A question from M Cherry: What was Don Slater and Jim Kepner's relationship like?

The relationship among Dorr Legg, Don Slater, and Jim Kepner was beneficial to the movement but, mainly due to Dorr, constantly caused frustration. He of course got Jim upset when he told him to say ONE was tax-exempt when it was not, and that is the final straw—at the time-that made Jim quit because he felt personally vulnerable if the IRS accused him of false claims. I don't recall—as I was not there—the relationship on the magazine, but think it was ok.  

The main issue Don had with Jim was that he was trying to be in ALL groups, which I don't think was a bad thing, but then Jim made what I think was his worst mistake when the separation came in 1965.

Jim was leading the ONE European tour, and Rudi Steinert was on it as was the man behind the tours, Chet Sampson. Dorr had promised Rudi Don could use his proxy in voting at the annual business meeting/Winter event. As Chair, he then refused to allow it.  I am not sure if Sampson was a voting member or if someone had his proxy.

But Kepner was called about our moving the office, and told told Chet, Rudi, et al. to support Dorr, as Don would not be successful. I always felt that this was nuts since he had had more problems with Dorr’s imperious attitude than anyone.

History shows that legally Don won, but both factions kept going, and both continued to contribute to the cause.

Jim eventually, as in fact Dorr did, worked with Don, doing book reviews, etc. (Jim and Dorr refused to work on the NACHO military protest in 1966. We did the Motorcade—but for different reasons, and of course Morris Kight didn’t participate either.

We think Jim removed some books when he visited our Tangents office, but he had contributed many books to ONE, and since we had acquired most of the library, I doubt that made much difference—we think most of the material Dorr had when he died was really Jim’s, as the two libraries joined—thus ONE/IGLA and, for a brief time, ONE/IGLA/HIC.

I don’t seem t have much of Jim’s material—he published a newsletter in the 1990s, Jim Kepner’s Song & Dance, and of course he went broke and lost his home publishing Pursuit & Symposium magazine. I think his politics differed—but so did mine. He added to our work and was interested in aspects Don & Dorr were not.  He of course worked on ONE Institute Quarterly, which had the same problems I think the few current LGBT academic publications have—they are unreadable and on obscure topics on no general concern.

A Question About One Magazine

David Williams of the Williams-Nichols Collection at the University of Louisville asks:

From May to at least August 1965 there were two different versions of One Magazine.  One was edited by Don Slater and the other by Richard Conger. We have both versions of the magazine during that time. My question is, how long were the two different versions published? Did it end in August 1965, or were there different editions in  September, October, and perhaps November 1965?

Our reply:

Hello David!

Thank you so much for contacting us on this question.

When ONE, Inc. divided in the spring of 1965, Don Slater and company moved the entire operation to a new location. Even though Slater had emptied ONE’s office completely, Dorr Legg (as “Richard Conger”) was still able to continue to produce and distribute ONE Magazine (much, of course, to Slater’s dismay). Legg said that he had committed ONE’s mailing list to memory, but that's just silly. My best guess is that Legg anticipated some sort of brash act by Slater (Legg, it seems, was moving to kill ONE magazine entirely in order to grow his Institute) and had managed to have a copy of the list secured off site. (ONE’s mailing list was a highly coveted and much protected, so this is actually a very big deal, a confession Legg could never publicly make).

Soon after the division, a judge determined that Legg would keep the office and rights to the name ONE, Inc. Slater retained his materials but had to stop doing business as or representing himself as ONE. This was to be a tentative arrangement, but even after Legg continued his fruitless and expensive lawsuit against Slater for two more years, this is how things remained. 

You will find that the content of the two first dual issues is similar to identical. Some of the work was by Joe Hansen, who was devoted to Slater and would never have consented to have his work printed in Legg’s magazine, yet there it was. How Legg obtained that content remains a total mystery to me.

You can see the four covers of Slater’s magazine (clearly subtitled “The Homosexual Viewpoint” here.

I have started to post content, but work is proceeding slowly since I can only do this on a voluntary basis at the moment. As you can see, the magazine changed its name to Tangents in October, 1965. This, in a way, makes Tangents the “true” continuation of ONE magazine, with a great majority of ONE’s editorial and writing staff continuing on in this new venue. The July issue of ONE features a play on the male/female symbols that was designed by Joe Hansen's wife, Jane, and remains HIC’s logo to this day.

I have been talking to several people about bringing Tangents back as a biannual newsletter, I hope becoming quarterly in time. I will keep you posted on the progress there as this could be happening very soon.

I hope this helps to clarify. The details of this can be found in my book, Pre-Gay L.A.: A Social History of the Movement for Homosexual Rights, published by the University of Illinois Press, if you are interested in learning more about this history. 

Best wishes,

Todd

C. Todd White, Ph.D.

Chair

Homosexual Information Center

http://www.tangentgroup.org

<todd@tangentgroup.org>

Walter L. Williams' legacy

Karen Ocamb has written a wonderful article here.

I am glad I sent out my (unspell checked it turns out) email before reading Karen's excellent report.  It covered most of my concern.  I should say that many times before I have admitted that I was "present" and knew people and events and paid little attention and so missed perhaps important, relevant points.  So I am not surprised that I knew little of Walter Williams.

And as is pointed out, my view was affected by the dispute still going on between the two factions of ONE.  I do not think anyone currently at ONE Archives knows of the valid issues, then or now.

I do not believe  Hawkins' account, reprinted by Ocamb, of what happened when Don Slater died.  I never heard of him until years later. The person who DID tell this tale was John O'Brien.  It was a lie from start to finish.  Jim Schneider was with Tony Reyes when Don died and much time after.  He is the one who boxed up the material for storage so that Tony could sell the house (and move to the house in Colorado). While most of this time I was back in Louisiana, I WAS there at the time covered and at the memorial service, who else was???

The first point is the fact that I sat with Vern Bullough—as I had sat with Dorr Legg for a moment, a brief one, after the legal settlement, to voluntarily divide books—to start placing part of our part of the ONE collection with the library at Cal State, Northridge.  Nothing else had been done before that action.  No John O'Brien, and certainly no Hawkins.

Partly due to the effort, as we understood it, of Walter Williams, USC was giving a place for the ONE collection, which was mainly Jim Kepner's ILGA material.  And Jim, et al., approached us again to join the other two parts at 909 W. Adams.  There had been a previous address, and that I think is when Harry Hay et al. had been involved, and that location didn't work out, and so 909 W Adams was the place we were offered a separate room for our collection.

Once we moved in (and prior to that O'Brien had helped, but he then "helped himself" to, stole part of our material—he made a moral rather than a legal decision to take what he wanted) we discovered other workers at ONE were stealing our material. As they had refused to honor their pledge of a private room, we removed our materials. Some ONE people lied and tried to stop us moving our own material, which is now mainly at CSUN.

I never understood where Willliams was in this manipulation of HIC. I do not recall Harry Hay telling us not to move in, but Dale Jennings and Don Slater had told us not to.  But when Don died—and with the promise of our material being kept separate and under our control—we felt it was a good choice, as both Don and Dale (and now Todd White) had been USC graduates.

I do know for a fact that the 909 W. Adams facility would NOT have been ready for years, if ever, if John O'Brien had not left and Jim Schneider placed in charge.  He got USC to fulfill its promise to donate money and material to refinish the former fraternity building, and that is why I was in favor of placing the material there and we were there at the opening.

Harry Hay and Don Slater: Two Views on Homosexuality from Pioneer Friends and Parallels with the Tea Party and the Founders of America

If it is worthwhile and even important to try to learn how this nation was founded and who the founders were and how they thought about the government they were establishing (Constitution/Bill of Rights) then it is equally important for citizens to know how and why a movement was started go gain civil/equal rights for homosexual Americans, and who the founders were and what they thought about homosexuality.

This civil rights movement is easy to document, and primary sources still exist with a few of the founders and historical material of their work and ideas. 

Each year there are more books written about the founding of America and the founders.  But there has been no such historical interest in the founders of this movement, even though issues of homosexuality are in the pages of most newspapers, and on tv talk shows and in the halls of Congress.

Why is there no interest in knowing the people who started a movement that was successful in about 50 years and continues to add success each year, despite opposition from bigots?  In a few cases, people working in this movement also worked in the black or women’s civil rights movements, including Dr. King’s co-worker, Bayard Rustin.  It should be worth knowing how Harry Hay, Dale Jennings, et al., started, in secret, the first organization, Mattachine (the foundation) in 1950, during the worst of times, the McCarthy anti-communist era when homosexuality was “joined” with communism to gain political power.  The irony is that most of the founders had been Communists but were kicked out of the party because of their sexuality—and thus they started this movement which has thrived while the Communist Party has essentially died.  But it is important to know that after early Mattachine was so wildly successful, with meetings all over Los Angeles and then California, it was “killed” and was reborn (the Society)  by Hal Call, et al., in San Francisco, by conservatives.

But before this happened in 1953, part of the organization had separated in 1952 to become the public voice, and publish a magazine, and thus under conservatives (Don Slater, Dorr Legg, et al) was born the first homosexual magazine, ONE, social service organization, educational work-with classes (and ONE Institute and Quarterly), some of the first homosexual books (Homosexuals Today, Game of Fools) and public lectures and legal efforts (a lawsuit against the Post Office that went to, and was barely won in, the U. S. Supreme Court (1958).

Like a new current book on America’s founders,  Madison and Jefferson, in which we again learn how the founders were able to work together while having different views on how america should be governed, a book should be written about how the pioneers of this movement also worked together, while having different views on homosexuality, how to change society, etc.

The two major views were important because they were so different.  The first was that of Harry Hay, covered in an article in one of the major glbt publications trying to discuss serious issues, The Gay & Lesbian Review, of January/February, 2008).  The author, Douglas Sadownich (and Chris Kilbourne) make the point perfectly before writing a word, by quoting Harry himself:  “We are a separate people, with, in several measurable respects, a rather different window, a different consciousness which may be triggered into being by our sexuality.”  There can be no exaggeration of the importance of Harry, and his views still exist, and his work is added to in the current issue of the Review by a co-worker, Don Kilhefner, discussing another organization/work harry co-founded, the Radical Faeries.

This view was welcomed by closet cases and bigots since it fit the stereotype that we are different, exotic and not like the majority.  

The second view was that of the ONE founders, mainly Don Slater and Dorr Legg.  Their view was based partly on the work of Dr. Kinsey and Dr. Hooker.  They took the view that this is not a lifestyle but a sex act, and all we needed was the right to privacy and we didn’t care what others thought but they should not be allowed to vote about our civil rights, especially if they based their views on some religious doctrine.  And further, we did not want to be separate—it was only society that forced us to be a minority by passing laws against us.  (This is also the view taken by a decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in a Colorado case.)  We sought integration, not ghettos.

This is relevant to issues of the Tea Party people. What authority the government has over our personal lives is what the Constitution and Bill of Rights say.  Don Slater said the legal people should re-read the Ninth Amendment.

The one point that has to be made, to newly “out” people and young homosexual men and women, is that, whether or not  they know it or like it, how they live today is based on the work and views of both Harry Hay and Don Slater.  Even though they disagreed on what they both considered basic issues, they always worked together on the major efforts, and from the start to the day they died, they loved and admired each other.  And they worked; they didn’t sit in meetings talking about terminology and making up academic words and phrases such as “gay identity,” “deconstructionism,” “gay essentialism,” “social construction,” etc.

Our rights do not depend on why we are or if we could change; they are granted to us as individual citizens. It is time for Americans to stop trying to “understand” us but to understand why some people seem to hate us and have a personal interest in denying us our rights.

And our cause will continue to become even more successful if young people and citizens interested in all citizens having equal right join us.  It is strange to hear some young people be so skeptical of politics and the ability to gain our goals.  Some even think we have gotten everything we needed—full (or close enough) equality.  The facts don’t support this—as suicides and bar raids in 2010 prove.  And to those who think we have not made positive changes over the years, I suggest they get in a time machine and go back and live in 1950.  

I say the same thing to some Tea Party people who want to go back to yesterday, when their kind were so happy and gay.  That is because they were in control, a clear majority, and thus benefitted from the way things were.  Let them try living in 1950 as a black or a homosexual citizen—and to do without the technology we have today.

Homosexual citizens and Tea Party citizens actually have the same problem with government: it is too involved in our personal lives.

A Letter to the Botts Collection in Houston

Dear Larry Criscione:

I am happy, even gay, to hear from you and that you are working to save that material.  That you say some was harmed in the storm is an example of  what we have worried about all these years—as there have been at least a dozen (not all glbt) archives harmed by weather, fire, etc, or just general falling apart.

And your work is an example of why most of our lgbt archives/libraries have little time to communicate with each other.  We are working with the few volunteers we have.

In the discussion with other people, including those in Houston, we have for years tried to decide what the best answer is to how to preserve and USE the material we have that documents this civil rights movement, which since it only started in 1950 makes it easier than those of the women’s or black Americans’.

We at ONE/HIC, before the separation and after, were at first a magazine and educational organization but knew that while we were making history the library would be valuable long after we were gone.  And we hoped that other people and groups would join the work, which history shows they have done more than could have been dreamed.

We knew the best way would be to have control of our material, but that needed an endowment which we never got.  There was a tax-exempt part formed (ISHR) but its  money was, sadly, wasted over legal fighting.

After the deaths of the three main people at ONE, Dorr Legg, Don Slater, and Jim Kepner, there was an effort made to rejoin all the material that had  been saved by the then three separate parts of the original ONE.  Two, ONE (Legg) and IGLA (Kepner) joined and now still exist as ONE Archives which this month were donated to the USC Library.  We at the HIC (Slater) tried to rejoin but had again disagreements and have now placed our material at the library at Cal State Northridge, where it is safe-the library was rebuilt after an earthquake so is partly underground.

Another example of a collection that chose the same answer is the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota—which is hosting an exhibit of the collection this November, thus showing that one fear we had did not happen-that a library would not want to use the material.

Others have been able to get space from local glbt centers—such as in Philadelphia, (William Way) or have separate housing, such as in Chicago (Gerber Hart) or Fort Lauderdale (Stonewall) or Quatrefoil (Minneapolis/St Paul).  A Few own their own building—obviously needing much income—such as Lesbian Herstory in New York.

So we chose the middle way: the material is housed at a university, but we have some control and keep adding and can host events, etc.

The obvious problem you know well is that we still need community/movement support from the local glbt media and organizations to not only donate their material but urge support of their members.  Young people have to learn why our history is important.  That is why we need to reach lgbt organizations at the universities.  It is interesting that people will not donate to a library if they have to give through a church.  I would think MCC needs an archive itself.

Your work is important and is not done by any other part of our community/movement.  Supporting our work is no competition to the work of their groups, such as legal, religious, social service, etc.  We need to get people to understand this.  Hopefully college students will learn and join the work.  And people can give time when they retire.  So I think we will just have to work in the meantime.  So best wises and we can keep exchanging ideas and news.

The Other Side of Silence

I want to start making some points about my thoughts on The Other Side of Silence, by John Laughery (Owl Books, 1999).

I first would say I don’t understand why I never read the book before, and I sure hope we have it in our collection—fate got it to me as the local library is discarding unused books and here it was in the group. But I wonder if I would have the same feelings about it if I had read it years ago as I do now?
 
It covers a lot.  And is readable, which some have not been—such as Sear's Behind the Mask of the Mattachine.   All of the books are important in our history, but they all cover different parts and from different views.  I think Loughery does a good job, geographically.  He “got” that Dorr’s educational work was historic.  I don’t think he got that Don Slater’s work was extremely important, as much for his thinking as for his putting out the first public magazine dedicated to homosexual issues.
 
He mentions picketing or sitting in at the Los Angeles Times, (on 11/05/1969 in protest that the newspaper would not publish the word “homosexual”) which I have not found in the book so don’t know what he is talking about since he does NOT cover our picketing of the paper. And once again he implies that Troy Perry’s work elsewhere, including ad in the Advocate, got his church really gong.  Nonsense.  Anyone knows that it was the interview he got with John Dart the day he and we picketed the paper, a column which was reprinted all over the nation.
 
Equally he refers to the draft/military issue but does not give Don Credit for(or Harry, John, Vern, et al) for the Motorcade, a historic first. And the few errors I found were unimportant and geographical.  He says Morris was at TCU in  San Antonio, and I never heard of them having a branch, so assume he means Texas Christian in Fort Worth.  Unimportant.  And he misplaces Kessler first in Alabama but then says it is in Biloxi MS which it is.  Again, unimportant.
 
But to say that Dorr was the main financial backer of ONE is nonsense.  Dorr and Don and then Jim Kepner did wonders for ONE, Incorporated, but none of them had money.  And that is why it was so ironic that the moment Erickson came along and guaranteed us money with ISHR that, after Don and I were paid a month or two by ISHR, a point Dorr used against Don, being deceitful of course, we separated due to internal disagreements which the money should have solved, as Jim Schneider et al. said.
 
More later, but he, like Vern Bullough, says things that are very true and shows insight in the overall picture. I think, for instance, in Vern’s case, he alone made the point that I think is true now but didn’t the, that I was the straw that broke the camel’s back and got Don to separate.  That  point I think he makes in his introduction and is not made any where else in print.  I now think the booklet Joe Hansen did—Joe is also never mentioned in the book—is important.

Review of Gay L. A.

Gay L. A., by Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons, from Basic Books, NY, 2006, $27.50, 429 pages.

A review by someone who was there for about a 10th of the material covered.
 
The main thing this excellent book points out is that the continuing  movement for civil rights for homosexual Americans started in about 1950 in Southern California, by the founders of early Mattachine (Harry Hay, Dale Jennings, et al.) and ONE, Inc. (Tony Reyes, Don Slater, Dale Jennings, Dorr Legg (Bill Lambert), Martin Block, et al.), which came out of that start, and that each decade since then there has seen a large growth of people and organizations and publications that pushed he cause forward.
 
The first 100 or so pages cover early L. A. which was transgendered Indians (often called berdache) and then the closeted movie stars, none of whom did a thing to make the world a better place of homosexuals—and there were ways to do that and remain in the closet, then as now. Then we come to the moment when a few good men and women decided to fight back, at the discrimination, by cops, preachers, psychiatrists, and the media—which gaily published names, address and employers of those arrested. Women were arrested as well as men.
 
And the work of ONE, Inc. is covered after the early Mattachine essentially died in L. A. as it was "moved" to San Francisco by the Hal Call faction which took over to remove the communist legacy that they feared would eventually destroy the cause in the McCarthy era.
 
The internal disagreements in ONE that eventually led to a separation are covered in a sense, but not well, as I will discuss later. But almost every decade saw gay/lesbian groups have internal disagreements, up to today, so that is a generic problem.
 
When ONE was the only local organization it had to do everything: publish its main work, ONE Magazine, and then educate homosexuals and non-homosexuals-often while under attack for making the issue public which closeted gays feared would hurt them by making the public aware that not all homosexuals were acting like the opposite sex.
 
Each decade from 1960 on saw new organizations, such as PRIDE, publications like the Advocate, and later specialized groups, such as political ones (MECLA), religious ones (MCC), ethnic groups, women's groups, running and hiking clubs, as well as the a growing number of gay bars.  And finally homosexuals became politicians and won offices, such as state senator, and became judges. Gay attorneys became willing to handle cases which they had been afraid to in the first decades. (That is why the movement had to rely on allies such as attorneys like Eric Julber, who handled the ONE Magazine case all the way to the U S Supreme Court, and won (1958) and Herb Selwyn, who incorporated Mattachine and the Homosexual Information Center and other groups and handled arrest cases. They didn't get as much notoriety and make as much money as others, such as Gladys Towle Root or Harry Weiss, but the did the most important work for the nascent movement.
 
The authors say what they intend to do in their introduction and tell us what they did in the ending pages. Mostly they did a good job in the 351 pages, and they give us lots of notes and an index. Any student of the history of the homosexual movement will have to know what is in the pages of this book.
 
But regarding the one part of history that I was in, I believe that the authors, for what eve reason, seem to have a biased view of the problems at ONE, Inc., and I wonder if the fact that Stuart was at one time a director of ONE Institute might have given him a biased view of the facts. I'm not sure they would have come out different even if they had interviewed me, wich they could have but didn't. But I will leave it to my co-workers at ONE and the Homosexual Information Center (many of whom are no longer with us) and to other serious scholars of the civil rights movements to point out some significant distortions of the facts.
 
Often it is just the words they select that give a "flavor" that is wrong.  For instance, Faderman and Timmons seem to say that Don Slater agreed to sign a settelement agreement, as if Dorr Legg didn't have to sign the agreement too.  And they imply that Don owed Dorr materials, when a reading of the settlement (which is on our website at www.tangentgroup.org, as is much of the material covered, including a famous speech by Dale Jennings that the book mentions but fails to cite) would show that mainly all Dorr got was the right to the name "ONE." And they imply that Don held material and didn't give it back till his death in 1997. In the first place, the notes of this hisotyr are full of material from ONE Institute, which would seem to say Dorr had the material--otherwise how woudl Faderman and Timmons have access to it? But Don Slater's death was irrelevant since the material belongs to the Corporation and not to him as an individual.
 
A distinction that should be made is that ONE Institute is not ONE, Inc. ONE, Inc. is owned by the funding arm of ONE, the Institute for the Study of Human Resources, so that any material in dispute would be ONE's, not the Institute's. 
 
The authors seem to say that the internal problems in ONE were mainly between Don and Dorr (the only remaining, and equal, co-founders of ONE, Inc.) and only became problematic in 1965. The problem had actually been building for several years, as former board members kept pointing out to Don. Many were upset over Dorr's behavior and attitude. As several told Don later, they had warned him, but until Legg hit the magazine, Don just ignored the problem. But they pointed out that ethically only Don and Dorr had a right to decide what ONE would do as they were the reason it existed. And there were obviously two sides to the issues: Dorr was right that we needed to promote education with the education classes and that lousy Quarterly, etc. But they were local and money spent on the courses was not getting a return. Don was right that the magazine brought in the money and "educated" a national audience.
 
What I never understood is why this was an issue in 1965, since by the time Reed Erickson had come from Louisiana, as I had (and LSU as I had) and was funding our work by ISHR. Later Dorr would try to deceive the court and public by claiming that Don was mentally ill to have moved the material and was not even a ONE employee at the time. Technically (although time would prove Don's mental ability was better than Dorr's) that was true, since once ISHR was started, Don and I were "moved" to ISHR, and paid by ISHR, so as to help cut the overhead at ONE. 
 
When Dorr rigged the election in 1965 (to keep me from being elected to the board, which again was strange since up to that time I worked mainly with Dorr, not Don), Don knew he had to do something to save the work he had done since 1952. He consulted with an attorney and then acted. On Easter Sunday, 1965, a few of us (Don, Tony, Jano, Melvin and I) moved ONE to Cahuenga Blvd West. Dorr refused to try to compromise, and Jim Kepner got what may have been a "deciding" vote, Chet Sampson's, to go to Dorr by telling him Don would not last a month—another bit of evidence that even good people can be wrong—and thus Jim Schneider's attempt to get a settlement was killed and  as a  reward for his  work  Dorr kicked him off the board.
 
Dorr filed a lawsuit to recover ONE's materials. His attorney, Hillel Chodos, was misinformed from the start, but then blundered and got the judge mad at him, and our attorney, Ed Raiden (and Lequita McKay) was doing a good job, so the judge made it plain he was not going to waste much time on this frivolous case and the attorneys decided to work fast on a settlement, which they did and the judge approved.
 
Dorr immediately violated the settlement by issuing a claim that we were crooks and he had won. One day he and I were sitting on the floor in our office on Cahuenga dividing books we were going to give him, and the next we stopped all contact. We did NOT give up the name ONE.  Since The Tangent Group (a dba) had incorporated in the name of the Homosexual Information Center, and was the first honest homosexual organization gain tax-exemption, we continued to operate as ONE for tax purposes, until we closed the Bookservice years later. Government agencies knew and understood the two ONEs and we had no problem.  I think later there was also a third ONE, since the center in Long Beach at first was ONE in By ABCBeach.
 
There are other little questions I have as to why the authors chose to cover one incident and ignore another which was done by HIC.  For instance, they (in covering troy Perry and the MCC also cover him picketing with Gay Lib (and Morris Kight) at the Los Angeles Times, and getting a good mention the paper. The reason for the picket I gather was trying to get the paper to use the word "homosexual." Well, why do the authors ignore, then, the HIC-sponsored picketing of the paper, earlier, which was over their refusal to let us use the word homosexual in an ad for a play we were helping sponsor, Geese, by Gus Weill, also of Louisiana? We held discussions after the performances, and while we got no publicity, the paper did change its policy. Troy Perry got the publicity then, since John Dart, a religion writer, came down while we picketed and interviewed Troy and his article was carried not only in the Los Angeles Times but in many other papers.
 
Also, while the authors cover our work as the Committee to Fight Exclusion of Homosexuals From the Armed Forces, they say only that it was covered by ABC news. Why do they not say the person was Connie Chung, and that Tom Brokaw also interviewed us for NBC. They say correctly that the Los AngelesTimes ignored us but don't say that Peter Bart, now with Variety, did a good article in the New York Times. They gore Don’s further work with draftees, covered by Randy Shilts in his book Conduct Unbecoming. Don won court cases and was successful in his legal work, using attorneys, psychologists, etc.
 
They report that someone appeared on the Regis Philbin show. Why then not point out that I also appeared on his show, and was treated badly. And that I was on the Louis Lomax show, Don was on Joe Pyne, and Harry and John were on shows, etc. But probably most important, they don't mention that Maria Cole and Stan Bohrman had Don Slater on as co-host of their KHJ show for a week—Don had others as guests to talk about aspects of homosexuality. If we are going to honor celebrities who seem gay-friendly now, why not honor Maria Cole who did it before it was cool?
 
And a part of the cause they ignore, while covering almost too much the movie stars, are writers and authors. Why do they mention Joseph Hansen only once and in a strange way? "By 1948, the center of action had moved west along with the burgeoning migration, as L. A. writer Joseph Hansen reports." (Where?) That's it! There is o mention of him being a world-famous author, probably the first "out" one, and a co-founder of HIC, with his wife Jane.
 
And the only other author/writer and book mentioned that I remember was ONLY mentioned because it was an example of how "Hollywood" had been fearful of gay movies. That of course is Patricia Nell Warren and her famous book, The Front Runner.
 
We hosted political speakers and argued when Dorr tried to support Lamport despite his anti-gay ways. We supported the Gay-In. We had a play, thanks to Don Schneider, who organized with friends a benefit for HIC by a performance of an all-male version of The Women, at which time Don [Slater] was arrested, and we changed the rules making a permit necessary. We had a good time as well as working for the cause.
 
Some may think I'm worrying too much about these details, but it is interesting that the authors went to the trouble of seeking out Marvin Edwards, who came to L. A. with Dorr, and was arrested and left town, so why not take the trouble of seeking out "primary sources"to be sure their version of events were right, and give readers both sides of arguments?
 
But the information and groups covered in this book are important and I know of no other place they are on the record. And the history of this movement and the work to gain equal/civil rights for homosexual Americans needs to be told, just as those of the black movement, the women's movement, etc.
 
Because of what a few brave souls did in 1950 (Mattachine), ’52 (ONE), ’55 (DOB) and the people and groups and publications that follow each decade, starting in the dozens, then hundreds and now thousands, we now celebrate our lives, as the founders/pioneers dreamed of. We have the institutions they dreamed of, churches, center, housing for older homosexuals, in a few places for the poor, and in several places large housing developments where retired homosexuals live in luxury.
 
The authors have done a good job of telling this history in a book that is a pleasure to read and deserve the gratitude of those who helped make this history. This book removes any excuse for future historians not to know how we got to where we are today and who helped get us here.