean, we were very lucky to have that. And it was just the right timing of it, just seems, I guess, that sometimes it happens. And we had the right mix of people and then there were others that just glommed onto that and added to that critical mass. That just made the whole thing just explode out, work. It was truly an amazing time, though. Frightening time, amazing time. And we actually tried to take that fear and turn it into something else because that's what it was really about, I think, for us because we were tired of this. No one was doing anything, no one was taking care of us, no one was saying anything, there was no information. Okay, let's just take care of our own, then. The hell with it. And that inspiration came from, like we talked earlier, the group ACT UP. And I forget the Philly groups that were back then. I think there was an ACT UP chapter in Philly but there were other groups. So, yeah, yeah, that was an amazing feat, I think, for that to take place at that time. LB: Do you think [all?] -- LK: And all -- go ahead. LB: -- sometimes, I think when there is nobody doing anything, there's a whole statistic that shows, like, that if nobody does anything, then somebody will come forward [but people are going?] -- if there had been some, like, [even straight?] half-assed organization, then maybe other people wouldn't have come out to take care of ourselves and -- LK: Yeah, yeah, maybe. LB: -- but, yeah, you know? LK: I just get thrilled thinking about that it all started with something really silly. (laughs) I mean, just a silly little rivalry between two bars that turned into this whole thing. I'm -- wow. LB: What were some other things that were happening between the bars? LK: Oh, my God. Well -- LB: The silly things? LK: -- for example, one night, the Candida's crew raided the Stonewall. The front doors burst open and I was behind the bar and Rob St. Mary was there. And he's looking at me and all of a sudden, [yeah?], boom-boom-boom-boom-boom, all these water balloons. And they go -- and they're traveling out the back door and they're gone! (laughter) And all the customers are laughing at us because we got pummeled with water balloons. And I'm, like, soaking wet. I'm, like, those sons of -- hmm. (laughter) So, we would plot the next thing, you know? So, they also, one night, came and stole our door person, while he was working. They lured him outside, someone grabbed him, threw him in the back of a station wagon, took him to Candida's. And they called us and the doorman, his name was Dana, and he said, "I feel like Patty Hearst! I feel like Patty Hearst! Get me out of here!" (laughter) So, we had to go over and sign surrender conditions to get our doorman back. And actually, the whole thing -- actually, the very beginning of it was we stole a mascot. We stole their parrot. The parrot was Candida's mascot and we had the moose [home?], which -- we had this giant moose. So, we stole their parrot and they stole our moose. (laughter) So, that's how the whole thing really basically started. But we ended it all, though. We wanted to make sure that they were, like, sufficiently taken care of. So, the final event was: I have to get two getaway cars and five people dressed in face paint and fatigues. And so, the two getaway cars would arrive at Candida's, out would come two innocent civilians, they'd go in and order a cocktail with canned farts tucked down their pants. (laughter) Two other people went to the back door with twenty pounds of rice. The five silly stringers, five came in the front door spraying silly string and screaming. The two innocent civilians went to the back door, opened that, let the twenty pounds of rice in. We would start throwing the rice around. They'd take the canned farts out and spray that. The place stank, it was a mess, and the bartender was Pat Gibson and she had her -- [came out of the?] bar. She was just -- (laughter) so, it was a mess. So, Dina actually called me. She said, "Okay. We got to do something." She -- "have rice on my pool table, you got rice in my cocktails. I had to make all new cocktails for my customers." She said, "We need to do" -- and that's when we started the Summer Games, the Bar Olympics, yeah. LB: Great alternative to that, too, because you could see that escalating to the point where maybe it would be problematic. So, it's really so smart that you moved into something like the Summer Games and -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- [then it ended up?] really helping people for years -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- and years, still, thirty -- more than thirty years later. What a success, (laughter) that silliness can grow to that level. It's pretty great. LK: Yeah, yeah. If you want any more of the stories, call me, I'll tell you the rest of them, because there were a lot. (laughter) because it was a tit-for-tat and it had to be bigger and better. (laughs) LB: I think I remember Dina saying something about people stealing the "Candida" record out of the jukebox. LK: Yes! We tied up her bartender and we actually left her tied up, with the business open. I mean, we did things that I can't believe -- to say that we did, you know? But we tied her up, we made her give us the key to the jukebox, we stole -- and I had gone to all the stores in the Lehigh Valley and bought out every copy of "Candida." (laughter) Little did I know that Candida was an egomaniac and she had twenty copies upstairs. (laughter) LB: Ah! LK: Oh, my God. And then, my other favorite thing was she had put Candida stickers on all of our glassware at the Stonewall. Someone had snuck in, someone let them in. All of our glasses had Candida stickers on them. (laughter) So, I called the staff and I said, "Okay, help me." We gingerly peeled off all the labels, put them on a piece of paper that said -- on the back, it said, "Good for one free drink at Candida's." (laughter) Well, they started taking them over and redeeming them. (laughter) That was one of the best ones. Dina liked that one. (laughs) Yeah. LB: Oh, man. And FACT's been going on for thirty-fiveyears and she's a city councilwoman now. LK: Yes. (laughs) Oh, I got more stories about her. Woof! (laughs) LB: Right, I've known her for a long time. LK: (laughs) You should ask her about when she got escorted home by the police one night because they actually had come to the Stonewall to raid us, more of the silly stuff. And so, there was, like, a water battle ensued inside the Stonewall. There was, like, an inch of water all over the place. It was a mess. And so, I remember, the last thing I remember is all of us on top of her station wagon and she's pulling away. There's, like, ten of us on top of her station wagon. (laughter) She drives us up to Chuck [Woodbury?], the manager's house, where they had shaving creamed his windows, all right? And we get off at that corner. And so, they're laughing and they have a bullhorn and the whole nine yards. And so, they drive up the street and all of a sudden, wham, surrounded by all the police. LB: Oh! LK: And we're down on the corner going -- (laughs) so, the police knew Dina and they said, "Dina, do you have a bullhorn?" And she said, "Yes." And [Denny Cara?] in the backseat said, "No." So, he said, "Were you using the bullhorn?" And Dina said, "Yes." And he said, "What were you saying [to me?]? Were you saying fire?" She said, "No." He said, "What did you say, Candida?" She said, "Rub-a-dub-dub, three queens in a tub." (laughter) Now the other officers had moseyed over and they heard this and they started to, like, snicker. (laugher) And he said, "Dina, don't you think it's time you take this party home?" This is, like, three, four o'clock in the morning. (laughter) And she goes, "Yes, officer." And they actually escorted her home. LB: Oh, my. LK: Another one of the greats. So, yeah, so there's wonderful stories in that. She loves to tell those stories. She's good at -- she's a good raconteur, yeah. LB: Yeah. (laughter) Well, this has been terrific, Larry. I'm really glad to -- and I love to end on a big laugh, bunch of big laughs. (laughter) That was terrific. So, I really appreciate you talking to me. Thank you so much for doing that. And -- LK: Well, thank you. LB: -- I'm supposed to remind you that what happens now is that once I get this done and I upload the video file, then they send it to someone that transcribes it and then they'll bring it -- and they'll mail it through email to you -- LK: Okay. LB: -- as a written document (inaudible) (laughs) LK: I fell down! LB: That was dramatic! (laughter) That was amaz-- LK: Oh, boy. LB: -- [flying?] sensation! (laughs) LK: At least it waited till the end. (laughter) LB: So, and I love that Maxfield Parrish that you have on the wall [next to?] -- LK: Oh, my God, I love Maxfield Parrish! I'm glad you noticed it, thank you. LB: Yeah, [that's?] -- no, I like [it?]. So, and he's got some -- I did a whole art history thing about Maxfield Parrish because he was -- he had some interesting -- yeah, so, we have to have -- LK: Oh, we have to talk. (laughs) LB: -- the recorder's off -- let me see, where do I do that? I'm going to stop it. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:30:56 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Larry Kleppinger, June 18, 2020 Description An account of the resource Larry Kleppinger talks about the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He focuses on working at Allentown's Stonewall Bar; the formation of Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT) and his participation as the president of FACT; the FACT Summer Games; and people working together to create support and funding during years of government inaction. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PH40_02 Subject The topic of the resource AIDS (Disease) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-06-18 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs. https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/190c8206af022590cc8f9355790d2228.png 13a78b06c8db517be14a0c5ca617d243 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: HIV/AIDS Description An account of the resource In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism. The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Liz Bradbury Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed David Moyer OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_16.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 June 18, 2020 David Moyer, June 18, 2020 PH40_16 01:28:18 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg AIDS (Disease) David Moyer Liz Bradbury video/mpeg DaveMoyer_20200618_video.mp4 1.0:|19(11)|44(2)|69(10)|90(8)|109(12)|124(12)|145(4)|170(2)|187(5)|202(3)|223(7)|242(15)|263(7)|276(16)|305(4)|316(4)|337(2)|362(9)|379(6)|406(2)|433(2)|458(4)|477(11)|504(12)|529(3)|548(10)|571(6)|592(10)|615(4)|632(10)|663(3)|688(4)|705(4)|726(17)|751(7)|776(11)|799(5)|820(12)|835(16)|856(8)|871(4)|888(15)|909(3)|926(16)|955(2)|990(4)|1013(12)|1034(8)|1049(16)|1070(2)|1087(17)|1106(2)|1123(16)|1144(13)|1167(7)|1182(14)|1209(6)|1242(10)|1267(5)|1286(4)|1299(15)|1320(15)|1345(6)|1362(16)|1381(2)|1408(8)|1427(2)|1446(12)|1461(6)|1484(4)|1503(12)|1530(9)|1551(6)|1578(5)|1605(16)|1626(12)|1659(6)|1692(2)|1717(17)|1738(7)|1771(3)|1798(7)|1815(7)|1842(11)|1865(10)|1900(4)|1925(6)|1968(4)|1979(5) 0 https://youtu.be/Hc7bXI-EczI YouTube video English 3 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: So, I am going to read through this stuff and start out with this and then we’ll go along with this. With this project, the Bradbury Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College, we’ll collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I’m here with David Moyer to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during the time, during now the time of the COVID pandemic, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We’re meeting on Zoom and today is June 18th, 2020. Thank you very much, David, for your willingness to speak with us today. Can I first have your full name and for you to spell it for me? 0 174 First becoming aware of HIV/AIDS as a corpsman in the Navy LB: Great, okay! So, let’s talk! Oh, let me say, let me just start it off by this first question. But you can say anything you want, we can go on as long as you want. In the midst of the current health, public health crisis we’re experiencing, we want to take this opportunity to look back and through the worst and capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and the ’90s. So, we start out with asking people when you remember the first time that you sort of became aware of the disease. But, you know, start telling me about it and go ahead and do that. If you need [to pause?] or something, we’ll stop.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Yeah, I would say articles, on television, and I think -- well, articles on television’s news reports on television and a few things that I had read. But I think my first inclination of it was when I was still in the naval reserve in the military. 0 476 Being a gay man in the Navy in the 1980s DM: And, you know, even though, you know, I’m a gay man, I wasn’t out-out with my battalion. There were people in my unit that knew I was gay and were cool with it. And, in fact, I think my commanding officer knew that I was gay but as long as I did my job, he didn’t care, you know? My sexual orientation was my own because you still could be discharged, you know, for being gay. Course and that all changed when President Clinton came in and did that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” thing. And, you know, we would get reports about how many cases were in each of the branches of the service and, you know, I think the Army was number one with number of cases. 0 588 Formation of FACT in 1986 / First encounter with somebody who was HIV positive DM: And we had the bars going on and nothing happened until, I’m going to say, ’86 is when FACT was formed.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Right.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: And that’s Fighting AIDS Continuously Together and they’ve been in existence since then.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: And my first encounter with somebody who was HIV positive was a gentleman by the name of Chuck [Shook?], who has passed on. And I knew him from the old Le Hi Kai days, when Le Hi Kai was going, and that was a bar on Hamilton Street between 9th and 10th, 8th and 9th, somewhere in that area. And we ran into him in Atlantic City and there was a bar in Atlantic City on New York Avenue called the Rendezvous. 0 852 Job Interview at the Allentown Health Bureau DM: And Rose knew that I was looking for a job and she knew my background, you know, as a nurse. And said there was a job that was open at the Allentown Health Bureau that she thought I would be good at. So, she gave me the information and I went in and, you know, to make a long story short, I had about a three hour interview with [Anne Taylor?], who was the director of the department at that time. I don’t know if you remember Anne or not. Wonderful, wonderful woman. And the job started at, like, nine dollars an hour. And when I’d left Allwyn, I was making $17 an hour, so it was kind of a, yeah, pay cut. 0 1014 CDC training and counseling in administering HIV/AIDS tests / Testing at the Lehigh County prison DM: I had some training from Jose Cruz, who is the medical person for Bethlehem Health Bureau.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah, yeah.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: And then, Linda, was Linda [Kenna?], who was my office mate and she was from Panama. So, again, she was fluent in Spanish. But the two of us actually went to the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia for counseling and training how to, you know, how to actually test for somebody, you know, sit down and counsel somebody, which was a great experience. And then, from there, it just blossomed out into, you know, what I did for 21 years at the health department. 0 1344 Testing thousands of individuals and delivering positive tests / Testing local high school and college students / Contact Tracing LB: Yeah. When you were seeing those people and testing them, were you seeing a lot of people that were testing positive?&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Yes, yeah. I have, in the 20 years that I worked in the health department, I would say, wow, I’ve tested thousands of individuals. I know that I have delivered more than 400 positive tests over that timeframe. And I have lost more than 400 friends to this disease.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: My gosh.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: So, it was very, very important for me, because one of the things that I, you know, I had vowed to myself is that, you know, I will never forget this important work and I will continue to do whatever I can. And that’s why I’m still on the board of FACT, even though I’m retired. I will still go out and do programs if I need to. 0 1696 Having friends who tested positive DM: Yeah. That didn’t happen a lot but it did. So, I had the luxury of spending as much time with that individual -- you know, we talked, we would cry. I would cry with them, you know, just each one for me was personal. And I still have friends who I know are positive. And I know what it’s going to be like when they pass. I mean, they’re doing good but, still, you know, they’re good friends of mine for years, you know? So, I was thankful for that, that I was able to have as much time with that individual. And, you know, people would come back for testing and would want to see me because they knew how I was, you know? 0 1944 AIDS Services Center / Finding doctors who would take care of positive HIV/AIDS patients / Comfort of having an advocate in the health department DM: But I do know that there was a time -- it wasn’t so much finding a doctor because now we had that going on, we had the AIDS Service Center, where people were going to St. Luke’s at that point. And that was with, you know, with Dixie White and Rose Craig starting that. And then, we had Linda Gallagher with the AIDS outreach for the Buddy Program to do things. But one of the things that sticks in my mind is one of the things that was really hard to find was a dentist who would take care of HIV/AIDS patients. So, there were several doctors, dentists in the area that would do that. They would see patients. But there was one dentist who absolutely refused to see patients. And I had reported that individual to the ADA. And I don’t think they pulled that person’s, you know -- 0 2274 The beginning of FACT / Joining the board of FACT and becoming the education chair / Lehigh Valley hospital taking over the AIDS Activities Office LB: Talk a little bit about how FACT started up and what that was like for you in the beginning.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Yeah, well, I had heard about FACT. Occasionally, Will and I would go out to the bars. Not often, but we would go to Candida’s and there was talk about an event, money -- you know, a fundraising event that was going to be held out at this gay resort in Stroudsburg, Rainbow Mountain and should we go? And first, we thought -- and, again, this is before I came to the health department. So, well, I don’t know that many people yet that have this disease or have died from it. And it was up in the Poconos and, oh, do I want to drive there? 0 2782 Stigma associated with testing positive / Discussing the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS being a death sentence early in the epidemic / How education and medications factor into having HIV/AIDS now LB: Did people used to talk about stigma in terms of if they tested positive and what they -- the kinds of potential discrimination they would face or that people had had to face?&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Yeah. A lot of different things there. So, if they were in a relationship, if you test positive, you have to tell your partner. “Well, I can’t do that. I can’t do that.” I would say, “Bring your partner in” or, “I -- again, come to where you live. We can sit and talk about this if you want to.” There was all kinds of reactions. I mean, that’s one. Some people contemplated suicide. And that’s another whole set of issues if you have somebody suicidal. So now, I need to refer this person to the suicide prevention group. And one person I know actually did commit suicide. They jumped off the Americus Hotel building. 0 3247 AZT and its side effects LB: Could you just say a little bit more about AZT? Because I don’t think people -- I mean, the whole thing about AZT and how significant it was with regard to making people feel better for a while but really -- what do you think about that?&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Yeah, well, AZT came out because of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, kind of like what’s going on now with things but not with the medication. And normally, it takes about 10 years for a medication to be approved by the FDA. And people were dying. People were dying at large rates. And they said something needs to be done, so they got this medication, they push and I think it took, like, 18 months for it to be approved. 0 3533 FACT assistance with funerals / FACT raising money through fundraisers LB: Yeah, yeah. Some people have told me about -- and I moved here in 1987 but I didn’t know as many people in the community until I started to be involved with the Pride festival, which wasn’t until nineteen ninety-three and four. Then I was, Trish and I, were beginning to be involved. But in the eighties, there were a lot of funerals and I think FACT [reported?] people with regard to those funerals. Is that something that you were involved with or was it later?&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Yeah, well, I came onto the board in, I want to say, nineteen ninety-two . And I guess I was the education chair, that person. I can’t think who the person was that was the contingency person, chairperson. And what the contingencies are are applications that case managers in the hospitals who had HIV/AIDS clinics would apply to FACT for some kind of assistance. And we had different categories and we still have different categories, rental assistance, auto repair or help with their insurance, medications back then, dental, certain types of med-surg procedures, utilities, heating, air conditioning, things like that. 0 3820 Comparisons between HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 DM: So, this is giving us the time to sit back and kind of look at things differently. We, you know, we know that there are -- I mean, anybody can get this, whether it’s the COVID-19 or HIV. Well, with HIV, there are specific ways that you’re going to get it. But with this COVID, there can be a myriad of ways because we just can talk to each other and one of you can have it and not know it. And when you’re looking at signs and symptoms, it’s pretty much the same with HIV. You get infected with HIV and it can take up to six months before you can test positive for it, be as little as -- it can show up as early, HIV can show up as early as two weeks after exposure but it usually takes three to six months. With COVID, it can be a couple weeks to a couple months, again, with symptoms, from what I understand. So, they are similar and I think education is important. It infuriates me, it really infuriated me yesterday when I hear that the Pennsylvania state Republican group wants to impeach Governor Wolf. Ah! What are you thinking? And all the derogatory stuff they say about Dr. Levine. What are you people thinking? 0 3953 Other organizations FACT works with / BINGO fundraising at Pride / Testing at Pride LB: Well, talk about some of the organizations in the Lehigh Valley that FACT has worked with and that you’ve worked with. I mean, you mentioned doing presentations for the youth group that we have through our community center. But you’ve been doing that all along for the last 30, 35 years, 40 years.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Yeah, yeah, we did a program with the NAACP a few years ago. Hollis Perry was instrumental in getting us to do that. And we’re looking at doing something again when we can. I’d done a program for -- I can’t think of her last name. She’s the high school teacher, chemistry teacher, Rachel -- 0 4415 PrEP and PEP LB: Yeah, yeah. What do you think about PrEP and PEP?&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: I think it’s needed. I’m okay with it. I think it needs to be pushed a little more. And as long as they’re getting the information out about both of them, I think that’s what’s important. And then, to be -- the people who really want it, you know, then taking it, yeah.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah, yeah. I just read a thing that said that in other countries, a year’s course of PEP or PrEP costs about twenty-two dollars and in the United States, costs two-thousand dollars. 0 4693 Reflections on death, dying, and the grieving process / Difference dealing with death during COVID-19 LB: Let’s see, I think we’ve got about ten minutes left, so, in our ninety-minute interview. So, is there anything you really want to be sure that people understand about this time, that time, and the impact that it had on you? In some ways, it kind of shaped your life.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Yeah, I think, excuse me, (clears throat) one thing that I remember and one of the -- and I took as much training as I was able to when I was working for the health department. And I think the major thing for me was all of the death and dying. And I was in a training in Philadelphia and one of the instructors was a doctor in psychology. 0 5091 Doing education trainings at local high schools LB: I think we’re just about to the end and I just wanted to say one thing in case it wasn’t clear when you were talking about it but Rachel Zane is the facilitator and advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school, at --&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: [Cool?].&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: -- Allen, just so that that’s on --&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Okay.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: -- [information?], so that people can understand that you’ve been going into public schools to do some really significant programs. And she’s a great resource to hook people up. I think the work that you’ve been doing, yeah, now you’ve had a lifetime of work helping people in this community. It’s really been a significant thing --&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: Yeah.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: (inaudible) [lives?]. It’s a big deal.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: I, yeah --&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah.&#13 ; &#13 ; DM: -- I really enjoyed my twenty, twenty-one, twenty-plus years at the Allentown Health Bureau because I’ve met some wonderful people. 0 MovingImage David Moyer talks about the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He focuses on his work as a nurse in the Allentown Health Department ; shares about local AIDS education, testing, and the experience of notifying people of positive tests ; the formation of Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT) ; and how HIV/AIDS compares to COVID-19. DAVE MOYER LIZ BRADBURY: So, I am going to read through this stuff and start out with this and then we'll go along with this. With this project, the Bradbury Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College, we'll collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I'm here with David Moyer to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during the time, during now the time of the COVID pandemic, as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We're meeting on Zoom and today is June 18th, 2020. Thank you very much, David, for your willingness to speak with us today. Can I first have your full name and for you to spell it for me? DAVID MOYER: Sure, and thank you for having me involved in this. It's very important. David Kenneth Moyer. D-A-V-I-D K-E-N-N-E-T-H M-O-Y-E-R. LB: Good. And can you please share your birth date? DM: Of course. (laughs) April 23rd, 1943. LB: Okay. DM: I'm very old. LB: Now, now, you are not. (laughter) This is the consent part of the interview. So, I have to ask you these questions. So, do you consent to this interview today? DM: Yes. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? DM: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? DM: Yes. LB: Do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you'd like to delete and/or withdraw in your interview from the project? DM: Yes. LB: Great, okay! So, let's talk! Oh, let me say, let me just start it off by this first question. But you can say anything you want, we can go on as long as you want. In the midst of the current health, public health crisis we're experiencing, we want to take this opportunity to look back and through the worst and capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and the '90s. So, we start out with asking people when you remember the first time that you sort of became aware of the disease. But, you know, start telling me about it and go ahead and do that. If you need [to pause?] or something, we'll stop. DM: Yeah, I would say articles, on television, and I think -- well, articles on television's news reports on television and a few things that I had read. But I think my first inclination of it was when I was still in the naval reserve in the military. I am a retired senior chief hospital corpsman at 30 years in with the Navy. And being medical, we would get reports about what was going on, especially from the CDC. LB: Right. DM: We weren't doing any testing at that point but they weren't sure what was going on. And then, again, the reports that were coming out initially were, you know, it was this was in gay men, it was in intravenous drug users. They weren't exactly sure how it was being transmitted, things like that, you know? The old school stuff. So, I really wasn't involved in with the gay community at the time. I knew that things were going on but I wasn't part of any organization. I had met my late husband, William, in 1981, and that's when the first cases were put out, I think was June 5th, 1981. But, you know, I guess we really didn't think of it or, you know, I guess I can say I wasn't concerned at the time, you know? I'm in a relationship now and, you know, this really isn't going to affect me. That was the mindset back then. Of course, then, over the years, once the cases were increasing and now there was testing, the military started testing. And that was one of the things that I had to do. And I guess fortunately at that time, we would test everybody in my unit and in my battalion and we had nobody that had tested positive. But there were reports of people, you know, testing positive that were in the military, active duty military. And back then, if you were in the military and you tested positive, you were discharged right away. And then, they kind of changed the policy a little bit. It said that, okay, if you test positive, you'd go to -- there were several hospitals, military hospitals in the United States where you could go for treatment if you wanted to. And then, they changed the policy again that says you can stay in the military, you can finish your term in the military, but when it was over you were not able to reenlist. You had to get out. And then they changed it again, that said if you were in the military and you tested positive while you were in, you could stay in but you could not deploy outside of the United States. You had to stay in country. So, that's how the military handled it at that time. I don't know how it is now [because?] I -- LB: That was in the '80s? That was -- DM: What was that? LB: -- in the '80s? DM: Yeah, that was, yeah, I would say the late '80s, around 1888 [sic], '89, when they started testing. And, like I said, you know, we -- there was nobody in my unit that had tested positive. And, you know, even though, you know, I'm a gay man, I wasn't out-out with my battalion. There were people in my unit that knew I was gay and were cool with it. And, in fact, I think my commanding officer knew that I was gay but as long as I did my job, he didn't care, you know? My sexual orientation was my own because you still could be discharged, you know, for being gay. Course and that all changed when President Clinton came in and did that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" thing. And, you know, we would get reports about how many cases were in each of the branches of the service and, you know, I think the Army was number one with number of cases. Navy was number two. Marine Corps was three, and Air Force was fourth with number of cases. And Coast Guard was there but they were very low. So, that really was my first exposure, you know, to all this. And I was working at [Allwyn?] Corporation at the time because I am a nurse by trade. But I was working for Allwyn Corporation at that time and because there was nothing going on there, so -- and, again, I wasn't involved with any organizations, any LGBT organizations back then. And we had the bars going on and nothing happened until, I'm going to say, '86 is when FACT was formed. LB: Right. DM: And that's Fighting AIDS Continuously Together and they've been in existence since then. LB: Yeah. DM: And my first encounter with somebody who was HIV positive was a gentleman by the name of Chuck [Shook?], who has passed on. And I knew him from the old Le-Hi Kai days, when Le-Hi Kai was going, and that was a bar on Hamilton Street between 9th and 10th, 8th and 9th, somewhere in that area. And we ran into him in Atlantic City and there was a bar in Atlantic City on New York Avenue called the Rendezvous. And he was coming out of the bar and we were going in, my late husband, Will, and I. And he looked really -- he had all these black and blue marks all over him, which was Kaposi sarcoma and I didn't know that at the time. I didn't know what that was. And he said, oh, you know, he's [doing okay?]. The doctor says that he really needs to be in the sun because the doctor thinks that the exposure to the sunlight would be good for this condition that he had. And that was the last that I'd seen of him. And then, he -- there was a bar called the Lark Inn, which was right on New York Avenue. It was the first bar if you were coming off the boardwalk on New York Avenue. And I would say maybe six months later, they were doing a fundraiser for him to help with the medical bills for him. So, we went down to that. So, he really was the first person that I knew that had AIDS and had succumbed to the disease. LB: Can I just ask you, when [they?] said that -- his doctor thought that sunlight -- did he really think that sunlight was good or was Chuck just saying that because he didn't know what else to say? DM: I really have no idea. I would think he didn't know what to say because maybe he was embarrassed. Yeah, you don't know.. But Chuck was a wild child when I met him. And I had seen him several times over, you know, over the years. I mean, I knew him before I had met Will. So, we had gone out several times and were, you know, we were intimate. But that was then the last time that I had seen him, was down in Atlantic City. And then, I think it was a year afterwards is when he had passed. And then, I had lost -- not just me but everybody had lost their job at Allwyn Corporation. And that was in 1988. So, I lost my full-time job and my part-time job the same day. Same day, (laughs) you know? How does that happen? And the part-time job that I had was I was an aerobic instructor. And one of my students at The Body Factory, which, again, is no longer, that was in Whitehall, was -- I don't know if you know here, Rosa Saltern. LB: I remember that name, yeah. DM: Yeah, she's a member of the community. LB: Yeah. DM: But she was a reporter. She was the reporter for the health department before [Ann Boleyzwak?] had taken over. LB: Right. DM: And Rose knew that I was looking for a job and she knew my background, you know, as a nurse. And said there was a job that was open at the Allentown Health Bureau that she thought I would be good at. So, she gave me the information and I went in and, you know, to make a long story short, I had about a three hour interview with [Anne Taylor?], who was the director of the department at that time. I don't know if you remember Anne or not. Wonderful, wonderful woman. And the job started at, like, nine dollars an hour. And when I'd left Allwyn, I was making $17 an hour, so it was kind of a, yeah, pay cut. But I needed a job because, also at the time, I was married to a woman and we had a baby, okay? So, I needed, you know, I needed a job. So, that was in, I believe, late October of 1987, '88, '88. And in January of 1989, I was hired, I was offered the position. So, it went from nine dollars an hour to, like, $12 an hour for it because it was a grant-funded position. And I really didn't know a whole lot about HIV/AIDS. I mean, I knew medical things. I could draw blood. That was one of the major things that -- why they hired me, because I could draw blood. The only downfall I had was that I was not bilingual. And there were two of us that were up for the position. One person was a Hispanic man who was bilingual but didn't know how to draw blood and they needed somebody to draw blood. And then, we had another woman who was bilingual but didn't draw blood. So, I would do (inaudible) and if I needed her to translate, she would translate for me but with counseling -- so that I had the training. I had some basic training there. I had some training from Jose Cruz, who is the medical person for Bethlehem Health Bureau. LB: Yeah, yeah. DM: And then, Linda, was Linda [Kenna?], who was my office mate and she was from Panama. So, again, she was fluent in Spanish. But the two of us actually went to the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia for counseling and training how to, you know, how to actually test for somebody, you know, sit down and counsel somebody, which was a great experience. And then, from there, it just blossomed out into, you know, what I did for 21 years at the health department. LB: Yeah, yeah. DM: Counseling to testing. LB: Was that the only place they were doing testing? DM: Yes. At the time, it was the Allentown Health Bureau, the Bethlehem Health Bureau. We were the two major ones. And then, we kind of branched out. I can't speak for the Bethlehem health department but at least for the Allentown health department, we got -- it took us almost five years to be able to do testing and counseling in Lehigh County prison. And we tested there for, well, for the whole time that I was there then and I think for a year or a year and a half after I left, then the testing went by the wayside because they lost the funding for that. We did all of the testing for the in-house drug and alcohol agencies, Treatment Trends, Halfway House, Blue Mountain House of Hope. There were several others. Livengrin, all of those. So, we would do all of the education and testing for those agencies. We would do in-home testing. Like, if you didn't want to come into the health bureau, if you were going into the health -- the premise back then was if you're going into the health bureau, A, you're either poor or you've got something wrong with you. So, we were kind of looked at as the health police back then, and especially with the gay community. So, if, you know, if you did not -- you wanted to be tested but if you didn't want to be tested in the health bureau, you could call us and I would come to your home or apartment -- LB: Really? DM: -- and do that, yes. And I think they still do that. Not as much as we did back then but I think you can still have that done. LB: Wow. DM: So, they were branching out. Like, you know, I know they testing at your center but most of the agencies that we had been doing testing in, they no longer do testing. I know there's still testing at Treatment Trends. And Treatment Trends and Halfway House really were owned by the same corporation. But they really incorporated everything into one building now, so everything is down at Treatment Trends there on -- right behind you, right next to you, actually. LB: [That's?] right, right. DM: Right next to you. And I guess that they no longer do the testing in the prison but the prison will do testing. And also, back then, too, you know, if somebody did test positive, the prison didn't know what to do. So, they had had a contract with the AIDS Activities Office from Lehigh Valley Hospital. LB: Right. DM: And think it was Dr. [Hoffman-Terry?] would come in, I think, once a month or twice a month and, you know, sit down with inmates who were positive and order blood work and then medication if that was needed. And this was all free because -- nothing's free at the prison, (laughs) but because it's a state-run program that's really funded by the feds, I think part of that was the Ryan White monies, the inmates could get the testing and treatment for free. LB: Yeah. DM: And then, somewhere along the line, something happened and Lehigh Valley Hospital could no longer go into the prison. Again, because Lehigh County prison is supposedly a short-term facility -- you're not supposed to be there more than two years. LB: Right. DM: But, you know, but that's not true with some people. So, if they knew, they could do some treatment there. And if they knew that the inmate was getting out and going home, then they would hook them up with Lehigh Valley Hospital, the AIDS Activities Office. You know, if they were going to another facility, then we have no idea what happened to them at another facility, if it was another state facility or federal facility. So, we don't know. LB: Yeah. When you were seeing those people and testing them, were you seeing a lot of people that were testing positive? DM: Yes, yeah. I have, in the 20 years that I worked in the health department, I would say, wow, I've tested thousands of individuals. I know that I have delivered more than 400 positive tests over that timeframe. And I have lost more than 400 friends to this disease. LB: My gosh. DM: So, it was very, very important for me, because one of the things that I, you know, I had vowed to myself is that, you know, I will never forget this important work and I will continue to do whatever I can. And that's why I'm still on the board of FACT, even though I'm retired. I will still go out and do programs if I need to. LB: Yeah. DM: I do keep up somewhat with some of the things from the CDC but not as much now as, you know, as I was doing when I was doing it then. In fact, one of the, I guess, I don't know if you called it a funny story or just a, you know, a whatever story but we used to do a lot of street outreach. And that's where I got a lot of my starts, was with some of the people who had graduated from Hogar Crea who got into the business. And, again, the majority of people that we were seeing positive back then were in the Hispanic, you know, population. But, like I said, we would do a lot of street outreach and one of the ones that I wanted to do was to do a street outreach with the kids at Central Catholic. And we were going to stand across the street with information and condoms if they wanted it. And the director back then was [Barbara Stater?] and Barbara was a staunch Catholic and her neck veins came out (laughter) when she heard that we were going to -- she said, "You are not going down there!" So, we couldn't do that outreach. But, you know, they knew, the kids knew where they could come to for testing if they wanted to. So, you know, we would test a lot of the kids from the high schools -- LB: Yeah. DM: -- back then. And, I mean, fortunately, if my memory is still somewhat intact, I don't think I had any teenagers from Central Catholic that tested positive or even at the high schools, William Allen or Dieruff. We did have -- we were testing, also, at Cedar Crest College and Muhlenberg College. And we did have several people from Muhlenberg College that had tested positive who were students, so it was a wide variety. LB: And what was the procedure? If somebody tested positive, you know, what was just, anecdotally, what was the procedure of that? DM: Yeah, well, first, you come in for the test. And what we do was, what I did, I mean, all of the counselors and the nurses that were able to do testing had their own way of doing things. But for me, I was preparing everyone for a positive test. I prepared them all for, yeah, because one of the things I'd say to them is that, you know, if this test comes back positive, you know, how were you going to handle that? And if you do, these are some of the things that we need to discuss. And one of those, one of the things is contact tracing. LB: Right. DM: You know, who have you been with? How did you put yourself at risk? And, you know, we need to talk about people or individuals. And I really emphasized the fact that your name will not be used. Your name does not come up. They may know who it is, you know, if I do contact that person. And I say, "Your name was given to me by the state." So, it was a little white lie but I'm keeping that confidentiality (inaudible) because that was my big, big thing, is confidentiality. I mean, there are names of people that are going to go to my grave with me that you may even know, you know? But that was a very big thing for me, was confidentiality. And so, you know, I would prepare, you know, the individual so that when they didn't come back and if it was positive, one of the luxuries that we had -- in fact, then there was only two of us that were able to do positive test results. It was me and Linda at the time when -- that she was with us. So, one of the luxuries that I had was that I can spend as much time with that person that I needed to, if I needed to. And they always came back in the clinic setting. So, you know, the clinic ran from one to four. So, if somebody came in at one o'clock and was positive, I could still be there at five o'clock because the staff knew what I was up against. LB: Yeah. DM: Yeah. That didn't happen a lot but it did. So, I had the luxury of spending as much time with that individual -- you know, we talked, we would cry. I would cry with them, you know, just each one for me was personal. And I still have friends who I know are positive. And I know what it's going to be like when they pass. I mean, they're doing good but, still, you know, they're good friends of mine for years, you know? So, I was thankful for that, that I was able to have as much time with that individual. And, you know, people would come back for testing and would want to see me because they knew how I was, you know? You've been negative all these years and now you're positive, okay? Well, you know the routine, that this is what we're going to do. And they were grateful. I know that I had, that there was -- two brothers. There were twin brothers, Hispanic. And both of them were kind of bad seeds. Did not want to use condoms, you know? They're Hispanic and they're Catholic, so, you know, that's a no-no. But the one brother -- and they would come back, regular. Both of them were negative and, to my knowledge, still are negative. I haven't seen [them, you know?], in years. But I would always talk, more so with the guys, about using condoms, you know? And this is how using condom -- this is when you should use the condom. You know, if you don't know how to use a condom, the best thing for you as a male is to masturbate with it. LB: Yeah. DM: I mean, it's one of the things, you know? That way, you can get used to using it when you have to use it if you want to use it. And the one brother I don't think I ever got through to. I mean, I may have, but the other one started using condoms and he really thanked me. And he liked the work that I did and he went into nursing himself. So, yeah. So, a success story, you know? LB: Yeah. DM: I mean, I've had a lot of success stories but that's one that will always stick with me. LB: Yeah. DM: [You know, with that?]. LB: In the nineteen-eighties, when you were doing this -- and you start to do this at the end of the eighties? So -- DM: Nineteen eighty-nine, officially. LB: And that was still at a time when, you know, the prognosis wasn't very good for somebody if they were positive. What was it like in terms of the medical resources through the hospitals and stuff? I mean, were there doctors that were doing a really great job with dealing with that stuff? Or were there people who were just, like, "I went to this doctor and he wouldn't even let me in the office" or something? What was that -- DM: Yeah, well, when I started at -- I don't know anything prior to me starting at the health department. And at that time, the AIDS activities office had -- really was just up and running for, like, maybe -- I want to say they form in either '87 or '88, I'm not exactly sure. Andrea Geshen, who I gave you the name, really is a great resource because her and Dr. Rhodes are the ones that really started that for people. So, as far as resources back then, I have no idea until I came in. But I do know that there was a time -- it wasn't so much finding a doctor because now we had that going on, we had the AIDS Service Center, where people were going to St. Luke's at that point. And that was with, you know, with Dixie White and Rose Craig starting that. And then, we had Linda Gallagher with the AIDS outreach for the Buddy Program to do things. But one of the things that sticks in my mind is one of the things that was really hard to find was a dentist who would take care of HIV/AIDS patients. So, there were several doctors, dentists in the area that would do that. They would see patients. But there was one dentist who absolutely refused to see patients. And I had reported that individual to the ADA. And I don't think they pulled that person's, you know -- LB: License. DM: -- license. LB: Yeah. DM: But the practice wasn't that great after that because the word got out that, you know, they were not willing to see -- and I think for me, personally, when I see a doctor -- and still, to this day, if I'm seeing a new doctor or if I have to see a specialist, that's one of the questions that I will ask is do you see patients who are HIV-positive or have AIDS? If they say yes, then, good. LB: Yeah. DM: Good. But if you say no, then I'm not going to come back to you because that's just not right. That's downright discrimination, so -- LB: When you had that kind of situation -- and, I mean, you knew a lot of people in the community through the LGBT community in general. You just knew folks and -- were people sharing information about, you know, where to get tested or who to -- what doctors to see? Where they sharing it with each other on a sort of social way? You know, like, did you ever [get?] -- DM: You know, that's hard to answer because, again, I didn't -- you know, up until the time when I was, you know, when I was hired there, like I had mentioned earlier, you know, at least in the LGBT community, we were perceived as the health police. You know, if you're going to go to the health bureau and you test positive, look out, they're going to do this stuff, they're going to do this stuff. But we don't do that stuff, you know? We're not -- that's not what we're about. And I think one thing that helped in the LGBT community was that I'm a gay man and I'm doing this work. LB: Yeah, yeah. DM: And that's why I think a lot of -- you know, the word got out that way. Hey, we have an advocate in the health department. If you want testing, you can go see him. These are the times. That's how it got out. Or if you don't want to go in, call and he'll come to your house or apartment. LB: Yeah. DM: And I would do that. So, I think, to answer your question, that's really how it got -- and then, people were coming in for testing and I didn't see every LGBT person that came in. I can't do that. LB: Yeah. DM: So, I said, okay, "See Linda" or "see Sherry now" or whoever. And you know some of these people. They're good people. They're honest people and they're there for a reason. We need to put a halt to this disease. We need to bring these numbers down. And I think we've done, at least the Allentown Health Bureau has done a good job, as has the Bethlehem Health Bureau. You know, I can't say anything bad about the Bethlehem Health Bureau. I can't say anything bad about any of the organizations. We here in the Lehigh Valley have been blessed to have what we have and how well all these organizations work together. You know, you see St. Luke's Hospital and you see Lehigh Valley Hospital are always at odds with each other. We have to have a bigger hospital, we have to have -- it's all that power struggle. You don't see that in the HIV/AIDS community of workers, that we work together. And that's one of the things that I've always said in my speeches, that I have been proud to work with these individuals and I will continue to say that because it's true. It's true. LB: That's interesting. DM: Yeah. LB: Talk a little bit about how FACT started up and what that was like for you in the beginning. DM: Yeah, well, I had heard about FACT. Occasionally, Will and I would go out to the bars. Not often, but we would go to Candida's and there was talk about an event, money -- you know, a fundraising event that was going to be held out at this gay resort in Stroudsburg, Rainbow Mountain and should we go? And first, we thought -- and, again, this is before I came to the health department. So, well, I don't know that many people yet that have this disease or have died from it. And it was up in the Poconos and, oh, do I want to drive there? LB: Yeah. DM: So, we didn't. We didn't go. We would donate money but we just didn't go to the event. And it wasn't until, well, and nineteen-eighty-five is when FACT was started. And, again, it was started by a group of bar owners and local merchants and people who were -- wanted to do something because their friends were dying. And nothing was being done, really, at that initial point, then, because I don't think the AIDS Activities Office had started yet, any things -- and doctors, again, didn't know, really, still didn't know what was going on. But so, they held an event up at Rainbow Mountain called the FACT Summer Games that was in -- I think it was always held the Sunday after Labor Day in September. So, we didn't go. My first inclination -- my first exposure to that was, again, when I was at the health bureau. And we were invited to go up to do education, the first year. First year. And that would have been in nineteen I want to say nineteen-ninety. Was either ninety or ninety-one when we were invited to have a table up there. Education, that stuff. So, I went up the first year by myself and it was overwhelming. I mean, we had -- there must have been a thousand people there, if not more, back then, in those days. And then, I was invited to join the board of FACT, which I did. And I had taken over for a gentleman by the name of Tom Martin. Was a black man who worked for Morning Call who succumbed to AIDS and he was the education chair. So, because that's what I do, I educate about this, I was asked to take over for Tom, which is what I did. And then, I said maybe we should offer testing up there. So, I think it was nineteen-ninety-two is the first year I went out and offered testing and I was overwhelmed. I mean, I had to turn people away. I was busy from the time we had set up to -- and then, when I came back and I said this is something that we really need to be involved with, with testing -- so, then we were in touch with the previous owners. And I can't remember who they were at that time. It wasn't Walter and [Georgeann?] because they had sold the place by then. But they gave us rooms in the inn to set up for testing and blood drawing and that stuff. And it was non-stop from the time the games started until the games ended, we were testing people. And we had gotten a lot of positives from up there. And, of course, back then -- well, and still, to this day, you still have to come back for your test results, to the health bureau. And I would say, out of all the years that we were testing, we had one person that was positive that did not come back. And they were from New Jersey and, of course, if you have an out of state person that tests, you have to go to the state, our state health department, and they have to send that information to the state health department in Jersey for contact tracing. And whether they found that person, I don't know, to this day. And then, it just got to the point where, really, we were not supposed to be doing testing up there because we are a city health department and it really has to be a county that does it. And when [Rowe?] County was not doing any HIV testing at that point -- I think they are now -- and that's when we have Valley Hospital took over AIDS Activities Office. They decided they [would come up?] and they would do the testing. So, they were still testing until we -- twenty-fifth anniversary, which is our last time up there. LB: Yeah. DM: And then, we went to The Woods for five years and Lehigh Valley Hospital was doing testing there. The health bureau was doing testing but not for HIV. We were doing other STD testing there. So, they were there for five years doing that. And then, of course, we left there after five years. And then, just [held games?], different areas, but we no longer did testing [at any of these sites?], so, yeah. LB: Is that because more places were doing testing? Okay. DM: Yeah. LB: Yeah. DM: Yeah. LB: Testing's faster and easier and -- DM: Yeah, results come back faster now. LB: -- [it's really the?] immediate testing, yeah, (inaudible) DM: Yeah, 20 minutes, you know your results, you know? LB: How long was it before? When you first started, how long would it take? DM: Was two weeks. LB: My gosh. DM: You had to wait two weeks. And let me tell you, that was a killer, even for us, because for me, as a healthcare provider and knowing that I'm safe, I still would get tested on a regular basis. And I'll tell you, it was hell waiting those two weeks. I knew I was okay but you didn't know. LB: Right. DM: But now it's, like I said, now, twenty minutes. Bingo, you know. LB: Yeah. DM: Of course, with the twenty minute test, that's really part of the antibody test. So, if you test positive, [then they?] really need to have the full blood work done and that could take up to two weeks, because you really need that -- it's called a PCR, polymers chain reaction test, to confirm that that first part is positive. So, I still think it's two weeks but I don't know, I would have to check because I don't test anymore. LB: Yeah, yeah. DM: Yeah. LB: Did people used to talk about stigma in terms of if they tested positive and what they -- the kinds of potential discrimination they would face or that people had had to face? DM: Yeah. A lot of different things there. So, if they were in a relationship, if you test positive, you have to tell your partner. "Well, I can't do that. I can't do that." I would say, "Bring your partner in" or, "I -- again, come to where you live. We can sit and talk about this if you want to." There was all kinds of reactions. I mean, that's one. Some people contemplated suicide. And that's another whole set of issues if you have somebody suicidal. So now, I need to refer this person to the suicide prevention group. And one person I know actually did commit suicide. They jumped off the Americus Hotel building. LB: Gosh, really? DM: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were living there at the time. And, you know, you can't get to everyone. LB: Right. DM: But, yeah, "Let's talk about this. We need to put an end to this." And there were people who were in a relationship where their partner was positive and they actually looked forward to being positive because now they have a bond with that individual. And I remember, with a heterosexual group, there was a woman who was a teacher and she was having an affair with a man who was married. He was positive, the wife was positive, and now she's positive. And she felt we now have something in common. And then, there were people who said, "I know who did this to me and I'm going to go home and I'm going to kill the bastard." LB: Yeah. DM: It runs the gamut with -- it just runs the gamut, you know? And again, I think I attribute my patience to the training that I've had over the years, the people that I've met over the years on how to handle or defuse situations, so -- LB: Well, one of the things that is terrific about these archives is that it's really possible that somebody will be reading the transcript or watching you speak about this 30 years from now. And they may not understand why somebody's reaction to having HIV would cause them to kill themselves because, I mean, even today, there's strong, strong issues. But certainly, in the eighties and early ninties -- could you just explain that for future generations as to why that was such a big deal? DM: Yeah, well, I think early on in the epidemic, it really was a death sentence. You know, from time of diagnosis, you could be dead in six months. And then, with the advent of AZT, which was the first HIV/AIDS med that was out there, people were living longer, not a great length of time, but they were living longer. And then, of course, the side effect from that medication was horrendous. So, like, do I want to go through this or just let me die? But people back then, it was -- death sentence. No way of putting it in any other words. It was death sentence. And I think we've done a pretty good job of educating people. I mean, numbers are down but there are people still getting infected. LB: Sure. DM: And we know that. And I think the mindset for some people is that it still is a death sentence, even though there are people who are 15, 20 years into this disease and they're still alive. And I have two friends of mine that live out of state who have been positive since, I'm going to say, the mid-ninties. Doing fine. LB: Yeah, yeah. DM: You know? There are people that are still -- and I think it's really the education factor and that we have all these medication-- we have more medications for this disease than we have for any other disease. And, yeah, and I think part of that is because when you look at this disease and how it affects immune system, everybody's immune system is different. So, what's going to work for me, may not work for you or may work for somebody else, and it may not work for me. So, we have all these combinations. And now, we have PrEP. You can take something that hopefully will prevent you from getting infected if something happens, that you weren't using protection or the protection you may have used may have failed. And, like I said, there are so many medications but I think the downfall is, and I think we still need to do a better job at educating, is, especially with the younger generation, they say, "Yeah, okay, we have all these meds out here, so I can just take a pill and I'll be fine," you know? Well, and that may be true. But what if you do get infected and what if you get infected with a super strain? Nothing's going to work on you and you will be dead in six months. LB: Yeah, yeah. DM: So, we still need to do -- the education needs to continue. We need to keep educating. And that's why it's important we go to different folks. You know, what I, I've done a presentation for your Silk group with the kids and those kids are just phenomenal. They are phenomenal, phenomenal kids. And they get it. LB: Yeah. DM: You know, they get it. LB: Could you just say a little bit more about AZT? Because I don't think people -- I mean, the whole thing about AZT and how significant it was with regard to making people feel better for a while but really -- what do you think about that? DM: Yeah, well, AZT came out because of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, kind of like what's going on now with things but not with the medication. And normally, it takes about 10 years for a medication to be approved by the FDA. And people were dying. People were dying at large rates. And they said something needs to be done, so they got this medication, they push and I think it took, like, 18 months for it to be approved. I think that was the timeframe. So, people were taking it and it was working but it had some horrible side effects, you know, nausea, diarrhea. You had to take the medication, like, every two hours. But it was the start of something. That was the pebble in the snow that got the snowball rolling where we are now. But I think it gave people some sense of hopefulness that, well, okay, I may feel good today because I'm on the medication. But, again, I have this -- whatever the condition is that's going to be associated with HIV. Because HIV is the infection and AIDS is a disease process and that could be one of 32 different case definitions. So, the AZT may work for some of the conditions but it may not work for all of them. LB: Yeah, yeah. DM: And then, slowly but surely, we got more medications out there. So many that aren't even used anymore, some that are still being used, and some that are being used in combination. LB: Right. DM: And we had a friend, and you know Bobby Burton, who passed away. LB: Yeah. DM: He was, this guy, you wanted to take with you when you were doing your presentation because he would come with a suitcase and he would open up that suitcase and it was full of medications that he was taking on a daily basis. And that was a real eye opener for people because -- and some of the medications you had to take every two hours. Some medications you had to take only in the morning. Some you only had to take at night. Some you had to take with food. Some you had to take on an empty stomach. Some you had to take -- you couldn't take together. Maddening! It was absolutely maddening to see that, so -- and now we've come a long way. No longer are people going around with suitcases full of medications. LB: And some of those medications had extraordinary side effects, like would make -- DM: Yeah, you -- LB: (inaudible) DM: -- wanted to die. LB: -- big or -- DM: Yeah. LB: -- the shoulders be a strange shape or something like that. DM: Yeah, you get the humpback in the back, yeah. You would get ulcers, stomach ulcers. Some people had to be put on ostomy bags because you couldn't have a bottle because of what it was doing to the intestines. Yeah, it was just absolutely -- you really were better off dying back then. Yeah, I mean, I hate saying it that way but -- LB: Well -- DM: -- you know, it is what it is. It was what it was. LB: -- yeah. DM: But, again, we're fortunate now that the side effects on the newer medications are much, much less than they were back then because you didn't have the clinical trials like you have now. So, we know what's going to work. And there still is, in the pipeline, new medications coming down. We have injectable medications, we have sublingual medications, we have things you can drink. LB: Yeah, yeah. Some people have told me about -- and I moved here in 1987 but I didn't know as many people in the community until I started to be involved with the Pride festival, which wasn't until nineteen ninety-three and four. Then I was, Trish and I, were beginning to be involved. But in the eighties, there were a lot of funerals and I think FACT [reported?] people with regard to those funerals. Is that something that you were involved with or was it later? DM: Yeah, well, I came onto the board in, I want to say, nineteen ninety-two . And I guess I was the education chair, that person. I can't think who the person was that was the contingency person, chairperson. And what the contingencies are are applications that case managers in the hospitals who had HIV/AIDS clinics would apply to FACT for some kind of assistance. And we had different categories and we still have different categories, rental assistance, auto repair or help with their insurance, medications back then, dental, certain types of med-surg procedures, utilities, heating, air conditioning, things like that. We had, like, a miscellaneous category, like if a person was moving into, (coughs) excuse me, if a person was moving into an apartment and they needed a bed or they needed an air conditioner or they needed a stove, we would help with that. And then, of course, the funerals. And funerals were very -- it was one of the larger categories back then. And I can honestly say they have not really decreased. This year, so far, up until March, before we got hit with this quarantine and this pandemic, we had supported six funerals. LB: Really? DM: Yeah, six funerals. So, that still is our big -- LB: Yeah. DM: -- yeah, so they were -- you know, like I said, I've lost, at least locally -- that I know more than 400 friends -- to this disease. And some of them you know, because they were on the board of FACT or were heavily involved with FACT. It's still there. There still is a need. And, unfortunately, with the way that things are going, FACT has not been able to hold any fundraisers -- LB: Right. DM: -- because that's how we raise our monies, is through fundraisers. And we just had, we actually had a meeting on -- this past Monday, our first actual meeting in the office. I mean, we had masks and we were social distancing. But we're talking about possible events that we want to hold somewhere down the line. But again, this is all dependent on where we are six months from now and are we going to be back in the second phase of this epidemic, this pandemic? We don't know. We don't know because -- LB: How do you, because you guys at the FACT meeting may have been talking about this, how do you see this in contrast or in similarity to the COVID-19? Because there's some very significant similarities. There's some very significant differences. So, how do you see that? DM: Well, a person can have both. We have suspended all contingency requests at this point. And part of it is because the agencies, AIDS Activities Office, AIDS service center, is not seeing clients on a regular basis. LB: Yeah. DM: So, this is giving us the time to sit back and kind of look at things differently. We, you know, we know that there are -- I mean, anybody can get this, whether it's the COVID-19 or HIV. Well, with HIV, there are specific ways that you're going to get it. But with this COVID, there can be a myriad of ways because we just can talk to each other and one of you can have it and not know it. And when you're looking at signs and symptoms, it's pretty much the same with HIV. You get infected with HIV and it can take up to six months before you can test positive for it, be as little as -- it can show up as early, HIV can show up as early as two weeks after exposure but it usually takes three to six months. With COVID, it can be a couple weeks to a couple months, again, with symptoms, from what I understand. So, they are similar and I think education is important. It infuriates me, it really infuriated me yesterday when I hear that the Pennsylvania state Republican group wants to impeach Governor Wolf. Ah! What are you thinking? And all the derogatory stuff they say about Dr. Levine. What are you people thinking? LB: Yeah, yeah. DM: You know? Don't even get me started on that, Liz. (laughter) LB: Yeah. DM: No. LB: Well -- DM: No. LB: -- you're preaching to the choir, Dave. (laughter) Definitely the case. DM: Yeah. LB: Well, talk about some of the organizations in the Lehigh Valley that FACT has worked with and that you've worked with. I mean, you mentioned doing presentations for the youth group that we have through our community center. But you've been doing that all along for the last 30, 35 years, 40 years. DM: Yeah, yeah, we did a program with the NAACP a few years ago. Hollis Perry was instrumental in getting us to do that. And we're looking at doing something again when we can. I'd done a program for -- I can't think of her last name. She's the high school teacher, chemistry teacher, Rachel -- LB: Zane. DM: Yeah, done programs for her. I have worked -- I did training, I did the HIV training for AIDS Outreach when that organization was still viable, for Linda Gallagher. We have done, we worked in the beginning, in coordination with the Bethlehem Health Bureau. We would do intercity health fairs, like, in the projects in Bethlehem and in Easton -- and in Allentown. LB: How were those things received, when you're going into sort of - it sounded like like it's almost like a cold call. So, you're going into -- talking to people. What do you think, the response? DM: We have always been received very well. Like I said, we have bilingual people on our staff and they have [that?] on their staff, so -- and we offer testing in all these things that we used to go into. So, they were received very well. And then, of course, a lot of these events were grant funded. And then, money started to dry up, so we were no longer able to do that but we, you know, still be able to get the word out. We did, well, we were involved with Pride. FACT is involved with Pride, because we do the bingo, up until last year. (laughs) We can't do bingo this year. And I've done, well, not just me, people on the board of FACT, we are involved with Pete Schweyer and Mike Schlossberg., when they do their senior fest. LB: State representatives, yeah. DM: The state representatives, yeah. Very well received. And some of the older people, one says, "Well" -- and we have condoms out -- you know, "Well, I don't need these but can I take some for my grandson or my granddaughter?" I said, (laughter) "Take all you want," yeah. Yeah, we had been -- I think that FACT has been received very well in the community. I know when I go out to, I usually go to Palm Springs in the fall, (clears throat) excuse me, and I'll be going out, hopefully, again in November. But the organization out there is Desert AIDS Project. I don't know if you ever heard of them. I think I'd given Adrian some information on them. That is an unbelievable organization. It's like a city in itself. They took over, [was?] quite a few years ago, they took over the old VA hospital. And this place is like a compound. They have their own medical department in there, they can do testing there, they can do educational things. They have their own pharmacy. They have an area that's behind the major building that are apartment houses, complexes, just for HIV people, HIV/AIDS people. And they can live there, stay there until they pass. And I go out and I take information out about FACT and things and then they give me stuff. So, every year I go out, I try to pay a visit and say, hey, how's it going? LB: Great. DM: But, yeah, and like I said early on in the conversation, we're fortunate that we have what we have in the Lehigh Valley for people with HIV and AIDS. There are areas that have nothing. LB: Right, right. DM: I mean, you go [out?] to Carbon County, you go to Monroe County, they don't have that stuff there like we have here. LB: Yeah, imagine what that would have been like in the '80s and '90s, too. I mean, it wasn't just -- it was adversarial in -- DM: Yeah. LB: -- so, I think we have been lucky here. And a lot of that has to do with the kind of organization that you were doing and FACT was doing and the information shared (inaudible) doing. Did you used to go to the Pride festival and set up and do testing there or through the health department? Or how did that -- DM: No, no, we were not -- initially, we were not welcomed, initially. For some reason, we were not welcome. Again, the health police. And I think it was when -- I don't know who the original organizers were. That I don't know. But I think it was when Shawn and Rob Hopkins were part of that board, when they took over, and that's when we were invited to come and do testing. And that's when we were on the other side of Cedar Beach Lake there, on Linden Street. LB: Yeah, that was in two-thousand, when that began to change. I mean, it was sort of the whole organization changed over to a different model, -- DM: Yeah, but -- LB: -- [started?] -- DM: -- we did quite well, you know, lot of testing, lot of information, lot of condoms, you know? LB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. DM: But, yeah. LB: Yeah. DM: And then, so we've been involved ever since. And then, of course, the health bureau will still do some testing. They don't do the HIV tests, they don't do the STD testing. And then, Lehigh Valley will do the HIV testing and that, so we've got the bases covered. It would be nice to get the Bethlehem Health Bureau involved somehow. LB: Yeah, yeah. What do you think about PrEP and PEP? DM: I think it's needed. I'm okay with it. I think it needs to be pushed a little more. And as long as they're getting the information out about both of them, I think that's what's important. And then, to be -- the people who really want it, you know, then taking it, yeah. LB: Yeah, yeah. I just read a thing that said that in other countries, a year's course of PEP or PrEP costs about twenty-two dollars and in the United States, costs two-thousand dollars. DM: That's insane. But, yeah, [it does?] -- LB: And then, about a million people really need a prescription in the United States. And if that happened, it would be a significant end to the spreading of -- I mean, it could stop AIDS. It could really stop HIV -- DM: Yeah. LB: -- for people with -- and I think that's a historical thing. I hope that thirty years from now, people are, like, whoa, what do you mean? You can get over a counter, you know? DM: Oh, yeah. Yeah, one of the things that ticks me off is this statement that Trump is saying that, "Oh, now we have a vaccine, we're going to clear this," yeah. LB: And mention that for history. DM: Yeah. LB: Please just talk about that for one minute, to say what the current president said about that and what that meant. DM: Yeah, but, you know, what I've read is that -- well, he had made a statement months ago that he was going to have a cure for AIDS during his presidency. And then, just the other day, he made the statement that there's a vast amount of scientists who are extremely knowledgeable and that they have developed a vaccine that will cure AIDS and that there will be more information about this to follow. And I have heard nothing, I have seen nothing, it's a pipe dream from him. I mean, I wish it was true. I mean -- LB: Sure. DM: -- I really do wish it was true but -- and we know about Donald Trump, you know? Enough said about him. (laughs) LB: I want people in the future to know our concerns today about that and it certainly has an impact on COVID-19 -- DM: Yeah. LB: -- [and how through all?] -- I mean, everybody that I'm interviewing right now who is talking about their experiences with HIV in the nineteen-eighties and nineties is my age or older. You know, we're not too -- well, maybe Nan's a little bit younger. But, I mean, it's all people in their sixties or older and yeah, we were in our twenties and thirties when this stuff was first happening. DM: Yeah, yeah, we were, yeah. LB: Well, you know. DM: And I'm in my seventies. (laughs) LB: [Sure?], and Trish is too. So, all of our circumstances now, based on COVID, is we're really at risk. Just because we're over 60, we're really at risk. So, it's interesting that the folks that we know, I think, have been so careful about it because, as we #NotOurFirstVirus -- DM: Yeah. LB: -- we're just not really interested in taking the kinds of chances that people who haven't seen a devastating virus -- DM: Yeah. LB: -- would take. We know what it could do and [I interviewed?] somebody recently who said, "My biggest fear is that I would get this and give it to someone else." DM: Yeah, same here. LB: And they had the same fear about HIV, that they would give it to someone else, that they would give it to a group of people. And so, they -- that was the thing that they thought they could live with the least, yeah. DM: Yeah. LB: I'm sure you came across people that, the way that you were describing, telling people's partners and stuff like that, it's that kind of (inaudible) DM: Yeah. LB: Yeah. DM: Yeah. LB: Let's see, I think we've got about ten minutes left, so, in our ninety-minute interview. So, is there anything you really want to be sure that people understand about this time, that time, and the impact that it had on you? In some ways, it kind of shaped your life. DM: Yeah, I think, excuse me, (clears throat) one thing that I remember and one of the -- and I took as much training as I was able to when I was working for the health department. And I think the major thing for me was all of the death and dying. And I was in a training in Philadelphia and one of the instructors was a doctor in psychology. And he had said back then that, with the grieving process and the death processes that, at that time, and it may have changed -- is that it takes approximately two years for the average person to get over a death. And we were losing people on a daily basis that -- and especially people that we knew. LB: Yeah. DM: So, you know, I'm still grieving for some people. LB: Right. DM: And I think that was when -- and then, he died and that was really, you know, little difficult for me, too. LB: Will. You mean Will? DM: No, no, no, no, the teacher -- LB: Oh, I see. DM: -- who said that, yeah, the professor. Yeah, and I'm just dealing with HIV -- LB: (inaudible) DM: -- with that, yeah. LB: Sorry, I misunderstood. But what you're talking about is that the teacher was saying everybody was seeing deaths every day and -- DM: Yeah. LB: -- grieving process takes two years. I see, I understand, yeah. DM: Yeah, yeah. So, you may get over one person but now there's somebody else in line. And, again, and it's just with that. And then, you have people that didn't have HIV and AIDS, family members or friends that died from something else, whether it was a car accident or cancer or whatever. You add that to the mix. LB: Right. DM: You know? And then, for me, it still is difficult today and it'll be six years in September that Will has passed. LB: Six years. DM: It's still difficult for me. LB: Course. DM: You know? And I think with what we're looking at now, and I think it's really significantly different with death now, with this, is that people could not say goodbye to -- there could not be a proper service or burial. And that's what is just so horrendous about this disease. LB: Yeah. DM: You know? How do you get over that? You don't. LB: Right. DM: I mean, personally, I don't know anybody that has died from COVID-19. But you're seeing it. I mean, those initial pictures of them putting bodies in refrigerated trucks was, like, oh, my God! Those poor people! And then, hearing stories from people that couldn't say goodbye to their loved ones. And they still can't do anything, for the most part, that that's just -- I think the death of it all is really what's the important part. And then, I think the knowledge and the training that still needs to continue to happen, you know? AIDS hasn't gone away like this COVID-19 hasn't gone away. People are still getting infected, people are still dying with both. And we just need to be vigil-- we need to be aware. We need to keep practicing safe whatever it is, safe sex, safe businessing, safe whatever, and educating one another. LB: Right. DM: And trying to educate those individuals who are defiant. "Well, why the hell do I need to wear a mask, what I'm doing?" Or "why do I need to wash my hands?" But, well, I've been in healthcare since I'm fifteen years old. Like I said, I'm seventy-seven years old now. I still wash my hands, you know? Yeah, I'm not crazy about wearing a mask but I do. LB: Right. DM: I'm following the protocols. At least I'm trying to. So, I think just the educational component is still the major goal, is we need to keep educating, we need to keep educating, we need to bring people to the realization that this is real. LB: Right. DM: This isn't a fairy tale that we're going to wake up tomorrow morning and it's all going to be peaches and cream, because it's not. And I said earlier that I made a vow to my friends that I will never give up. And I won't. I end my presentations, I've always ended my presentations or talks with the last line from the movie Longtime Companion, where Will is walking on the beach in Fire Island and he says, "All I want is a cure and my friends back." LB: Yeah. DM: I can't end any better than that. LB: Yeah. Yeah, that's significant. DM: Yeah. LB: I think we're just about to the end and I just wanted to say one thing in case it wasn't clear when you were talking about it but Rachel Zane is the facilitator and advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school, at -- DM: [Cool?]. LB: -- Allen, just so that that's on -- DM: Okay. LB: -- [information?], so that people can understand that you've been going into public schools to do some really significant programs. And she's a great resource to hook people up. I think the work that you've been doing, yeah, now you've had a lifetime of work helping people in this community. It's really been a significant thing -- DM: Yeah. LB: (inaudible) [lives?]. It's a big deal. DM: I, yeah -- LB: Yeah. DM: -- I really enjoyed my twenty, twenty-one, twenty-plus years at the Allentown Health Bureau because I've met some wonderful people. I love working with the incarcerated population. I loved working with the people in recovery and treatment. I loved working with the LGBT community. I loved working with high school, middle school, and grade school kids, especially the grade school kids, because you have to be careful what you're saying. LB: Yeah. DM: So, I learned in one of my trainings, for me, when I'm dealing with HIV and AIDS -- is to -- I would go into the classroom and I would put a big circle on the chalkboard and then a smaller circle in the middle of that, almost like a bullseye. And in the middle of that smaller circle, I would write the word AIDS. So, what I do then is I look at the class, to the kids, and I say, "When you look at the word AIDS, what does that mean to you?" So, they would throw back things to me and I would put it in the bigger part of the circle. And that's what I could talk about because they're the ones -- LB: [They were asking, right?]. DM: -- that were asking me. LB: Yeah. DM: It isn't a program that I need to take and say, okay, this is what we're going to do, this is what -- I mean, the teacher was aware of what I was going to do, so I was able to do that. LB: Yeah, yeah. DM: Yeah, and that was significant for the kids and they loved it. The kids loved it. LB: Yeah, yeah. Well, before we are done with this, we've got a couple minutes, want you to show your little FACT pin really good to the lens. There we go. I love that. I have one of those, too. DM: Yeah, that's the original one. LB: Yeah, yeah. And your t-shirt [is a?] -- there you go, there you go. I think that FACT logo is great. It'll live on through history -- DM: Yeah. LB: -- and through this video, among other things. DM: Yeah. (laughs) LB: Thanks so much. I'm going to turn the -- thank you so much for doing this, Dave, you've been terrific. DM: Thank you for asking me. LB: I'm going to turn off the recorder and just want to tell you a couple of things after we're done. But I just want to remind you again that when you get the transcript of this, you'll be able to change things. If you think, oh, that's not that person's name, you can change or delete it or whatever you want to do. This has been terrific. I really, really appreciate it and the whole community does. So, I'm going to turn off the recording now. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:28:17 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource David Moyer, June 18, 2020 Description An account of the resource David Moyer talks about the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He focuses on his work as a nurse in the Allentown Health Department; shares about local AIDS education, testing, and the experience of notifying people of positive tests; the formation of Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT); and how HIV/AIDS compares to COVID-19. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PH40_16 Subject The topic of the resource AIDS (Disease) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-06-18 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs. https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/5fcb7fa2df13fb6a1c80b28eff5fd051.png d7c4039833ede0bc4a69f3c44cdebc3a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: HIV/AIDS Description An account of the resource In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism. The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Liz Bradbury Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed William Aull OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_04.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 June 29, 2020 William Aull, June 29, 2020 PH40_04 01:29:29 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg AIDS (Disease) Hospices (Terminal care) William Aull Liz Bradbury video/mpeg AullWilliam_20200629_video 1.0:|27(12)|56(2)|79(5)|96(4)|113(11)|140(11)|165(16)|186(14)|211(2)|230(10)|253(2)|274(9)|293(7)|312(13)|331(18)|348(2)|367(4)|384(7)|403(8)|422(6)|437(17)|458(6)|479(16)|502(5)|523(10)|538(8)|557(4)|574(2)|595(18)|616(5)|631(2)|656(8)|669(2)|696(4)|711(6)|728(15)|747(7)|768(2)|785(9)|808(14)|823(18)|844(12)|861(3)|878(16)|897(9)|916(11)|937(16)|958(13)|973(19)|992(4)|1009(9)|1028(5)|1049(5)|1070(10)|1091(2)|1112(6)|1131(4)|1148(16)|1169(3)|1184(9)|1203(6)|1220(11)|1243(3)|1260(17)|1281(11)|1304(11)|1323(13)|1340(3)|1361(2)|1378(7)|1397(2)|1418(13)|1441(3)|1458(6)|1477(5)|1498(12)|1519(3)|1534(3)|1545(16)|1560(14)|1577(6)|1594(12)|1615(8)|1642(2)|1657(8)|1688(11)|1713(9)|1734(17)|1759(10)|1780(5) 0 https://youtu.be/BFcTQtrG1UE YouTube video 0 Interview introductory material and consent 0 183 First awareness of the disease I do, it was actually nineteen eighty-seven. I was in a gay men’s leather club in Reading at the time and we had a meeting and we were getting notices that club members that we knew were in one of the local hospitals. 0 273 Caregiving and the beginning of Rainbow Home So in eighty-nine there was an article in the Reading Eagle and the Reading Times that a group of government officials from the commonwealth and several sisters from different women’s religious orders in the Catholic Church were going to establish a personal care home on the grounds of the Wernersville State Hospital because at that time they were starting to lose some people from the state hospital facility.&#13 ; Catholic Church ; Rainbow Home ; Reading PA ; The Reading Eagle ; The Reading Times ; Wernersville ; Wernersville State Hospital Nursing ; Rainbow Home ; Volunteering 0 638 Illness and death of a loved one My one and only love moved to Philadelphia. I was in nursing school at the time in seventy-two. And Eric and I said, “We’re going to stay in touch.” He moved to Philly for a better job. And then I didn’t hear from him and I’m like, “This is weird, because he’s usually pretty good about staying in touch.” 0 895 Joining the staff at Rainbow Home and redoing the hospital And the next day Sister Mary called me and said, “I want to put you on staff.” And I said, “Okay.” And so we painted and we redid -- because the wards in that building were god-awful colors, we’re talking like brown ceilings and yellow walls. So Sister Cecilia, who should have been a decorator if she wasn’t a nun, did an awesome job. I mean it was very homelike.&#13 ; 0 976 Life and activites at Rainbow Home And we had a lot of really great times in that building. I mean we had events. We took them on field trips. We took them to Knoebels if they were able to go. I took a couple of them shopping on their own. We celebrated all the holidays. So there was a lot of life and living in Rainbow Home. 0 1096 Religious services and memorials And then the last three years I was also in charge of the pastoral care department because our Episcopal deacon -- and then she became a priest -- got a parish. And so I worked with the clergy. And that was eye-opening, because I had a few that I wanted to say, “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way.” I would have clergy that would refuse to give them anointings on their deathbed. So I cheated. I did it. But I switched the formula that I read. I didn’t say, “I absolve you of all sins and censures.” I said, “May the Lord absolve you.” Depending on whatever their faith was. I was very ecumenical in that.&#13 ; 0 1164 Relationships and fun activites at Rainbow Home And a lot of the residents -- the residents became close to each other. It was like a family. And I think that Sister Mary said it best. It was the only place where the gay man could pass the mashed potatoes to the straight woman who would pass them to the drug user who would pass them to the whatever. 0 1386 Religious structure of Rainbow Home LB: So this was in a Catholic hospital?&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: No. We were ecumenical.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Oh, okay.&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: We just had the sisters there to -- you know, they were the ones that really got it going. And back then a lot of the hospices were being run in Catholic hospitals. One of the big ones was Saint Vincent’s in the Village, in the West Village in New York. That was a very very big -- that was a whole floor of the hospital. Saint Clare’s had a unit. But again the staff obviously was very ecumenical. 0 1653 Funding and facilities for Rainbow Home / local community reception LB: But who was funding that? Was it coming from people’s --&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Donations. Of course I mean their insurance kicked in. And we had a lot of very generous benefactors. Al -- Mr. Boscov donated all new equipment for the kitchen. And we only had to pay the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania $1 a year for rent, and that was set up when Senator Mike O’Pake was in office. So we paid the state $1 a year rent.&#13 ; 0 1778 Introduction of AZT and its side effects / Health insurance &amp ; preexisting conditions LB: When you were talking about AZT, was that later? Because AZT had a lot of side effects and stuff. Were you seeing that as well? Talk a little bit about the AZT stuff.&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: We weren’t seeing a lot of side effects with AZT. The drug that we saw the most side effects was Crixivan. And that came on later. And the reason that we were trying to figure this out was why are we suddenly -- what’s going on with this drug. 0 2040 St. Joseph's Hospital in Reading / doctors LB: Let’s see. When you were talking about Saint Joe’s, what’s Saint Joe’s? That’s a Catholic hospital?&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Saint Joseph’s was a Catholic hospital in Reading. And Dr. Woodward was on staff there. But the primary amount of our -- if they were local -- were being seen by Dr. DeBenedictis and Dr. Jones because Dr. D was one of the first infectious disease doctors to get into the field. Dr. Woodward came in later.&#13 ; 0 2312 Funeral services for Rainbow Home patients LB: It was. Let’s see. So were you having funerals there? Did you have anybody that would do the funerals for you or stuff like that?&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: We did. We did. Jay Gilbert was one. Jay is very good. Anyone from the Lehigh Valley. Now as far as in Reading, I really don’t remember who they were, because I just remember Jay’s name floating around a lot. If they were from up this way. I’m sure there were one or two down in Reading that were really good about that. Because they knew who we were and what we were.&#13 ; 0 2388 The toll of working with dying patients LB: It must have been very hard to have people dying and knowing that that was going to happen to people for you. Did that take its toll? Well, apparently it did. But sounded like you did it for a long time. It was really wonderfully gracious of you.&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Yeah, I mean there were times when I would come home from work. And if we had someone who was actively dying -- and Brenda was on -- for the first two years Brenda was all alone, and then they put a second staff member on. So I had a pager at that point. 0 2663 The story of David Well, I think probably one of the toughest ones for me, and I had a few, was I went down to Jersey to do an assessment on a potential resident. And David was in a nursing home in Atlantic City, so you can picture a nursing home is already not a good sign. So I go in and here’s David, six-one, six-two. Dark brown hair, jet-blue eyes. Laying in a bed. 0 3217 Communicating with families of the deceased We only had one family that really didn’t want anything to do with their son. And I called them when he started actively dying and said, “Are you going to come visit?” “Well, of course we are.” I said, “Well, someone wrote on the admission paper.” And this was how it was worded. When he kicks the bucket don’t call us. 0 3299 The night three patients died WA: Because that was the night I had three deaths an hour apart.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Oh gosh.&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: He was number two. So I had three actively going at once. And my coworker, she was the best. Bev said, “You take care of the three, I’ll take care of the other nine.” 0 3359 Medications and nursing care LB: And what kind of meds were you giving people then? Was this in the eighties or was it mostly -- what kind of (inaudible).&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Primarily their HIV/AIDS but also some of them would have weight loss. There were two drugs. There was Marinol which was synthetic marijuana, but it did not give them a buzz or get them high, it only stimulated the part of the brain that said, “You need to eat.” 0 3475 Mental health for the caregivers And they had a therapist for us. Because once a month we would have a meeting to talk about how we felt in the midst of losing all these guys and gals. So that mentally we were okay. But I knew when Tommy died. I said, “Okay, that’s it.” 0 3557 National Catholic AIDS Network And I had joined -- they are no longer, but I had become a member of the National Catholic AIDS Network or NCAN and we would meet every summer in Chicago at Loyola University on the lake. And we would have workshops, we would have time to just share our stories. But what was really wonderful was the one year -- Cardinal Bernardin was in charge of the archdiocese at that time and very well known for being a compassionate cardinal. 0 3748 Reflecting on age and the passage of time LB: Yeah. How old were you in the eighties?&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Geez, well, I’m sixty-seven now, so I would say in my fifties, I had to be in my fifties. Late forties, early fifties, I -- at this point (inaudible) twenty-six, fifty-one, let’s see.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: It was thirty-five years ago, honey?&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Huh.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: It was thirty-five years ago.&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Yeah, what can I tell you? That’ll be an edit.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: It’s okay. I think one of the things is we forget when you’re a grown-up and you’re doing things like that we forget that it was a long time ago when we were kids in a lot of ways, we were in our (inaudible) thirties. What did you say, you’re sixty-seven now? You were born in nineteen --&#13 ; 0 3832 Starting the AIDS Walk in Reading WA: And Ozzie, who had one of the local bars, Ozzie and I were responsible for getting the first AIDS walk in Reading going. And we worked with -- oh, I can’t. Her son, what’s the name of the farm? Who did you --&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Rodale. Ardath Rodale.&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Yeah, we worked with -- yeah.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Talking to Maria Rodale about Ardath Rodale.&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: To do the first AIDS walk in Reading.&#13 ; 0 3908 Changes brought by better medications LB: In about nineteen ninety-three, which is about the middle of the time that you were at Rainbow House, medication really changed. And in ninety-three the worst part about the epidemic really started to fall back a little bit because there were actually drugs that could really prolong people’s lives, it wasn’t so much of a death sentence. Were you noticing a change then? What was it like?&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Yeah. Well, for us it was really great because we had them longer. And for the most part they were doing very well on them. And that was thanks to like ACT UP and other organizations that were really getting up in the face of these drug companies and saying, “Why are you putting these on hold forever?” 0 4043 Involvement (or lack thereof) of the Catholic Church / Priest as a patient t up to New York because I was doing my own stuff down here. The one year the bishop of the Catholic diocese had an anointing service at DeSales and he said, “It’s open to everyone.” So I took a couple of the guys up. And afterwards I said, “Um, how come you never visit?” Question mark. And he goes, “I don’t have time.” I said, “Oh. Really? Oh. Okay.” Because here’s the interesting thing. We had a priest in the house as a patient. And [Claude?], father, had surgery. And he got bad blood. This is before they were doing the big testing. And he was from the Diocese of Camden. So he came up, great guy, we all loved padre, and every morning I would get him up, we did his a.m. care, gave him his meds. And then he and I would go into our multipurpose room and he would do Mass.&#13 ; 0 4362 Relationship of HIV/AIDS and his experience to the COVID-19 pandemic LB: I wondered if you wanted to talk anything about how you see the relationship of HIV/AIDS and the epidemic then and what you were doing and its relationship to what’s happening now with COVID-19. What do you think about that?&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Well, I mean I think we need to be aware that this COVID-19 is very nasty. And we have to really look at our brothers and sisters that are HIV-positive and even with the meds they’re immunosuppressed as it is. And this could really knock the socks off of them. They could end up in the hospitals and in ICUs and on vents. 0 4529 Message for viewers in the future LB: Yeah. So we have about fourteen minutes left. But I would love for you to think about somebody’s going to see this thirty years, forty years from now. And you have an opportunity to talk to the future here. Go into the future and tell people what you think they really should know about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And maybe even talk about -- some people -- and I think David talked about this, but other people that I’ve interviewed, because I think you’re the sixth interview I’ve done, they’re talking about the lack of recognition by elected officials about it for so many years that it was very painful. And you have any insight on that? And then also just to tell people what they should know about this time.&#13 ; &#13 ; WA: Well, as far as the -- I think David covered it pretty good with the elected officials. That for so many years it was ignored. And it’s like it’s their disease, let them deal with it. Then when it started to hit everyone else okay, now we have to do something about it.&#13 ; 0 4644 Sharing memories of specific patients for future generations I’m going to share a couple of the guys as far as their names and what they did because I think for future generations the name and what they did is something that they need to know. And it’s first names. I mean it’s going to be first names.&#13 ; &#13 ; Andy had a double doctorate in chemical physics. Brilliant mind. Larry was the chief tie department buyer for Lord &amp ; Taylor. Rich had his own fashionwear. It was called Poshwear. &#13 ; &#13 ; Jeff was a well known hairdresser in the Washington area. David was a top-notch chef. Leo was a member of the United States Navy with honorable discharge. So he served his country before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.&#13 ; 0 4761 Viewing the AIDS quilt If you get a chance, future generations, to see any part of the quilt, the quilt will tell the stories. You don’t have to know them. We had a quilt showing our fifth anniversary at Rainbow Home at Albright. And we took in an extremely high amount of new quilts. The guys from NAMES Project were like, “We’ve never had this many at such a small gathering.” Well, surprise. Because we were making them. We did a house quilt every year. 0 4902 Concluding remarks Because we would check in on each other constantly after a death. We had a quick staff meeting to make sure that everybody was doing okay. Because our counselor would say, “If you need to talk after a death you know where I am.” So I hope that they never have to face any kind of pandemic like this, this current -- or the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. But if they do, get involved. Don’t sit on the sidelines. That’s it.&#13 ; 0 MovingImage Bill Aull, for many years a caregiver at the Rainbow Home near Reading, PA, shares his experiences during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. He reflects on specific patients, the role of Catholic Church in AIDS care, and the operations and services of Rainbow Home. WILLIAM AULL . LIZ BRADBURY: There we go. Now we're recording. Oh, you look great, the light is terrific on you. I have to read you this thing. And it says, "With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19." My name is Liz Bradbury and I'm here with William Aull. Is that the way you pronounce it? WILLIAM AULL: Yes, ma'am. LB: To talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. And let's see. We're meeting on Zoom on -- oh, I'm supposed to say the date. I haven't been saying the date of this. On June 29th, 2020. Forgot to say that on Maria's. So thank you very much, Bill, for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? WA: Okay, William Arthur Aull, W-I-L-L-I-A-M A-R-T-H-U-R A-U-L-L. LB: Okay. And will you please share your birth date? WA: September 26th, 1951. LB: Okay. Do you consent to this interview today? WA: I do. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? WA: I do. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, archives, Web sites, presentations, and other formats? WA: I do. LB: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts that you'd like to delete or withdraw from your interview from the project? WA: I do. LB: You could also decide to blow off the whole thing if you wanted. Although we hope you don't. Okay. So we're going to just start this out. And the very first question -- I sent these questions to you before -- but the very first thing to just get you going here is to say in the midst of this current health crisis that we're experiencing we want to take this opportunity to look back to those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the nineteen-eighties and the nineteen-nineties. Do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease? WA: I do, it was actually nineteen eighty-seven. I was in a gay men's leather club in Reading at the time and we had a meeting and we were getting notices that club members that we knew were in one of the local hospitals. Reading Hospital &amp ; Medical Center. But we weren't getting the details of what. So I said, "Well, I'm going to go visit -- name -- and see what's going on." I get over there and they're like, "You have to put this on and this on." I mean I was in full surgical gear. I'm like, "I'm not going to the operating room." "Oh, no, no, they have this disease, we don't know what we're calling it yet, but you have to wear this to go in." "Okay then." Then it was GRID. Then it was this. And then finally everyone said, "Okay, it's autoimmune deficiency syndrome, aka AIDS." I'm like, "Oh, okay." And people were just dropping like flies. So in eighty-nine there was an article in the Reading Eagle and the Reading Times that a group of government officials from the commonwealth and several sisters from different women's religious orders in the Catholic Church were going to establish a personal care home on the grounds of the Wernersville State Hospital because at that time they were starting to lose some people from the state hospital facility. LB: Is that in Reading? WA: Yeah, it was in Wernersville. LB: Oh, Wernersville. WA: Wernersville which was right -- yeah, about fifteen minutes outside of Reading proper. LB: Okay, I'm sorry. WA: That's okay. So one Sunday one of the sisters came to our parish to talk about what Rainbow Home was going to be, what Rainbow Home was going to do. And they needed volunteers. And I thought you know, I could give them a couple hours a week to do whatever. So I talked to Sister [Carol Ann?], who was the volunteer coordinator, and I said, "I have an extensive background as a nursing assistant." Well. LB: Ah. WA: The next day I get a phone call from Sister Mary, who was going to be in charge of the caregiving. Like here it comes. "I'd like to interview you for a position. A paid staff member." "Okay." LB: Oh, okay, yeah. WA: Yeah. From volunteer to pay. So I was going down to visit a friend of mine, [Johnjohn?], who has since passed away. And his partner and he did not live together, but Johnjohn had a zero T cell count but you would have never known he was full-blown AIDS, I mean healthy as an ox, took his meds, rode his motorcycle, went water-skiing, [ski skiing?], the whole nine yards. But his partner couldn't give him his B12 shots. He was deathly afraid of needles. So I talked to Sister Mary before I left, and I said, "Could we just review this?" And she goes, "Yeah." So I would go down once a month and give him his B12s. So I did my interview and she said, "Well, I have to check out your references, etc." She said, "I'll get back to you in a couple days." "Great." So I go down. And at the time I was in the Roman Church. I was Roman Catholic. I'm now Episcopalian. So I stopped at the shrine and I said a prayer in front of a statue of the Blessed Mother and said, "Hey, if I'm going to take this ministry on, could I have a sign?" Johnjohn and I are having dinner. He goes, "You're going to take care of a lot of people with this disease so fasten the seatbelt." And I'm like, "Okay." It's that quick. Like God was not saying -- yeah, you're not waiting around, dude, I'm going to get you in now. So in nineteen-ninty on the Feast of All Souls, which was November seventh -- I'm sorry, November second -- we dedicated Rainbow Home. Now Rainbow Home was open to anyone. And the reason that it was named Rainbow Home was that we had a rabbi on the board, and they were trying to come up with a name, and he said, "Well, in the book of Genesis," and he proceeded to do his thing. And I'm like, "Well, that's kind of cool, I really like that." But we did fly a rainbow flag outside the building. LB: Great. WA: But we had to tell people that it was open to everyone. It was not just the LBGTQ community. In the beginning we would have maybe two or three, the first year, year and a half, two years. Then all of a sudden word got out because people were in the hospitals but they were sending them home and their parents were trying to take care of them. Well, as they progressed in the disease they needed twenty-fourhour care and you've got moms and dads that don't know the first thing about anything other than aspirin. But for the first three years we were just giving basically AZT because that was the drug at the time. And then more drugs would come in. We were a thirteen bed facility. And about three and a half years in we started to fill up. Then we had a waiting list to get in. We took care of anyone with HIV/AIDS but we also would accept cancer patients. So we wanted to make sure that people knew that if they had a loved one who was end-stage cancer that they were more than welcome. And we actually had a mom who had really bad breast cancer who came to spend her last days. And so the guys and the gals in the house referred to her as the housemother. LB: (inaudible). WA: Any medications that we gave were either oral or rectal by -- and that was the only way. If they needed any kind of shot the RNs would come in. We worked with visiting nurses, and they would come in and do them. My one and only love moved to Philadelphia. I was in nursing school at the time in seventy-two. And Eric and I said, "We're going to stay in touch." He moved to Philly for a better job. And then I didn't hear from him and I'm like, "This is weird, because he's usually pretty good about staying in touch." And his mom called me and said, "He's in Reading Hospital in the ER, he's got full-blown AIDS," and this was two years later. And he goes, "They have no beds, I don't know what to do." I said, "Let me -- how bad is it?" She goes, "It's bad." Said, "Well, let me call Dr. Woodward at Saint Joe's and see if maybe I can get him up there." Because I talked to Dr. [Dee?] and I said, "Listen. His mom can't take care of him. Rainbow Home isn't open yet, as you know, because you're one of our medical directors. So what are you going to do?" He says, "Yeah, go ahead, talk to Chris Woodward and see if Chris is willing to take him on." So I called Chris and I said, "Listen. Do you think you could do this for me?" He goes, "Yeah, I've got beds." He said, "I'll get him up here." I said, "Okay." So I called Eric's mom and I said, "They're going to move him to Saint Joe's. They've got beds. Call me when he gets there." Okay. So I went up and I said, "Listen. You've got your own room and you're stuck with me for whatever time is left. I'm going to be staying overnight with you. I clear it with everyone." All the nurses knew, the staff knew. And about the ninth day I'm like, "Okay, he's starting to do the slide." I could see that death was coming to the door and I had to prep his mom and say, "Listen. I can't say when, I don't know how. But he's starting. Okay? So I'm just trying to prep you." And on the eleventh day I was with him and he goes, "I'm ready to go." I said, "Okay. Remember the good times. Know that I will always love you. My love for you is not going to end the minute you leave this world." He goes, "I have a really stupid favor to ask." I said, "Please, there is no stupid favor." He goes, "Do you think they'd get pissed off if you crawl into bed with me?" I said, "Well, if I can get a watchdog at the door." So in walks Sister [Joseph Ellen?] who was one of my nursing instructors. And I said, "I'm going to ask you a favor. This is probably very off the chart. Do you think you could give us maybe fifteen minutes alone? He just wants me to crawl in bed with him and hold him. Okay?" And she goes, "I'll stand watch." She stood outside the door, wouldn't let anyone in. She did call Dr. Woodward, she was still a nursing sister, she called Dr. Woodward and said, "Listen. Eric is on his way. And Bill is in with him. So I'm giving them some private time." And he said, "Just know that I love you. I will always love you. Thank you for being here." I said, "Well, go ahead and take your nap. Okay?" I'm like, "This is not the nap. I get this." And so he just went very peacefully in my arms. And no pain. They kept him. He was high-flying (inaudible) [and?] morphine. They had a drip going. So that was it. I gave him his bath and got him all ready for his trip to wherever he was going. And called his mom and said, "You need to come in." And the next day Sister Mary called me and said, "I want to put you on staff." And I said, "Okay." And so we painted and we redid -- because the wards in that building were god-awful colors, we're talking like brown ceilings and yellow walls. So Sister Cecilia, who should have been a decorator if she wasn't a nun, did an awesome job. I mean it was very homelike. The only thing that was hospital-looking was the bed. But everything else, we had curtains, they had their own TV, they had closets for their clothes. And so we started taking people in. And the first three months, I was on night shift. And then Mary moved me over to days or evenings. And I learned so much about life and living but also a hell of a lot about death and dying. And how some of them would go very peacefully and some of them would fight to the end. And it all depended on their spirit and what was going on. And we had a lot of really great times in that building. I mean we had events. We took them on field trips. We took them to Knoebels if they were able to go. I took a couple of them shopping on their own. We celebrated all the holidays. So there was a lot of life and living in Rainbow Home. And then in ninety-seven after seven years I said, "Okay, I'm done, I can't do this anymore." Because in the beginning I didn't know a lot of the people, but the last three years, a lot of my friends were coming in. And I had to be both a professional health caregiver but I had to cross the bridge and be the friend when the time came. And there were a couple that just got into a spot in my heart that -- forget it. LB: Was this set up as a hospice kind of thing? WA: It was under hospice guidelines. So yeah. It was under hospice guidelines. But it was more a personal care home. But we did fall under hospice. And that's why I was able to assist with medications. And that's what made it really unique. And we had a corps of volunteers that were just absolutely awesome. And a lot of them were parents of guys and gals that were there. And so we told them they had to wait a year, and then they could come back and volunteer. And a lot of them would do that. And then the last three years I was also in charge of the pastoral care department because our Episcopal deacon -- and then she became a priest -- got a parish. And so I worked with the clergy. And that was eye-opening, because I had a few that I wanted to say, "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way." I would have clergy that would refuse to give them anointings on their deathbed. So I cheated. I did it. But I switched the formula that I read. I didn't say, "I absolve you of all sins and censures." I said, "May the Lord absolve you." Depending on whatever their faith was. I was very ecumenical in that. And we would do a monthly memorial service and then we would do a yearly. And that was open to everyone. And a lot of the residents -- the residents became close to each other. It was like a family. And I think that Sister Mary said it best. It was the only place where the gay man could pass the mashed potatoes to the straight woman who would pass them to the drug user who would pass them to the whatever. And some of the stories that they would tell me when I was still working in the kitchen. I would just stand there and I would laugh. I'm like, "I could never share these outside of these walls." Because they were quite colorful. And I do mean colorful. Like I don't think I could put these in a book. No. Not really. LB: Because they were wild stories? WA: Oh, very wild, very wild. But the kind that gave me a better idea what to say and what to use for the memorial service. Because I could write those in the pastoral care part of the chart. And that's what made it such a unique place was that in the beginning a lot of people were like, "Well, I don't want to go there." And then they would be there for a while and they'd be like, "Wow." We had water. Especially in the summer the guys would get their water guns and they'd be outside. Like I'd walk in ready to go to work and I'd be in my scrubs. And everyone's like, "Oh, you got recepted, didn't you [hear?]?" My scrub top looked like I took it right out of the washer and didn't put it in the dryer because Bobby Gordon would like hhhh with the squirt gun. I'm like, "Robert, I'm going to get you for this tonight, trust me. Beware." "You wouldn't do anything." "Oh, wouldn't I? Beware." And that was a great thing. The staff had such a good relationship with the residents. And the residents had a good relationship with the staff. They all respected the sisters that were there. And if we had anyone who was using drugs and they would go out for a day pass, if we suspected that they might have relapsed, we had a protocol where we would just pull a drug test. We didn't pull randoms. They had to really demonstrate. And there were only maybe two or three that fell off. But they had meetings. They had AA meetings, NA meetings that they had to go to. And that was part of the agreement to be (inaudible) into the building. LB: Oh, I'm losing your voice. WA: Am I back? LB: Yeah, now you're back, yeah. WA: Okay. LB: So you were saying they had AA meetings and NA meetings and what else did you say? WA: That was it. NA and AA. LB: So this was in a Catholic hospital? WA: No. We were ecumenical. LB: Oh, okay. WA: We just had the sisters there to -- you know, they were the ones that really got it going. And back then a lot of the hospices were being run in Catholic hospitals. One of the big ones was Saint Vincent's in the Village, in the West Village in New York. That was a very very big -- that was a whole floor of the hospital. Saint Clare's had a unit. But again the staff obviously was very ecumenical. It wasn't all -- Brenda was a staff member, Bev was a staff member, and I was a staff member. So we were the three lay staff members. Brenda worked nights, Bev and I did evenings or days. LB: So these were nuns though that started -- WA: Yes. LB: They started it out of their convent or out of their sisterhood or how did that work? WA: Well, what happened was Sister Mary had her master's and she taught nursing and she worked at the White House down in Washington, which was a big -- it was attached with -- I forget who they were attached with. It was some big organization in DC. But she would do home visits to the guys in Georgetown, mostly Georgetown, I think it was under Whitman-Walker down there. So yeah. And she was on sabbatical. And then Sister Carol Ann was a teacher. She retired. Sister Mary Therese was a teacher and she retired. And forgot. Carol Ann. Sister [Fabian?] was actually the sister that got this started. She's at the Precious Blood Convent in Shillington. And people were asking her about a place, because she was getting phone calls, because she was also a nursing sister. And then Sister [Mary Cecilia?] was a practical nurse. So they all had nursing backgrounds. And back then a lot of the nursing orders were the nuns and the three orders of Catholic brothers that had nursing brothers were the ones that were opening the hospices in their hospitals or their facilities. And everyone just loved them because they were free spirits. They gave of their time and their talent. And we were a big family there. And then when I left and I was the last of the original staff, and all the nuns had left except for one, and she only stayed another year because she noticed it was becoming more of a business than it was what the original meaning and the beginning of Rainbow Home was. Because our mission statement started, "Believing in the worth and dignity of each person as a child of God." That was the beginning of our mission statement. And in the entryway we had this beautiful rainbow with the mission statement printed on it. And then the quote from the book of Genesis was included in that. LB: But who was funding that? Was it coming from people's -- WA: Donations. Of course I mean their insurance kicked in. And we had a lot of very generous benefactors. Al -- Mr. Boscov donated all new equipment for the kitchen. And we only had to pay the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania $1 a year for rent, and that was set up when Senator Mike O'Pake was in office. So we paid the state $1 a year rent. LB: (inaudible) state hospital. WA: Right. LB: Oh, I see, okay, I see. WA: Yeah, it was on the grounds of the state hospital. And we only used the first floor. It was a two-floor, but we only used the first. But yeah, it was -- good times. If you could say good times. I mean a lot of laughter. I mean if I ever write a book people will laugh on one page and cry on the next. And a lot of times I still see two or three families that live in the area. Like we'll just randomly run into each other. And they'll always bring up how grateful they were that they had a place for their son to die with dignity. When churches were saying, "This is God's wrath and all this." And I'm like, "Yeah yeah yeah, okay, bye-bye, you haven't lived it until you see what we do. And that certainly is not the man's wrath." LB: When you were talking about AZT, was that later? Because AZT had a lot of side effects and stuff. Were you seeing that as well? Talk a little bit about the AZT stuff. WA: We weren't seeing a lot of side effects with AZT. The drug that we saw the most side effects was Crixivan. And that came on later. And the reason that we were trying to figure this out was why are we suddenly -- what's going on with this drug. And so I asked Dr. Woodward. I said, "When you're signing death certificates," they always, both of them, he and Bob, Dr. Jones, always put HIV/AIDS as the third. They never put it as the primary. Never. They were putting on a cardiac problem for a lot of them. And it was because Crixivan was causing heart tissue to be eaten. So they put it as primary cause of death [cardiomyelogamies?]. Second was tertiary was always HIV/AIDS. So the parents never had to worry, if they had insurance policies, that it would be refused. And that was a good thing about our docs. And our docs were very good. I mean I'm not a registered nurse but I could do rounds with him. He would give me orders over the phone. I'd write them in. And there was never a problem. LB: Was insurance denying HIV/AIDS care in those days? Talk about that a little bit. Was that something that would happen? WA: What's that? LB: Insurance denial of care. WA: Yeah. Yeah, there were certain companies that flat out would say -- it's like if you see the ads they have now when they say there's no medical questions. Like if you're looking at life insurance. Every one that I've got, the first question is have you been diagnosed with HIV slash AIDS. It's the first question. It's a medical question. So really? I mean no medical question? Do you smoke, do you drink? They're all medical questions. Come on, insurance company. Really? It's a medical question. And I wonder what would happen if someone would check yes. You know what I'm saying? That could be a bit of a -- oh, well, no, we're not allowing you to -- excuse me one second. My doctor. Hello. Yes. All right, thank you. Bye-bye. Okay. LB: I guess what happens is that insurance companies won't insure you for a preexisting condition except for that now you can't do that under the American Care Act as long as we continue to have that act. WA: Right. LB: Yeah. But that wasn't in place in those days. And people need (inaudible). WA: No. LB: Because whoever is seeing this video, hopefully people will look at this. But 30 years from now when both you and I are long gone, or 40 years or 50 years, people are going to look at this and see what we're saying about that time. And they may not understand that people weren't covered under insurance for preexisting conditions. WA: That's right. LB: Let's see. When you were talking about Saint Joe's, what's Saint Joe's? That's a Catholic hospital? WA: Saint Joseph's was a Catholic hospital in Reading. And Dr. Woodward was on staff there. But the primary amount of our -- if they were local -- were being seen by Dr. Benedictis and Dr. Jones because Dr. D was one of the first infectious disease doctors to get into the field. Dr. Woodward came in later. But the majority of them ended up at Reading for some odd reason. And Saint Joseph's would never refuse. The good sisters would be like, "No. We're not going to play the refuse game." I mean I have to say that Eric got excellent care at Saint Joe's. I was very pleased with his care. And sadly, when Leo who was one of the guys, ended up in Reading with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia I don't know what the problem was but the nurses were just kind of like, "He's in that room. If you need anything just let us know. We'll hand it to you." Because I stayed. I did an overnight with him. I worked three to eleven and then I went to the hospital. Because his partner was a good friend of mine. I knew JR for a while. And JR was out West. And I said, "You need to come home because something's up with Leo and I don't know what, I don't know when, I don't know how, but he's in Reading right now." So I stayed overnight. And I must have changed his bedsheets, I'm going to guesstimate, five or six times during the night from the sweats from the meds they were giving him. And he said, "I want to come home. I want to come home. I don't want to die here." And I thought okay, how am I going to handle this, because I don't know what to say to him. And I said, "Let me work on that." That was my out. Because I figured. So I went to work the next day and I said to Sister Mary, "Have you heard from Dr. Benedictis at all about what's going on with Leo?" She said, "Yeah. They got him cleared up." Like two days later he was back with us. But his stay was shortened. So JR had gone on a business trip and I said, "You need to come back." I said, "He's on his way. He's transitioning. And I need you to get here because he's asking for you." LB: He got some kind of infection or something? Was that it? WA: Just residual of the pneumonia. But not as bad. I mean they didn't have to tube him when he was in the hospital, thank God, he wasn't on a vent. Because one of the things that was automatically declared when you entered Rainbow Home was you were a do not resuscitate/do not intubate. They already had to sign DNR/DNI. LB: So most people who went to Rainbow Home were pretty much at the end of their lives then. WA: Yeah. We had a few that even after they closed there, there are two that are still floating around in the area that are doing quite well. And that's when all these wonder drugs came out in the late '90s. But before that it was a mess. LB: It was. Let's see. So were you having funerals there? Did you have anybody that would do the funerals for you or stuff like that? WA: We did. We did. Jay Gilbert was one. Jay is very good. Anyone from the Lehigh Valley. Now as far as in Reading I really don't remember who they were, because I just remember Jay's name floating around a lot. If they were from up this way. I'm sure there were one or two down in Reading that were really good about that. Because they knew who we were and what we were. LB: Yeah. People have told me that I should try to talk to Jay Gilbert. And I haven't had a chance to contact him yet. But apparently he did loads of funerals for people and he was very generous too and didn't charge people or didn't charge people much. WA: Yeah. LB: Must have been hard. It must have been very hard to have people dying and knowing that that was going to happen to people for you. Did that take its toll? Well, apparently it did. But sounded like you did it for a long time. It was really wonderfully gracious of you. WA: Yeah, I mean there were times when I would come home from work. And if we had someone who was actively dying -- and Brenda was on -- for the first two years Brenda was all alone, and then they put a second staff member on. So I had a pager at that point. And I'm like, "Just page me if it gets too crazy." And it only happened two or three times. But I always share this one -- and it is funny. Two of the guys wanted to go to Washington. And two of us were Roman and one was Episcopalian. Dale was the Episcopalian. Tommy and I were the Romans. Well, we went to the basilica shrine for Mass. And it was the high Mass. So you've got the full procession with the incense and everything, right? And Dale being ever Dale, as the thurible bearer was coming by swinging the incense, he looked and he goes, "Mary, I love your dress but your purse is on fire." Not loud. Not loud. Just loud enough for the thurible bearer to hear this. And I'm like, "Oh." And there's this big mosaic of Jesus with his hands up with this angry look. And I'm like, "Oh God, this is it, here comes the lightning bolt." And Tommy looked at him and he goes, "What did you just say?" I'm like, "Don't ask." So when we got back everyone's like, "How was it?" And I'm like, "Ah, it was interesting." So I pulled Sister Mary aside and I said, "Oh by the way, if you get a call from the basilica this (inaudible)." And she just swore and she goes, "Oh God." I'm like, "That's about what I was saying under my breath." Bill had a lot of anger when he first came. And I said, "What can I do to help you get rid of your anger?" And he said, "Just get me out of here for a day." Well, he was still able to walk. So I said, "Okay. How about we go to the mall?" So I drove him down to King of Prussia from Reading and it was close to Mother's Day and I said, "Mother's Day is coming up, how about we get your mom a card and a gift?" Because they would hold funds for them in case they wanted to do something like that. He goes, "Okay." So we got him a card. And his mom loved Oscar de la Renta, the fragrance. So we got her a small bottle of Oscar. And they wrapped it. And then we had the Mother's Day party. And his mother looked at me and she goes, "It's been eighteen years since I've gotten a card, let alone a gift, from my son. What did you do to him?" I said, "We went for a ride. And I endured an hour and a half of rock music." I wanted to take the radio out of the car and just throw it. Because I'm like, "Okay. If I hear one more screaming in my ear I'm going to scream." If I ever do write a book, it's going to be the fun stories. With a little of the sadness in, just to make people realize we are human. LB: Well, feel free to tell me some of the fun stories, because I'd love to hear those now. That's a great one, that's a wonderful one. WA: Well, I think probably one of the toughest ones for me, and I had a few, was I went down to Jersey to do an assessment on a potential resident. And David was in a nursing home in Atlantic City, so you can picture a nursing home is already not a good sign. So I go in and here's David, six-one, six-two. Dark brown hair, jet-blue eyes. Laying in a bed. And I'm like, "What's up with this?" I said, "Do they get you out of bed?" "No." "Do they give you a shower at all?" "When they feel like it." I said, "Are you getting your meds?" "Sometimes." "On time?" "No." "Okay." Now I have to remember I am not a professional nurse. So I can't go out and raise holy you-know-what because that's not going to sit well. All right. So I get the chart. I get the information I need. I get in the car. I get on my phone. I talk to the social worker first. I say, "Get Sister Mary on the phone." And I said, "Mary, we've got to get him up there. Okay. We have got to get him up there." Well, he had been in bed so long that he couldn't walk. They weren't doing any PT or anything. So when the visiting nurse came out I said, "Can I do some range of motion with him just like abduction, adduction, move up, move down, move sidewards?" She goes, "Oh yeah." I said, "Okay." Said, "David, what is one of your goals?" And we always asked them what goals they had because we wanted it to be very integral. Not this is what we're going to do, deal with it. And he goes, "I want to get to church, I want to be able to stand and get in a car even if it's from a wheelchair. I don't care." I said, "Okay, bro, fasten your seatbelts, because I'm your primary care provider. So guess what we're going to be doing." So after his shower we get back in bed, after he was dried off and dressed, and we would do PT. And then I would get a walker and we didn't go long distances but just enough to -- so the Christmas party was coming up. And I said, "What are you going to do for your mom and dad?" He said, "Well, I have a card and a gift." He says, "But I want to walk in the room even if it's with a walker." I said, "Okay, you've got a goal. And we've got time. So let's see if we can make this happen." All right. Christmas party comes. Sure as gunfires, he goes, "Okay." I said, "I'll take you to the door. And you walk in. And I have a chair right next to your mom and dad." And I said reserved. I put a little reserved sign. "So that way you can sit with them for the Christmas party." He goes, "Okay." So the door was closed. And I opened the door. And I said, "Okay. I'm not taking the chair in unless you feel you need it. And you're technically right inside the door like 10 steps." He gets up. He holds on. I said, "Remember. Look up, don't look down. You want central force." Walks in. And his mom and dad are talking and other people are chatting with them. And all of a sudden his mom looks up and she goes, "Uh, he's walking." And his dad looked. He said, "What do you mean he's walking?" "He's walking." And I'm like, "Bye, Merry Christmas. Surprise." She goes, "What did you do?" I said, "What did we do. I just gave him the incentive." New Year's Eve I was going out with my family for New Year's Eve, but I wanted to stop over and wish all the guys and gals a happy New Year. And I was dressed to the nines. I was in black full dress, tails, I was like, "Okay, I'm going out." His aunt, who was a nursing supervisor at Saint Joseph's, and three of his nieces -- I graduated from high school with two of them -- they were sitting in there and were having this cheese tray with [baked champagne?] and they walk in there like oh my God, what are you doing here. I said, "I work here." And David goes, "He's the one that got me to walk and he's the one that bathed me and he's the one that you know," and they're like, "Oh my God." I said, "Welcome, small world, isn't it, gang?" It was a Sunday morning and David always rang to get up about 7:30. I'm like, "Okay, he's not ringing." I'm like, "Well, it's Sunday, let him sleep in." And something in my inside was going like, "Mm, no. Something's not right here." I said, "Are you okay, Dave?" He goes, "I don't feel good." And something told me to lift the sheets and look at his feet. They were as purple as could be. I'm like, "Oh. Okay. I'll be back." I went, I said to Bev, "Uh, Dave is starting the (inaudible) process. So I'm getting the morphine ready if we need it. I'm going to call his parents and say, 'Take your time, it's not imminent, but get the family together because we've started the journey.'" And I went back in. I said, "Are you having any pain?" He goes, "No." Said, "Okay." So every two hours I would just go in and say, "Everything fine?" He said, "I'm really not feeling good now." I said, "Okay. I'm going to start the morphine." And we put it right in the buccal cavity. It was with dropper. It was liquid. So it wasn't intravenously. And he's like, "Can you do me one little favor?" I said, "David, if I can make it happen I got you covered." "I don't want to die laying down." And I'm thinking okay, how else are we -- and I thought okay. I said, "Well, let me see what I can come up with to make that happen." I'm like, "Think quick, Bill. Because we're getting there." So he goes, "You know what song I want you to play while you and I are sitting here having our last whatever time together." And I'm like, "Really? Madonna doing 'Don't Cry for Me Argentine (sic)?'" He goes, "Yes." I'm like, "Okay." So I get the portable tape player and I get the disc and I put it in. And he goes, "I'm ready." I said, "Okay." Gave him a kiss and said, "It's been a fun experience. I'll remember you for as long as I live." And he goes, "Can you just like kind of put me on your right shoulder?" I'm like, "Sure." I'm not going to kill him for God's sake. So I just scooped him up and looked over and said, "Enjoy the ride. Is the morphine working?" "Yes." Went to sleep. That was it. So for six months after no one was allowed to hug me on the right side. I said, "I'm sorry, that's reserved for David." LB: Sweet. WA: You know. And his parents, his dad had just retired the year before from the marine corps as a lieutenant colonel. And I thought Dad is going to be a toughie. And Dad was just the opposite. We only had one family that really didn't want anything to do with their son. And I called them when he started actively dying and said, "Are you going to come visit?" "Well, of course we are." I said, "Well, someone wrote on the admission paper." And this was how it was worded. When he kicks the bucket don't call us. And I said, "He has two brothers, right?" They're like, "Yeah." I said, "Well, where's the other one?" "We don't know." And he was the one that wrote it. But I decided I was going to call the family anyway. Because I was thinking legally if I didn't it could really have turned into a mess. So yeah. LB: So they were okay? They came. WA: Oh yeah. They were fine. They were fine. In fact they were very thankful that I did that, because they were able to get him. They made him physically come. They called him. Because he lived locally. And the dad is like, "You get over here or I'm going to come get you." And I said, "Please. The house is very upset. Because that was the night I had three deaths an hour apart. LB: Oh gosh. WA: He was number two. So I had three actively going at once. And my coworker, she was the best. Bev said, "You take care of the three, I'll take care of the other nine." Because three of them that lived on the other side of our meeting room, party room, whatever, they had to be able to come over, get their meds, take their meds, etc. The guys on our side and our gals were more acute. They were more independent. They did their own laundry, made their own beds, got their own meds. We would give them to them out. But they had to remember to come get them. LB: And what kind of meds were you giving people then? Was this in the eighties or was it mostly -- what kind of (inaudible). WA: Primarily their HIV/AIDS but also some of them would have weight loss. There were two drugs. There was Marinol which was synthetic marijuana, but it did not give them a buzz or get them high, it only stimulated the part of the brain that said, "You need to eat." So there were no side effects. They didn't get high or get a buzz. But they did get the munchies, which was okay. The other one was Megace acetate, which was a liquid, and that was to help with -- morphine for pain. Their antiretrovirals for their HIV/AIDS. And weight gain if they needed it. And there weren't too many. The good news is that we never really lost a lot of them in a very cachexic state. They weren't skin and bones. So we were lucky in that because our docs were really on top of that kind of stuff. And the visiting nurses that came out were absolutely -- we had the same nurse. But if she was off they had backup. But the night that I had the three going, I had three nurses, because one nurse couldn't handle three situations. And they were like, "How are you?" I said, "Oh, I'm just jim-freaking-dandy. I'm going home tonight and I'm having a very stiff drink, maybe two." And they had a therapist for us. Because once a month we would have a meeting to talk about how we felt in the midst of losing all these guys and gals. So that mentally we were okay. But I knew when Tommy died. I said, "Okay, that's it." And not that we counted intentionally, but when I left the administrator said -- usually -- I was told -- because I was going to work at Saint Vincent's in New York. And the sister in charge of the floor said, "After five years you have to go out for a year. You can't stay in here all the time. It's a five-year term and then you have to go somewhere in the hospital for a year and then you can come back." Well, I did it for seven. But I just said, "I can't do this anymore." It started to get to me psychologically and physically. LB: (inaudible) the administrator was going to give you a number? WA: I took care of two hundred sixty-seven. And if (inaudible). LB: (inaudible). WA: Yeah, it was, it was rough. And I had joined -- they are no longer, but I had become a member of the National Catholic AIDS Network or NCAN and we would meet every summer in Chicago at Loyola University on the lake. And we would have workshops, we would have time to just share our stories. But what was really wonderful was the one year -- Cardinal Bernardin was in charge of the archdiocese at that time and very well known for being a compassionate cardinal. Really made other people within the Roman rite look kind of like why aren't you doing this. So he just showed up in regular clerics with his secretary and he went table to table and said, "What do you do? Where do you do it? How are you doing? What can I do for you?" I mean this is a man that could have been the next pope. And that was the night of our memorial service. So that year they asked us to bring a photo if we wanted to of someone that we lost and we loved. And they did a foot washing in the chapel. And ironically the name of the chapel in Latin is La Madonna della Strada, Our Lady of the Streets. And all the music was Taize. So the deal was the person to your right was the person that you would do foot washing with so you would wash each other's feet. Well, the chair was blank. I'm like, "Okay, someone didn't come." All of a sudden who comes over and sits down but the cardinal? So the cardinal and I. And that was the year that Jeffrey passed away, my best friend. He was a hairdresser. He had a very good business in Washington, DC. So Jeff's black-and-white photo went with me. Somewhere on my wall -- no. It's on my other wall right above me. I have a collage of four of the guys that I took care of that really taught me a lot. So once in a while I'll just look up and say, "You guys okay up there?" So far I'm not hearing any bad things. So yeah. LB: Yeah. How old were you in the eighties? WA: Geez, well, I'm sixty-seven now, so I would say in my fifties, I had to be in my fifties. Late forties, early fifties, I -- at this point (inaudible) twenty-six, fifty-one, let's see. LB: It was thirty-five years ago, honey? WA: Huh. LB: It was thirty-five years ago. WA: Yeah, what can I tell you? That'll be an edit. LB: It's okay. I think one of the things is we forget when you're a grown-up and you're doing things like that we forget that it was a long time ago when we were kids in a lot of ways, we were in our (inaudible) thirties. What did you say, you're sixty-seven now? You were born in nineteen -- WA: I was born in fifty-one. Rainbow Home opened in nineteen-ninety and it closed in -- LB: So you were forty, yeah. Would have been thirty-nine when it opened and (inaudible). WA: And Ozzie, who had one of the local bars, Ozzie and I were responsible for getting the first AIDS walk in Reading going. And we worked with -- oh, I can't. Her son, what's the name of the farm? Who did you -- LB: Rodale. Ardath Rodale. WA: Yeah, we worked with -- yeah. LB: Talking to Maria Rodale about Ardath Rodale. WA: To do the first AIDS walk in Reading. LB: (inaudible) oh yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, because the farm is in Berks County after all. So yeah. WA: Yeah, because back then it was Berks AIDS Network and they were there first and then Rainbow Home came in. Yeah. LB: Yeah, it's all related. Everybody's sort of interrelated within that. Because everybody was aware of what was happening to each other and stuff. WA: Right. LB: In about nineteen ninety-three, which is about the middle of the time that you were at Rainbow House, medication really changed. And in ninety-three the worst part about the epidemic really started to fall back a little bit because there were actually drugs that could really prolong people's lives, it wasn't so much of a death sentence. Were you noticing a change then? What was it like? WA: Yeah. Well, for us it was really great because we had them longer. And for the most part they were doing very well on them. And that was thanks to like ACT UP and other organizations that were really getting up in the face of these drug companies and saying, "Why are you putting these on hold forever?" And then finally when they started to come out we noticed that our guys were doing a whole lot better. They were gaining weight. Mentally they were in much better shape. I mean there were a few that we had to give antidepressants to because it was just -- the docs wanted them on something light. I mean it was Ativan, it wasn't anything major, like a lot of antipsychotics, but we noticed that -- and their thriveto survive was -- they didn't look at it as -- they would say, "I'm going to beat this. I'm going to beat this because now we've got the drugs." But it took them forever to get those drugs out. It was only when people started acting up in the streets and saying, "Hey, listen, we've got friends and lovers and family members dying like no tomorrow, what are you going to do about it?" LB: Yeah. Did you ever go to any of those ACT UP things in New York? WA: I did not. I didn't get up to New York because I was doing my own stuff down here. The one year the bishop of the Catholic diocese had an anointing service at DeSales and he said, "It's open to everyone." So I took a couple of the guys up. And afterwards I said, "Um, how come you never visit?" Question mark. And he goes, "I don't have time." I said, "Oh. Really? Oh. Okay." Because here's the interesting thing. We had a priest in the house as a patient. And [Claude?], father, had surgery. And he got bad blood. This is before they were doing the big testing. And he was from the Diocese of Camden. So he came up, great guy, we all loved padre, and every morning I would get him up, we did his a.m. care, gave him his meds. And then he and I would go into our multipurpose room and he would do Mass. LB: So he was a priest that was at Rainbow House. WA: Uh-huh. But when I needed someone anointed [they don't bother?]. I had his oils. And I said -- LB: Wow. WA: Can you do a quick anointing? He goes, "Yeah." So when he was actively dying he went to Saint Joseph's Hospital. Because Dr. [Crisp?] was following him. And when I went up and I said to one of the nurses, "Has he received anointing yet?" They're like, "No." I said, "Well, can we get a priest to do this?" I said, "He is a priest, I'd really like another priest to give him anointing at least." "I can't get anyone. We've tried several parishes." I said, "Really? Okay." So I called my priest at Holy Rosary. And that was monsignor. And I said, "Listen, here's the situation." It wasn't late at night. He goes, "I'm on my way." And he came up and he gave him sacraments. And I said, "Thank you." So his funeral was in Jersey, so Sister Carol Ann and I decided that we were going to be the militant Catholics at his funeral. So we go, we have our little Rainbow Home pins on. And we always pinned our guys when they left us on their [paths?]. And we would say to the undertaker, "If the family wants it, great, or if you're going to bury him with it, great, but please make sure it doesn't get tossed." Well, I put it far enough down on the side where I didn't think anyone would see it. Well, the bishop did and he said to his secretary, "This is not part of the liturgical vestment." And I just happened to be in ear range. And I said, "Would you please leave that there?" He goes, "Well, that's a rainbow." I said, "Look at it from the biblical end of it." And he left it. So afterwards Sister Carol Ann went up and she said, "You never came to visit him. Why?" "Well, we don't have time to do stuff like that." She goes, "No, but there could be you and twenty-three priests on the altar for his burial." "Well, I could have the local bishop close you down because of the way you're talking to me." She goes, "Oh, please go for it." Nothing ever happened. LB: Wow, I'm sure not. WA: I looked at him and I said, "And this is how you teach compassion (inaudible) bishop." And off we went. I said, "Well, we're probably going to get a phone call." Nothing ever happened. Because years later when you looked at what happened with the pedophilia and they all knew about it it was like oh, look at the names of the -- mm-hmm. Years later. Even though it wasn't HIV/AIDS-related. LB: Yeah, I don't think everybody understands that there's five lobbyists for the Catholic Church in Harrisburg that keep LGBT-inclusive laws or other kinds of inclusive things happening. The Catholic Church pays them to keep those -- to lobby for the lack of inclusion of equal rights laws and stuff. And it's a shame. It's a shame (inaudible) happening. But so we're not running out of time, we still got plenty of time, but I wondered if you wanted to talk anything about how you see the relationship of HIV/AIDS and the epidemic then and what you were doing and its relationship to what's happening now with COVID-19. What do you think about that? WA: Well, I mean I think we need to be aware that this COVID-19 is very nasty. And we have to really look at our brothers and sisters that are HIV-positive and even with the meds they're immunosuppressed as it is. And this could really knock the socks off of them. They could end up in the hospitals and in ICUs and on vents. So it's best for anyone that's immunosuppressed to just stay bunkered down until this is all dealt with in a fashion where if there's a vaccine that the vaccine can be given. But make sure when they do the trials on this that it's not going to really hurt anyone that's immunosuppressed whether it's with HIV/AIDS, cancer, or anything else. And those of us that are healthy really need to check in if we know someone and say, "Do you have enough food? Do you have enough water? Are you okay on your medications?" And David, who's my best friend, David and I are both on the board of FACT. So we're very mindful of that. But I think that's what we need to do. I think we really need to just look out for each other and make sure that our brothers and sisters that are immunosuppressed have everything that they need and that they're not forgotten. LB: Yeah. Definitely true. WA: I think that's very very important. And we as a community need to stand strong. This is the first year we haven't had a Pride celebration. LB: Well, they're going to do it virtually, aren't they? WA: Yeah. So virtual is virtual. Next year we'll be in full swing. LB: Yeah. So we have about fourteen minutes left. But I would love for you to think about somebody's going to see this thirty years, forty years from now. And you have an opportunity to talk to the future here. Go into the future and tell people what you think they really should know about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And maybe even talk about -- some people -- and I think David talked about this, but other people that I've interviewed, because I think you're the sixth interview I've done, they're talking about the lack of recognition by elected officials about it for so many years that it was very painful. And you have any insight on that? And then also just to tell people what they should know about this time. WA: Well, as far as the -- I think David covered it pretty good with the elected officials. That for so many years it was ignored. And it's like it's their disease, let them deal with it. Then when it started to hit everyone else okay, now we have to do something about it. I would say to the future generations look back at what everyone went through regardless of gender, gender identification, status, etc. How we as a community taught others that if you all work for the common good something good will come out of an absolutely horrific pandemic, where we were losing brilliant minds. I'm going to share a couple of the guys as far as their names and what they did because I think for future generations the name and what they did is something that they need to know. And it's first names. I mean it's going to be first names. Andy had a double doctorate in chemical physics. Brilliant mind. Larry was the chief tie department buyer for Lord &amp ; Taylor. Rich had his own fashionwear. It was called Poshwear. Jeff was a well known hairdresser in the Washington area. David was a top-notch chef. Leo was a member of the United States Navy with honorable discharge. So he served his country before Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Let me see who else. Danny had a business, was an Irish tenor, so at his funeral I had a friend of mine who's an Irish tenor come in and do "Danny Boy." These are the people that really had great lives ahead of them and sadly we lost them too young and at a fast rate. If you get a chance, future generations, to see any part of the quilt, the quilt will tell the stories. You don't have to know them. We had a quilt showing our fifth anniversary at Rainbow Home at Albright. And we took in an extremely high amount of new quilts. The guys from NAMES Project were like, "We've never had this many at such a small gathering." Well, surprise. Because we were making them. We did a house quilt every year. And the last official quilt showing, several of us from both Berks AIDS Network and Rainbow Home went to Washington and we were quilt monitors. And then myself and two others also did grief counseling. So that was really a fulfilling moment because we had four blocks that we were covering for grief counseling. And if I would see a family sitting there just kind of like not saying anything, very quiet, I would just gently lean down usually to the mom and say, "Do you mind if I just sit here a minute with you in silence? And then if you want, tell me a story about your loved one, tell me. Is it your son? Who was it?" And even through the tears they would come out of tears and they would just like go into this wonderful story about their son or their daughter. And that would give us a chance to get to know them other than what was on the quilt. And making those quilts for us as staff members and volunteers was a way for us to move on so that psychologically and physically we could keep doing the work that we were doing. Because we would check in on each other constantly after a death. We had a quick staff meeting to make sure that everybody was doing okay. Because our counselor would say, "If you need to talk after a death you know where I am." So I hope that they never have to face any kind of pandemic like this, this current -- or the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. But if they do, get involved. Don't sit on the sidelines. That's it. LB: This has really been terrific, Bill. I bet you have a million more stories to tell. And I hope you do write a book about this, because I think you're brilliant as far as that goes. WA: I hope to do that. I hope to do that. Sometime if I can find someone who's willing to -- I know that Kelly is working on seeing if there's someone at Muhlenberg that might want to take that on. LB: To write a book about it? WA: Kelly is a friend of ours. He's a professor. LB: Yeah, Kelly Cannon, yeah. WA: You know Kelly? LB: Yeah. I know. Sure. You mean to write a book about it. WA: To see if someone would be interested in sitting down and working with me on getting the book written. LB: Great idea. This interview will be archived at Muhlenberg, and Muhlenberg has a lot of our -- all the artifacts and stuff. Because we kept all of the stuff when we produced the Valley Gay Press and when we produced -- at all the Pride festivals and a lot of the early Reading Pride festival stuff. Because I had all that stuff. So that's all in the archives at Muhlenberg now. If you have anything like that that you want to go into those archives that's like paper stuff or things that you don't know who would take care of later in life, that Muhlenberg archives will take that stuff. WA: Well, that's good to know. One quick note. I wrote an article about my journey with David. And it got into the NAMES Project when they used to send out the letter, the little -- and then about two years after that, the one doctor that would write back about my journey asked me if he could put that in a book that he and another doctor were writing. So I signed all the documents yes, you have my okay to do this. And then he sent me a copy and he signed it. And there was the little Post-it note. See page six. LB: Oh, great. WA: So that's where the article was. LB: It's great. WA: And somehow in one of my moves I can't find the book and I'm going crazy because I've got to find it. But I still have the story. So if it's okay I'll make a copy. LB: Sure. WA: And get it to you. LB: Great. You can get it to me. I'll send you the information. But you can send it to me right at the LGBT Community Center. They'll put it on my desk when it comes in. We're not really open right now. But I'll send you the contact information. And then I can get it over. Actually right now lots of people are cleaning up because they're stuck at home. So they're finding boxes and boxes of stuff that they want. And we're amassing a lot of those things in the vestibule, in the foyer, of our community center. Stacks of boxes there. And we found two more boxes of things. So it's all stuff that needs to go to -- because we don't want people to forget this, and one of the things they do at Muhlenberg is that they digitally make it so that people can find it online. They don't have to go through every single piece of paper or something. And it's all cross-referenced. It's really brilliant. It's going to be taking a long time for them to do this but it's wonderful that they're doing it, so it's a big deal. WA: Cool. LB: Yeah, it is. So (inaudible) you have anything else you want to say that you think oh, I should have added this in or -- WA: No, but thank you for the opportunity to share my story and my journey through the pandemic and this current -- and I hope that people will listen to the stories that have been told and really think about what's the right thing to do for anything that will come down the road. And if they know someone that is HIV-positive that they will keep them as friends and not treat them as an outcast. We're all God's children. We all deserve to be loved. Whether we're male, female, nonbinary, whatever you want to go by. Accept them for who they are and love them for who they are. Because love should be unconditional. Not if you're this I don't want anything to do with you. LB: Well, this has just been wonderful, Bill. I'm so glad I got to talk to you. I'm so glad David told me to get in touch with you. This is really a wonderful set of stories and very upbeat and very inspirational. So thank you so much. And thank you so much for all the work you did in taking care of all those people that really needed somebody. They needed a friend and they needed somebody who cared and you were there for them. How terrific of you. It's a really good karma. WA: Thank you. And thank you for taking the time to do this. I look forward to hearing feedback from others when this is all done (inaudible) you in person at some time somewhere. LB: I've been at every Reading Pride festival. So I'm always there and will be online watching it this year. But I've also been at every Pride festival at Lehigh Valley as well. So it's part of my thing to have a booth at those. What will happen now is that once this is done and I've uploaded it, they send the transcripts to a program at another college where they have interns who will transcribe it into writing. And then (inaudible) to see it and you can read through it. And you can see the video too. But that takes about 30 days because it takes them a while to do this. And then you can read through it and decide if there is anything that you want to change or strike or rearrange or something. But I have to say that this has just been extraordinarily terrific. So thank you so much for this. And I'm sure everyone will feel this way. So thank you. WA: Thank you. LB: Thanks a lot. And take care, okay? Don't go outside. WA: You too. LB: Bye-bye. WA: Bye-bye. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source.&#13 ; 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:29:29 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William Aull, June 29, 2020 Description An account of the resource Bill Aull, for many years a caregiver at the Rainbow Home near Reading, PA, shares his experiences during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. He reflects on specific patients, the role of Catholic Church in AIDS care, and the operations and services of Rainbow Home. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PH40_04 Subject The topic of the resource AIDS (Disease) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-06-29 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs. https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/b63f26684f933b7446292702b9b8768c.png ba7eb22f6ab69f37462c6a2fdba4c58d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: HIV/AIDS Description An account of the resource In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism. The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Liz Bradbury Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Maria Rodale OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_06.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 June 29, 2020 Maria Rodale, June 29, 2020 PH40_06 01:33:20 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg AIDS (Disease) Rodale, Ardath H. Rodale Press Maria Rodale Liz Bradbury video/mpeg RodaleMaria_20200629_video.mp4 1.0:|25(15)|54(11)|81(5)|100(4)|125(13)|140(14)|155(12)|176(9)|193(6)|214(13)|241(6)|256(13)|277(12)|294(15)|311(7)|330(8)|345(16)|368(11)|383(18)|408(8)|431(3)|454(8)|467(11)|482(9)|499(11)|520(13)|537(12)|556(13)|585(3)|604(3)|615(11)|632(13)|649(14)|670(11)|693(7)|704(13)|721(3)|746(12)|761(15)|776(4)|791(9)|810(2)|829(6)|840(15)|859(7)|872(3)|891(2)|904(13)|921(18)|936(12)|953(6)|978(8)|997(2)|1018(9)|1041(10)|1064(2)|1085(5)|1106(2)|1129(8)|1148(2)|1165(4)|1184(5)|1205(6)|1230(5)|1255(3)|1280(5)|1303(8)|1324(10)|1343(8)|1362(13)|1391(2)|1416(11)|1439(9)|1452(3)|1465(18)|1482(9)|1501(4)|1516(10)|1533(6)|1546(11)|1567(12)|1590(3)|1623(10)|1646(11)|1665(12)|1696(6)|1717(7)|1748(11)|1777(13)|1802(10)|1831(7)|1856(3)|1887(6)|1904(5) 0 https://youtu.be/zZGKCY969IY YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction 0 147 First memories of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in 1983 / Losing a brother to AIDS LB: So the first part of this, and, you know, you can say whatever you want about the -- however you want it to go. We have three props on here, one of them is that, what was the first time -- to start it off -- that you remember the first time that you became aware of the disease? &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: I first became aware of the disease in probably nineteen eighty-three or eighty-four when I was actually a student at Muhlenberg College, and my brother David gave me an unpublished manuscript to read. 0 1024 Coping with the loss of a family member / Channeling grief into activism LB: Yeah. So let me just ask you, and I know this is hard, but after he died, was it something that...? I mean I know how involved your mother was in all sorts of stuff after he died, and maybe you weren’t. I don't know where you were at that time. It sounds like you were in DC. When did you come back -- &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: Well, my father made me promise that I would only stay there for a year and then I would come back after a year. So when I came back, I started working for my father at the company, which again in retrospect I was glad I did because he died five years later. So I had that time with him, which was really precious. But by the time I came back, my mother, well I will say, she never got over my brother’s death, ever, and I think a lot of her recurrence with breast cancer that she had was her grieving, her feeling of loss and sorrow. 0 1400 Trying to understand human differences and anti-LGBTQ sentiments through research, writing, and blogging LB: Well, talk about that writing that you do or you did then about it.&#13 ; &#13 ; MR: Well, I’ve been a blogger since two-thousand six. And I’ve written a few books where I’ve never shied away from the fact that he had AIDS, but I’ve never also addressed it specifically. It’s like, oh, I had a brother who died of AIDS. The book that I’m working on now and that -- that’s (laughs) the “Why Sex Matters” book is there is I’m working on a book about love and how we can learn to love each other and -- through not just relationship but through work, through the environment, through politics, and through connecting with all sorts of diversity not just the LGBTQ, whatever, but racial diversity, sexual diversity, all of it. 0 1714 Addressing the shock of brother's death throughout the Lehigh Valley and its effects on his friends / Maintaining a close bond with David's partner LB: Let’s see. Let me see what these other questions are. Sometimes I hurry. So you were living here. Were you seeing with David’s friends -- because other people were dying too. It’s interesting that the other people that I’ve interviewed, they seem to be just a little bit after that really devastating early time. And that’s not going to be true for everybody because this is, I think, the fifth interview I’ve done. But were people seeing in the Lehigh Valley this kind of rapid realization of the disease? Were other people that happening to, his friends or David’s friends who were in the Lehigh Valley or other people that were around always (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible). Like David’s death is such a shock to everybody because they didn’t really expect this when it happened? What do you think about that? &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: Yeah. David had a lot of friends all over the place. Most of them are dead, most of them are dead. In the Lehigh Valley, I think there was... The big shock for my brother’s death was as much the family business -- the heir, David Rodale of Rodale Press as it was the AIDS thing. 0 1970 Mother's turn to activism in order to cope / Prioritizing the memory of David over the living LB: (laughter) So let’s see. We talked about a lot of different things. Let’s see. So you were saying this -- and I can really understand this -- that your mother was finding solace in the activism. And then I could see why you might not have wanted to step into that because she was doing that. Were you aware of pretty much all this stuff? I guess I asked you this already, but were you aware of what she was doing? Because she even -- I don't know if you were part of this, but she narrated a big concert for the Gay Men’s Chorus at the church on Center Street. And it was a musical performance about a young man who killed himself actually, and she was the narrator for that. Were you aware -- &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: I wasn’t aware that she did that, but I’m not surprised at all because that’s the kind of thing she really loved to do. Yeah. Yeah. 0 2255 Societal death and the loss of creativity / End of the sexual revolution LB: And so many people who were lost in those circumstances left people behind that were in that -- in the same circumstance. It was such a shock. It’s such a shock to you to lose someone who was young and seemingly so vital and healthy. That’s the thing that is so, I think, devastating for people. &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: Yeah, I mean any death in a family is devastating. But that was like the beginning of just a whole societal death -- you know, the death of creativity, the death of fun. (laughs) 0 2523 Reflections on similarities and differences between the AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic LB: Yeah, I really agree with that. I think that people will often say -- it can be very privileged to say this is the worst moment. I mean, really? (laughter) (inaudible) McCarthyism, (inaudible), flu epidemic of 1918, come on, it’s... I think that’s true. How do you see this? I mean, you’ve been -- you lived through that epidemic, you’re looking at this epidemic that’s happening now. What do you think about the relationships of how people are dealing with it and stuff like that, and how you’re dealing with it? What do you think about that? &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: Well, I think this one is both similar and incredibly different. So similar is the sense of like anxiety and dread. I mean just the shutting down of the whole global economy is very different. AIDS didn’t do that. 0 2919 The Rodale Institute LB: So what is your relationship with the farm? &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: The Rodale Institute? &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah. &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: So when my father was alive, I was on the board of directors of the Rodale Institute with my father. When my father died, I shifted my focus over to the company, and my mother became more involved with the institute and my brother Anthony. And then in -- like around two-thousand eight, two-thousand nine, I came back on the board. I became the cochair of the board with our longtime legal counselor Paul McGinley. And as of today, I’m still on the board, but my daughter Maya is now the cochair of the board, so... So my activism has always been more on the quiet, unseen side of things. 0 3151 PrEP, vaccines, and other drugs discussed in context with both HIV and COVID-19 LB: Yeah, it is. So are you familiar with PrEP? What do you think about PrEP? &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: What? &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: PrEP is the pill that people can take so that they won’t contract HIV if they come in contact with it. And PrEP is -- &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: I think I’ve seen some commercials for it, which I’ve not done any research on. But if I would apply my gut knowledge of what I know about advertising and health, I think it’s probably not the best thing. I mean probably the best thing is to just be cautious and careful, right? But I don’t know. What do you think of it? 0 3815 Lehigh Valley doctors' awareness and understanding of AIDS early in the epidemic LB: That’s a very good point. When you were talking about it -- I wrote a little note. When you were talking about David, was he -- what hospital was he at? &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: He was at Lehigh Valley Hospital. &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Mm-hmm. And in general, I mean, were there doctors that understood what was happening, or what was that feeling like? 0 4022 Lessons learned from losing a family member to AIDS and its effects on life MR: Yeah. But definitely my mother that was her -- in many ways, the crowning glory of her life was the AIDS work that she did. And there was an organization she was involved in too, I think, called The Compassionate Friends where it wasn’t just AIDS, any parent who lost their child and dealing with that, so that was her gift. &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Yeah. But I guess it sounds like you -- if you would think about it if this hadn’t happened, that your entire life or her entire life would have been vastly different.&#13 ; &#13 ; MR: Everybody’s life would have been vastly different. I’m not saying it would be better or worse. It would have been more fun. (laughs) 0 4195 Reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic and AIDS epidemic for future generations / Social and economic complications of epidemics / Importance of education and awareness LB: Yeah. I think that’s true. Hmm, I think that’s an interesting point of view, and I think you’re right. I do think you’re right about that. Yeah, we’ve got a little bit more time left and so -- but thinking like when you talk about this and you want future -- when you’re talking to future generations, because we are. I mean truthfully, there’s no information from the flu epidemic of nineteen-eighteen, there’s nobody who you could really... Because we’re right in the middle of COVID so we have -- I mean somebody’s going to read this twenty years from now and go, “This is what’s going to happen!” &#13 ; &#13 ; MR: Yeah, yeah. &#13 ; &#13 ; LB: It’s like watching World War II movies where they made the movie after World War II when we know we won or the movie during World War II where people have no idea whether we’re really going to win or not or what’s going to happen. 0 4967 The negative effects of COVID-19 on grief and loss / The current state of politics and the spread of inaccurate information LB: But in the meanwhile -- I think that’s one of the reasons that we’re doing this project is to remind people about what’s going on. Because you can say, Well everybody in those days fought this thing. That’s true. There are people who had all sorts of different experiences. And I can also say that one of the things that’s come out of the interviews that I’ve done that I’ve shared with a couple of people, there’s one person who said, it was David Moyer, and he said he was a nurse with the Health Bureau and so he came in contact with literally dozens of people who died. And one of the things he said was that psychologically, people will tell you -- great counselors will tell you that if you -- if somebody close to you dies, it takes a couple of years, you get over that. 0 5524 Concluding Remarks LB: Positive, very positive thing. Well, I think we’re at the end of this now. Oh, I’m supposed to say this, wait a minute, I’ve got some stuff. I have to say don’t forget that -- so at the end of this time, what we do is we send this. The people that are doing this archiving take this from -- coming through Muhlenberg College and they send it to some interns that will transcribe it quite rapidly -- it’s quite remarkable -- and then they will send that. 0 MovingImage Maria Rodale talks about the death of her brother David Rodale, which happened during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. She also speaks about her mother’s involvement in local AIDS activism and about the impact of the epidemic on society and culture. Her family owned Rodale Press and continues to be closely involved with Rodale Institute and organic farm. MARIA RODALE LIZ BRADBURY: -- computer, yes? MARIA RODALE: Yeah, I see it. LB: Let's go. Now, I have to read you these things that are important. My phone is off, okay. With this project, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I'm here with Maria Rodale to talk about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of COVID-19 epidemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. So, at the beginning of this, I have to say -- oh, wait, here I'll do that -- thank you for much -- so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? MR: Maria Rodale. M-A-R-I-A R-O-D-A-L-E. LB: Thank you. Will you please share your birthdate? MR: January twenty-fourth, nineteen sixty-two. LB: Okay. Do you consent to this interview today? MR: Yes. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitalized or digitized and made publicly available online in searchable formats? MR: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? MR: Yes. LB: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript -- so we will deliver the transcript that will be transcribed after this interview to you -- to review your interview and review any parts you'd like to delete or withdraw from your interview for this project? MR: Yes. LB: Okay. So I am actually going to turn my air off because it's making too much noise. MR: And I can't hear it. LB: I'm having to yell. Yeah, but I'm having to yell, (laughs) and it's weird. Okay. Okay. So the first part of this, and, you know, you can say whatever you want about the -- however you want it to go. We have three props on here, one of them is that, what was the first time -- to start it off -- that you remember the first time that you became aware of the disease? MR: I first became aware of the disease in probably nineteen eighty-three or eighty-four when I was actually a student at Muhlenberg College, and my brother David gave me an unpublished manuscript to read. I don't remember the book, but it was definitely talking about the possibility that there was an epidemic that was about to happen. My first response was like, "Well, why are you giving this to me?" and then as I read it, I realized he was kind of giving me a heads-up. So my brother David was gay, as everybody knew, and was very open about it, and we all loved him dearly. And so that was my first awareness of -- that something was happening. LB: Yeah. I just want to interpose in this that this -- one of the reasons I think we're doing this archive is that lots of people don't know stuff. And in fact, this is going to go into the archives for thirty years into the -- 20, 30 years into the future, and there will be a lot of things that people don't know. In fact, it's shocking when -- how much people don't know. Lots of times that most of the people who work at our community center are about half my age, they don't have a -- they don't understand a lot of this. I was going to say they don't have a clue, but that's not true. MR: Yeah. LB: But they don't understand a lot of stuff. So talk about how that proceeded. What happened for you as far as that stuff went? MR: Well, first of all, my brother came out as gay when he was maybe in his late teens, early twenties, and it didn't surprise me. I wasn't upset. My parents, obviously at that time, were quite upset, but they really came around. They came around quickly, and he was just such a delightful and wonderful person and kind of the life of the family, so... So nineteen eighty-four, he gave me that book, but I was just like -- you know, at that point, I was very young and a single mom going to college, so it wasn't really my problem. I personally was not gay or doing drugs or anything -- any of the risk factors. But I don't even think back then we knew what the risk factors were other than it was related to being gay, so... Then, I would say -- well, his birthday December twelfth nineteen eighty-five. I remember he had a birthday party. I remember I wore black leather pants. (laughs) But he was coughing a lot and -- coughing and sweating, but he was like, "Oh, it's nothing," and he had actually been to the local doctor who had diagnosed him as having bronchitis. And so we're like, "Oh, it's just bronchitis," and he was like, "Oh, it's just bronchitis." And then December twentieth, he and his partner Mark were about to go on -- away for Christmas together. He was at the airport, and he was coughing so badly that Mark was like, "You have to go to the hospital. There's something wrong here." At that point, I knew it might be AIDS because of what he had told me about, and I remember calling a couple of my friends. I was like, "You know, I think my brother has AIDS," and they were like, "Oh, no, he's just stressed out. It's winter ; it's just bronchitis." But when he went into the hospital, and they did the test, and he did have AIDS, it was -- well, first of all, it was a death sentence back then. So this is nineteen eighty-five, it's a complete death sentence, and none of the nurses or doctors wanted to go near him because we didn't know. Nobody really knew at that point exactly how it was spread. And I remember my mother like -- well, first of all, she was deeply upset and crying and -- but she was trying to find private nurses to take care of him in the hospital. I'm like, "Mom, we'll do it. Let's -- let's... Let's take shifts." So all of us had shifts, and we were with him. And I remember on December twenty-third, I had my -- so this was like three days in the hospital -- I had my last exam for Muhlenberg College. So I was like technically graduated at that point, and I got my stuff together to go in for my shift, which was a late-night shift. It was like nine to threein the morning and so I remember I had a little tray of a McDonald's milkshake, McDonald's coffee, my journal. And I went to the room, and I said to the nurse outside. I was like, "Do I need to mask up?" and she's like, "Well not anymore," and I'm like, "What do you mean?" She's like, "He expired." (sobs) And I went into the room, and my whole family was there. I don't know why -- oh, it's before cell phones, so I don't know why that's how I found out, but that's how I found out. So my parents were there. The woman was who his friend, Sarah who was with him when he died was there. Some of his other best friends were there, his partner Mark, and it was just... He was dead. LB: Wow. MR: Three days and... I mean and -- LB: He was there three days in the hospital? MR: Yes. And so he had died of, well, pneumocystic -- the pneumonia that is common with the AIDS patients and... So, needless to say, we were all devastated and stunned. LB: How old was he? MR: He was only thirty. That was his thirtieth birthday party. LB: Oh, God. MR: And I was twenty-three -- I was twenty-two, so... LB: When you were taking care of him and others were taking care of him, was that you were really doing nursing care for him? MR: You know, it -- LB: Days, gosh. MR: -- not really. They would do the technical things, but we would be sitting with him and communicating with the nurses and things like that. So the nurses did get over their fear and put on all their equipment and do what nurses are supposed to do, but it was not something that everyone was willing to do. I think certain nurses took it on. And I remember he must have been on a lot of painkillers because the conversations were really interesting. (laughs) LB: What do you mean? MR: Well, he'd be like, "Oh, gosh, I -- I'm seeing the most incredible gardens, I wish you could see them." (laughs) In retrospect, I think he knew for a while he had AIDS. I remember the Christmas beforehand, I had made some offhanded stupid remark like, "Oh well, we know David will always be here for Christmas because he's gay and --" you know. And he gave me a look that was like don't count on that, and so... I mean, he didn't even make it to the next Christmas. LB: Yeah. Did he tell other people in your family before you found out? Was it because you -- or did you-all know at the same time about...? MR: That he had AIDS? LB: Yeah. MR: We all found out at the same time when he was tested in the hospital, so... Yeah. LB: I mean there's so much stuff, you know, because so many things were happening then in the world, and people didn't know about it. People didn't know where it came from. Was that something that you were aware of earlier or any time? MR: Well, I think I was peripherally aware of it and scared for him. What happened for me is I had already planned to move to Washington, DC, with my daughter. I had a job lined up, an apartment. And then our family situation, of course, there was the family business that was a factor in it and my brother had been considered the heir of the family business. And my father kind of alluded that he needed me to stay, and I was like, "But I've got this stuff lined up, and I need to... I made commitments to people." When I moved to Washington, DC, my apartment was in the Dupont Circle area, which was a hotbed of the AIDS crisis in Washington. And so every day, walking my daughter to school and to work, I would see people who were dying just... It was horrible because I felt that they were looking at me as a white, straight woman, and being like, Fuck you, you know? And I wanted to say to each and every one of them, it's like, "Well, I lost my brother, I feel for you," but I was just trying to get by at that point and... I think the hardest thing too is that I wasn't with the rest of my family grieving. I was doing all that grieving on my own, and they were doing their grieving without me, so there was a weird disconnect. LB: Were you aware of like...? Could you just fill people in because I kind of know about this, but what David was doing before he died? He was involved with the theater, wasn't he? MR: Well, that was earlier. By the time he died, he had been actively involved in the company business, working specifically on social media back then and computers and working for different magazines as -- in an editorial aspect. I often think like if he would have lived, we would have been way ahead of the curve on social media and the internet. He was one of the first people involved with like online communities. I remember he would take his laptop and go to phone booths and plug it in and upload his (laughs) stories and his -- before it was called blogs -- they were kind of blog posts. He was definitely involved in the business and had committed to it. But he and I had also talked, because he lived in Provincetown for a while and I would go visit him there, and that he -- his heart wasn't in the business, so... There's a lot of complicated theories, but the truth is he was in a very high-risk group at a very early time. LB: It was the time. MR: Mm-hmm. LB: Yeah. So let me just ask you, and I know this is hard, but after he died, was it something that...? I mean I know how involved your mother was in all sorts of stuff after he died, and maybe you weren't. I don't know where you were at that time. It sounds like you were in DC. When did you come back -- MR: Well, my father made me promise that I would only stay there for a year and then I would come back after a year. So when I came back, I started working for my father at the company, which again in retrospect I was glad I did because he died five years later. So I had that time with him, which was really precious. But by the time I came back, my mother, well I will say, she never got over my brother's death, ever, and I think a lot of her recurrence with breast cancer that she had was her grieving, her feeling of loss and sorrow. It impacted her and my father's relationship too because they were both grieving, but they were also products of their upbringing where it was hard for them. They didn't go to therapy together or -- you know? So he was a very traditional father in that respect where he kept it to himself. And I often think his increased travel at that time of his life was like a way of dealing and maybe escaping his pain and sorrow. But there's no question it left a giant, giant hole in our whole family that never was filled again. LB: I think people may not realize that the numbers -- number of deaths -- and I think people need to understand that about things that are happening today. But the number of deaths that had happened particularly with young men, young, creative men in the nineteen-eighties had an enormous impact on everything that happened. MR: Right. LB: And here is an illustration of that because you're talking about how differently that could've had an impact on -- you're talking about the publishing company, is that correct? MR: Right, the publishing company. But the publishing company, the family, it was a devastating blow to us. My mother channeled her grieving into her activism, which was really brave and courageous. Because in the later -- from nineteen eighty-five to the nineties, early nineties, there were still not a lot of people especially parents who were speaking in support of the gay community, and her whole message was about loving and accepting our children for who they are. It was kind of stunning how many people didn't think that at the time and maybe still don't. LB: So at that time after he died, was there an acknowledgement of what he died from? Because people were so afraid of that kind of stuff. I mean soon after because really, we -- I've had people that were close to me that died that nobody knew what was wrong with them. Nobody said anything. They just -- you know? MR: I think in the newspaper it said pneumonia, but we were very transparent and up front, you know? LB: Yeah. MR: I mean, from the day he died, it was -- my mother, myself, my siblings, my father is like he died of AIDS, he died of AIDS and -- you know? I don't think we felt the stigma of that, or if we did, we felt it was important to work through the stigma. Yeah. LB: Well, I know your mother really rallied her friends to support causes. And I think some of their sons that had died as well, [probably?] rallied then that it really was the source of a lot of the funding that came through FACT, the Gay Men's Chorus, and stuff. Do you remember that kind of stuff, or what do you think about that? MR: Yeah, no, I mean I definitely remember her being a major activist. I think that she got a lot of her loneliness from my brother leaving -- was fulfilled through that community. She was involved with the AIDS Quilts. She was a member of the Harvard AIDS Institute International Advisory Committee. So she made the most out of her tragedy to try to help others. For me, it was not a matter of public activism because that was her terrain and she was doing a great job in that world. I think for me, it became more a form of like personal activism in terms of how I interact with people and a lot of the writing that I do. It wasn't the time for me to be a public activist because that was her role and -- LB: Well, talk about that writing that you do or you did then about it. MR: Well, I've been a blogger since two-thousand six. And I've written a few books where I've never shied away from the fact that he had AIDS, but I've never also addressed it specifically. It's like, oh, I had a brother who died of AIDS. The book that I'm working on now and that -- that's (laughs) the "Why Sex Matters" book is there is I'm working on a book about love and how we can learn to love each other and -- through not just relationship but through work, through the environment, through politics, and through connecting with all sorts of diversity not just the LGBTG, whatever, but racial diversity, sexual diversity, all of it. I'm one of those people who -- like I've been just quietly observing and watching and studying and researching, and this next book that I'm working on will be my contribution to the conversation. LB: Hmm. I think that's like a theme or...? You've sort of described what the theme was, but thinking about the point that you're trying to make, I don't mean to be obvious but that's sort of -- or is it just presenting a lot of information? Are you trying to really communicate some specific thing that you want people to understand? MR: Well, I mean it started as me trying to understand for myself and understand. And just curious -- curiosity like, well, why are people like this, and why do we -- why are people so anti-gay, and why are people racist and -- you know, so... My approach that I'm taking is that it all starts with each of us individually and how we learn to accept ourselves and love ourselves and then share that in everything we do and connect to others in that way. So there's a lot of research and science and -- but it's -- ultimately, it's a personal journey that we each have to take to become loving people and to be aware that just because we say we're not racist doesn't mean we aren't racist. Or just because we say we are okay with people being gay doesn't mean we're actually okay with that. We have to show it and walk the talk and be that in our lives. Ultimately, that's all that really matters. Because when you die -- we're all going to die, and for or better or worse, I've seen a lot of death in my family, and what lasts? What lasts? It's that loving relationship that lasts and the ripples that we make in people's lives, positive or negative. LB: Mm-hmm. Is this a different kind of book than other things that you've written, or what were some of the other things you've written? MR: I've written a gardening book. I've written a book on women and pleasure. I've written a book called Organic Manifesto, which is about why we use chemicals and how that all happened. I've often gone through phases like, well, all my books are so different, what's the thread that connects them? And it's really all about learning how to make ourselves and the world better and showing all the connections between things of which when you can see the connections then you can see oh, oh, that's why it's important, and that's why it matters, so -- LB: Exactly -- MR: -- it's something. LB: -- it's that -- oh. It sounds like your earlier experiences, it has -- they have contributed to this trajectory in terms of how you've been working with this. You think that's true? MR: Totally, totally. Yeah. LB: Let's see. Let me see what these other questions are. Sometimes I hurry. So you were living here. Were you seeing with David's friends -- because other people were dying too. It's interesting that the other people that I've interviewed, they seem to be just a little bit after that really devastating early time. And that's not going to be true for everybody because this is, I think, the fifth interview I've done. But were people seeing in the Lehigh Valley this kind of rapid realization of the disease? Were other people that happening to, his friends or David's friends who were in the Lehigh Valley or other people that were around always (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible). Like David's death is such a shock to everybody because they didn't really expect this when it happened? What do you think about that? MR: Yeah. David had a lot of friends all over the place. Most of them are dead, most of them are dead. In the Lehigh Valley, I think there was... The big shock for my brother's death was as much the family business -- the heir, David Rodale of Rodale Press as it was the AIDS thing. Probably because I've been a single parent since I was twenty, I mean I don't hang out too much. (laughs) I don't have a social life, so I was really just kind of watching other people, and it's classic. There is the traditional Lehigh Valley people who do not have a lot of compassion, and they're more traditionalists I would say. And then there's a lot of wonderful people who were very warm and supportive and welcoming. I will say I didn't experience and I didn't see my mother experiencing, although she might have, a lot of hate or trolling. But this was before the internet, so I'm sure people kept that to themselves or kept it within their smaller groups. I don't remember seeing or hearing any of that, but I do remember feeling my parents' shame. Although they worked to overcome it. LB: Because of the whole thing? Because of (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) or because he had AIDS? MR: Because he was gay, because AIDS was a sexually transmitted disease, because they failed keeping him safe -- all those things that parents feel. One of the most important things though for me personally is that his partner Mark is still alive and healthy and has been an incredibly important part of our whole family all these years. He worked for my mother, he worked for me, he continues to stay involved and we're -- we've been very connected with him. LB: Is he still in Lehigh Valley? MR: Yeah, he is. Mark Kintzel, he's a wedding planner, he does incredible weddings. LB: (laughter) So let's see. We talked about a lot of different things. Let's see. So you were saying this -- and I can really understand this -- that your mother was finding solace in the activism. And then I could see why you might not have wanted to step into that because she was doing that. Were you aware of pretty much all this stuff? I guess I asked you this already, but were you aware of what she was doing? Because she even -- I don't know if you were part of this, but she narrated a big concert for the Gay Men's Chorus at the church on Center Street. And it was a musical performance about a young man who killed himself actually, and she was the narrator for that. Were you aware -- MR: I wasn't aware that she did that, but I'm not surprised at all because that's the kind of thing she really loved to do. Yeah. Yeah. LB: I got the impression that she was really whipping up an enormous amount of financial support for FACT because there was -- they got an enormous amount of money coming in. And I know Billy Leh who were -- and he and other people that were part of the community where people could afford to make significant donations. And then I would guess that other people that she knew were losing sons as well. I've often said that you can get LGBT people to stick up for your rights, but when you get to the parents of LGBT people, that's a whole different thing. MR: Yeah. LB: Yeah. They're like lions with their kids and they can be -- yeah, they can be rejecting, but they can also be extraordinarily -- and families in general too. I think that these families speak out. MR: For the record, I have to express that one of the challenges with that is that the memory of David became more important to her than the living. And I think that's a wound that my siblings and I still carry is that we weren't enough to fill that hole. And that's our own personal work we had to do. Our own personal activism was how do we become whole, healthy, happy human beings knowing that that trauma happened to all of us, not just to her but to all of us. And we were kind of on our own to figure that out. LB: Mm-hmm. Yeah. What other siblings do you have? MR: I have my oldest sister Heather, then Heidi, and then David was next, and then between David and me, there were seven years, and then my younger brother Anthony, so three years younger than me. So there are four people left. LB: Yeah, sure, yeah. MR: Yeah, and none of us were as funny and charming and delightful as he was. (laughs) LB: Well... (laughter) MR: It's true. It's the truth. LB: Okay, but... MR: I miss him terribly. LB: Yeah, I can understand that but... I mean there's a lot of factors that make one say that, and it's not just because he wasn't that way but also because you were younger. You were influenced by losing him, and that is an influence of things too, so... MR: Mm-hmm. LB: And so many people who were lost in those circumstances left people behind that were in that -- in the same circumstance. It was such a shock. It's such a shock to you to lose someone who was young and seemingly so vital and healthy. That's the thing that is so, I think, devastating for people. MR: Yeah, I mean any death in a family is devastating. But that was like the beginning of just a whole societal death -- you know, the death of creativity, the death of fun. (laughs) LB: [What happened to that?] Say, explain what you mean by that because I don't think people always get what that means. MR: Well, in my research on my own history and social history, the sexual revolution happened in the sixties and the seventies. There were great things about it, and there were bad things about it for men and women, for gays and straight people. But the truth was it was kind of free for all, and you could make of it what you wanted, and a lot of people did. And then when AIDS came, it kind of [claps] put a clamp down on that. And, you know, there were the religious people who were saying that's God's punishment. There were all sorts of things happening. I'm not a person who judges, so I don't have a view on... To me, it's just all evolution. The AIDS moment was an evolution of how we think about sexuality, and probably a cycle from excess to conservatism. And I remember when I was working in Washington, I was working for a progressive political -- socially progressive PR company, so I was doing activism in my job actually. And it was the moral majority, Phyllis Schlafly, all those ministers who have now since been exposed as being (laughs) gay pedophiles themselves. (laughs) But I was also working on the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the anti-Contra thing, so I've always been a socially progressive, active person, but I think that was just a real shift. I was reading some of my writings from that time period, and I'd see a lot of parallels in what's happening today, you know. The whole evangelical backlash is extremely similar to what was happening in the nineteen-eighties and early nineties and... But if you think about what we've accomplished since then, it's enormous. One of my big philosophies that I'm writing about is like we -- and if you look at things in the moment, they seem like awful and terrible and the world is ending. But if you look at them in the context of the full history of the world, we've come so far, and we'll survive it. We might not all survive this, but people will survive this and will keep moving forward. LB: Yeah, I really agree with that. I think that people will often say -- it can be very privileged to say this is the worst moment. I mean, really? (laughter) (inaudible) McCarthyism, (inaudible), flu epidemic of 1918, come on, it's... I think that's true. How do you see this? I mean, you've been -- you lived through that epidemic, you're looking at this epidemic that's happening now. What do you think about the relationships of how people are dealing with it and stuff like that, and how you're dealing with it? What do you think about that? MR: Well, I think this one is both similar and incredibly different. So similar is the sense of like anxiety and dread. I mean just the shutting down of the whole global economy is very different. AIDS didn't do that. AIDS shut down a lot of things but not for everyone. I mean, of course again, applying that historical viewpoint, we'll get through this and we'll learn from it and we'll evolve, and it's kind of exposing. Just like AIDS, AIDS exposed a lot of things that were hidden. If you think about like a lot of the artists who nobody knew were gay, Freddie Mercury who like a lot of redneck kids, wow, that's awesome. Well, you know what, he was gay, so... I think that that's what's being exposed now in terms of racial discrimination, financial discrimination. You've got all the big companies that are siphoning off all this money and not paying people a living wage. So I do think there's connections, but this is probably more far reaching in its impact perhaps, I don't know, so... LB: Yes. MR: Who knows? I think it's going to get worse before it gets better also. I don't think we know the final outcome of this. And then you layer on climate change, environmental degradation, yeah. A lot of the work that I'm doing is around de-shaming sexuality. I've said in some of my talks that I've given, how we treat nature is how we treat women and how we treat women is how we treat nature and-- and that's what I want to get to the bottom of through all of this is having more openness about the whole discussion, less shame, more openness, but also reconnecting sexuality and pleasure with love. LB: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I think you saying how we treat nature is how we treat women, I need to hear more about that because I think that's so true that I want to scream it from the rooftop. So talk a little bit more about that. That's a brilliant thing to say. MR: It goes very deeply into our history, our religious history, but it's not just religion. It's just social history of male domination, patriarchy, which is not just the man thing, the patriarchy. In all my research, it's like women are just as complicit in patriarchy as men are. But it's the idea that nature and people are here for our -- to be used as opposed to being in a reciprocal relationship. I mean who doesn't want to be in an actual reciprocal relationship sexually, emotionally? That's where the pleasure is, right? That's where the love is when you feel seen and heard and understood and cared for, and everybody wants that no matter what your sexuality is or your gender. So what I'm trying to kind of untangle is how do we build a world based on that? And obviously, it starts in childhood, early, early in childhood, and it's a long-term plan. It's not an overnight thing. But I think all these, whether it's AIDS or COVID are all kind of messages from the universe saying, "Wake up, wake up, wake up." Let's see the world in a more full and rich way. And just dominating things are not going to solve our problem and control. Domination is the same as control, so... LB: So what is your relationship with the farm? MR: The Rodale Institute? LB: Yeah. MR: So when my father was alive, I was on the board of directors of the Rodale Institute with my father. When my father died, I shifted my focus over to the company, and my mother became more involved with the institute and my brother Anthony. And then in -- like around two-thousand eight, two-thousand nine, I came back on the board. I became the cochair of the board with our longtime legal counselor Paul McGinley. And as of today, I'm still on the board, but my daughter Maya is now the cochair of the board, so... So my activism has always been more on the quiet, unseen side of things. My job when I was cochair was like, okay, how do I untangle this organization, nonprofit from the company, how do I help it to become independent and stable and accountable, and I was able to accomplish that, so... And now, with the sale of the company, we sold the family business two years ago, and all the land now belongs to the Rodale Institute. They're in decent shape and we sold just in the nick of time because nobody should want to be in publishing right now in the world, (laughs) so... LB: That's for sure. (laughs) I just want to say, I'm just going to -- this doesn't belong in this, but I want to say I love the institute, and we got all our plants there for our garden. We have a big garden on the roof of our garages in our -- the city. We live in the city, so -- MR: Nice. LB: -- we get an enormous amount of food from our -- and we love getting the plants from Rodale, so, and nothing made us happier. I hadn't been out of the house for about thirty days, and when I went -- I was nervous when I went to pick up the plants. I had my mask on, and everybody was so great, and it was so safe, and everybody had their mask on, and I said, "Okay, these are my people." MR: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean it is connected because a lot of my work with the Rodale Institute is what taught me about understanding nature and how people treat nature. And writing Organic Manifesto, I saw, oh, oh, well, we want to control nature by spraying it, killing things. It's the same as like wanting to eradicate races or sexualities, but nature is diverse. Nature is sexually diverse, (laughs) nature is racially species diverse, and the healthier and more productive the land is, the more diverse it is. So to me, there's lessons from nature that we can apply to all these issues that we're dealing with. It's all connected. LB: Yeah, it is. So are you familiar with PrEP? What do you think about PrEP? MR: What? LB: PrEP is the pill that people can take so that they won't contract HIV if they come in contact with it. And PrEP is -- MR: I think I've seen some commercials for it, which I've not done any research on. But if I would apply my gut knowledge of what I know about advertising and health, I think it's probably not the best thing. I mean probably the best thing is to just be cautious and careful, right? But I don't know. What do you think of it? LB: I think it is the answer to ending the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. MR: In Africa? LB: Because people cannot always control what happens to their bodies, and that's an unfortunate reality. So that if people take PEP or PrEP, they won't get it, and that maybe the circumstance of women. I mean -- MR: Yeah, I mean -- LB: -- the idea of relying on one drug and hoping that that's going to solve all the problems. But on the other hand, I don't think there is any way to solve this problem without some kind of (inaudible) intervention. MR: Yeah. I would trust your view on that. I mean, I'm not anti-drug and I'm not anti-vaccine at all, all my kids are vaccinated, I hope we have a COVID vaccine. I think what's happening in Africa is as much a social, cultural... Again, it gets back to patriarchy and how women are treated, so... And if there's a pill to help them, great. But that's not -- LB: And that's -- MR: -- the long-term answer. LB: Yeah. Well, I guess that's true. I think that the long-- and certainly, there are people in the United States, and I don't disagree with them either, that say, well, it being careful includes... There's a lot of requirements to be careful when taking this drug because you have to be tested and you have to be aware and you have to acknowledge that you're at risk and stuff like that. So that actually puts people at a higher level of safety too. It's kind of the idea of getting a vaccination or the idea of wearing a mask and getting a vaccination, you can't just hope it's going to be okay. Especially because -- and I think you are talking about this too -- we don't know that much about COVID at all. COVID-19, we don't know what its -- where it's going to go. I agree that we will get through this, but we don't know what's going to happen. And that's the thing about -- we have the ability to figure it out but not really fast. MR: Well, and I'm grateful that there are drugs now that AIDS is not the death sentence that it was when my brother had it. I just remember that feeling like, this is it, there's no -- zero chance of survival. But now, it seems that a lot of people are surviving and doing well. So that's great. LB: There's also a drug called PEP that's -- it's also an emergency drug so that if people have a circumstance where they're highly at risk if they take it within seventy-two hours of that exposure, they won't. The chances are so high if they do it correctly that they won't get HIV. (inaudible) was saying, well, there's still chance if you do it right quickly so that, again, if people are at risk in a circumstance where they took a chance that was dangerous or also they were in a circumstance where they couldn't make the decision as to whether or not they were going to do something that was a high risk thing, they can protect themselves. That's another thing. This is something we know that can protect you, so it gives you the ability to take back the control of your own life. It's an important thing for people who might be under pressure to do something that they can't control. We're seeing in COVID-19 now that people who are poor are at much higher risk of dying. And part of that is something that we have to take -- we all have to take responsibility for, so... MR: Yeah. The corollary with AIDS is like you're -- you have risk factors that make you afraid that you're going to get AIDS. It's a much narrower risk factor than COVID. You know COVID is like everybody, anybody, but especially the poor people and people of color, which... But that seems to be changing too, so -- you know? LB: Well, it has to do with the level of contagiousness or the level of contagion, and (inaudible) HIV is hard to get. You have to do certain things to cause it to be at risk, compared to COVID, which we don't even know really -- MR: I know. LB: -- where it's coming from exactly. It's similar to other diseases that have happened in the past where people have no idea really where it was coming from. And there's lots of diseases that we live with every day that we really don't understand where they're coming from with them. At the time of HIV and AIDS and when David died particularly, there was a lot of government action that was very poor in response to -- I mean really no response. And that's something that you think you personally were aware of for -- or other people in your family were aware of as something that was very frustrating. So I've talked to other people who said that it was -- that was the most frustrating thing and there's -- MR: Oh yeah, I mean, it was Reagan, and Reagan and Trump were like cut from the same cloth in a lot of respects. (laughs) That's why it's -- it feels like this cyclical thing. I had the chance recently to meet Norman Lear. One of my theories is that, okay, what changed -- and he's not involved with this TV show. But meeting him and learning about him made me realize like, okay, televisions probably has more to do with changing outlooks than politics. So Will &amp ; Grace for example, [he wasn't?] involved with Will &amp ; Grace, but you watch Will &amp ; Grace, and all of a sudden, it's like it's normal for there to be gay people and to like them the way he did with All in the Family or the -- I think it was The Jeffersons or one of those shows. I watched a documentary about him that was really great. So I think that government is always the last to change because they're trying to follow their constituents who are made up of a diverse group -- some who want change, some who don't want change. So I do think the media can play -- has played a major role in change. And then once it gets normalized socially, then politicians feel more comfortable supporting things, which is great because it's -- television is -- movies are like a creative outlet, which -- LB: Yeah. I think that we certainly are in a situation where -- in the flu epidemic of nineteen-eighteen, which I talk about all the time, I talk about it with regard to art history and also because my grandmother died in this flu epidemic of nineteen-eighteen. She was young, she was thirty-two when she died, and mostly young people died in the flu because of a variety of factors that were really specific. There was no understanding of exactly what was happening there. And when it ended, it really ended for several reasons but one -- not the least of which was one of every three people in the world had it, herd immunity. And a hundred million people died but then, also, it just mutated and stopped and disappeared. And it was a shocking thing but -- and it had an enormous effect on the economy, and yet, nobody ever talks about that, talking about the economy. So it's interesting that when the economy bounces back, which it clearly did into the nineteen-twenties, people had no -- people don't talk about it. And that seems to be a big thing about what some people are talking about now. MR: Although in the nineteen-eighteens, nineteens, the global economy was not as developed. LB: True. MR: I think that's really, to me, the big differentiator. It's spread around the world and showed just how like dependent we've all become on each other. And now, everybody's shutting down, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens next . LB: That's a very good point. When you were talking about it -- I wrote a little note. When you were talking about David, was he -- what hospital was he at? MR: He was at Lehigh Valley Hospital. LB: Mm-hmm. And in general, I mean, were there doctors that understood what was happening, or what was that feeling like? MR: Well, like I said, his general practitioner was like, "Oh, you've got bronchitis." Again, I don't think he even thought to check him for AIDS. I don't remember. I wasn't... I don't remember any doctors or even any nurses, their faces because everybody's covered. I do remember that we got the test back and that he had it, so... And I can't really speak to the doctors. LB: Did he know that he had it? MR: Pardon? LB: He didn't know that he had it? MR: Oh, no, he knew. Once the results came back, he knew that he had it. LB: But I mean that was when he was in the hospital, wasn't it? MR: Yeah. LB: So he didn't know he had it until he was in the hospital. MR: I think he suspected that he had it. But like anybody, you don't want to think the worst. LB: Yeah, sure, of course. MR: So if the doctors tell you have bronchitis, it's like sure, I'd rather have that than AIDS, you know? (laughs) LB: Yeah, yeah, and at that time, if the doctor had told him differently, it probably wouldn't have made that much difference because there wasn't was -- there was very little that anybody had any sense. I don't think anybody that was a -- that was HIV positive and had AIDS in the early part of the eighties made it. There were unique circumstances, but it was pretty unlikely that people are going to be able to figure it out. And then some of the drugs actually killed people. MR: Right. LB: Some of the things that people... Even in the next two or three years or four years, the drug circumstances that kind of did stuff for people didn't really save their lives. So I guess the... It's interesting because there -- really I think of your family as being extraordinary leaders in making people -- and cutting edge on everything. I mean you're the leading edge on every single progressive thing that's happened in the Lehigh Valley. It's pretty impressive, like yay team. MR: Thank you. Thank you. LB: But also that you really introduced I mean in a very public way -- I'd like to think that your mother is -- was very much -- and your brother in ways of indicating that AIDS had come to town and people need to pay attention to it. Because it's not going to go away just because you don't want it to be here. And I thought that was a very outspoken, clear way, and you're talking about those kinds of things too. MR: Yeah. But definitely my mother that was her -- in many ways, the crowning glory of her life was the AIDS work that she did. And there was an organization she was involved in too, I think, called The Compassionate Friends where it wasn't just AIDS, any parent who lost their child and dealing with that, so that was her gift. LB: Yeah. But I guess it sounds like you -- if you would think about it if this hadn't happened, that your entire life or her entire life would have been vastly different. MR: Everybody's life would have been vastly different. I'm not saying it would be better or worse. It would have been more fun. (laughs) LB: Although, I don't know, who knows? Because sometimes, you read those kind of science fiction books where the person goes back in time. And when they come back, things have changed, and it turns out that they have led an incredibly dull life because they didn't have the adversity that they had to deal with. MR: Between my brother dying, my father dying, my mother having all her health issues, it's made me do a lot of spiritual work and searching. And if I think back to... I had lots of conversations with my brother where he was pretty sure he was going to die young. He's like, "Yeah, I can't just see myself being older," and I think a psychic had told him he would die a violent death. I've done a lot of research on that as well and talking with all different psychics, and my view is that we're all here to learn and grow, and death isn't the ending of the soul. We just have to keep on learning and growing and loving. Ultimately, what can you take with you? Your love and what you've learned, that's it. And if you don't take that with you, then it doesn't matter because you're dead. (laughter) LB: That's a good point. MR: It felt like hedging your bets. LB: Yeah. I think that's true. Hmm, I think that's an interesting point of view, and I think you're right. I do think you're right about that. Yeah, we've got a little bit more time left and so -- but thinking like when you talk about this and you want future -- when you're talking to future generations, because we are. I mean truthfully, there's no information from the flu epidemic of nineteen-eighteen, there's nobody who you could really... Because we're right in the middle of COVID so we have -- I mean somebody's going to read this twenty years from now and go, "This is what's going to happen!" MR: Yeah, yeah. LB: It's like watching World War II movies where they made the movie after World War II when we know we won or the movie during World War II where people have no idea whether we're really going to win or not or what's going to happen. And I think that we don't know what's going to happen with regard to COVID. We do kind of know what happens with regard to the AIDS epidemic, which was so frightening to people when people didn't know it was happening, and yet, it's not over. I mean there are people still -- literally millions of people who get AIDS and have to die from it, and people who are living with it have to still take enormous amounts of drugs, and it affects their health every day. So what do you want to say about that epidemic to people who are going to read -- watching this maybe thirty years from now when -- you'll be probably around, I probably won't (laughs) and (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) -- MR: No guarantees to anything. LB: You never know. I think that's really what we all are learning from all of this. But as something to talk to people about saying you need to know this about that time. MR: About AIDS or COVID? LB: You can talk about AIDS, and when we talk about HIV/AIDS and the epidemic itself, which was nineteen-- the dangerous time of the epidemic was from nineteen eighty-five to nineteen ninety-three. And after ninety-three, people were able to get pretty effective drugs, but before that it was a death sentence for almost everybody particularly in the late eighties. So we can look back at that, and we can talk about what that was like so that people -- because we lived through it so that people thirty years from now can hear what that was like. We can also talk about COVID, and they know what's going to happen and we don't. Interesting to talk about either of those things. So go ahead and say whatever you want. I mean -- MR: Okay. So when it comes to the AIDS epidemic, I think what I would want people to understand was that it was both social and personal for so many people. And that it wasn't just a statistic but there were all loved, unique individuals. And in way that it was like a -- this might sound controversial, but it was like all those people made a sacrifice to our understanding of love, sexuality, gender, humanity. And it was a beautiful, terrible time and gift that they gave to us. I don't know if that's applicable now to what's happening in Africa because that's -- feels kind of different. But similarly what I've read in Africa, there's not a lot of freedom to love whether you're a woman or a man or whether you're straight or gay. A lot of what my daughter and I have done research on is the idea that love is dangerous to society. Gay love is dangerous but also like in Africa, a woman -- girls don't always have a choice of who they marry, men don't have a choice necessarily. It's economic choice. So I do think that it's like -- all of this part of like a revolution in love and how we need to learn as a species, as humanity how to value and respect the importance and power of love. And with COVID, I'd say it's similar. I mean, with COVID you have the health concern, you have the economic concern, and then you have the political concern, which is like what the hell is going to happen? Are we heading into a fascist dictatorship? And then the environmental thing, are we going to all die in environmental plots? I don't know. So what can you know? What you can know is that everything you do everyday matters. And all you can do is do what you can do every day to make the world a more loving, healthy, safer, kind, and compassionate place. And with social media, I think the other big difference between then and now is social media. And I know there's a lot of people who are like, "Oh, social media has ruined things." No, social media is like -- it's like Pandora's box that's opened up, you know. So we can now see what's really going on inside of so many people. It's ugly, and it's horrible but you know what, it's like that's the first step of healing is being to see what the issue is, and it's very educational. So I'm a big believer in using social media and learning from social media about what's happening but also not contributing to the negativity. To me, it's not a liberal or conservative. I see liberals being just as awful as conservatives. That kind of meanness, and it's not me it's you, it's you're the problem, I'm not the problem. I mean all that is like -- yeah. It's like how can we come together? And unfortunately, we don't have a leader who knows how to bring people together. But even Obama who knew how to bring people together for a lot of liberals didn't know how to bring them together for conservatives. So I think that's the challenge going forward is how do we create leadership and find people to lead who know how to unite and how to respect the differences that people feel. And there are strong differences. And they may not be legitimate differences. We might not like them or believe in them or even respect them, but they're real to those people, and they happen for a reason. That's why I think for me personally, and I do -- I wrote children's books on the side, and I launched a Children's Imprint at Rodale before we sold. I think if we can get to kids and teach them, it's going to be a lot easier than fixing grown-ups because you can't fix other people. LB: Yeah. It's an education issue. It's an information, education issue I think. MR: Yeah. And a lot of what conservatives have done really well is infiltrating the educational system and planting their seeds into textbooks. I mean that's a real thing. I had a friend whose son was going to Christian school, not Catholic school, Christian school in Florida, and I asked if I could see his textbook, which was all online. It was an iPad textbook. And what I was stunned to see is that the final paragraph in the religion course was the most important thing you can do to honor God and to be a follower of God is to resist abortion, to be against abortion. I was like, really? I didn't see that in the Bible. I've read the Bible ; that's not in there. (laughs) So there's all sorts of people putting their agendas into things, and can we create a better agenda? I mean we're creative people, we can, we must. LB: Yeah, amazing. MR: It's shocking. LB: Yeah. I mean when you read that kind of stuff and you think. I was watching a show out of the UK, and it was a -- this was a comedian. It was on a -- sort of a game show. It's called QI, and I really love it. And this young woman said that when she was -- she's a comedian, and she said when she was a kid, one of the questions they were asked, in a perfect world, what would you want to have your job be? And she said the boy -- little boy next to her had written down, in a perfect world, I would want my child to be a war correspondent. (laughter) Wait, a perfect world? (laughter) Yeah. You know so, I mean that's kind of the thing about pointing out the obvious to people and... MR: Well for men, I mean because men have been -- I've done a lot of research on men too because men have been repressed emotionally. War is one of the few places where they are safe to express their emotion. And the bonding, the male bonding that happens there is a great romance for a lot of men. Until we find an alternative for that, they're going to keep seeking that excitement and passion. LB: Yeah, yeah. MR: Weird. LB: It is weird. MR: People are weird. LB: It is, it's pretty weird, yeah, but we're still dealing with it anyway, you know? MR: Yeah. (laughs) We're here today. LB: Hmm? MR: We're here today. LB: We are, and I do think that we can get through these things, and tough, horrible things happen. I mean people got through plagues, and people got through all sorts of horrible war, and there is a human spirit that comes together and takes a step back and says, "Okay, now, we've got to do this thing." MR: Yeah. LB: But in the meanwhile -- I think that's one of the reasons that we're doing this project is to remind people about what's going on. Because you can say, Well everybody in those days fought this thing. That's true. There are people who had all sorts of different experiences. And I can also say that one of the things that's come out of the interviews that I've done that I've shared with a couple of people, there's one person who said, it was David Moyer, and he said he was a nurse with the Health Bureau and so he came in contact with literally dozens of people who died. And one of the things he said was that psychologically, people will tell you -- great counselors will tell you that if you -- if somebody close to you dies, it takes a couple of years, you get over that. And you don't really get over it, but the terrible quality that affects every moment of your life begins to dissipate after a few -- after several years. But during the AIDS epidemic, people were, and even in the Lehigh Valley, going to funerals every week with people. And then the devastation that caused that had such a profound effect on people that it's impossible to even understand what that could be like. And it happens in war too. We're seeing people die, it changes your entire ability to be able to cope with things and stuff like that. And so when we have a big epidemic, it's really scary because really psychologically, people can't really cope with that kind of devastation, so... MR: Yeah. And what's interesting about -- I remember with my brother's funeral, I think there was -- like a thousand people showed up. It was both awful and wonderful at the same time. Mostly awful, but it felt good to see all those people and to not feel quite so alone. But now with COVID, it's like you can't even have a funeral for people. I mean that's going to, I think, have lasting impacts. LB: It certainly has a lasting effect, and people don't understand that it's affecting love, drastically affecting love. MR: Right, yeah. LB: You can't hug people. MR: I mean even people who aren't dying of COVID. I just read in the paper that Dorothy Baker just died last week, and she was a longtime family friend and I -- LB: I didn't know that. I missed that because I -- MR: Yeah. I still read the Morning Call in print, so... (laughs) But, yeah, I mean, I would have definitely -- LB: For edification of people watching this, Dorothy Baker was the county executive of Lehigh County at one point, so right. That's who you're talking about, right? MR: She was the wife of Dexter Baker who's CEO of Air Products and Chemicals. But she was my parent's neighbor, a longtime family friend. Yeah, I mean she just died of old age, but -- LB: Well, we knew somebody who died, and he was one of the guys who's the president of Reading Pride, and we watched his funeral online. They had an online funeral thing, and it was hard. It wasn't really livestreaming. We didn't get to see it. It was sort of on, and it was hard. And Tricia, "You know this is very hard," and I said, "Well, yeah, but if it weren't for COVID, we would be there. We really know this guy and this -- we would have been there, so not only is it frustrating, but think about if we were there and whether that would have been better for us or --" you know? It's very hard to imagine. In a way, we're just kind of in limbo right now. I was feeling that we're just waiting for something to -- and we know what's happening because of social media. And that's what I was going to say about the flu of nineteen-eighteen, that in nineteen-eighteen, nobody really knew what was happening. That's why they called it the Spanish flu because the Spanish -- Spain was the only country that even was reporting on it because they weren't one of the countries in World War I. Everybody else wasn't allowed to talk about it, really. It was (inaudible) to talk about it, and you could have gone to prison for mentioning that people were dying in your town of it now. MR: Really? LB: Yeah. MR: Why? LB: Because during World War I, they had passed the sedition act where you weren't supposed to say negative things about your country. You're saying like, "Yeah, my brother was in German-- you know he was fighting in the Sorbonne" or whatever they say. "He was fighting in Belgium, and he died of the flu epidemic with a whole bunch of other guys in the big makeshift hospital," that would -- you could go to jail for saying that. And if you said that in Allentown, for example, thousands of people died, and if you said thousands of people are dying, that was saying negative stuff about the United States. You weren't supposed to do that. So it wasn't in the newspaper, it wasn't -- you'd think they'd say people died, but they wouldn't -- weren't talking about this, the flu epidemic, we're not handling this well. They couldn't say that. So that's why they called it Spanish flu because Spain was the only country that was in Europe or a western country that wasn't in the war. So they were talking about it in the newspaper, so it seemed like it was the only place where it was happening. And in reality, I don't like to call it the Spanish flu because it wasn't the only place it was happening. It was happening everywhere, and literally millions of people, everybody that was alive then had it. Pretty much, one out of three people had it, so everybody knew somebody that had it. And the contagion of that was enormous, plus it specifically struck young people, so, which had to do with the combination of other flus that had happened before and stuff, and the fact that there was no flu vaccine and stuff like that. But it literally at the end of fifteen months just disappeared and people stopped getting it. Obviously, it had mutated to something else, but -- MR: Well, that's a perfect example -- LB: -- you know MR: -- that's a perfect example of how we've evolved, but we don't really think about it because now anybody can say anything negative about the country. I mean you hear the remnants of that kind of anti-sedition thing with the way Trump is, and a lot of conservatives are like, "Don't say -- don't disrespect the flag," blah, blah, blah, but they'll disrespect Obama or Biden. (laughs) We've gotten -- LB: But we can also say one of the great things that's happening right now is -- I mean and this is great, and people are seeing how people are dealing with protestors unfairly, and you would see instances of inappropriate actions by the police. And then when it happens, it can be out to everybody, and you really can't deny it. MR: No, you can't deny it. LB: If Trump says something that doesn't make any sense or if anybody says something that doesn't make any sense. If the CDC says something that turns out not to be true, everybody knows about it pretty fast, and you do have to check to be sure. MR: Well, yeah. Everybody who's paying attention [and thinks?] about it. There's a lot of people who still don't want to pay attention or are still just looking at very narrow news sources. LB: And that's certainly an important thing to -- MR: But I'm a big fan of Twitter for example because you can follow so many different news sources. It's funny it's like you read five different versions or ten different versions from ten different countries and piece together a more realistic picture. But not everybody is doing that. LB: As opposed to not being able to have any information. So that we know very specifically what happened with the Supreme Court this morning, which was, yeah, this thing, and we knew about it the minute the stuff came out. And so while we can't get really active print media in the same way that we used to be able to, we had investigative reporters, those things were tainted too. So the best thing that we can do now is that if we want to know, we (inaudible) information, and we will find out about it. And I think that is a big plus because -- MR: It's huge. LB: -- years ago we did not have that opportunity to do that. MR: Yeah. LB: Positive, very positive thing. Well, I think we're at the end of this now. Oh, I'm supposed to say this, wait a minute, I've got some stuff. I have to say don't forget that -- so at the end of this time, what we do is we send this. The people that are doing this archiving take this from -- coming through Muhlenberg College and they send it to some interns that will transcribe it quite rapidly -- it's quite remarkable -- and then they will send that. We should get that within thirty days, and we'll send that to you and then you can look at it. You can think, oh, this is the wrong name of this person or something, or I shouldn't have said this or something, or you could say, yeah, this is fine, [I'm with that?]. Or you can say, no, I hate the whole thing. I hope you don't. But that does give everybody an opportunity to look. Trisha actually looked back at the one that she did. She did a different interview, and she said, "It wasn't as bad as I thought." (laughter) She saw the video, and she hated it, but when she read it, she thought, no, this is -- it's not that bad. So I think people -- MR: Well -- LB: Yeah? MR: -- I definitely enjoyed talking with you about all of this. LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) talking with you, and I'm going to turn off the video right now. But I just want to thank you again and then I'm going to turn it off because we're using up the [videos available?]. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:33:20 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Maria Rodale, June 29, 2020 Description An account of the resource Maria Rodale talks about the death of her brother David Rodale, which happened during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. She also speaks about her mother’s involvement in local AIDS activism and about the impact of the epidemic on society and culture. Her family owned Rodale Press and continues to be closely involved with Rodale Institute and organic farm. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PH40_06 Subject The topic of the resource AIDS (Disease) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-06-29 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs. https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/c9ad16be34cedf3e114a260e680a3c52.png 0a52ecce01ce3edd1edcc8b364c9a2cc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: HIV/AIDS Description An account of the resource In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism. The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Liz Bradbury Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rose Craig OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_05.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 June 30, 2020 Rose Craig, June 30, 2020 PH40_05 01:29:17 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg AIDS (Disease) Rose Craig Liz Bradbury audio/m4a CraigRose_20200630_audio 1.0:|25(9)|50(5)|83(7)|106(15)|127(8)|142(11)|165(2)|184(12)|207(12)|232(2)|255(5)|274(7)|295(12)|320(3)|341(8)|364(10)|383(8)|408(8)|429(9)|452(6)|475(9)|504(3)|519(15)|540(14)|557(12)|580(6)|605(6)|634(8)|655(13)|678(6)|707(16)|728(12)|751(11)|772(9)|791(13)|814(6)|837(7)|858(7)|879(6)|896(14)|919(13)|940(9)|967(11)|988(13)|1013(8)|1040(2)|1071(3)|1098(2)|1121(5)|1146(6)|1173(12)|1206(9)|1225(13)|1252(17)|1271(11)|1292(16)|1317(9)|1346(16)|1367(17)|1390(11)|1411(15)|1444(7)|1463(10)|1488(7)|1509(11)|1534(13)|1559(12)|1580(5)|1597(9)|1620(10)|1641(15)|1660(8)|1683(8)|1716(8)|1743(5)|1762(13)|1785(5)|1810(17)|1829(8)|1858(2)|1877(16)|1900(9)|1923(9)|1946(14)|1973(16)|2008(3)|2031(3)|2054(5)|2055(5) 0 https://youtu.be/MAXUETF8CYM YouTube video English 32 Interview Introduction Okay, there we go, I’m starting again. So, with this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I’m here with Rose Craig to talk about her experiences in Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. 0 216 First Awareness of HIV/AIDS LB: But do you remember the first time you became aware of AIDS and HIV?&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: Yes, I actually do ; I remember that. And it was probably around nineteen eighty-five, I would say, and I think I was the last president of the Lehigh Valley Gay and Lesbian Community Center, located in Allentown, Eighth and Hamilton. And we began to hear things and stories from our friends, mostly the boys, as we called them, went to New York, there was a lot of that, to the big city, because we had easy access, and they came back with stories of people getting sick, and you know, really, we felt bad about it, but we really didn’t know it’d be anything in relationship to us ; we just thought it was a New York thing. 0 423 Involvement with the Lehigh Valley Gay and Lesbian Community Center and the AIDS Services Center LB: But you were involved with the AIDS Services Center too, is that true?&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: Yeah, absolutely. Actually, that came about from the community center. We were beginning to have so many people that we socialized with all the time getting ill that suddenly there were not many more parties, frankly, but it was mostly, okay, how do we help our friends? You know, and it was a joint effort by the guys and the lesbians. Dixie White was a great trooper with myself and a couple of other women, that were pretty good organizers ; we both had had long histories organizing the community around different issues, and at that point, and again, I was the last president, so I proposed that we, instead of being a community center, we change ourselves to being a service center, and we also took our models from New York, Philadelphia, there weren’t many towns or areas our size that had this. 0 754 Formation of Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT) At the same time, we went out there and we hustled money, and this was the time that actually FACT grew out of that ; Brian and several of the guys thought, okay, we really need to get an arm of raising money from our community. And they, I understand, continue to do that, and have done an extraordinary job. And that’s kind of where the guys went more into that area of fundraising, which was great. So we took on the politics ; we took on the day-to-day coordination, and they took a lot of the fundraising. 0 952 Activism evolved from friends dying RC: Oh yeah, it was like, hey Joe is in trouble ; he’s down the street. You know, it was a very great network of people who knew people. And you know, again, this all evolved out of our friends dying, and us trying to figure out what the hell can we do to do that, and that was the basic reason why it all went that way. 0 983 Grants and funding for care and support ...as I said earlier, the Ryan White money began to be available. And I was just talking to Kathleen Kelly who is a good friend who was head of human services and drug and alcohol and all those things for Northampton County, and her counterpoint in Lehigh County, were looking at this money and saying, okay, how can we help? Because by this time also, the health bureaus were involved from each city, magnificently involved and wonderful. So many people, I couldn’t even, you know, remember all the names of all the people who came forward from the beginning. And that was so important to the community.&#13 ; 0 1198 AIDS Services Center case management LB: I’ve interviewed a number of people already and they were talking about FACT, and what FACT did, and where they funneled their money. But for AIDS services center, when you’re talking about case management, was that specifically to try to get people into healthcare?&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: I mean, every month, practically, we were learning more about what this disease, and believe me, we watched, and very closely, New York, Philadelphia, the big cities, San Francisco, you know, conversations with people there to find out, so how do you this? Or how do you do that? Because there were some, you know, unique things about this particular disease and situation. 0 1399 Handing out condoms / educating about AIDS And the education piece, though, was very, very important ; I don’t know if you talked to anybody about that. But, we were out everywhere talking about condoms, you know, we had condoms everywhere, including my two teenage kids who were like, mom, can’t you have cookies at the front door and not a bowl of condoms for us and our friends? You know, but that was, you know, we’re scared to death of how that could spread everywhere. So it was all tragic, tragic. 0 1843 Helpfulness of doctors and healthcare professionals RC: Can’t remember a single name. (laughter)&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Other people can.&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: There were wonderful doctors, oh gosh, I’m sure if you talk to somebody who might have been there during the health bureau, I remember at St. Luke’s we had some wonderful -- I’ll tell you who would also know would be some of the chaplains from St. Luke’s who have been there a long while, Ann Huey would know some of this, as per, because they worked very closely with the doctors too, so that’s a good source. I was on the end of hustle, so I was not a direct care person ever. 0 1901 Obtaining corporate support for funding LB: So, you were talking about some of the corporations that were supportive, and how did you get into some of those places and get them to step up? Were there instances, and I know there were some corporations that had CEOs who had children, adult children, who were sick, or who had HIV, and talk about some of that kind of stuff.&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: Well, if you could find somebody, and there was always somebody who had a child that was gay. That was where they started. Or you know, it was not beneath us to reach out to anybody that we knew that maybe had a parent working somewhere, and also, you know, some of us were very connected and into the community by that time. When I first started this, I worked for the American Red Cross, and I ran several programs there, and when this became so, taking up some of my time, the Red Cross gave me permission to just focus on developing the ASC, now this had nothing to do, because we didn’t do blood services in the Lehigh Valley. 0 2116 Medications for HIV/AIDS LB: So, what was I going to say? Okay, so there was a time when people were getting AIDS, or they were becoming infected ; there was absolutely nothing they could do. It was a death sentence.&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: Oh yeah, there was no medication or anything. They were just trying to figure out what was it, and what were some of the symptoms, and you know, and again, all of that information rolled quickly through a whole United States, in terms of, okay, look for these kind of sores. Well, if they’re having diarrhea and this, you know. So it rolled quick.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: There was a time, I think, when some medications, AZT, and some other medications, I was talking to somebody yesterday about a couple of medications, that he was a nurse, and he said, this isn’t working ; this is killing people. And it was a medicine that was destroying people’s hearts. It was such an interesting thing because I’d never heard of it before. Once there was medications involved, do you think, when was that shift, and how did that influence everything?&#13 ; 0 2456 Providing AIDS education in schools LB: So, with regard to that, this is going back a little bit, when you were doing education, were you able to get into schools, or were they not comfortable with that? I mean, some schools are so reticent about AIDS education.&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: Yeah, and I would say the religious schools never let us take a step towards them. But, I’m trying to think of when that popped a little. I think it’s because, we saw the importance of using the health bureaus to do that, because the health bureaus had a foot in a lot of places that we couldn’t, as a community. 0 2581 Providing condoms in nursing homes RC: Well, going back to like nineteen ninety-three, I would say, I remember taking all my stuff, dragging it up to one of the, I can’t think of the nursing home, the county nursing home, in Northampton County, and so I, you know, set up my display next to, you know, the transportation, or Meals on Wheels, and everybody, you know. And I had to call my staff twice to bring me more condoms. And I talked to the nurses up there, and they said, oh yeah, there’s a lot going on there, believe me. And it was, again, like you said, one of the funniest experiences. I thought well, life is not, it goes on, you know? And they didn’t care much about AIDS, although we still gave them the information. They had to take a brochure to read along with the condom, but it was hilarious, hilarious.&#13 ; 0 2742 Specific fundraisers for the AIDS Services Center and FACT LB: So, did the AIDS services center have specific fundraisers? Did you do Rainbow Restaurants, was that Red Ribbon Restaurants, or was that --&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: Oh no, what did we do? It was hilarious, number one. I was always thrown in jail.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Okay, one of those things.&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: Yeah, we had, I wish I could remember the name of it, but yes, we had wonderful, that you provided, you sold a table of people, and then you, servers, something, something with the word “servers” in it, somebody will remember it, but you know, you would fix a meal, and you would serve it to them, and it would cost them a certain amount, and if they wanted a fork, that would cost them another buck. You know, things like that, so we were very creative in doing that, and there were a whole lot of people, was it “Star Servers” or something like that, I don’t know, it was hilarious ; we did that. 0 2832 Mental health impact and support LB: Sure. But also, you were losing people, and I know that that was happening really quickly. I talked to one person who said that there were so many funerals that he had to stop going to them, because it was just too much for him. And Dave Moyer said to me, as I interviewed him last week, he said that, you know, it takes a while to get over the death of a friend, or a death of a close person. And if you’re having that every week, or three times a month, or twice a month, or once a month, that it takes two years to get over the death of a close friend, and if you have six close friends die, and I think that that might have been some of the issues that you were dealing with, were you providing mental health care too for, that kind of stuff?&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: We were hooking people up. We had some wonderful therapists. See, you’re bringing up different things, and then I remember, oh yeah, that whole, the mental health piece. We had some wonderful therapists in the area that put their services right out, you know, free counseling and stuff like that. So we’d hook people up with that as well, so there were some, everything from psychiatrists to a therapist, so it was quite a network of people. 0 3081 Involvement with passing the anti-discrimination ordinance in Allentown LB: But, some of the papers that Dixie gave me were about the effort to pass the anti-discrimination ordinance inclusion in nineteen seventy-eight. And were you there for that?&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: I was around for that, yes. And I knew Melissa Lee ; that was part of that. I don’t think I was involved with the center at that point in time. I don’t remember that.&#13 ; &#13 ; LB: Well I don’t think they had the center.&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: But I remember going into the hearings and being very vocal about the right with all of that, and stuff, so it was a strange time. In fact, back when that first one, I’m actually bisexual, and I was married at that time. I think I got Divorced, but I had always been involved with justice issues and things like that, so that’s why I got involved with that. 0 3229 Meeting Dixie White / Individuals who were on the FACT board RC: Yeah, I really don’t. It was, when I ended up being with someone, I remember hearing about this. How would I have heard about, I heard about it somehow. But by that time, I was in social services working at the Red Cross at that time, and they would have like, get-togethers, and parties, and come meet. And so I started going to those, and I think that’s how I met Dixie, at that, and it was social ; it was fun. It was a great way to get into the community and know the community, and because I hadn’t been involved with the community, so I started to know people, and it just grew from there. 0 3708 Involvement of the Latino community RC: For those other communities, and it brought in a whole bunch of wonderful, I think of Anna Claudio and people like that who just became wonderful, wonderful partners in all of this, and the Latino community just rallied, they really did. It was their family, and again, because so many gay people still were getting very ill, you couldn’t not know someone, you know, even if you were in South Bethlehem Latino community and you never in your life for sure ever saw anybody gay except maybe your second cousin Ricky who was a little strange. But you know, they met through feeding people, and taking furniture. They met gay men, and gay women, and you know, it’s again, in my mind, what community is really, really about. And you know, that was transforming, you know.&#13 ; 0 3777 Working with Dixie White at the AIDS Services Center LB: ...when you were working on this, and you were talking about Dixie, were you and Dixie working, both working at the same time, or were you one and then the other?&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: She was our first hire. We hired her as the executive director, and it was a small board ; it was myself, and Brian, and a couple of other people. I’m so bad with names, that I can’t remember. But there were several people, and we hired Dixie, and the Red Cross let me spend a lot of time helping her get that whole thing organized, and again, the piece that I did most of was out in the community, doing as much. She was the, do we have enough rubber bands? How are the paper clips? You know, here’s the file folder, you know, all that kind of stuff, and organizing, a wonderful organizing ability that she has. And I was more the ideas person, or the person who would go out there and talk about it. Because they already had some credibility in the community. And so I could do that very quickly. And then, the guys were raising money, and it was so crucial, and everybody was just doing as much as they could. But everybody had a niche of how they would be able to do it.&#13 ; 0 3965 Comparison of HIV/AIDS to COVID-19 LB: So do you want to talk a little bit about, you said a few things about COVID-19, but let’s talk a little bit about that in relation to the AIDS epidemic. I mean, you know, #ItsNotOurFirstVirus, which is what people are saying. But I think that, one of the things that’s pretty interesting about this is that, during the AIDS epidemic, during the height of the epidemic, those who were in the LGBT community were young ; I mean, we were in our twenties and thirties, maybe in our forties at the end of the epidemic when it was at its height, and we were helping our friends. You know, it’s pretty easy to do that when you’re in your twenties, to really do a lot of that work. Now that we’re aging, it’s a little harder, where also not only do we have this COVID epidemic, but for that baby boomer generation, we also have the aging epidemic which is a whole different ciRCumstance. But I mean, a lot of people have talked about the similars and the differences with regard to COVID and COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS, and you want to say some stuff about, how are you seeing that?&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: Well, I think the first thing that strikes me about it, going to the politics of it all, is that like HIV/AIDS, there was no recognition at the top. So we didn’t have like a national focus on, hey, let’s take care of this, together as a nation. Took a while, and I think the passage of Ryan White money was key, that there were some people in legislature who got it, and they got it usually because they had a child die, or they knew someone, and that’s how all of that, you know. So we had at least a framework within to work, and I think that’s been, certainly one of the issues with COVID. 0 4473 Advocating for your community LB: ...People are wanting COVID to be over now. And I think, for people who are minorities, because that’s what the LGBT community is, we are more used to dealing with things not necessarily going our way just because we want them to, and you know.&#13 ; &#13 ; RC: That’s a good point, yeah. And you know, we’re used to doing hard things. Because, everyday living is hard for members of our community. And it has been for a long time. And so, you kind of get used to that, and you also push back, which I think we do too ; we push back as much as we can without getting killed. And I think that’s why we probably have a lot of simpatico for all the racial justice things that are happening now. 0 Sound Rose Craig talks about her work as the last President of the Gay Community Center in Allentown in the 1980s and how the Center evolved into the AIDS Services Center in the late 1980s and early 1990s to address the crisis. She talks about what services the AIDS Services Center provided and her role in securing funding and support. ROSE CRAIG LIZ BRADURY: audio. Whoops. I'm going to start the recording thing, recording on this computer. There we go. And I'm going to say these things. Uh-oh. ROSE CRAIG: (inaudible) lost you. Hold on. LB: There we go. RC: You there? LB: Yeah. RC: All right, I was trying to turn up my volume. There we go. LB: Oh, that's good. I'm going to do that too. Okay, there we go, I'm starting again. So, with this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I'm here with Rose Craig to talk about her experiences in Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We're meeting on Zoom on June thirtieth, and Rose, what town are you in? RC: I'm actually in Columbus, Ohio right now. LB: Okay, all right. That's good. Now I have to go to page two. There we go. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? RC: Yeah, it's actually Rosemary Craig, known as Rose, and Craig is C-R-A-I-G. LB: Okay. And, will you please share your birthdate? RC: The year too? LB: You don't have to. (laughter) You don't have to. It's okay if you can't -- RC: November twenty-seventh, a long time ago. LB: Okay. Do you consent to this interview today? RC: Yes, I do. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in Searchable formats? RC: Yes, I do. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes on other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other format? RC: Yes. LB: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts you'd like to delete, or withdraw, from your interview from the project? So we will send you a transcribed interview, and if there are parts that you want to tweak up, that's fine. If you say, I hate this whole thing, we can throw it out, we can do it again if you want. Although I'm sure it'll be fine. RC: I'm sure it will. LB: So, okay. So then I start by saying, in the midst of the current public health crisis that we are experiencing, we want to take this opportunity to look back and reflect, and to capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the nineteen-forties and through the nineties, and we're really specifically talking about nineteen eighty-five to nineteen ninety-three. So, the first question, and really you can say whatever you want on this Rose, and you can, whatever you want. But do you remember the first time you became aware of AIDS and HIV? RC: Yes, I actually do ; I remember that. And it was probably around nineteen eighty-five, I would say, and I think I was the last president of the Lehigh Valley Gay and Lesbian Community Center, located in Allentown, Eighth and Hamilton. And we began to hear things and stories from our friends, mostly the boys, as we called them, went to New York, there was a lot of that, to the big city, because we had easy access, and they came back with stories of people getting sick, and you know, really, we felt bad about it, but we really didn't know it'd be anything in relationship to us ; we just thought it was a New York thing. And at that time, nobody knew what it was, whether it was a flu, kind of like the COVID situation, or cancer, perhaps. But, in very short time, people began dying from it. So there was only a tiny, tiny space between learning about it and suddenly a lot of dead people. But still, that was in New York. It didn't take more than a month or two for some of our friends, and good friends at the Community Center began getting ill. And back then, as I recall, it was a quick dive. It was not a long, long, long time between contracting whatever this was and then really bedridden and then dead, frankly. The hospitals didn't know what to do with them. In the hospitals, they had quarantines of all sorts because nobody knew what it was, but everybody knew they were gay men, so that was one of our first battles was getting that to stop, so that they weren't singled out or anything. You know, back in the eighties, it was very progressivist for us to even have a community center in Allentown, and we not only were a social group, but we also helped change the law in Allentown with the human relations commission, Melissa Lee was the head back then, and we got gays and lesbians on as a protected class in Allentown, and we also had worked with a couple school districts to do the same. So, you know, we had a little bit of politics going, certainly an awareness of it, but it was nothing like the deep water we got into when AIDS really came to town. LB: Right, yeah. So you were involved with the community center, and then you had additional involvement. I'm just going to turn off my air conditioner, but go ahead and just take a second. But you were involved with the AIDS Services Center too, is that true? RC: Yeah, absolutely. Actually, that came about from the community center. We were beginning to have so many people that we socialized with all the time getting ill that suddenly there were not many more parties, frankly, but it was mostly, okay, how do we help our friends? You know, and it was a joint effort by the guys and the lesbians. Dixie White was a great trooper with myself and a couple of other women, that were pretty good organizers ; we both had had long histories organizing the community around different issues, and at that point, and again, I was the last president, so I proposed that we, instead of being a community center, we change ourselves to being a service center, and we also took our models from New York, Philadelphia, there weren't many towns or areas our size that had this. But because of our proximity, I think, to New York, we had a lot of people who were in and out of the big towns. So we got besieged pretty quickly, and it didn't take long at all for all of us to agree that that's what we need to do. So we dissolved the community center, and we began the AIDS Services Center. We moved out of our location in Allentown and moved into a smaller place in Bethlehem, and Dixie White was the first executive director, and again, because she'd had a lot of experience at organizing, we were able to get the organization up-and-running within a few months. So we had a board of directors ; we had everything we needed for the 501(c)3 application, got that approved. Part of my job was to get out there and sell this to the typical regular funders in the community to make them aware of what was going on. Because back then, nobody was really talking about it, especially in Allentown or Bethlehem, or at least in Pennsylvania. And the whole issue about being gay was again something that wasn't a real popular topic. LB: Where was the community center, do you remember? Was that on Hamilton Street? RC: It was on Eighth and Hamilton, up above, on the second floor. LB: I'm losing your picture ; your picture is disappearing. Can you tilt your phone a little bit? There, that's perfect. RC: I got excited thinking about the Chinese restaurant, Rubes, right below us. Yeah, it was around, I guess Eighth and Hamilton, Ninth and Hamilton, up on the second floor, on the south side, and it was a great big area because again we were a community center, so we were having parties and dances and all the other kind of stuff. So, we knew that that wasn't going to work for what we needed to do, and so that's why we got out of that place and went into a smaller place, and started the business of taking care of people. LB: Yeah. And so, when you moved to Bethlehem, do you remember where that was, the address of that, approximately? RC: Yeah, I've been trying to think of that today, and can't remember where it was. But it was probably, not quite in downtown, but right around that neighborhood of downtown in Bethlehem. So we just moved one city over, and then eventually, we moved to a suite of rooms in a space in downtown Bethlehem, so that was a real nice space. LB: I think I remember where that was, yeah. So, people were saying to you, like people are dying and stuff. What was some of the stuff that you were providing in terms of services for people? RC: That's a good question. Part of what we provided at that point in time, now, there were people in the community, and people associated with us that were really doing the handholding, feeding, taking care of, wiping the behinds of our friends who got ill quickly ; there were a lot of angels out there doing that kind of work. And we were certainly associated with that. One of the skills that we could actually bring was the fact that both Dixie and I knew how to navigate the system, the human relations system, and the nonprofit system within the Lehigh Valley. And it was important, because part of what we had to do was also educate, to inform the community about what this was, why this was important, and again, it just brought out a whole lot of different issues. But we know how to work that, and we did. We politically were very savvy and knew how to work that aspect of it. At the same time, we went out there and we hustled money, and this was the time that actually FACT grew out of that ; Brian and several of the guys thought, okay, we really need to get an arm of raising money from our community. And they, I understand, continue to do that, and have done an extraordinary job. And that's kind of where the guys went more into that area of fundraising, which was great. So we took on the politics ; we took on the day-to-day coordination, and they took a lot of the fundraising. Myself and a couple of others went after grants and things which were just beginning to show, money for AIDS, the Ryan White bill was huge, and bringing actual money from the government. So, we jumped on all of that, and wrote grants and did things like that, and also looked for corporate sponsors to see if we could find some. So that was a whole bit of what we were doing. So we knew that we wanted to add case management, was what we called it at the time, and basically, that was a matter of looking at the person, sort of holistically, and seeing, what did they need? Did they need a place to stay? Did they need some nursing care? Did they need food? You know, what was it that each particular person needed? So in order to coordinate that, we needed to hire some people who could actually do that social work aspect of making sure that the needs were met. And so that grew to be a very important part of what we did, and what we provided for the community, and also an important part of the grant-writing so that we had something to offer. Now at this same time, it's kind of like having plates spinning in the air, because there were several things going on at the time as well. Part of it was the religious community ; there were courageous people within the religious community who were also looking at this issue, and I'll very proudly talk about our association with the Episcopal diocese, was wonderful, from the beginning. There were Catholic priests from the beginning who were willing to -- it was in the basement of the church but were willing to give -- we had to think of the whole thing, including funerals and burying people. And don't forget at that time, and I suppose this still goes on, but at that time, there was a lot of separation of people from their families, and the community became people's family, so there weren't the usual supports in place that one might expect if you had cancer, or something like that. So we had to all be involved doing it all for that particular person. And we shot up very quickly until we were covering about three-hundred people a year at least in servicing all that stuff. LB: So people would come to you, or they would be referred or something, and then they would be -- RC: Oh yeah, it was like, hey Joe is in trouble ; he's down the street. You know, it was a very great network of people who knew people. And you know, again, this all evolved out of our friends dying, and us trying to figure out what the hell can we do to do that, and that was the basic reason why it all went that way. And you know, again, the religious community came in and supported, and then as I said earlier, the Ryan White money began to be available. And I was just talking to Kathleen Kelly who is a good friend who was head of human services and drug and alcohol and all those things for Northampton County, and her counterpoint in Lehigh County, were looking at this money and saying, okay, how can we help? Because by this time also, the health bureaus were involved from each city, magnificently involved and wonderful. So many people, I couldn't even, you know, remember all the names of all the people who came forward from the beginning. And that was so important to the community. So anyway, we, and Billy Leh, and people like that, we wrote the first big government grant that was like a million dollars to get some of that into the Lehigh Valley, and then out of that, we needed to have a coordinating base. It wasn't the AIDS service center, because we were too busy then providing services ; we were really busy. I think out of that, the AIDS Task FoRCe group, and that was made up of a whole lot of different people, not only from the service area, but from the religious area, from the business community and government, and so this was the first place that everybody was kind of coming around that table, and looking at each other and saying, okay, we've got a major health crisis here, you know, and it's with a group of people, a community that are not very popular ; again, people didn't want to talk about, certainly, AIDS, and they also, it was just a hard time to be gay. Anyway, but as we all well know, all of us older people know. But we all came around this table and sort of looked at each other like, okay, well what are we going to do here? And we did get the grant, and we did come up with ways to get the money, setting up a way to give the money out to certain organizations within the community to best spend it, including the health bureaus and everything, and because it was a, we're trying to think today, when I was talking to Kathleen, it must have been a federal grant that came down to the states. So there were a lot of crossing Ts and dotting Is, and a lot of follow-up with, okay you have to do this. You know, but we had people who knew how to do that, and they all volunteered to be part of this AIDS task force, and so that's when it kind of really got off the ground that we were a movement here in the Lehigh Valley. LB: When that happened and you go that money, do you know about when that was? RC: That must have been around, I would say, venture to say maybe eighty-eight, eighty-nine? LB: Okay, so that's really in the height of stuff. RC: So actually, you know, it was a little earlier than that because, no it was eighty-eight, eighty-nine, around that time. LB: When that happened, and you had that money, so if somebody came, AIDS, oh there's a huge rainbow out my window. It's an omen. So, the folks, I've interviewed a number of people already and they were talking about FACT, and what FACT did, and where they funneled their money. But for AIDS services center, when you're talking about case management, was that specifically to try to get people into healthcare? RC: I mean, every month, practically, we were learning more about what this disease, and believe me, we watched, and very closely, New York, Philadelphia, the big cities, San Francisco, you know, conversations with people there to find out, so how do you this? Or how do you do that? Because there were some, you know, unique things about this particular disease and situation. And so, we really were finding out more and more as we went along, and we matured as we were doing that. Believe me, not without a lot of pain and suffering by the people who were organizing. (laughs) As you know, Liz, being an organizer yourself, you know, trying to get everybody, I didn't care if they were happy ; I just wanted them at the table and contributing something, you know. As a lot of dear old friends would say, you know, I was a real -- they called me "the bitch," but you know, there it is, a real straight-shooter. That was okay ; we were fine with that. No problem. And Dixie was the other bitch, but we were good. But they also loved us, and knew that we were really making a difference, and that was important too, so. LB: "Bitch" is just another word for the person who gets things done. RC: Exactly, that's exactly right. (laughs) LB: But I guess what I'm trying to find out is that, when the money came in, what did it go for? Did it go to support people's medical bills? Did it support their rent? Did it support everything? What kind of -- RC: Yes, yes, and yes. And it also supported education, and it supported funerals, and we got to watch the metamorphosis of HIV/AIDS going from just gay men at that time on to other populations. And in the early nineties, for instance, I actually ended up being the executive director at the AIDS services center for a couple of years, and at that time, we were just discovering about the HIV, about the intravenous drug users, and so needle sharing, and all of that was just hitting the road. And Lehigh Valley has always had a wonderful Latino population, and we were finding more and more that it was hitting that population hard. And not only the person who was doing the shooting, but also family members, we had children. So all of this was, again, this maturing, this rolling on and seeing oh my god, okay, now what do we do with that, you know, we got to take care of a family. The family needs their rent, you know, so we just went on and on. And believe me, this money went quick. And the education piece, though, was very, very important ; I don't know if you talked to anybody about that. But, we were out everywhere talking about condoms, you know, we had condoms everywhere, including my two teenage kids who were like, mom, can't you have cookies at the front door and not a bowl of condoms for us and our friends? You know, but that was, you know, we're scared to death of how that could spread everywhere. So it was all tragic, tragic. But there were people, like I said in the community, gay and straight, who just held the torch for all of this, and I'll never forget losing a couple of very close friends, some guys, and also when it hit the kids, that was heartbreaking. I remember kids that we would drop things off for, and you know, four years old, five years old, babies, all of that. So it was a nasty thing. Meanwhile, the rest of the community had some, a semblance of looking at this and saying, oh, this is bad, you know. We had reduced the number of people who were saying things like, well, that's what they deserve, because I don't know how you say that to a child. So you know, that was something I could really promote to banks and places like that to give money. It's a terrible thing to say, but you know, we hustled everywhere, everywhere, and there are some banks, like, I'll say Chase Bank was one of the very first to come on board, and you know, there were just some businesses that got it, and stayed involved, and we were lucky to have some of those in the Lehigh Valley. LB: Did you have any politicians that were really in your corner that you should name, I'd love to hear about those, because some of them were terrific, I know. RC: We actually ended up having some people that were like state legislators, some mayors ; I remember Bethlehem, and Allentown, you know, the people within their own organizations. You know, this was starting to be, everybody started to know somebody who had it. And so it began that kind of groundswell so that it popped up to higher levels. And there were some people, even within the school districts, who came forward and did support. So I would say, you know, I wouldn't say any of that happened overnight, and I wouldn't say any of that happened without a lot of effort and a lot of tears. I remember myself and another good friend, a guy, we used to be the spokespeople ; we'd go out and talk about what it was like to be mainstream, because neither he, he worked, he had a very important job at Air Products and you know, I looked like everybody's chubby mother, you know? So we would go out and talk to people about, so this is what gay looks like too, you know, and -- LB: Who was that? RC: -- we went to the universities and things like that, and tried to enlighten people as much as we could. LB: Who was that from Air Products? Was it Charlie? RC: Charlie Versaggi. LB: Charlie Versaggi, I was just talking to him a few minutes ago. RC: Love him ; he's a darling. Yeah, oh he'll remember all that. LB: I'm going to interview him at the end of the week, so yeah. RC: Oh, good. Well that was a lot, the community center, we did that to upgrade, but all of that helped us then be able to communicate and talk about HIV/AIDS. And I knew many a straight wonderful woman who went out with their cucumber and condoms and you know. (laughs) We're giving that talk all over, bless their hearts, I really mean it. Bless their hearts ; they were unafraid, and that was really something. LB: There was a time I think when people were, when you were talking about nineteen eighty-five when people were noticing that people were dying, and a lot of people didn't know how this was happening. I remember, I was a college teacher then, and somebody, a student asking me, well how do you keep from getting it? Because like, we didn't know where it was coming from, how is it passed around? And was there a time that you can remember that you started to pinpoint that say, oh, this is how you keep from getting it, and this is what we need to tell people? RC: Yeah, absolutely. We were in the pipeline early on, with the health bureaus, especially were very, very connected. You know, and we learned from them. And again, the whole world was just learning this. It's so funny, when I see the doctor, can't think of him of course at this moment, who is the one to believe about COVID, was the same guy who worked a lot on AIDS, yeah. And so, we had our trusted sources that we paid attention to, and we learned and we learned, and we let anybody who knew something come in. It was a very open kind of, what do you got it? Oh, come on in, you know. What can you do? Can you go do that school tomorrow? (laughs) You know, so it was a community of people, and how we learned everything was by having some of those people be very smart and very connected to health systems and stuff. And like I said, we would call into New York, or we would call into Philadelphia to say, hey, are you seeing this? You know, have you seen this yet? And as we, at the AIDS Services Center grew, we hired more case managers and we had bilingual people, and you know, and they were right on the front line of, you know, figure out how to do the best thing, and everybody shared every and all their information. That was one of the things I think that always stayed with me, about how willing people were to contribute in any way that they could, and believe me, we were not without infighting and, you know, he said this, she said -- that kind of thing. But the better good really is what ruled the day, and when it got right down to brass tacks, people were there. LB: So, when you were doing this and you were doing case management stuff, did you have specific doctors and health care workings that you were referring to people who were really like heroes at the time? RC: Yes, absolutely. LB: Can you remember some of those people? RC: Can't remember a single name. (laughter) LB: Other people can. RC: There were wonderful doctors, oh gosh, I'm sure if you talk to somebody who might have been there during the health bureau, I remember at St. Luke's we had some wonderful -- I'll tell you who would also know would be some of the chaplains from St. Luke's who have been there a long while, Ann Huey would know some of this, as per, because they worked very closely with the doctors too, so that's a good source. I was on the end of hustle, so I was not a direct care person ever. But I could get you anything you needed to do it, and that was always my job, so I don't have the, I don't remember the names of folks, but they were there. They were there in every hospital system. Sometimes they couldn't talk about it. And sometimes it wasn't something that the hospital would even talk about, but they were there ; they were there. LB: So, you were talking about some of the corporations that were supportive, and how did you get into some of those places and get them to step up? Were there instances, and I know there were some corporations that had CEOs who had children, adult children, who were sick, or who had HIV, and talk about some of that kind of stuff. RC: Well, if you could find somebody, and there was always somebody who had a child that was gay. That was where they started. Or you know, it was not beneath us to reach out to anybody that we knew that maybe had a parent working somewhere, and also, you know, some of us were very connected and into the community by that time. When I first started this, I worked for the American Red Cross, and I ran several programs there, and when this became so, taking up some of my time, the Red Cross gave me permission to just focus on developing the ASC, now this had nothing to do, because we didn't do blood services in the Lehigh Valley. The Red Cross didn't do it, rather. But I was given time and we had members of the board from the Red Cross. We'd just find one person who knew another person. The Churches brought in people. Dear guy, who died recently I understand, Bill Coles, was from Dun &amp ; Bradstreet, and he was there. He committed all the Resources, you know, that he could. There were people from Beth Steel. You know, there was, Air Products became, and some of these people organizing this, some foundations locally, you know, we became really good friends with them, and just sort of said, hey, here we are. What can you help us with? What can you show us? We were a very humble beginning, because it was like, we don't know what we're doing, but we're doing it, and it's got to be addressed ; how can you help? And it was one person by one person. There was still big corporations that didn't want anything to do with it, you know, that's fine. But I have to say that everyone involved knew someone who knew someone who knew someone, and that, again, it was that groundswell that we started from the beginning, and reaching out, which I think is true community organizing, but it also got us up there with the big guys, and you know. We did a lot of that, as much as we could. And again, I count as friends some incredible people who were part of all that who gave a lot, at risk in some times, because it was new. Air Products is a good example of someone who said, okay Rose, you know, what's this about? You know, and they were there, and Ed Meehan from the foundation at Lehigh Valley Hospital. People like that, I mean, we were all together in this pretty quickly ; we just, you know, converged. LB: So, what was I going to say? Okay, so there was a time when people were getting AIDS, or they were becoming infected ; there was absolutely nothing they could do. It was a death sentence. RC: Oh yeah, there was no medication or anything. They were just trying to figure out what was it, and what were some of the symptoms, and you know, and again, all of that information rolled quickly through a whole United States, in terms of, okay, look for these kind of sores. Well, if they're having diarrhea and this, you know. So it rolled quick. LB: There was a time, I think, when some medications, AZT, and some other medications, I was talking to somebody yesterday about a couple of medications, that he was a nurse, and he said, this isn't working ; this is killing people. And it was a medicine that was destroying people's hearts. It was such an interesting thing because I'd never heard of it before. Once there was medications involved, do you think, when was that shift, and how did that influence everything? RC: That shift, as I recall, happened in the early nineties, maybe ninety-three. I'm thinking around that time, when we called it "the cocktail," of course, was starting to be given. And I'll tell you, everybody, doctors, everybody, were surprised as hell that this worked, because nothing had worked before, the different things they tried. And suddenly, I wish I were more knowledgeable on all the medical ends of it, and if I knew it once, I don't remember, but suddenly they got the right combination of things and it was having a real effect. So we moved from, as soon as you get it everybody, you're going to die, kind of thinking, to okay, well you know, there might be some people who aren't, and so that grew then, of course, and that's the story today, grown so much better. But through all that, we still had to do a lot of prevention, because there were still scores of young people, young men getting the disease, and nothing you could tell anybody would stop them. And is that any different from what's going on right now? You know, people not wearing masks out on the beaches, stuff like that, it's like, it's that invincible feeling that you have at certain span of years. Well that was the same thing with AIDS, you know, they were sure they weren't going to get it. You know, sometimes you were supposed to tell anybody if you had it. That became a legal issue later on. You know, so it brought out, as does any public health issue, I think, that gets to the pandemic stage, brought up every single corner of things that could go wrong, do go wrong, and trying to repair it and fix it, and you know, two steps forward, three steps back, that kind of thing. And that is to me reflected so much today in what we're currently battling. But that, on top of, we have to remember always, and this is why you're doing this wonderful work, that the basis was in the gay community, and that was always a struggle ; that was always because people, to change, it didn't happen overnight for a lot of people, but they were willing to try, and eventually they had a whole different view of the community. But that was a long time coming. It was a lot of education that had to be made again and again and again and again. I don't know how many city council meetings in different cities did I talk to, to tell them why this is an issue that we all share ; why this is important for Allentown, or Bethlehem, or Easton, to take this on as something that needed their support, needed their interest, and you know, just, it took a lot to do that. I think with the COVID, there's not quite that stigma, I would guess, I don't know, that the gay people -- "the gay people" -- what we endured during that time. But I can also see the things that are happening today with, you know, the populations, the minority populations and such, you know, getting infected, most. Well of course, those are the same people who couldn't get anything, or have anything. We were lucky, actually in some ways, and starting, that it was gay white men who had money, and had income, and were willing to share. So, that was one thing, and have insurance, so it did start. That went all to hell quickly, believe me, but it did start with some people being resourced, as is very different from what we're experiencing today. LB: So, with regard to that, this is going back a little bit, when you were doing education, were you able to get into schools, or were they not comfortable with that? I mean, some schools are so reticent about AIDS education. RC: Yeah, and I would say the religious schools never let us take a step towards them. But, I'm trying to think of when that popped a little. I think it's because, we saw the importance of using the health bureaus to do that, because the health bureaus had a foot in a lot of places that we couldn't, as a community. So, they became our friends, and very willingly, they were. And so they got in under that, you know, that credibility, and was a great help. We knew people, we had all kinds, everywhere we went, we took condoms ; I remember that. And believe me, that was not a popular thing, and some of the social services, what are those things, that you get a fair, some place with all the social services, well we would come with our little pot of condoms, you know, and do our thing, and sometimes, that was not viewed very well. But for the most time, we were all pretty ballsy, so we were right there, saying, uh-huh. Well let me tell you about this. LB: I got to tell you, Rose now, because of my age, I do senior fairs sometimes, and I have a big bowl of condoms. RC: Oh my gosh. LB: And it's so funny. Like I've actually said to the younger people at the center, if you want to have a hilarious, hysterical laugh, come and do this thing with the condoms with the seniors, because they're not, they're like, well, I just put my name on eHarmony, so maybe I should take two. I actually had a woman say that. So it's been pretty hilarious, you know? I honestly love that. RC: Well, going back to like nineteen ninety-three, I would say, I remember taking all my stuff, dragging it up to one of the, I can't think of the nursing home, the county nursing home, in Northampton County, and so I, you know, set up my display next to, you know, the transportation, or Meals on Wheels, and everybody, you know. And I had to call my staff twice to bring me more condoms. And I talked to the nurses up there, and they said, oh yeah, there's a lot going on there, believe me. And it was, again, like you said, one of the funniest experiences. I thought well, life is not, it goes on, you know? And they didn't care much about AIDS, although we still gave them the information. They had to take a brochure to read along with the condom, but it was hilarious, hilarious. LB: It's pretty funny, isn't it? So I know that the bars were doing the summer games. You were probably going up there to set up with the summer games. RC: Oh yeah. Yup, up the Poconos, yeah. LB: So, did you have a table there, or were you sort of working the room, or may speaking -- RC: Well, I was always working a room, as you can imagine. But we always had a table. Wherever we could take our information, we did. And we were blessed to have, like I said, a lot of people out there who were willing to go and, you know, have stuff out, answer questions, things like that. And we got to, testing was part of, I think, what we ended up doing too ; I'm trying to remember all that. So there was, you know, important stuff to be done, and we just tried to be able to provide what we could provide, you know, to the community. LB: Yeah, so yeah, now you know, it's interesting, because then tests took so long, and now we've got the twenty-minute testing stuff, and it's really significant at a pride festival where people can just go into a truck or something. RC: I know. That's wonderful ; it's incredible. LB: Because that was (inaudible). RC: But again, the maturity of everything connected to this whole industry, I remember calling it that, and scaring some people. But it really was by that time. You know, there was just so much to it, and so many different aspects of it that we had to figure out how to cover, so. LB: So, did the AIDS services center have specific fundraisers? Did you do Rainbow Restaurants, was that Red Ribbon Restaurants, or was that -- RC: Oh no, what did we do? It was hilarious, number one. I was always thrown in jail. LB: Okay, one of those things. RC: Yeah, we had, I wish I could remember the name of it, but yes, we had wonderful, that you provided, you sold a table of people, and then you, servers, something, something with the word "servers" in it, somebody will remember it, but you know, you would fix a meal, and you would serve it to them, and it would cost them a certain amount, and if they wanted a fork, that would cost them another buck. You know, things like that, so we were very creative in doing that, and there were a whole lot of people, was it "Star Servers" or something like that, I don't know, it was hilarious ; we did that. You know, there's nothing more fun than a group of gay people, actually. (laughter) When it gets down to it. And of course FACT, always had their balls, which, that will be taken many different ways, I'm sure. But my point is, they always had a big celebration -- LB: The snowball. RC: Yeah, snowball. LB: They celebrated. RC: (inaudible) a lot about that, yeah. So you know, every way we could figure out to do it, we were trying to do it. But there were some very fun times connected to all that. LB: Sure. But also, you were losing people, and I know that that was happening really quickly. I talked to one person who said that there were so many funerals that he Ahad to stop going to them, because it was just too much for him. And Dave Moyer said to me, as I interviewed him last week, he said that, you know, it takes a while to get over the death of a friend, or a death of a close person. And if you're having that every week, or three times a month, or twice a month, or once a month, that it takes two years to get over the death of a close friend, and if you have six close friends die, and I think that that might have been some of the issues that you were dealing with, were you providing mental health care too for, that kind of stuff? RC: We were hooking people up. We had some wonderful therapists. See, you're bringing up different things, and then I remember, oh yeah, that whole, the mental health piece. We had some wonderful therapists in the area that put their services right out, you know, free counseling and stuff like that. So we'd hook people up with that as well, so there were some, everything from psychiatrists to a therapist, so it was quite a network of people. And then, as I recall, when the counties were involved, we were able to get some of that stuff funded for people, so the services were free. We integrated it into, so you didn't know someone was going for a therapy for that as opposed to therapy for, you know, something else, bulimia or something. So we tried as much as we could to integrate people into the regular systems, because there was such a need out there, and you know, so that's how we worked that. But it was a time of great tragedy, and great -- courage. LB: Courage is the word. RC: Yeah. And people, at the beginning, it happened so quickly, and I think that's probably some of what David's talking about. It just was, it was just right and left, right and left. And it was a terrible time for all of that ; we just didn't know quite know what to do, except to honor that person as best as we could, and that's what we did. LB: And then organize. RC: And then try to prevent less, so it wouldn't spread to everybody. All, just like this big ball that rolled, yeah. LB: I have to say that, you know, I was in the Valley then ; I didn't know as many people, but I can really say that as a small community, which per se, compared to New York, Chicago, you know, San Francisco, there was an extraordinary response. And part of that was, because you had an organized community, because you had that community center already organized. So how did that start? Were you there -- let me just step back a little bit more -- because Dixie White gave me a lot of her papers, and just, Elizabeth Goff just moved another fourteen boxes of Dixie's papers into the community center. They're all going to go into the Muhlenberg ARChive, which is terrific. RC: As they should. LB: And thank goodness that she kept that stuff, even though some people may have said it was hoarding, but still, we had those papers too, and they started that aRChive with about ten boxes of our papers, because we kept every single thing, and so it was real good that we did that. RC: You know, I think the AIDS Service Center, I had like four boxes forever in my closet wherever I lived, like I got to get this back somewhere. I finally did get it back, and I can't remember -- LB: Well if Dixie has it, we have it now. RC: I was going to say, probably you have it now -- LB: That could be good. RC: -- forever kind of like, I got to get that to somebody, but yeah, it was precious. Precious stuff in there. LB: But, some of the papers that Dixie gave me were about the effort to pass the anti-discrimination ordinance inclusion in nineteen seventy-eight. And were you there for that? RC: I was around for that, yes. And I knew Melissa Lee ; that was part of that. I don't think I was involved with the center at that point in time. I don't remember that. LB: Well I don't think they had the center. RC: But I remember going into the hearings and being very vocal about the right with all of that, and stuff, so it was a strange time. In fact, back when that first one, I'm actually bisexual, and I was married at that time. I think I got Divorced, but I had always been involved with justice issues and things like that, so that's why I got involved with that. And my brother was in the Bethlehem school district who helped get some of that going in the eighties to make sure that people's sexual orientation was part of their -- so we grew up like that, our parents were social ministers, we had a soup kitchen in Philadelphia, so that's where our minds went and our thinking went. Yes, so I didn't get involved with, I'm trying to think where I met Dixie. I didn't know Dixie at that time ; I had seen her, but I didn't know her at that time. I met her a little bit later, and I think it was around the, I don't know, it could have been a party ; who knows? LB: That effort was in nineteen seventy-eight, and then people came together to start the community center. I think Bob Whitman was involved with that, Bob Whitman and Frank Whalen. RC: Oh Frank Whalen, yes. LB: Yeah, he's still around. Well, I think they've moved to Philadelphia now. But they've talked about that. And then their papers, I think, are all at the library, although we wish we had them because we're (inaudible) cataloging them. But still, the question is, my question is, do you remember, like, how the community center really started, or when you got involved with that community center on Hamilton Street? RC: Yeah, I really don't. It was, when I ended up being with someone, I remember hearing about this. How would I have heard about, I heard about it somehow. But by that time, I was in social services working at the Red Cross at that time, and they would have like, get-togethers, and parties, and come meet. And so I started going to those, and I think that's how I met Dixie, at that, and it was social ; it was fun. It was a great way to get into the community and know the community, and because I hadn't been involved with the community, so I started to know people, and it just grew from there. And I guess it was at least a few years of that. And then, I'm trying to think why that, it started to dwindle before, the popularity of that. I think there were several clubs you could go to. You know, I think just people ran out of steam for organizing. And then just when we're like comfortably thinking, oh well maybe we could close this down, AIDS hit. And so, we all, whether we were tired or not, we had to ramp it up, and the rest is history, so to speak. Parties were over for a while, for sure. LB: Yeah, that's for sure, yeah. And so, who, do you remember any of the people that were on the board then that were making those decisions, did you make those changes? RC: I think Brian -- LB: Brian [Marks? RC: Yes, Brian Mariks, Markie, who I can't remember her last name. I think she was part of it. David Houseknecht, he was very instrumental in putting together -- he was sick, but he lasted for a few years, but he was right there with all of it. Carl. LB: Yeah, Carl Mancino. RC: Carl Mancino. LB: He's still around, sure. RC: Who I love, love, love. David Moyer, I mean, just folks like that that were, there were a couple of women too, I'm trying to think of. I can see them in my mind, but I can't remember their names. But, they're still around ; I know that. Anyway, so it was not a large group of people towards the end, but it was at least a couple of dozen people who would show up for different things, until it changed. But people who are still around, because now we're all old, but you know. I remember a lot of community center funds, and then we'd all go to the bars. So that was all that anybody had at that point in time, you know, going to Stonewall, or Rosemary's, a couple of other places, Diamondz and things like that. That was our life, our community, until it got to be not so much fun and we had to work. (laughs) LB: Yeah, although there were still people ; I think the bars were really instrumental in making FACT happen, and -- RC: Oh, totally, absolutely. LB: And there was quite a, they really rose to that occasion I think in a lot of ways in a positive way. RC: Oh, they did indeed, and you know, I can't say enough. Brian and I didn't always get along, but -- LB: You're all working for the same thing, though. RC: Yeah I mean, but again, we both knew that we were fighting for the same cause. He'd give me the shirt off his back, and he knew I would do the same. So I think that was, you know, just sort of what the bottom line was for everybody. But we were very vested in it, and I mean that in the way that, this really was our community, and we knew it. And we knew that if no one else was going to do something, and we knew that that was going to be the case, we were going to do it. So you know, people, like I said, stepped away from lots of fun things, or were spending time doing things in their lives, and dedicated themselves to this, and that was no small feat for a lot of people. It think Scott Allen and so many wonderful -- Kit [Hower?], wonderful people who were involved. LB: Yeah, I'm interviewing Scott on Thursday. (laughs) RC: Oh, my love. LB: Say hi to him for me. Yeah, he was enthusiastic about it, so. I think that one of the things that happened was the changes with regards to medication and finally science was weighing in, and people were acknowledging that this was happening. But a lot of people have talked about the lack of response from society, and particularly elected officials. Were you aware and thinking about that then? I mean, what do you think about that? RC: Oh my goodness, oh yeah, yeah. I mean, that was, you know, the politics that, I mean through my time at the Red Cross, I was very involved in different initiatives that involved politicians, you know? But you know, this was the time you have to remember that nobody even wanted to say the word HIV/AIDS, or gay, or any of that. You know, a politician would no more have said, you know, my lesbian friend here, I mean, just, I remember when Clinton said "lesbian" the first time on national television, I about fell off my chair, you know, I was so proud of him doing that. But no, nobody was talking about that. LB: It's so amazing when you would take that tiny little thing, you know, that one little thing, can't you just do this, you know, that one thing. RC: Yes, exactly. Say the word! You know, and again, I have to say that when, some of it shifted into other populations and things, it made it more palatable, if I can say that, and you know, fine. Whatever gets you on the wagon, get on the wagon, and we'll teach you more as we go, and that's what happened to a lot of people, that they learned to love some of the men, just as friends. There was a lot of learning, and a lot of evolving that we got to see too. And that was, I don't know how we would have done it without the whole community of people, honestly. LB: Right. RC: They saved lives. LB: I remember one of the things that happened, you know, people would do fundraising. I remember somebody calling me up here at one time, it was coming from the hospital, and they said that they wanted me to donate money, because children had AIDS, and I said, okay, all right. Tell me more about this. And they said, well they're innocent victims. And I'm like, okay, what does that mean? So they're innocent, huh? RC: That wasn't one of our folks. LB: I know, (laughter) I thought, this is not -- RC: Well I'll tell you, I was able to really raise some money. LB: This does not come from an LGBT organization. RC: For those other communities, and it brought in a whole bunch of wonderful, I think of Anna Claudio and people like that who just became wonderful, wonderful partners in all of this, and the Latino community just rallied, they really did. It was their family, and again, because so many gay people still were getting very ill, you couldn't not know someone, you know, even if you were in South Bethlehem Latino community and you never in your life for sure ever saw anybody gay except maybe your second cousin Ricky who was a little strange. But you know, they met through feeding people, and taking furniture. They met gay men, and gay women, and you know, it's again, in my mind, what community is really, really about. And you know, that was transforming, you know. LB: Yeah, well that's pretty great. I think, when you were working on this, and you were talking about Dixie, were you and Dixie working, both working at the same time, or were you one and then the other? RC: She was our first hire. We hired her as the executive director, and it was a small board ; it was myself, and Brian, and a couple of other people. I'm so bad with names, that I can't remember. But there were several people, and we hired Dixie, and the Red Cross let me spend a lot of time helping her get that whole thing organized, and again, the piece that I did most of was out in the community, doing as much. She was the, do we have enough rubber bands? How are the paper clips? You know, here's the file folder, you know, all that kind of stuff, and organizing, a wonderful organizing ability that she has. And I was more the ideas person, or the person who would go out there and talk about it. Because they already had some credibility in the community. And so I could do that very quickly. And then, the guys were raising money, and it was so crucial, and everybody was just doing as much as they could. But everybody had a niche of how they would be able to do it. LB: Yeah, a lot of people had special skills that they were all bringing together. RC: Even when I went on to work at Just Born, I was their community affairs person, I was able to take that message about AIDS to people who hadn't heard a whole lot about it, to get their understanding and support. Then I had a lot of colleagues in different corporations, and that's one of the ways that we started really talking about it by then, and this was about ninety-five, ninety-si around that time, and being able to bring it to other places that hadn't previously really been involved. So it was just a spiderweb of all kinds of connections. LB: Yeah, everything coming together, yeah. RC: Yeah, and that's how, I can guarantee that every grassroots cause has started the same way. Somebody knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody, you know, and thought they might have a truck, you know. LB: That's true. Well, of course, when you talk about grassroots organizations, lots of different reasons spark it into place. When all of your friends are dying, you're really motivated in those situations, as opposed to just, you know, we need a new baseball field, or something down by the school, so. RC: Absolutely. And we never knew who was next, that was the thing, because we had so little information about it. It was like, you know, you just never knew. We saw that women weren't particularly getting infected at that time, but yet, we always had dental dams that we would give away and everything, but you really didn't know who was going to be next. LB: So do you want to talk a little bit about, you said a few things about COVID-19, but let's talk a little bit about that in relation to the AIDS epidemic. I mean, you know, #ItsNotOurFirstVirus, which is what people are saying. But I think that, one of the things that's pretty interesting about this is that, during the AIDS epidemic, during the height of the epidemic, those who were in the LGBT community were young ; I mean, we were in our twenties and thirties, maybe in our forties at the end of the epidemic when it was at its height, and we were helping our friends. You know, it's pretty easy to do that when you're in your twenties, to really do a lot of that work. Now that we're aging, it's a little harder, where also not only do we have this COVID epidemic, but for that baby boomer generation, we also have the aging epidemic which is a whole different circumstance. But I mean, a lot of people have talked about the similars and the differences with regard to COVID and COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS, and you want to say some stuff about, how are you seeing that? RC: Well, I think the first thing that strikes me about it, going to the politics of it all, is that like HIV/AIDS, there was no recognition at the top. So we didn't have like a national focus on, hey, let's take care of this, together as a nation. Took a while, and I think the passage of Ryan White money was key, that there were some people in legislature who got it, and they got it usually because they had a child die, or they knew someone, and that's how all of that, you know. So we had at least a framework within to work, and I think that's been, certainly one of the issues with COVID. Now what I think is a little different, or maybe it's not different, I don't know, but we learned everything medically and otherwise from each other and from people who had just had it. And I think now with the COVID, and I look at New York, New York State, as a good example of a place that really approached this in a pretty organized way, and a lot of the experience they had, I mean if you had half a brain, you could see that that was going to go other places, you know. Everybody was susceptible, and I think again, everything they were learning, as they were doing, which was exactly what happened in the medical field and the service field with HIV/AIDS, you learned it as you got along, and then you know, researchers and folks like that were working on all of the stuff with HIV/AIDS pretty damn quick, but it took them a long time to get anywhere, and so I have faith in the researchers working on the COVID as well, because I've experienced, it can work. You know, there can be things that can change that whole paradigm. So I'm hopeful for that. But I think that not having the top political support has been a problem. But people, the thing that's very much the same is people are inventing themselves, and inventing how to approach this as they go along, and as they learned, and that helped, I hope everybody's sharing all that stuff. I know not all ears were open to sharing it, but certainly in the medical field, they were there. And they continued to be there, and this has, I guess the advantage with HIV/AIDS epidemic is that we were close to the ground, so it wasn't, the bungling didn't happen close to the ground, you know? What happens close to the ground is usually pretty god damn good, and that's what's happening with the COVID, and that's the doctors and nurses and medical people and all the support people, and people who are working hard at that are doing an incredible job, just like they did back in the HIV/AIDS ; there was no room for blunder, because people were dying right in front of you. So that's how I think every pandemic works in my mind. And I think, again, I think that New York State did a good job of wrapping its arms around, and being the most infectious place of course and trying to really pay attention ; a lot of that was about communication and keeping people apprised of what was going on, which is so key. So I think that's been important. But you know, it's a mess ; it's a mess, it never should have been like this. There were so many things. I have very little patience with people who don't wear a mask out in public ; I mean, what the hell? This is a piece of cloth that can not only help you, but it can also help anybody else that you come in contact with. And you know, I've been known to be in stores, and someone without a mask comes very close, by going, "Hey, back up!" You know, because it's just ridiculous. So, I can get pretty pissed off about that. (laughs) But you know, it just, I don't know what's the matter with people? What's the matter with you? I say it every time I see another Looney Toon kind of a thing, and lord knows there's plenty of opportunity for that. So, I think, you know, we're all learning, maybe on a different level. I was pretty impressed with a lot of people staying home. I think that was pretty incredible. And I think a lot of that is also about, people's workplaces that didn't want people there anymore. Yeah, and so that people could work from home ; I think that was a great advantage. And I also think, talking about baby boomers, I'm telling you, we changed the world, and we always have, and we always will. I don't care how old we are, frankly. But you know, the first people who said, yeah, we're going to cozy up at home. I'm going to do a Costco run, get everything I need, and I'm not coming out for a couple months. That was us baby boomers, thank you very much, you know. And we saved a lot of people from dying in that way. But then, the other craziness that was going on that we, you know, really didn't have a lot of affect with, like people opening up too soon, and stuff, you know, that stupid, stupid stuff that they're paying for now, you know. LB: But don't you think a lot of that really boils down to leadership? RC: Yeah. LB: So, and you can see that in everything you're talking about. You can see it in terms of, how you run the community center, it has to do with leadership, and people coming together, and a good board, and a good leader and stuff. RC: Exactly. LB: You have a state that has Andrew Cuomo as the leader, and it's totally different than a state that's saying, should we open, should we not? You know. RC: Florida. LB: Yeah, Florida's a good example, I mean, to just ignore reality -- RC: I know, the politics. LB: -- if you have Reagan, who's just, his response when somebody asked him about it for six or seven years, I mean, we're really six months into COVID-19. When we talk about that big, the serious Circumstance of HIV when it was really HIV/AIDS, which was really the killer time, it was eight years. So it took eight years -- RC: That's very true. LB: -- for people to figure out, how are we going to keep people from dying? How do we keep, where is this coming from, it took eight years to figure this out. People are wanting COVID to be over now. And I think, for people who are minorities, because that's what the LGBT community is, we are more used to dealing with things not necessarily going our way just because we want them to, and you know. RC: That's a good point, yeah. And you know, we're used to doing hard things. Because, everyday living is hard for members of our community. And it has been for a long time. And so, you kind of get used to that, and you also push back, which I think we do too ; we push back as much as we can without getting killed. And I think that's why we probably have a lot of simpatico for all the racial justice things that are happening now. I mean, really, we're right there, right there with that, because we get that ; we get that. And like I said, you know, I just remember all of those years, and still being an advocate to today. I used to write on my resume that, "I had a head for business, and a heart of an advocate." I combined those two things, because you know, see what's going on. Makes me a little mad that I can't get out and march anymore, you know. But, I would like to have been part of that. But physically, just decided that that was not -- I mean I could have marched, if my knees are good. But you know, it was just not good for the other thing ; didn't want to risk getting anything. I have a daughter who has some real immune system issues, so we have to be very careful with her. So anyway, but I get it ; I get it. Been there, done that. And yes, oh yes, let's do it again, if we need to do that. And I think it's amazing. I don't know about you, but I think what's happening right now is just amazing. LB: Yeah, I do too. RC: I think things are changing in a way that I really had hoped that I would live to see a woman as a president ; that was my big dream. Still a Hillary fan. (laughs) But to see some of these changes that are happening, I'm just so happy about it, like so, it's about fucking time. LB: I think, you know, it's an interesting thing. RC: I'm glad to be able to still be alive to see it. LB: Yeah, I was talking to Maria Rodale yesterday, and she said, you know, we were talking about her brother and everything (inaudible). RC: Oh, Ardath Rodale, oh my god, yes. LB: Yeah, Ardath Rodale, the wonderful Ardath Rodale who was her mom, who was such an advocate. But one of the things Maria said was, which was brilliant I thought, was, you know, it's really the height of privilege to think that this is the absolute worst time ever. Because, you know, there have been horrible times in the last hundred years, and to suggest that, because we all have to stay home, and you know some people have lives -- yes, it's very bad, but you know, for many of us, it's not devastating. We're healthy ; we're okay. We're not at war. They're not bombing our neighborhood. RC: You know, and the privilege of being white, and being able to afford to have enough food, and a nice house, to you know, have to bundle up, and just have fun with, you know, your partner, or your husband, or your wife, and you know, that's not so bad. But yeah, you know, Liz, a lot of people don't have a clue ; they just don't have a clue. I don't know how else to say it. And Maria was just absolutely correct, yeah. It's a first-world problem, I have to say. LB: Really, really tough stuff and all of the things that we should be desperately concerned about. But one of the first things she said was, we will get through this, because we've been through horrible other things, and you know, humanity will get through it, even if the worst stuff happens, we'll still get through it, because if you look back at the last hundred years, there have been incredible, horrible, horrible things. And people get through it, and they learn from it, and sometimes they don't pay attention. And then it goes (inaudible) -- RC: Well they know, and not that they forget, it's just that it hasn't been in front of their face for a while. So when something happens and it's right there again, it's like oh yeah, I kind of remember this feeling, you know. Oh, okay, good, we're glad you got it a second time. So yeah, you got to be open to learning, and I think there are a lot more people who are than aren't. At least I have to believe that, or frankly I couldn't get up in the morning. LB: I know what you mean, yeah. RC: So, I really do believe in the good, and I wonder a lot about the not-so-good out there, and I'm absolutely waiting to vote, and I agree with whoever it was who said listen, people are going to crawl across broken glass on their knees to vote this idiot out, and I believe that that's true. (laughs) LB: Well I hope so, and I've said that many times, so I really hope that that is the case, and that everybody feels that way. But I also, and I hope that thirty years from now when somebody sees this videos, and we're maybe not around anymore, that people will say, oh, everything turned out great. You know, and they'll know what's happened in the same way that we can look back at the HIV/AIDS crisis and say, it was a tragedy, but it was also a time of courage, and a time where people really stepped up, and that there is not a cure for that ; there's absolutely not a cure, but, and people still in some ways were kept from still being able to teach our children how to not get diseases like this. But there's PrEP, and PEP, and those are really significant things and I'm beginning to see the dawn at the end of this epidemic which has been going on for such a long time. It's not over. I mean that's something Brian Marks says every time he's (inaudible). RC: No, it's not over, and I'll tell you, I think many a days, none of us could have seen this future, because it just didn't seem conceivable that anything would come and be able to really help. I mean, it was, we just never could see this day. Not that we didn't have the vision, but we didn't have the hope. I think that was it ; we really ran out of hope early on. LB: At the beginning. RC: But I'm happy to see that today, and, you know, there'll always be something. And there'll always be a time, this is for thirty years from now, by the way, there'll always be a time when you were called upon to stand and to show courage, and you know, you have a choice, you can do it, or you could just not do it, it's up to you. But you know, you got to live the rest of your life looking at yourself in the mirror, and you know, there are so many days I think back on my whole career and I think, oh crap, I wish I could have done this, or I should have done that better, or you know, I was always out on a limb, you know, with my big mouth, and stuff like that. But you know, I had to live to my truth. I had a really good friend who said to me, "Rose, can't you just go keep your head down, do your job, shut up," and I looked at her and I remember thinking, and saying, "No. I cannot." And that is the story of me, and a bunch of other people out there who showed up. And everybody will have that, at some time in their life, they'll be given that choice, to act or respond to it, certainly you respond to it, and you know, just the incredible center that you have there. LB: Yeah, we're happy that that's working. RC: It's incredible, and wonderful. LB: And I'm so glad that you've been able, you've done, you can look back and say, a lot of things wouldn't have gotten done had I not done it. I think that there are people when they're in positions of leadership, you can look at a Circumstance and say, well this leadership, if there isn't that leadership, then sometimes things don't happen, and I think you were really instrumental in making a lot of these very significant things happen at the height of the epidemic, and thank you for doing that, because you saved people's lives, or made people's lives better, and education certainly did that at then end of the time. That really was a question of, you know, this is what you can do to keep yourself from dying, and how essential that was at that time. RC: That's very kind of you ; thank you. And cheers to all those white-haired white women who went out with a banana and a cucumber, because that's what changed this world, their willingness and their matter-of-fact way of just saying, listen, this is how you put it on, and you need to put it on. LB: Yeah. I remember when I got to the point, where, because I do trainings all the time now, that I used, I'm comfortable using the word "penis" in huge groups of, you know, and so, you know, I could just say that in any situation. Any my younger self, I don't think I would ever have thought, oh yeah, that's something you say in front of loads of people all the time. RC: They used to always carry their cucumbers with them. They were all ready, a small group, and just do it, god bless them all. LB: Oh, that's hilarious. That's great. Well good for them. I'm so glad you could come, and I'm so glad you could talk about Dixie, because I'm so sad that we've lost her ability to tell all of those stories, but thank goodness she -- RC: She was instrumental. She was instrumental. LB: Thank goodness she saved every single scrap of paper she ever touched. I don't think her (inaudible) -- RC: Yeah, that was Dixie. LB: Yeah, I don't think her heirs are saying that, now that they're clearing out her house. But they were able to rescue the papers. RC: Yes, I'm sure. I think of her house and all the things that she's always had growing, and collecting, and oh my gosh, yeah. I don't envy them at all. She lived a life, for sure. LB: Well they're coming to an end now, and I think that the great thing is that all that stuff that she saved is going to be archived, and this video is going to be Archived, and so thank you so much for being on it. You got about three minutes to say anything else you want to say. Anything else? RC: Well, like I said, just, you know, the Lehigh Valley is home to me, and I grew up there, and my dad was a radio personality and he was a minister, went from social ministry to radio, and he always was doing community things ; he got that, way back in nineteen-fifty, whatever. You know, he got that, and he would bring people along to form more community. And in the Lehigh Valley, when he died, quite young, the whole funeral was about community members coming out and saying, hey, Vern Craig helped me with this, and he started this, and he went to people in the community and talked about mental health issues, just was there, and so I've seen that area, the Lehigh Valley grow in so many ways, and I'm so lucky to have been able to, be able to show up for my own community there, a place I loved and, you know, will always love and care about, so thank you, Lehigh Valley, for letting me be invited to the dance. (laughter) LB: Well thank you, Rose, I really appreciate it very, very much. RC: Thank you, Liz. And keep doing the great work you're doing. LB: Thank you, have a great day, and keep you, keep up the good fight yourself. Okay, bye-bye. RC: Thank you. Bye-bye. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source.&#13 ; 0 /render.php?cachefile= Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:29:17 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Rose Craig, June 30, 2020 Description An account of the resource Rose Craig talks about her work as the last President of the Gay Community Center in Allentown in the 1980s and how the Center evolved into the AIDS Services Center in the late 1980s and early 1990s to address the crisis. She talks about what services the AIDS Services Center provided and her role in securing funding and support. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context PH40_05 Subject The topic of the resource AIDS (Disease) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-06-30 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.