Transcripts For CSPAN2 Bettina 20240705

She coled the Free Speech Movement uc berkeley in 1964 and the National Student Mobilization Committee to end and the war in vietnam. She played a leading role in the International Movement to free angela davis. But she was a member of the communist party. From 1962 to 1981, and she has been of the lgbt movement. The late 1970s and has published several, including the morning breaks, the trial of angela davis tapestry, the life, womens work, womens consciousness and meaning of daily experience, and a memoir politics how i grew up. Read and fought for free speech and became a feminist rebel, which was nominated for lambda literary award in 2006. We also have with us tonight dr. Estelle friedman. Shes the Edgar Robinson professor in u. S. History emerita at stanford university. She cofounded the program in feminist gender and sexuality studies. The recipient multiple teaching awards. She has held fellowships the National Endowment for the humanities, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the center for advanced study and the behavioral sciences. And she is currently a faculty fellow. Friedmans books on the histories of women president feminism and sexuality include no turning back the history of feminism and the future of women redefining rape, Sexual Violence in the era of suffrage and segregation. With john demaio. Intimate matters history of sexuality in america. She is currently writing about narratives of Sexual Violence, the 20th century, womens oral histories and, also codirecting a documentary films singing for justice about the San Francisco bay area. Folk musician and activist patrick foster, Bettina Becker and our crystal freeman. Thank you both so much for with us today or so honored to have you tonight. And im looking forward to hearing your discussion and your presentations. Thank you. Take it away. Thank you so much. So thank so much for having us today and for giving me the opportunity to discuss my new book, communists in closets queering the history, 1936 1990s i give huge thanks to the California Historical society for inviting me and director Francis Kaplan and Program Director Jessica Williams and deep gratitude to Estelle Friedman for all of her time and energy. It is a joy to collaborate with her today after make an opening presentation, estelle will be in dialog with me and then we will also welcome questions and comments from all of you who are in this webinar. Thank you for coming. The first essential point, however, counter intuitive it may feel, is that the communist party banned whom it called degenerates from membership beginning 1938. Everyone understood that term to mean homosexuals. The ban became more explicit, more adamant over time. So that from the 1950s until the ban was ended in 1991, Party Resolutions sometimes used the most bigoted stereotypical language to describe us. At times it was indistinguishable from the most vicious homophobia on the right. This is the essential historical and political context for this book. Finding people was a challenge because they were often closeted as communist and then they were closeted as gay and lesbian. I was in archives for a decade, including many in california, the hormel lesbian and gay collection at the San Francisco public library. The one archive and the duplication. Lesbian archives are once said to us, and then many, many across the country. I was very, very careful naming people as gay, lesbian, nonheterosexual, and likewise was very careful about affirming membership in the communist party or close enough to what i call the communist left to be included. In telling their stories, i am also telling the story of communist. From the 1930 to the popular front against fascism to the late 1940s and fifties, during the height of the mccarthy repression in which thousands of communists and thousands of lgbt people lost jobs, their homes and many cases, their families, and were sometimes forced to leave communities. Others put on trial and imprisoned. Others brutalized by police and fbi and under constant surveillance. Others were beaten and gay, bashing. Some were killed. The partys on lgbt membership was not lifted until 1991, and the first serious resolution at a Party Convention affirming lgbt rights was not until 2005. This is very, very, very late. Most of the left had already way past that position. In the 1930s and forties, the communist membership was over 100,000. Its called for magazine. The new masses had a circular motion of the tens of thousands and its contributors included everyone. Michael gold to langston hughes, from Theodore Dreiser to William Carlos williams, upton sinclair, ernest hemingway, richard wright, meredith lesueur, josephine tillie olson, and many others, many of whom are placed today in the u. S. Literary canon. Likewise a black communist against you based in harlem was a Critical Force in organizing antiwar racist black feminist initiatives. From this point of view, the communist party may be viewed as a significant Political Force on the american left in spite of the partys homophobic 60 year ban in dividual queer members of the communist party made astonishing contributions to lgbt history and gay liberation, womens history and Liberation Union organizing antirape is just organizing black liberation. I provide extensive reference notes also to detail the cases of political or campaigns and events. The party people were involved in, especially for younger younger generations, who may not be familiar with that history. Queer communists were teachers, artists, poets, playwrights, journalists, social workers, and union and community organizers. This queer presence is an essential part of communist and radical history in the United States. Many historians and biographers, however wellmeaning, often employ euphemisms to avoid saying a word communist in relationship to the movements or they describe. And then others writing about communists, even in a very positive way, deny, raise their queerness. The reality, however, is that many of these histories are intertwined. We are so rich and. The lives were clear. Communist revolutionaries so precious. These are stories that should be held close to our hearts. And there are so many more people who need to be found. Their stories explain what this book is really just a small beginning. I am personally in the book when it is relevant, the context, knowledge of the subject was similarly a similarity of experiences. Ill just read you a little bit. The book opens this way. This is the first first opening page. I came out of the closet with confidence in 1965 as a communist. I had been a prominent leader in the Free Speech Movement on the university of california, berkeley campus. The previous year. Now, i was running for a position on what was called the rules committee that would govern free speech on campus. I thought the students should know my political affiliation, which at the time was only some illegal. I wrote an open letter to. The students on the berkeley campus. It was published on the front page of the daily cal. I was 21. The next day, a headline on the front page of the San Francisco examiner read butina admits it. Shes red and i won the election by a landslide. And then two pages later, theres two pages intervening and the two pages later, i say, i came out as a lesbian ten years after stonewall. It was november 7th, 1979. I fall in love with a woman and i was soaring with happiness. I was sometimes stricken with absolute terror. My sweetheart had no such terrors. He was thrilled to claim a lesbian identity and called up all manner of friends from her adolescents and young adulthood to proclaim it. They may have been more than a little startled, but most of them were supportive, swept up by her affirming enthusiast. Born and raised in north dakota, in a working class family whose parents were republicans and devout members of a lutheran church, she had somehow escaped of the intense and homophobia that i had absorbed in and around the communist left. This might Say Something about what the word radical means. It is also striking that kate did not internalize homophobia while i was saturated with it. The process of unlearning the deep layering of it in my consciousness remains ongoing. Even after all these years. So juxtaposed the two elements of my identity at that time, right in the beginning beginning, for our purposes today. Some of some of the start, some of the people whose stories i tell. I knew well others only in a peripheral way. And others not at all. Somewhere in the communist party who were in the communist party connected it in a central way. When i am not sure of a persons or party membership, i say so. So im very, very, very careful for our purposes. Today with the telephone society. I will begin by presenting a few of the stories of people who are primarily based in california. And then estelle and i will move around to more of the stories of people from other parts of the country. Harry hays. Obviously the place to start is dates to 1912 to 2002. I have the first slide there. There is harry hay with his lifetime poet harry hays on the right as looking at the screen in his lifetime, partner John Burnside is on the left and this is taken at the gay pride 25th anniversary of stonewall in new york in 1994. So harry hey, now we can move the slide, people. Ive seen it. Thank you, harry. Harry was the founder of the first gay rights organization, the United States. It was called the Machine Society in 1951 in los angeles. Who . Harry was a member of the communist party from 1938 to 1951, when he resigned knowing that his kids was incompatible with party membership. But even after he resigned, the Party Leadership in new york and a thoroughly spirited gesture expelled him to prevent him from ever being able to rejoin. Harry was a musicologist and erudite marxist scholar and screenwriter, the union organizer, especially a farm workers in his younger days in the Central Valley and outside paris, among many other activities, raised money in los angeles to help jewish refugees fleeing hitler. It was charismatic, funny and adored gay. And so he was in the world nevertheless wanting to join the party and knowing they would not allow it. He sought help from a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist circa 1937, advised him to marry a masculine like woman and assured him that he would be fine. Harry wooed a communist party member. He knew from the picket lines who he liked a lot and married anita paki in 1938. Then he was allowed to join the party. They were married for 13 years. Adopt two children and lived in echo park, a neighborhood in los angeles, well known for being a red enclave. Later in his life, long after his expulsion from the acp, he founded the radical fairies, an organization devoted to the joy of being gay. The of being alive and helping men to heal from all of the internalized selfhating homophobia generated by the dominant culture. I fell in love with harry listening to his oral history with historian damelio sitting in the archive room of the new york public library. There are two things i want to emphasize today about the machines society. The first was how it started. After all, it was the early fifties and homophobic were amendments. Harry had fallen in love with rudi gernreich, a jewish refuge aide from vienna, and rudi took up harrys call for managing. Then the two of them went to the venice beach and specifically to the area it was populated by gay men. They circulated a petition called the stockholm peace pledge. This was a Global Initiative to prevent any further use of atomic weapons and a pledge this in opposition war broke with the men. He and rudi also told them about the idea for marashi. And we reported that the of signatures on a petition and very very little positive response to the idea of a gay civil rights organization. However they did get a few and that was enough to begin holding their first meetings, launching the organization. Aris vision for machine was very radical and the main point about it is, and i of quoting from the book, just say the main point was he named gay, gay people, queer as being a cultural oppressed minority. And he thought the wording paralleling to the communist partys idea of African Americans as being a naturally oppressed minority. And so he spent a good deal of time and the rest of his of his life trying to find a theoretical explanation for why, under so many Patriarchal Society is the suppression of homosexuality was a historical society. Thats a very marxist question. It was a very marxist way of approaching things that he was and he was never fully satisfied with what he found. I got through it in the chapter to show you how erudite the scholar he was. The second significant story about. Marashi thats very important is that one of its early members was, a man named william dale jennings, he had gone into a public restroom, los angeles, and was propositioned by another man, a proposition he refused. However, the man was an Undercover Police officer and they arrested jennings anyway. This was a very common practice to entrap gay men and was used by the police all over the country. The usual outcome was a plea bargain so that the victims name would not be what would be kept out of the press while at the same time a conviction stood on his record. Harry convinced jennings to plead not guilty and to demand a jury trial. This was and this tactic straight out of his knowledge of the way of communist members. But trying to defend themselves and slither across where they used every constitutional right they could think of or invent in order to try to defend themselves. Harry had a heck of a time finding jennings, a lawyer who was going to defend what he did. And there was a jury trial and jennings was found not guilty. Harry rudy, dale jennings. Everyone in madison did their best to get some of press coverage of this unprecedented victory, all to no avail. Even the communist newspaper, the peoples world, of course, refused to mention it because it was so homophobic. However, words spread through the Gay Community via word of mouth and in short order managing membership swell. The irony however was that as it swelled numbers, it became far less radical. The revolutionary oasis harrogate originally envisioned. And thats why madison became mostly a social work meditation and lost that sort of radical edge that it originally had. The next queer communist story i would like to share. I have a slide, please, of the lowell being denny the third, and you see him here with his beloved cat hunter, and thats lowell. And he is living in hawaii now 2020. And this photograph of he he very generous lay shared with me. I just love it. I love the picture of the cat. You can you can perhaps see that probably has a very good sense humor, which he does. Thank you for the slide. Okay. Ill go on with this story. I had the pleasure of interviewing lowell several times over zoom, and since then we have our extensive email correspondence. Lowell now lives on the big island in hawaii. He is an ardent trade unionist, an excellent writer with his own online blog and is an occasional columnist for the peoples world. At time, he reached out to me. He was chair of the communist party in hawaii, a position he no longer holds. He emailed me seeing a film in which i was interviewed, and coincidentally, while i was working on this, lowell was born in st louis in 1967 and came to Southern California with his mom where he attended school. Later he returned to saint louis and graduated from washington. It was there that was first introduced to marxism by two different professors. Wonderful. Id been in the government, the czechoslovakian government. Dubcek prior to the soviets invasion in 1968, lowell was fascinated engaged, felt a sense of solidarity and purpose with his introduction to marxism as a queer African American man. Both danny was about the founding members of queer nation San Francisco in 1990. This was a radical left political formation that was grounded in Community Engagement to oppose, often with direct action, homophobic and discriminatory practices in bars or local against gays and lesbians. The group also encouraged people to come out through the political thinking, focused on importance of visibility, educate people against homophobia. Lowell told me that many of us queer activists would have joined communist party were it not for its so many identify themselves as marxists and revolutionaries. His roommate was a member of the french communist party. It was easier explained in the meetings of queer nation that he was first introduced to the writings of so many women of color, including gloria anzaldua, bell hooks and jim jordan. More 500 people were involved in queer nation. We said that white men predominated, but there was a people of color caucus, of which he was a member. There was also a lesbian caucus. The aids epidemic was still much in evidence. The direct actions that lowell described to me, and many of which he participated in were fun. Sometimes hilariously funny, especially, i think, in retrospect including kitchens. If were a tactic and activity was a quantity on halloween night on Market Street, the organizers called ghost g h 0st or grant almost actual outrage at sickening televangelists holding candles, panels and dressed in colorful and sometimes outrageous costumes for the occasion. They protested the evangelical evangelists who were announced self announced themselves as exercising exorcizing gays and lesbians from the city. At a church on Market Street, a member of queer nation stayed was rachel pepper, whom laurel knew because she opened moderate at the meeting said we were queer people, so we had a sense of humor. There was a lot of pain because when you are in the midst of a crisis and an epidemic, you also have to laugh and you to live intensely every day because you dont know if youre going to be alive in a year. Queer nation lasted only a year rent asunder by predominantly white male leadership that, according to law, could not change racist its racist and sexist practices. Nevertheless, he felt that in the year had had a profound impact on many in the city and on those who were in it. In brief, in the years following, lowe spent a good deal of time in cuba, further influencing his understandings of socialism and the complexities of building a new antiracist society. As a black gay man, he said he largely felt very comfortable in cuba, but most importantly emphasized to me his confidence and sincerity of the people he and the efforts they were making. Lowell worked for a decade in the San Francisco unified district, was very much engaged by his career as a counselor at the phillip and sally burton academic high school. He was inspired its mission to create, quote, small, diverse learning communities designed to personalize, educate experience of all students. Eventually, law moved on a Training Program for federal government, and after a decade, florida settled in hawaii. He officially joined the communist in 2014, after the murder of michael in ferguson, missouri, wanting to be part of a more organized revolutionary movement movement. We have the next slide, please. This is rodney barnett. There he is. Rodney barnett is on the right and his daugerKatie Barnett is on the ft and behind them mounted on a flatbed. As i will explain in this entry is a gay b tt rodney founded in San Francisco in 1990 a it was called the eagle creek saloon. Thank you with a slide. Ill just go on now. Rodney now lives in oakland with his daughter, Katie Barnett and her family. Katie is an artist who has exhibited widely and is represented by the dress bar silverman gallery in San Francisco. Rodney founded chapter of the black Panther Party in, compton, california, in 1966. From then on, was on the fbis radar and under surveillance, rodney moved to the San Francisco bay area in 1970 to work with National United committee to free davis. This was when i met him. 20 to 20 years later in 1990. Rodney opened, the first black owned gay bar in San Francisco. It was called the eagle creek saloon. Opened its doors to everyone. Gay bars all over the country were notorious for their racist practices, making it difficult for black and latino patrons to enter. The white owners the white owned bars required as many as three or four kinds of identification for people of color. In contrast to the easy i. D. Requirements for, white patrons eagle ended this practice. The legacy of its spirit embodied in its slogan, a friendly place with a funky base for race. Located at 1884 Market Street, it was a space of celebrate, shine and resistance hosting for activist groups honoring black holidays and heroes, including an historic street vigils for those lost to age. Although the bar closed in 1993, it lives on in the creative imagination of rodneys daughter, cindy barnett, in her San Francisco exhibit in the spring of 2019 at the lab in art in the mission district. Shady created an art installation. It was a revisioning of sloop, now called the new eagle creek saloon. In imaginative space, shady, we created its interior with oval shaped mahogany shelves of glasses and, bottles of wine and spirits. Little napkins with the eagle creek name and even matchbooks imprinted with name. The bar was festooned in pinks and purples and sparkles. And there were swivel chairs in which to sit and drink free wine and, talk with whomever ambled in. J. D. Also produced dizzying, reprinting stories about the bar and a local press at the time who writing writing about installation read this theme because its very it was very moving. What she said was with this project, i aim to introduce the new eagle saloon into the channels existing queer histories. But im also manifesting its own, which recognizes the limits of official histories and celebrates the unknown and unknowable across the bar or three fragmented mirrors. All that i possess from the location of a bar literally reframed to heirloom prominence in homage to the fierce beauty that must have once been reflected and seen in those surfaces. After the exhibit ended, shady had the saloon mounted on the back of a flatbed, and she and rodney rode down Market Street with it, waving to the tens of thousands, lining streets as part of gay pride parade on june 28th. 2019. It absolutely delighted me to know that the first black owned gay bar and San Francisco was run by a communist. Another queer activist communist victoria mercado, who dates june 1951 to my two. Thank you. The slide. And theres a picture of bikini. Shes hugging angela davis. And this just taking place june 4th, 1972. Were on the steps of the courthouse. And if anyone is interested, thats me in the lower left of the picture at a very young age. And thats some of the other members of the staff behind the scenes, howard moore, one of the attorneys, Franklin Alexander kendra alexander, the very powerful moment. But i wanted you to see a picture of 50 year hugging davis. Thank you for the slide. So let was there. An innovative. Vicki. I met in 1970 when she came to work with the National United financial. Davis. Vicki was raised in watsonville, a large Agricultural Community on californias Central Coast in an extended chicano. Her mother worked in the and in the summers as a. Vicki worked alongside her. She was stunned by the low and hard work. On trip to mexico in her teen years, she was deeply affected by the poverty that she saw that she gave away all her clothes and came home with virtually. In this case, the she graduated from high school. She for the vincent amos brigade and went to cuba to harvest the sugarcane in cuba. She met fania, who was also on the brigade. Cuba transformed her consciousness such that the beautiful sense of compassion. So clear in mexico was imbued with a revolutionary purpose. She saw in cuba the potential of a socialist society that might be to undo centuries of colonialism and racism. When fania Sister Angela was arrested in october 1978, 50 dropped everything she had just started second year of study at San Francisco state and joined her defense team. She was queer, although i didnt know it at the time. We were all so closeted. He was charismatic energetic, innovative organizer, especially as we garnered support from clinics and latin communities. When the trial was over, he went back to school and completed her degree at which studies briefly thought about a career in law. But she, upon a career as a labor organizer and trade Union Activist and went to work in the warehouse industry. She became a stalwart of the ilwu. She regaled me with many stories those years, especially about the sexism encountered and her successful battles for women to receive equal pay for equal work. Tragedy struck in may 1982. She and her lover, patricia, a young black woman, had gone to hayward to sell vickies car. They got into an argument with a potential buyer who pulled a gun and shot both. Patricia was severely wounded but survived. 50, however, sustained fatal attack simply about the car. There was no investigation. Whether or not this was also about homophobic violence. We all gather to attend vickis funeral. St Patricks Church in watsonville. She was 31 years old. The whole of her life in front of her. There were hundreds of us showing the church and at the family home later or of grief. Men are tears of laughter and settled in our hearts that she could be so funny, so brilliant, so righteous. I hear her voice. I see her as she was playing playing the last interview in the book with angela davis. I remember we see the slide of angela davis piece. Next slide. Yeah. So this is a photograph that was taken from its a still from film. The free angela and all political prisoners. And i just like it. It was in 2012. So its a little dated. Not much. And i just really like the imagery there. So thats i, i chose that to it in the book. Thank you so for the image. Although i would think of angela, especially in these days as a revolutionary icon who was really a citizen of the world. She does live in Oakland California and has for more than 40 years and before that, of course, she was a prominent member of the u. S. Communist partys chess club in washington. She worked with members of the black Panther Party helped organize the movement to free the soledad brothers from an unjust incarceration and stood trial herself in san on charges of murder, kidnaping and conspiracy. She was found not guilty on all counts by an all white jury in june 1972. So years following the trial, she taught at the school state. And then we were colleagues at the university of california, santa, where she taught in the history of Consciousness Department and affiliated with feminist studies from the 1990s until our retirement about 2000 and it is impossible to briefly summarize angelas life and her continuing work. She is part of the queer communist, however, and has been with her partner gina dent since 1999. Her autobiography was just published in the second edition by haymarket books, for which she wrote a new preface. And likewise, she just coauthored book, also published by a market called abolition feminism. Now she has been deeply, profoundly engaged in a movement to the prison system since. The late 1990 sheila people stories. I tell her this book are no longer living. However, angela is most definitely among the living and she can certainly speak for herself. So im not going to try to go through whole you can read my book, but you can also read her own or a biography. But were angelas last words to me in our interview, she said quote, we must see the fluidity of gender and sexuality as each is historically situated. And then she and we must continually expand our idea of freedom for angela, fluidity of sexuality speaks to her own experiences and constantly expanding our idea of freedom is the core of her lifes work. On that inspiring note of expanding our idea of the meaning of freedom, i invite estelle to begin a dialog with me on communists and closets. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much, bettina. That just wonderful to relive your book and listening to you and looking at those slides. And i also want to thank jessica and the California Historical society for the honor of participating in conversation with you. Im going to begin by just taking a few minutes to talk about some of my responses on reading this book, which i found compelling and deeply revealing. I learned much about people i thought, i knew something about people who i really know nothing about. And then i want to raise some questions that you can elaborate on. We can discuss. But i think the main observation i would make and those of you whove been listening would probably recognize this obvious, which is what a perfect of author and subject. I mean, for one, who else. But bettina apotheker could open up these rich archives that she found all over the country begin reading and find family, friends, personal friends in places that she had and organizations she had been in everything, from Elizabeth Gurley flynn to, angela davis, and then those archives unleash personal about the subject and personal knowledge of those worlds. But id say, along with bettina, youre familiar already with some of the people in the book. I think you bring to this book your your own life experiences. Of course, the experience of coming out in both the communist as a communist, as somebody whos a lesbian, putting all of that and that life experience, i believe, gives you. What i found in the book as, a deep empathy for your subjects so that you bring to stories of people who stayed in the closet, people who had internalized homophobia, people who found a way to reconcile that long Communal Party ban and their own queer life. You bring a nonjudgmental and empathetic account that it can be critical, it can be explanatory. The world that created their responses but is never judgmental and that another point about the match of the author and the subject is that i believe that you brought unique analytic skills this history. That is the of a marxist thinker and feminist thinker and the way you apply to the writings many of your subjects was extreme the impressive the way that this is an intellectual history, a close reading of texts. And ill say ill ask you some questions about that in just a moment. But i just love the way you pull apart the contradictions. And harry hays use of marx to understand or the way you intend defy the intersections of marxism and feminism in betty. 1940s essays on against myth written both for de beauvoir before friedan and really introduce us to this interesting rational thinking. Theres the the way you read Eleanor Flexner is classic feminist history, published in 1959 century of struggle. The whole study through her communist thinking, and particularly through her having taken your fathers course on, what was called history at the Jefferson School in new york. And just to see how that book which influenced my generation of pioneering historians to understand what the history of women was with these raw feminism, was through someone who had was a communist, who had studied black history. I want to be clear that while there are these personal references in the book, this is by a graphic one, not autobiographical, and i say that because i want to say to everyone here, if you have not yet read, bettina is 26 memoir intimate politics, go out and do it. Read them both. But you, the full rich story of of her part in this history. So that said i want to turn to some questions we can talk about and they kind of take off from the books communists closets not communists in the closet, but the plural form. And the book. Well, as as youve been discussing, i think both the parallels and the intersections of the cpe ban on homosexuality and the larger societal closet of lgbt queer people. These kind of two layers of secrecy are sometimes reinforcing each other, sometimes reflecting each other. And i hope youll talk about that in a moment. You know what they had in common and they were different. Those two kinds of closets. At the same time, though, you show the influence of communism and the cpe on, feminist and queer politics in the late 20th century and the contrast of either closeted or former party members. Two movements, especially for gender and liberation. So lets start with the with the cp closet, with the ban, with the homosexuals he generates, and then turn the influence of people in the party, these other social movements. So i was very struck by the range of ways that the ban individuals and how people operated around it through it whatever you would say. And i wondered if you give us some examples nationally map. I mean theres examples of selfdenial or, you know, personal or societal, publicly. You could talk about your term camouflage washing and who that applied to. And i hope you talk about some of your favorite archival finds in, terms of how lesbians and gay men in the communist party navigate the ban. So let me turn it to you and ill jump in. If i think of some others i you to talk about. Okay, first of all, i must now thank you so much about this as a and thoughtful response to the book. Its been wonderful talking to you it and and youre so perceptive so very very perceptive and so and of course you have such vast knowledge. I dont know of so much of this of this field. So they they just some very funny stories about about people being closeted. So, you know, so first of all, a closeted each other, thats thats another factor here, you know is the craziness of so theres one scene in the in the book where im talking about so among my queer communists was betty milhaud, as you said, who was so we can talk about who she was. But. She was the u. S. Representative of the Womens International Democratic Federation in europe based in paris for a number of years. And then she was editor, but she back to the United States of something called america today. And that that journal that night is this is all in the fifties you know was housed in a building at seven, nine, nine broadway, which no longer exists in new york. I mean, it was torn down, but at that time and and next in the same building, in the same building with her were two other gay communists, lesbians. And that was hutchins and Anna Rochester. And they were working with a group called research associates, which they helped found and which actually still exists. So they were they were working. And then in yet another room and seven, nine, nine, broadway was lorraine, who i have a long chapter on. Lorraine hansberry is a remarkable remarkable member of the party and and revolutionary black feminist and queer and. And she was editing the the labor youth leagues newspaper, a news journal. So theyre in their little places, right. And i was trying to imagine what that was like they must have known each other. I mean, this logically they would have known each other. But then did they know other was gay . You know, and how much did they know . I think betty maillard had more of sense about creation and and grace. Grace and Anna Rochester because shed been to their home dinner and so forth. But. But she also describes betty miller, described a scene she was at a dinner party at their house and Anna Rochester and the man who was part of the dinner party retired to the living room and and and and betty and and and grace stayed in the kitchen and they were talking to each other and so forth. And then after a while, grace said to betty, shall we join gentleman in the living room. Then go back. It just like her had spun, you know. So theres these these kind of that i found in the archival work was doing. And it just when you started to put it together, its like really. So theyre all on same building. They mustve known each other but who how much . So. And that would have been the language you would have said, lets join the gentleman. Nobody would have ever talked about our partners or our. No, it would that that camouflage of were here, but lets not. And then and then also that rochester was the male of the i mean, she envisioned anna as male. I dont know if you want to say not male, but butch. I dont know who had a raised, you know, but so thats kind of thing i found with these were these remarkable people and, and another thing maybe to say is about Eleanor Flexner because i think she influenced both of us a great deal. Right. We were the same generation. This book was published in 59, and i remember when i read the book that it was i didnt know shed been in the party. When i read the when i first read the book. But i remember thinking when i read it that it was very marxist and i also was struck by how intersectional it was. We didnt have it at the time. We didnt call it intersectional, but it, it has of course its, its based on the woman suffrage movement, the history of that. But she includes trade union women. She includes working class women, and she includes black women. And so that has this intersectional quality and i think when i was i was very moved by my story because she she really did not she would never have used the term lesbian. I in the book i say she might have thought herself as a as in a boston marriage you know, that euphemism that was used with helen terry with whom she was living for 3030 years know 35 years. And and they even had i think one of the finds in the archive reflects her was i found this invitation that she had saved in her in archive where she helen invited people to a house when they had their first place together with you know they moved it together and and she had the list of all the guests and, the list of the food that they served and the alcohol that was there, a little map of how to find their their little apartment, which was behind the on and so forth. And you that was really it. It was like in contemporary terms, i think that a commitment ceremony. Right. That was some of. But she would never have called it that house for me. So there was these kinds of of ways of of of dealing who who they were and do you think there was some change over time in terms of the life spans or. Or the activism of the people you write about. So that i think of people like rorschach stern hutchins or Eleanor Flexner and terry. Where this camouflage was know, you know, were hiding in plain. But then when you get to lorraine hansberry, its different, isnt it . I mean, partly, especially as you get into the sixties. And when either before or after stonewall. But theres a different view. People are talking about sexuality. So how how do you see it changing in terms of the next generation or that transitional generation . So i think the best story for that i could talk about hansberry in a moment was life profoundly touched me was betty milhaud. Because you see, betty was born in 1911 and she died in 2010. Mm hmm. Yeah. Okay. So she lived the century and theres this, and she a prolific writer. She she also wrote wonderful short stories and stuff. As you read, you know, there i reproduced some of them. But as i talk about them in the book, shes the one that wrote for the audience. Shes the one that wrote woman is myth, which was the first effort at a marxist feminist analysis that she published in new masses in a two part series in 1948. And then it was as a pamphlet. But the thing about betty so she she lives long enough and she was so closeted. She was so closeted and yet in many times shes shes self aware that the closet is sort has a glass door that maybe shes not as closeted as she thinks she is. But then theres this wonderful moment when she becomes friends with a woman named Lisa Springer. And Lisa Springer is was it was is she still shes a lesbian activist in in new york. She befriends betty and she begins to introduce her to the flowery of gay and lesbian culture and the aftermath of stonewall. And it is so moving. I start to cry. Well, ive just thinking about it because shed been so closeted and hero and she many lovers. She was very charismatic, was phenomenally powerful. And suddenly she sees herself reflected, reflected the world around her. And she has a story where she talks about one of the gay pride marches and shes standing on the sidelines it and shes thinking to herself, i have to join this. I have to join this. And, you know, shes trying work up the courage to to join the march. And there in front, her peers, a woman she knows who she met serving meals at a church or something, whose name was georgia, who was . A lawyer. And she sees her marching and she rushes the crowd and she throws arm around georgia and she says, i have to join this. I have to join this. And she said, you could see the tears in georgias eyes. Thats a beautiful story. I spent has the story the power of it, you know. And so in the west, very last years of a bettys life, she lived in an apartment on what i think is 99. Jane street. People who know the village know the west village, jane street. And she lived there in it. And she was cared for 24 seven by a group of young lesbians who organized her care until she passed on this world. And its just beautiful. Yeah, beautiful. And one other thing ill say that i just am so grateful i able to connect with bolivia, the lord who was the beloved of betty milhaud. And it turned out that olivia lives 20 minutes from me in watsonville, and i would go and visit her. This wonderful person. And and i went there, and she had saved a lot of bettys journals and letters and things that are not in the archive at smith college. And they have access to everything. That is wonderful. I wanted yes. And she answered all my questions. You know, be sitting there and say, who was this and who was the house. Its wonderful. She lived long enough to see that change from the the communist closet opening up in so many. And i just think about the difference between flexner, although she lived to see womens history flourish and was so influential but really could never imagine a consciousness as lesbian. And i really, i cried at the end of that chapter the way that talk about it. I mean, i cried at the end of it. Hands for a chapter as well. Its a beautifully written but but then to see hansberry at least is writing to the latter and writing as this is one of the close readings i love of her plays the way that she brings queer character of color in towards the end of her life, you know, and then to say, you know, betty malard, by the later period of her life, theres a wonderful story of of transitions there. Theres so many other of these how people navigated those bands and closets. But lets turn to the contributions of so many queer communists to social Justice Movements in the 20th century. Intellectual contributions, organizational, political. What stands out for you . Ive mentioned a few texts, but what like how would you map it in terms of . Here are some of the ways having been communist states they shaped movements that many of us have been part of and didnt even realize that we were walking into a communist structure. Or intellectual framework because id say a couple of things that are, you know, we have in a few minutes. First of all, start with flexor since we were there anyway, so one of wexlers closest friends was a woman named marion bacharach. And she and interestingly enough, she spelled her name marion with an o which is usually the masculine spelling. Thats all i know. So very much about marion bacharachs personal life. And i wasnt able to find theres no archive, but she was very Close Friends with flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, flynn, and she was very Close Friends. Friends with Eleanor Flexner and of the book that flexner wrote century of struggle. She she was able to think about how to map that book and her conversations. Bacharach they had long conversations, and in fact, it was marion bacharach took Eleanor Flexner to hear a lecture by Elizabeth Gurley flynn about the early strikes of women. And then flexner said she, went to the library to try to find more books about it. And there werent any. And so she decided to write it, but her intellectual contribution is enormous in in unearthing the history of womens suffrage. It has these black Women Trade Union women, this multifaceted and also flexed, taught the first class ever taught in womens history in the United States. It at the Jefferson School. And thats just an astonishing thing and she influenced so many of us who read that book and heard her speak. And she was a keynote speaker at the berkshire conference on. The history of women, i remember. Yeah. So thats thats one the one play. But an important caveat or, an important point. If you didnt fluxus background, you would never have know that she was in the communist party because theres no acknowledgment its in her influxes acknowledgments of the 59 book. She says nothing about mary bacharach. Nothing about gurley flynn. She erases anything about her own communist history, which is just but in the oral history that she did with Jacqueline Van voorhis, she talks about her being in the communist party, but in the published work, im just saying, why do you think do you think that was protecting them or protecting her, making it more mainstream . I think it was protecting, you know, Harvard University press, making it more mainstream. I dont think about it. You know, and then with hansberry, let me just say with lorraine hansberry, she had extraordinary intellect and an extraordinary being. And as you say, she wrote for the letter. She wrote letters to the latter. She used the pseudonym course. She wrote short stories. And i do, as you say, close reading of some of the short stories show the level of internalized homophobia. Yeah. And the very to me, they very, very, very powerful stories. But at the end of her life, shes obsessed with the last play, which is le blanc, that shes writing as shes dying, she, shes dying and she to finish this play and it is an its about african liberation and one of the liberationist in the play is a gay african man. And hes not not only is not a pathetic figure, on the contrary, hes a revolutionary. Hes hero. He takes up arms first, even its his older brother whos the leader of the of the movement. And and its its a extraordinarily moving play and and to credit nemeroff for her former husband you know who was the executor of her of her estate he was faithful to the plays text and this gay black figure in it but nobody he comments on it. Mm hmm. And you read the stories of the press and, everything. Its like hes just erased, right . So that was very important to me to say look. And and of course, it was before stonewall. She. Before stonewall. She died. In 1665. So the subject of that and that character lead me to another insight from the way from your book in terms of the ways that lesbian and gay communists, i think shaped our consciousness in other social Justice Movements and that is internationalism. Yes. And how much of the the language, the politics for the sixties the seventies. And, you know, up until our own time really were rooted in a internationalism and that and also just an antique anticolonial, you know, colonial liberation mentality that was in in the party and people who had been in the party that were then, you know, become part of the left, the new or progressive people not realizing that it had been coming from some of these key writings of people that time, you know, going to betty malard and also doing well, angela davis to, you know just it runs so many of the characters who you talk about that. Absolutely. Malard was very much an international. Yeah. Yes. You look at that feeling of, as you say, the International Womens basically the international women, their leftist womens organizing that i didnt learn about until so in my understanding of womens movements, that they know how central they were. You know, i want to get us to questions soon but theres one or two other things i want to ask you. One, going back to california for a moment, to your and focusing on the west coast. Weve been talking nationally. Was there anything distinctive about the west coast and the communist party that looks different for the people who you were talking about, others in the book who either come from or wind up in the west coast, from the eastern seaboard world . Is it all kind of obvious in terms of sexuality, the ways that this question of both the closet but also influence other movements . Is it similar or is there anything unique out here . And im thinking partly because of the labor movement, i think about San Francisco, about what, you know, just how the communist party was not as well. I dont know the answer to that. But is it as affected by the ban in the west as it was in the east is it everywhere the same . You tell me. Well, well, a lot of this is you know, its a little speculative have we dont know for sure, but i agree with you. I think it was different on the west coast and i think one of the reasons for that was the thought general strike, the presence of the International Labor International Longshoreman and warehouse agents union. I think that union has played a tremendous role in in changing the whole contour of politics. Certainly in northern well you know, in the San Francisco bay area, in Northern California, it was very important when we were in the all in 64, the Free Speech Movement, we had the support of the labor movement. We had the support the Alameda County labor labor movement. Yeah, that they didnt exactly endorse the strike as such because we want to workers on strike. But as result of their support, a lot of workers like the teamsters, for example, refused to cross our picket lines during the Free Speech Movement, which paralyzed the campus. So and theres a lot of Union Organizing that then happens on campus in the aftermath of the free speech, for example. Yeah, i think also i think about the movements in Southern California and the longshore workers there and shutting down the ships. And i think about the intensity of organizing in the black community in los angeles example, the watts uprising in 65, theres this about the west coast that are different. Now theres one other thing thats different to the the smith cases on the west coast were fought in a different way then on the east. Not that everybody didnt fight, but there was ways in which the california communist movement appealed to the public in a certain kind of way and you think of a woman like dorothy healy, for example, was an extraordinary in Southern California the chair of that communist party for many years a beloved figure she started out organizing in fields in in the in the valley, you know, and. And and you think about thats the other thing too is the organize thing of of were farmworkers filipino especially chicano mexican workers in california know its the politics are different here and i think it makes it its more open theres a more of an openness and i just throw in one of the reasons i raise the question was from you know knowing alan barabbas work on the marine cooks and stewards union, which was antiracist and antihuman phobic and communists inflected and that that i of that as just opening up a whole other way of looking at these intersections. This like back in the 1940s 1930s 1940s seven shall we open up questions. Was there anything else you wanted to say about lucy . This is really one id be to be in dialog with you, and im happy to answer any questions from right woman to let jessica moderate because we havent been watching the list of to look at her questions here. So know what people are asking . Yes, absolutely. I just want to thank you both so much for this rich and wonderful discussion in lots of just wonderful information being shared here and that we have some very enthusiastic folks in the chat. Well, and its really wonderful. So thank you both so much for this discussion. And we have a lot of questions, so im going to try to stitch through this a little bit. First question, bettina says, thank you for this work. Im surprised the communist party took so very long to officially accept gay people, especially in the light of the lgbtq. They had gained so much, except since in Many Political and social spheres. Can you say more why the party held on to this discrimination for long and others have asked the same question whether something in communist or marxist doctrines that when we are to hold on and who or what finally led to bringing down those rules . Well, its a very good and and i dont necessary have any kind of definitive answer i try give some sense of it in the book a little bit i think it had to with a certain cost of leadership in the New York National of who was there at a particular time and the people. Especially gus hall, who was the general secretary the party for all the time that i was in the communist party, was very, very homophobic. Just personally, he was very homophobic. And there were other im naming him, but there were other people in the National Office that were personally very, very hostile to gays and lesbians and that was not i dont think that was necessarily true of someone like henry, who was the national chairman, the party. He was African American who died in 1986, and his well, we all the thing is, we all loved we called him winnie. We all loved him. He was warm. He was open he was, you know, and i dont have no idea what his feelings were about homosexuality. Had a conversation with a man. No idea, about it. But. But you just get a different feeling from him, you know, about things. But no one would budge on this. But but in fairness, lets say in fairness, i found much evidence in the archives, and i document that in the book as fairly as i can. I think will agree with me on this. People who wrote letters to the communist leadership and said, please stop this, ban, please let people into the party we cant. There was one person in the southwest who wrote a letter who said im having difficulty recruiting people into the party because young people, because theyre so upset about this ban against gays and lesbians. You know. So its not like they werent aware of push. They were. And the Northern California party as well as communists in other parts the country also actually passed press allusions for affirming rights well before 1991. You know, i would submit it for Party Conventions, for example and it just would be defeated it would be defeated at the national. So i think some of it is a personal homophobia that that that people had. And i think the other was this sort of an ideological pneumonia. Thats not a word ideological stuff that people had about gays and lesbians being degenerate gays and lesbians being or gays and lesbians being on or gays and lesbians being, but petty bourgeois, you know, which was sort of an epithet that was hurled at people at various times. So that thats the only way i can i can try to explain it. Its unconscionable. And it persisted and thats what i can say. Thats, you know, the original the original ban was the rationale. It was that gays and lesbians in fifties if they were discovered by the fbi, could be forced to become informants. And of course, the government of throwing all the and lesbians out of the state department was that if they were discovered by the soviet union, they could be used as spies, you know, blackmailed and spies. So like the two of them, the state on the one hand, and the communist party the other hand had exactly the same position inverted right about who was who was going to be the informants or the spy. But thats thats the best i can do with what i understand about it. But they intransigent. It was intransigent. Thank you you very much for your answer. Another question asked. Im curious to know if there has been any study either historically or modern day on intersectionality between marxism, revolutionary and communist groups and, hate crimes, specifically those motivated by Sexual Orientation, identity and or race. How many queer people of all races join revolutionary, marxist or communist groups as a result of violence against their community . Thats an excellent question. And i still i dont know if you have a response to that i dont know how many, but if if people are survivors of queer back end and passionate, you know, gay bashing and they have some kind of intersectional understanding of the ways in which gender, race, class, sexuality intertwined that could influence someone to become part of a communist movement and im thinking of one of the people i interviewed in the book was Dale Mitchell was is wonderful. Hes in boston he was a veteran of the stonewall uprising and then he went through quite a journey. But he he is journey was too. He felt himself be a communist and he to be part of a revolutionary movement in order to counter violence, including violence, you know violence against gay people and they kept rejecting it. So thats a thats one thing i could say. I was struck there when you were telling the story of Vicky Mercado about the question of the murder. And id had an even thought about it when i read the that this was a case of, you know, commie queer bashing, killing, violence, that was not named as such. And was this whole conflation of these two demons that would make one more vulnerable to violence . This is not the same question as people having the analysis but that in lived experience, would people have been more is the closet partly the double closet youre even more exposed you dont have to answer that but im just throwing that into the question that we wont we may less because of that vulnerability. Pesticide, you know, is. Bettina, there is a question, personal question. How were you able to hide your Sexual Orientation from the party when you were in the party . Sorry for laughing . What was i able to. Well, i did something that many many laughing because i didnt fight very well. You know. We all think were fighting. Right. And everybody her grandmother knows thats thats why i started to laugh. But its a very good question and i think in my you know, i did very typical, which is i got married so theres a lot of this is nothing unusual me well a lot of gays and lesbians who married oh not necessarily queer people you know like harry hay for example anita was not a lesbian when she was her, she happened to be six feet tall, which was his bow to her being masculine like woman. But she was she was a she was heterosexual, you know, but so, so but a lot of times people married as a way now when i married and ive said this before, you know, my husband is a very good person what is he was was my husband and he is a very good person i say and i was confused about my i, i knew what my feelings were, but i didnt language for it or and pressure was all to get married and so once safely married, however, i had my first lesbian affair. You see so. So its you can see whats whats going on there and i think thats the way a lot of i cant i cant speak for others i dont know but in my own case, that was very much a part of and i talk about it in the after word of this book and course is still mentioned. I talk about it in intimate politics of but in the afterword to this i talk about my own contradictions and and yes, i was hiding from the fbi. I was hiding from my husband and i was hiding from the party. So i was hiding, hiding, hiding. And it was very, very stressful. And i was not very successful, you know. I mean, there is a certain ways in which it was known. Can imagine how stressful and difficult that was. I thank you very much for sharing your experiences as well. Appreciate it. There are some questions and more questions. Im come a couple about harry. Hey what is experiences and harry draw on from his background in the party and a study of marxist and founding and organizing machine and thank you for this work also they said welcome. So in terms of the machine machine so he i didnt have time really to go it in in the book i do in some detail when you read harrys work he was the educational director for his party club when he was in the communist party and he taught many educational shows on africanamerican oppression and he was very very knowledgeable about the racist, racist racist structures and and systemic are now what is now critical theory that everybody on the right wants to ban. We we didnt call it that then, but i mean he was very knowledgeable about this and about the special work with the party called the special oppression of African American peoples. And theres a lot of discussion the party about that and he led educational on it and you can see his notes. The archive for that. In addition to that, harry taught for the California Labor school, which basically a party run school in california and the the school he taught a class. So its fascinating what he did. Thats why i said he was a musicologist. He taught a class using folk music and carols as a way of showing the history of struggle through music. And the class was one of the most popular that was taught at the California Labor school. People loved it and he played the music and he he had lyrics and, he did analysis and so forth. So you see, this guy was very thats why i said erudite, you know, very smart, very creative in his thinking. So when he was struggling with the issue of gay oppression, not so much about himself mean he was very happy to be gay, really unusual from that point of view. Its very unusual in the story because he hadnt internalized a lot of homophobia. Thats not why he was. But he was trying to under he wanted to develop a theoretical understanding of why there was in necessity for what he called a cultural oppression of gays, lesbians, and that was what he was working on. And when feminist writings became more abundant in adrian rich example and other writers who had sort of marxist bent and some of the marxist feminist writings like katharine, for example, some people may not know who these folks are, but thats okay. But as they were writing this, he read that with interest because. He was very interested in pitching in how patriarchy came about. Girdles lerners work on patron was very interesting to him in terms understanding the connection between enforcing patriarchal structure. In other words, male supremacy and, enforcing hetero sexuality, how the two would intertwine with each other. And thats what he was trying to figure out. And he that the other thing thats very about him is that he believed that gay people should have what he called a subject to subject consciousness because they should see each other equals gay, should see each other as equals, whereas in heterosexual coupling he thought the man always felt himself to be superior. The woman be an object. So the subject object relation relations that spilled over into their personal relationships. So he had this whole idea about subject subject conscious and the other part of it and ill stop the other part of it was felt that if gay people developed an understanding of gay consciousness, they could become a revolutionary. Thats what he wanted them to become a revolutionary force because they would understand the ways in which gay oppression was a necessity of maintaining capitalism, you and the patriarchal family. And if they if they saw that connection, then they could develop a consciousness where they could be part of a revolutionary movement to overthrow. And that never changed for him. He was always a capitalist. So interesting. Thank you. Another question from lowell. Then he asked, how do you think that here you would assess the current Gay Community . What would he encouraged . What do you think . Mortify him by lowell . Well good. I think what would mortify him more than anything okay is its assimilation organism. The assimilation, the desire, you know, im not sure what he would think about im not sure what harry would think about gay marriage. You know, he wrote it. He wrote a piece about gay marriage, but he didnt mean it of gay to gay marriage. He meant that its using it as a camouflage. Like i did. You know . So anyway. Okay. But i think he he never wanted gay people to be to he didnt want it to become part of capitalism. He didnt want them to be successful business people, women or men, you know. Thats not what his vision was his vision was for a revolutionary. Oh, i ethic of of actually capitalism. So i think he would be appalled by this kind of assimilation that we see happening so much of the time. And i think the other part of another part of it would inspired by those queer communists and queer people who are part of more left revolution theory, thinking its an imperialist thinking, anticolonialist thinking. So i think thats yeah, thats what he would probably feel im sure he would also take pleasure in gay pride in a certain of way. But you know then you the gay pride parades and theres all these corporate we call them, you know floats its sort of like the macys thanksgiving parade, you know. Oh, and thats another thats another thing. Let me just ill stop here. But just to say this other thing, when when the when gay pride started, when the first marches in new york, the organizers insisted be called marches, gay pride march, because a march was protest. A march was a political and not a parade so its a gay pride parade really different in its meaning from gay pride march. Yeah, thats yeah, thats thats interesting. Thank you very much for that. I think we have one more question. We dont have a lot time left, so im. Im sorry. Im thank you everyone so much for all your questions and comments. I know this scene has offered to you reach out to her if you email. I want to mention that really quickly and. Everyone else wants to reach out to you personally. Thank you for sharing that information with with everyone. I wish we had so much more time to just sort of dive into more conversation in here. So thank you again. But let me just get to this last one. Its sort of about an arch in our society today, and you see some of the same patterns occurring into these socialist or communist. And do you think were seeing a parallel backlash within the left as a mirror to the wider, wider angela backlash. There still . Do you have a thought that not on the top of my head. So let me think about it. Okay. Well, this is what i see about it at the end of my book. I make an appeal to the left communist. Left and also the left more generally. And the appeal is to not just support gay human rights, you know, as thats important and support gay, gay, lesbian, queer, human rights, but that the left should see in gay, lesbian, queer trans literature writing, poetry, theater. I mean, its prolific like this proliferation of a queer consciousness to see in that, to read that, to think that and integrate it into, a left understanding, communist understanding, socialist understanding of the world so that its not two separate movements to see that they need to come together in a very powerful way. So i think the democratic socialists, for example very vibrant a lot of young people in that but bring that together into the best of the left, of the queer, you know, so, for example, the metropolitan opera, a couple of weeks ago put on astonishing opera, new opera by written by the opera was written by a man named kenneth puts and called the hours. And its based on cunninghams novel, the hours and its two of virginia woolf. And mrs. Dalloway, if youre with that literature. But did you see the consciousness, the consciousness of that libretto, the consciousness of virginia woolf, the consciousness of whats in mrs. Dalloway is extraordinary in that opera. And if you look at that and you about that kind of consciousness welded into an anticapitalist, then its a colonialist, you know, antiimperialist with a new vision of things it could be very, very powerful. So i make an appeal in the book for there to be less of this separation. And yes, support our human rights, but its reading our stuff, start reading what people are writing and you can reject it. You can like it, you can, but youll get insights, youll get insights into. The nature of society and what what is required for a real, real and and humanity. Thank you so much, bettina. This been such an incredible, enlightening discussion and thank you so much for sharing with us. I wanted to make sure to tell everyone we will put the link for communists and closets in the chat. If anyone hasnt got it yet, please buy the book at carnival. Thank you so much, bettina and dr. Friedman, both of you, for being with us this evening. Its been very enlightening and thank you for taking the time as well. Thank you for an audience. Its been wonderful to be with you all tonight and look forward were here today to explore an important and growing subfield in u. S. History. The study of the history of conspire. C theory is undergoing something of a boom at the moment. Just as the