WEBVTT - Lavender Haze 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:04.320 Hey there, listener, this is going to be the final 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:08.400 episode of American Shadows. We started up in the summer 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:11.879 of twenty twenty, a weirdly appropriate time to talk about 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:14.520 the dark parts of the history of the United States. 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.959 It's been three years and seventy eight episodes of me 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:24.680 vocal frying my way through the conspiracies, disasters, diseases, scandals, scams, murders, 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:29.600 and bouts of absolute heroics that, for worse or better 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.560 have brought us to where we are today. I wanted 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.800 to take a second to sincerely thank the entire crew 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.960 here at iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild for the means 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.559 and an opportunity to share these stories, but particularly my 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.440 producers Miranda Hawkins and Jesse Funk, who have put up 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.400 with my raw tape and shaped it into something beautiful, 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.400 special things, as well to Grimm and Mild's head of 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.360 writing research formerly Karl Nellis and now Robin Menetter, who 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.000 wrangled the stories into existence to begin with, and Michelle Mudo, 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.280 Alie Stead, and Taylor Haggerdorn who have been on the 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.959 project since day one, along with relative newcomers Cassandra to Albo, 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.880 Alex Robinson, and Jamie Vargas. Y'all have made my job 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:16.039 easy and I am so excited to hear whatever you 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.280 work on next. And of course, thanks to Aaron Menke 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.920 for building such a strange sandbox for projects like this. 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.319 And thanks to you for listening and saying hi to 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:30.160 me when I introduced myself every episode, or tweeting me 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:34.080 about cemeteries, or just following along with us. It's been 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.000 an honor to work with these people and to give 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.959 voice to these stories. I hope that we'll get to 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.800 do more of it in the future, but for now, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:48.000 I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. Thank you for being here, for being you, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:56.840 for being curious, and now on with the show you're 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:00.640 listening to. American Shadows, a production of iHeart Rate and 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:13.320 Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankie. The President had never married, 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.960 and he never would. James Buchanan, a president of the 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.040 United States from eighteen fifty seven to eighteen sixty one, 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.200 is the only president in our country's history to have 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.079 never taken a wife. During his time in office, rumors 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:30.840 about his private life spread through the halls of the Capitol, 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:35.840 and those rumors are still swirling today. Buchanan was not 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.360 always single in his early twenties. He had actually been 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.679 engaged to a woman named Anne Coleman, but she broke 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:44.560 it off before they could make it to the altar. 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.760 She had expressed to her friends that Buchanan didn't treat 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.040 her with the affection she would expect from her future husband. 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.200 After the end of their relationship, Anne was believed to 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.520 have ended her own life. Many people attributed her apparent 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:03.079 suicide to her fail engagement. For the rest of his life, 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:08.359 James Buchanan seemed wholly disinterested in wooing other women. Some 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.520 believed that he still held a candle for Anne. However, 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:16.040 most speculated that he stayed single for an entirely different reason. 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.120 The prevailing rumor in the federal government was that James 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:25.360 Buchanan was actually queer. Note here that, of course, language 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.480 evolves as time goes on, and the word queer as 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.040 it's used today was not used in the same way 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.200 in the eighteen fifties. However, though it may sound a 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.920 little a historical, we will be using the reclaimed umbrella 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:44.400 term queer throughout this episode to describe lesbian, gay by trans, queer, intersex, asexual, 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:48.280 et cetera. People people whose orientations may not have fit 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:52.880 into these societal norms of the time. James Buchanan certainly 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.040 was speculated to have lived a private lifestyle that went 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.960 against the norms of the day well before he was president, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:04.839 and his sexuality was regularly questioned. His political adversaries would 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:09.040 criticize him for his shrill voice and his smooth, beardless cheeks. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.640 Most of the rumors about him, however, revolved around his 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.720 very close friendship with one William Rufus King, a senator 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.680 from Alabama. A King and Buchanan met in eighteen twenty one, 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.920 after Buchanan was first elected to Congress. For over a decade, 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.000 they lived in a board house together four Congress's single members. 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.600 As the years passed, more and more congressmen moved out, 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:36.039 until only King and Buchanan remained. The only time they 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.159 altered this limming arrangement was when they each accepted different 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:43.800 diplomatic positions abroad. The nature of King and Buchanan's relationship 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:48.320 was the frequent topic of societal gossip. Politicians would hurl 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.200 slurs like aunt nancy and aunt fancy at them, both 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.920 of which were rude slang terms for gay men. Some 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.800 in Washington even referred to them as mister Buchanan and 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:03.120 his wife. Aaron Brown, who was one of Buchanan's political rivals, 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.159 wrote a letter railing against Buchanan and King's relationship, calling 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:12.240 King Buchanan's better half. Many years later, President John Tyler's 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.280 wife recalled Buchanan and King as being Siamese twins. They 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:20.680 were very noticeably joined at the hip. What still exists 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.600 of Kings and Buchanan's correspondence with one another was cautious 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:29.200 and cryptic. However, not many of their letters actually remain. 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.839 Many were lost when the king estate burned during the 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.800 Civil War. King also destroyed any letters from Buchanan that 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.680 were marked private or confidential, a meaning that Buchanan's more 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.159 personal letters can never be read for confirmation of the 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:48.560 true nature of their relationship. There are, of course, historians 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.440 who believed that King and Buchanan were not lovers, but 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.800 were instead very close friends. Regardless of whether or not 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.359 James Buchanan was queer in the mid nineteenth century, it 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:01.679 wasn't so thing that could have barred him from taking 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:07.080 office legally speaking. However, as we'll see, that would not 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:11.720 always be the case. Eventually identifying as anything but straight, 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.440 or even just being accused of it could preclude someone 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:20.200 from holding any job within the federal government. I'm Lorn Vogelbaum, 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:31.320 Welcome to American Shadows. The bar was alive with raucous 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.239 laughter and music, and the man at the piano played 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:36.760 a different tune for every guy who walked through the door. 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:41.360 The Chicken Hut was an unassuming bar in downtown Washington, 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.640 d C. Technically its name was Leon's Restaurant, but none 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.440 of its clientele called it that. A regular restaurant by day, 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.440 the Chicken Hut transformed into the city's most popular gay bar. 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.760 By night, the Hut served as the epicenter of social life, 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.680 where DC's queer men throughout the nighte teen forties and 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.480 fifties packed tight on weekend nights. It was a haven 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.279 where they could openly be themselves without fear of repercussions. 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.640 The Hut, popular as it was, was only a haven 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.560 for white, middle class queer men. Black men were not 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.880 welcome at the bar, even after d C officially desegregated 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.200 in nineteen fifty three. Women also did not frequent the 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.080 Chicken Hut or any queer men's bars heard that matter, 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.400 instead choosing to congregate at a single lesbian bar a 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.640 few blocks away. D C's queer community had grown significantly 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.200 leading up to the fifties. Between nineteen thirty and nineteen fifty, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.960 the city's population had doubled. The New Deal had created 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.400 a significant number of new government jobs, and the influx 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.760 of employees to the district included a number of queer people. 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.000 They built a rich social life for themselves, holding picnics 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.000 at the Botanic Conservatory and roller skating parties in front 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:59.480 of the Lincoln Memorial. Much of the city's gay social life, however, 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.560 entered around Lafayette Park, which had been a famous spot 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.360 for gay men to cruise since the eighteen hundreds. The 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.000 Chicken Hut was located only steps from Lafayette Park, finding 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.000 itself in the exact right location to provide a home 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.160 to roost for the gay white men of the city. 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.120 The Hut's most well known member was its piano player, 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.040 known as Miss Hattie by the bars regulars. Howard would 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:26.800 play jaunty show tunes in popular songs of the day, 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.880 often rewriting the lyrics to make them more body. Whenever 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.480 Howard played a particularly scandalous line, the bar's patrons would 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.040 shout out, did you hear that Miss Blick? A Miss 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:41.600 Blick referred to Lieutenant Roy Blick, who served as the 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:46.400 head of the Metropolitan Police Department's Morality Division. The taunt 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.160 entered into the local queer vernacular, but in reality, Roy 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.920 Blick and his division weren't anything to laugh at. They 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.240 were charged with cracking down on anything considered to be 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:02.800 a sexual perversion, which at this time included homosexuality. Places 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.840 like the Chicken Hut and Lafayette Park were under intense 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.880 scrutiny as the police kept an eye out for anything 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.760 they might consider to be immoral. In nineteen forty seven, 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.040 the US Park Police began a program called the Pervert 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:21.199 Elimination Campaign. Blick and other officers would patrol cruising spots 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.880 like Lafayette Park, arresting anyone they suspected of being queer. 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.640 By nineteen fifty, two hundred men were arrested under this program, 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:34.240 while five hundred others were apprehended. They were questioned and fingerprinted, 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:36.680 and then their names were added to what was called 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.600 the pervert file, which was kept by Lieutenant Blick himself. 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.520 One in four men detained at Lafayette Park was believed 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.760 to be a government employee. If their names were published 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.920 in the newspapers, and they often were, it would ruin 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:56.040 their reputations and careers. DC's queer community wasn't just being 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.520 smoked out of their chosen recreational spots. They were also 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:04.120 being systematically purged from the federal government's payroll. Beginning in 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.680 nineteen forty seven, the government started their official campaign to 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:12.240 weed its queer employees out. In June of that year, 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:17.080 a Senate Appropriations Committee condemned quote the extensive employment in 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:21.440 highly classified positions of admitted homosexuals, who are historically known 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:25.920 to be security risks. A Queer people were often conflated 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:30.280 with communists, as both were believed to be immoral, psychologically disturbed, 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:35.320 and godless of Following this report, the Secretary of State 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.320 set up a personal security board for the State Department. 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.040 Within the next three years, the State Department quietly fired 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:46.440 ninety one employees who they determined were queer. In June 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.199 of nineteen forty eight, things got even more difficult for 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.800 the queer residence of DC. President Harry Truman signed the 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:57.360 National Miller Sexual Psychopath Law, which codified the act of 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:02.400 Quote sodomyn. The smallest of sexual acts between people of 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.439 the same sex could result in a twenty year imprisonment 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.680 or one thousand dollars fine, which would be the equivalent 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.440 of over twelve thousand dollars today. The first two men 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.160 to be arrested under this law were in Washington, d C. 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.480 The government cracked down on the queer community changed DC's 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.560 gay social scene entirely. A government employee started to avoid 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.160 popular spots like the Chicken Hut and Lafayette Park Optic, 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.600 instead to fly under the radar at less obvious venues. 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.560 Gay men stopped telling people where they worked and fearing 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:38.360 that their private life would get back to their superiors. 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.120 And as bad as it had become for queer government 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.920 employees at the tail end of the nineteen forties, the 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.920 nineteen fifties would be even worse. The government's purge was 0:11:47.960 --> 0:12:00.560 only getting started. At that time. Very few people knew 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.360 who Senator Joseph McCarthy was. He was not yet the 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.920 man who would embark on a manic quest to eliminate communism. 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.080 He was simply an inocuous first term senator from Wisconsin. 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.720 That all changed, however, on February ninth of nineteen fifty. 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.680 On that day, McCarthy gave his now famous speech in 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.280 which he claimed to have a list of two hundred 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.720 and five communists in the State Department. He never actually 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.200 disclosed the names that were on this list, but that 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.240 didn't matter. The fear he stoked with these allegations would 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.800 snowball into what we know today as the Red Scare. 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.000 On February twenty, McCarthy gave a six hour speech to 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.960 the Senate to expand upon his claims. However, at this 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.560 time he reduced his list of known communists to only 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:52.319 fifty seven. McCarthy wasn't always the most consistent. The number 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.600 of communists who had allegedly infiltrated the State Department would 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.280 change several more times. No matter how many there were, 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.880 Carthy believed that every single one of them was, in 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:07.160 his words, mentally twisted in some way. One of the 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:12.760 manifestations of that mental aberration was he believed homosexuality. During 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.200 McCarthy's speech, he said that one of the communists on 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.960 his list was a flagrant homosexual who had a huge 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:24.200 network of queer communist connections. Quick to dismiss any suggestions 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.000 that the State Department posed a security risk. A press 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.520 release was sent out denying the fact that the agency 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:34.760 employed any communists. However, they summarily fired two hundred people, 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.640 and just one week after McCarthy's inflammatory speech, the Deputy 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.640 under Secretary of State testified to the Senate that they 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.160 had indeed fired ninety one queer employees in the previous 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:51.080 three years. The number ninety one became shorthand for the 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.880 homosexual threat looming over the nation, and it was considered 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.400 to be a threat today. When we think of the 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:03.680 Red Scare, we mainly of communism. However, that wasn't everyone's 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:08.880 primary concern. Of the twenty five thousand letters that McCarthy 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:13.120 received from scared American citizens, only one in four were 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:18.840 about communism. The rest condemned the perceived sexually deranged homosexuals 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.880 who were lurking in the government. Rumors even started spreading 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.880 that the Soviets were finding blackmail targets in the United 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.920 States government by using a secret list of homosexuals that 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:33.440 had been compiled by Hitler, and so began the Red 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:39.000 Scares lesser known sibling, the Lavender Scare. In March of 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.840 nineteen fifty, the first Senate subcommittee was formed to investigate 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.680 homosexuality in the federal workforce. One of the people to 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.120 testify to the subcommittee was none other than Lieutenant Roy Black, 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.040 who claimed that there were five thousand gay men and 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.040 women in DC and that three thousand, seven hundred of 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.480 them worked for the government. The numbers had no basis 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.080 in reality, but they were widely reported by the press regardless. 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.480 Based on all of this, the Senate started an in 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:11.760 depth investigation of the government's employment of quote, immoral perverts. 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.280 They beheld a number of hearings. Out of all of them, 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.720 not a single one involved interviewing anyone from the queer community. 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:24.480 Congressional members did not fully understand queerness and therefore didn't 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:28.560 fully understand what they were investigating. After hearing that there 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:33.120 were people who were neither entirely homosexual or heterosexual, one 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.840 senator asked if there was a quick test like an 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:40.160 X ray that discloses these things. Such ignorance would characterize 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:45.120 how they moved forward with their investigations. No evidence emerged 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.960 during these hearings that queer employees were ever blackmailed into 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:53.400 exposing state secrets, but in the end that didn't matter. 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.400 Congress eventually determined that queer people were threat simply because 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:04.200 their deviancy made them morally weak. Between April and November 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.520 of nineteen fifty three, hundred and eighty two people were 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.280 fired from their federal jobs. The vast majority of them 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:16.440 never even had access to sensitive government materials. However, many 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.680 had prior charges related to homosexuality, which, in the eyes 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.320 of the politicians of the day, meant that they were 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:28.359 polluting the moral integrity of the government. As one might imagine, 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:32.479 these mass layoffs had a grim effect on DC's queer population. 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.360 People began moving to new jobs and new cities. Those 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:40.240 who remained were unable to trust one another for fear 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:44.800 of their identities being exposed. The queer government employees stopped 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:48.480 going to popular spots within their community. Some wouldn't even 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.360 attend parties unless they knew every single person who would 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.560 be there. Gay men and women started to pose as 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:58.760 each other's partners when the need arose. The governments prejudiced 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.560 towards its queer employees would only continue to grow. On 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:06.080 April twenty seventh of nineteen fifty three, when President Eisenhower 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:09.760 signed an executive order banning anyone who exhibited a sexual 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:14.480 perversion from working for the government, and homosexuality was definitely 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.320 considered a sexual perversion at this time. Only the year before, 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.919 the American Psychiatric Association had officially categorized homosexuality as a 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:29.400 sociopathic personality disturbance. The lavender Scare purge was eradicating almost 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:32.840 every job opportunity that had previously been available to gay 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.720 men and women. The prospects for the queer community were grim. 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.560 It would take the dedication of a number of brave 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.960 people who were willing to risk their livelihoods and reputations 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:57.280 for justice to be served. In July of nineteen fifty seven, 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.240 Frank Cammeny was just another bright eyed new hire for 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.040 the government. After finishing his doctorate at Harvard, Frank had 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.720 been recruited as an astronomer for the U. S. Army 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.679 Map Service. His future was promising. He had secured an 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.880 enviable job and was doing meaningful work. He even harbored 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.840 hopes of becoming an astronaut one day, as the possibility 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:23.600 of space travel became more and more of a reality. However, 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.239 everything came crashing down for Frank in October of that 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.400 same year, when the government learned that he was queer. 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:33.720 Frank had known that he was gay since he was young. 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:36.520 He had lied about his orientation to enlist in the 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:39.320 army during World War II, and had continued to keep 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.760 it under wraps as the world became more and more 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:46.320 hostile to queer people. Still, Frank had managed to find 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.120 a foothold in the DC queer community after moving there 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.200 in nineteen fifty six, visiting bars like the Chicken Hut 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:56.159 and immersing himself in the local culture. His involvement in 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.199 the DC gay scene isn't what brought the government's attention 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:03.680 to his secutional orientation, though in August of nineteen fifty six, 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:07.520 Frank had been arrested for quote lewde and indecent acts 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.280 while in San Francisco. He paid the fines required of him, 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.199 and after a six month probation period, the state of 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:19.800 California changed his records to not guilty, case dismissed. Unfortunately, 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.400 the bloodhounds of the lavender Scare were not so easily 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.720 dissuaded from their cause. Only a few months after he 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:29.080 had been hired, the government got wind of the San 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:33.480 Francisco incident and fired him. In January of nineteen fifty eight, 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.240 Frank was told that he was barred from ever working 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.240 in the federal government again. This made him extremely unattractive 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:44.040 to private sector employers as well. With his doctorate in 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.040 astronomy and with the space race looming on the horizon, 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:51.200 Frank should have been an extremely desirable candidate for almost 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.359 any job he could have wanted. But not even his 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:58.119 educational pedigree could combat the prejudice against queer people in 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.960 the nineteen fifties. But in the span of a couple 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:05.920 of months, Frank had become virtually unemployable. He was reduced 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.200 to living off of mere pennies depending on the generosity 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:13.840 of the Salvation Army. But Frank, however, disheartened and downtrodden, 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:18.639 would not go quietly. He approached the Washington d c. 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.359 Chapter of the ACLU, and with their help, he became 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:24.880 the very first person to challenge the government on their 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:29.440 discrimination against hiring queer people. The courts dismissed his case 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.679 in nineteen fifty nine and again in nineteen sixty. In 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.680 January of nineteen sixty one, Frank filed his case with 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.040 the Supreme Court. He had no attorney, but still felt 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.160 compelled to march into battle for the sake of his 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.840 and his community's equal rights and for their livelihoods. Two 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.960 months later, the Supreme Court declined to hear his case. 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.200 Frank even wrote to President Kennedy, appealing to the president's 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.120 famous line asked, not what your country can do for you, 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.560 but what you can do for your country. Frank wrote 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.679 that he simply wanted to serve his country, but that 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.000 his country had made it impossible for him to do so. 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:13.240 He never received a response. After seeingly exhausting all avenues, 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.240 Frank probably should have given up. Most people would if 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:21.439 they were in his shoes, but thankfully Frank didn't know 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:33.800 when to quit. Across the country, in California, people had 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.560 taken notice of what was happening in d C many 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:40.280 years before Frank began his fight. In response to the 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:45.320 government's blatant discrimination, the Mattachine Society was founded in nineteen fifty. 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.760 It was the first large scale queer society in the 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.280 United States, and soon it would be leading the fight 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:57.680 against the lavender scare Back in DC. Frank Hammany knew 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.040 he had almost run out of options, and so he 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.920 approached the problem from a different angle. In nineteen sixty one, 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:09.200 Frank established a DC chapter of the Mattachine Society. Within 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.840 a few months, he became president of the organization. The 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:17.120 Mattachine Society of Washington, or MSW, took a bold approach, 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.720 loudly declaring that queer people were deserving of the same 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:25.840 basic rights as their straight counterparts. They didn't hide underground, 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.399 but instead showed their faces and spoke for themselves instead 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:33.879 of hiring straight representatives. In nineteen sixty three, Frank became 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:37.720 the first openly gay man to testify before Congress. The 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.280 MSW advised on a number of legal cases, including one 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:45.320 filed by a man named Clifford Norton. Clifford had been 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.560 caught in Lafayette Park and was subsequently fired from his 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.920 position at NASA after working there for fifteen years. After 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:57.000 his dismissal, the MSW and the ACLU helped Clifford pursue 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:01.080 legal action. On July first of nineteen sixty nine, a 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:03.960 judge determined that the government had to prove a rational 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:08.080 connection between an employee's private affairs and their dismissal, and 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:10.800 that NASA had failed to do so. As a result 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:13.880 of this ruling, Clifford received one hundred thousand dollars from 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:18.200 the government and a generous pension. Clifford Norton's case set 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:21.440 a precedent that would be integral to shaping public policy 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:25.520 and eventually ending the government's discrimination against their queer employees. 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:29.320 In nineteen seventy three, a federal court in San Francisco 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:31.919 cited the Norton case in a ruling that forced the 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:35.000 government to change their approach to how they handled their 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:40.080 queer employees. Eighteen months later, the Civil Service Commission changed 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:44.280 their regulations, erasing the words immoral conduct from their list 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:48.200 of reasons that an employee could be fired. The queer 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:50.639 men and women could once again work for the United 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:53.920 States government without fear of losing their jobs for who 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:57.679 they were, and the first person that the commissioner called 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:03.879 about the new changes none other than Frank Cammeny. There's 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:06.400 more to this story, and stick around after this brief 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:19.480 sponsored break to hear all about it. Queer people could 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:22.320 no longer be dismissed from the government payroll for their 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:27.000 sexual orientation. However, that same rule did not apply to 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:30.960 the United States Armed Forces. The military continued to weed 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:35.000 out queer service members, but sometimes their ignorance of gay 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:39.280 culture worked against them. In October of nineteen eighty, a 0:24:39.440 --> 0:24:41.560 twenty one year old by the name of Mel Doll 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:45.000 enlisted in the Navy as an electrician. He was stationed 0:24:45.000 --> 0:24:48.080 at the Great Lakes Naval Station with no issues. He 0:24:48.160 --> 0:24:50.600 had revealed that he was gay during his enlistment interview, 0:24:50.760 --> 0:24:53.200 but it hadn't seemed to make a difference to his acceptance. 0:24:54.520 --> 0:24:58.199 That would change. In nineteen eighty one, Mel decided to 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:01.280 enroll in cryptography school to further his skills for the Navy, 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:05.879 which required an updated security clearance. During his interview. For 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:09.040 the security clearance, Mel took all of the usual questions 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:12.800 about communist sympathies in stride. When he was asked about 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:15.919 his sexual orientation, Mel admitted that he was gay, seeing 0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:20.080 no issue in the matter. Unfortunately, unlike when Mel had 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:24.720 first enlisted, it was now a problem. In January of 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:27.800 nineteen eighty one, the Department of Defense had instituted a 0:25:27.880 --> 0:25:31.280 new policy that required any service members who had ever 0:25:31.320 --> 0:25:36.199 participated in home sexual acts to be immediately dismissed. So 0:25:36.520 --> 0:25:39.040 after his interview, Mel was told that the Navy was 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:43.400 considering discharging him. In January of nineteen eighty two, Mel 0:25:43.600 --> 0:25:47.240 was given an honorable discharge because of his sexual orientation. 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:50.679 No civil rights groups were willing to take on the 0:25:50.680 --> 0:25:53.640 Department of Defense, and so Mel was forced to take 0:25:53.720 --> 0:25:57.760 matters into his own hands. He walked three thousand miles 0:25:57.800 --> 0:26:01.560 across the United States to raise both money and awareness 0:26:01.600 --> 0:26:05.040 for his cause. The media quickly picked up on Mel's 0:26:05.040 --> 0:26:09.119 walking crusade, interviewing him as he went. He told the 0:26:09.160 --> 0:26:11.679 press that he was far from the only gay service 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:15.760 member at the Great Lakes Naval Station. Naturally, this sent 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:18.080 the higher ups at that naval station into a frenzy 0:26:18.200 --> 0:26:22.719 to expose and dismiss them from the Navy. During their investigation, 0:26:23.160 --> 0:26:26.800