[inaudible conversations] and. Hello everyone. Thanks for coming. Named after my greatgrandmother. And the expert in history were almost 20 years. And also the professor at university of richmond and well talk about the new book stand by me. [applause] want to think duggan doll though wonderful people and all the social applications so the intellectual interaction. In case any if you are thinking about a. This is stand by me so anything that happened before this part of the ad as part of the archives and that is why it is so a important to me and the various readings. En grazier hands. In lead to the creation that has to do how they get together along those lines of identity. To safeguard and allow them to thrive and connecting people before the internet age to be interested in politics that we sometimes ignore. It in varying parts. In the 70s and though you werent born then but to the better for commerce and then to be together. And the main component that i would like to focus on is what is seen to be known and is superceded to be by those initiatives of the marriage with the interest of politics. Said making the profession. So the story is important it has to do with the 1973 flyer in one of the districts we are all familiar with. To read their forget or remember. And that story is from the historical record. In one is for the lgbt community. And but before we go into those. How does that began your investigation . Before i begin a shot out a first of all, because the reality is for the gay people is a place to come together not just to socialize our party but throughout the 70s and the present committee happens in bars like this. You also hear the Party Happening here and that is what it means to be clear or take or to occupy. So we are welcoming you and love for what is done into the gay community. Tel talk initially how we got started with the book. Is there any books about gay history out there . And how postworld war two era do have some semblance to create their own community. To develop a sense. And over time that decade after decade through the 1969 to the 1970s me as a people have mobilized and have succeeded. What would happen in the 1970s is often not talked about. It is often a overshadowed. In the answer to that is any of you know, it has devastated the lives of countless americans but what people have realized is the extent to which the hiv epidemic is the history of the 70s. And get this moment in American History. Long before there was the greater. Because dr. Sam policy makers and for why hiv spread. And the 1970s that there were gay guys in bars or just having sex. I question my is how much is true . And but about spreading the rash of hiv . And how we define that era and my argument is we have diluted the history of the 70s as a way to tell the narrative of hiv. Inherent as a result so many key points have remained untold. There was an Exhaustive Network that gay men were thinking of the bodies but all of that history all of that new wants all that detail one shorten it reduced. That is started the history of my book and that is well let me to the poignant story. So the method refers to the tools does that have a lot to say about those historians that our inspired in 1973 . To become the object of your studies . First of all, give up quick history because most people dont know. The history is significant and why im so excited to be here tonight because bars were the site where gay people came together in in the early 70s many people began to organize religious organizations and other institutions but were left out of mainstream religious institutions so they had to create their own. So just like this tonight the second floor of the bar their takeover the secondfloor they would take over the room and organize. Sold in new orleans a bunch of gay guys came in in the afternoon, day heard about the uprising and i just want to pause for a second how did this cavemen learn about stonewall . Because the news media didnt talk about it but the gay press did. So gay newspapers carried the story from new york and a bunch of cavemen gathered to celebrate the fourth anniversary. Raos 7 00 everybody laughed members of the Metropolitan Community Church rented the second room floor of the bar is day gathered the piano in david cross the street from the holidays and reworked and they began to sing the songs united we stand divided freefall if our faction should ever be up against the wall we will be together. Then in the 1970s gate bars were not open to the public nobody off the street could walkin. C would have to buzz the buzzer and the bartender open a hatch like a chicago speakeasy to say no nono. The then he heard a noise. There was a firebomb that was thrown on the secondfloor that the bar was converted in they were locked the way we could except there were bars over the windows so they were unable to get out. The center guys could miraculously squeeze their bodies through and many tried to escape through the back entrance but the smokefilled room the electricity went out to andover 32 people died in the fire. The largest massacre of gay people in u. S. History and it hasnt been told. When i discovered evidence of this fire in the newspaper in philadelphia, i realize the outbreak of hiv aids overshadows this. I realized that the history of this violence has not been told. Now lofted history feels like something that is isolated from the past but it does not relate to our lives. I will depend by telling you the story of rand martin who was the person who led his congregation in prayer and ran the church and when he tried to escape out the window he pushed an airconditioner out the window. When he did an airconditioner from the floor above him fell on him and killed him. His body was lodged and stuck in the window. His body was left for over a day. The we are the papers reported this it showed the images of his body lodged not removed by the police are fire department. When i tell the story i think of ferguson i think about michael brown. I think about black lives matter and the fact that when you think what mobilize black lives matter was the idea that Michael Browns body was left on the street. It in a very similar raid reverend larsens body was left in the window just like mobilizing for black lives matter is immobilized gave people throughout the country for recognition. But by virtue of the fact so we begin to lose our connection to be in those communities and for us to understand one thing that they did if he think of the reagans and with nancy recently passing away we tend to whitewash their existence that is commensurate with social understanding but it has no right or to the black lives matter that has been substantiated so part of that press to allow that through history and to ask questions so how does that bring us closer . The first thing is when you think about this that most gay people dont understand or think about their history as significant but if you ask most gay people what is their history they would shrink back to where was the origin of Marriage Equality or the air urgent georgian for antidiscrimination and i am trying to say is through the 1970s cater people werent interested their history not as a vehicle or a tool as a way to show their legitimate but to bring people together as a community. And to show that we as a people have a significant history that connects us to bring us together. It is unnecessarily to be mobilized for whatever injustice is against us. This is completed the arcane. Just like 19th century borderline average raid writer. Into page exurbs because they wanted no of queer people from the past in their history theyre not trying to write their history to be on capitol hill theyre not trying to prove that because they want to connect to each other and also connect to the community. That is why American History develops. If you went to university is in American History that is like saying you want to study cartoons. They thought American History was bullshit. Real history was the narrative about American History. Hillary clinton and Bernie Sanders talk about history to capitulate themselves and gay people have always created a narrative about history and that has been lost in the creation of the profile. That says i just showed up and i look like this. But the reality is you didnt. If you take it out of Historical Context of the historical moment or the feelings that allowed you to show up like this. This is such an important conversation to have. [applause] about the forefathers and activist in the identities so it reminds me as it inherits a version of the fundamentally was single issue driven with Marriage Equality and food gets left out of those conversations . Event with those allegations were we have been before in the are absolutely connected. But we are never alone. But what makes us meaningful what makes us absolutely beautiful of that particular chapter was that left out of that particular history . For a roast cavemen a way cafe go to the gym behalf of a particular radio what it will be in the think it is something they just invented in their mind. The thank you invented this identity yourself. But in the 1970s you begin to see that there are many forms to be clearer or gay. The newspaper in the magazine those that were George Inness and then what happened by the late 70s white men began to push out men of color and women that the only way to be gay was too heavily big tax and a crew cut hair jeans and abbas and boots and leather jackets and that is what it meant to be gay. To end if you could follow that, and you were gay. And then they rationalized what it meant then many people believe gay meant white but in actuality if you go back the early 60s and the early 70s you are here today in this bar is here today because of a black civilrights movement. Because gay activist learned from black activist they learned from the black Power Movement they took those ideas and made their issues visible. By the late 70s all of that as it were working on the hunky or the beefy or the sexy but that completely undermined the art of liberation. So now we will just open this up to questions from the audience our cspan audience is watching a home we hope the u. S. Gay question. Before we do that that musculature type that developed a gated the heather bodies of the part of the upper body politics. I am happy to share the microphone with anybody. It is an honor to hear you speak to have been mann a fan for years and it is a personal inspiration for me. One of the things i was struck by is all of the stories they tell in the book art historically accurate your writing is so incredible many times i found it was purely emotional especially being at that event had to put down the book and take a minute to brief. Is it difficult to write about parts of history better so emotionally charged . Or can you separate yourself when you are writing . That is a really good question. I would say it is the emotional part of the story. And there is a process that becomes very academic after a while to write to and rewrite and you can lose that. What i like to do for the book and the reader is to carry through steady motion in the same way that i found it in the archives and to articulate in a way that really tries to capture the experience of these peoples lives. Back to new orleans, a talk about the press coverage but think that illustrates the dynamic where we were as a people and a culture. I think about this all the time because we dont know who set the fire so i say maybe it isnt homophobic maybe it was an act of vandalism but i secondguess myself on this all the time. So when you ask the question and did that immediate aftermath how many gay men died . The answer was not enough. Or how many can fit into a jar that was the metaphor to explain the bar. Even to this day he will not find homophobia in such illustrious terms but a as a historian and i tell the story people say it is only 32 people. But in the moment of 2016 to sink even today when i talk about this book is to downplay and my point is not to compare atrocities. Think of black civilrights for young girls were killed in the Church Bombing in alabama. That mobilized a movement. 32 gay men were killed in a fire in that mobilized a movement it was never to excel rate in the same way. It is complicated but for gay civil rights in the 70s the story remains not covered today that it could be pushed aside but not under the headlines of americans. Year made a really important point about context and forgotten history with peoples fascination and at the same time and if you go that far back to the relationship of the eliot is there is a particular at this juncture . Into those ancestors . Day people were trying to find anyone that looked like them with a 14th and to it be a pickup the blaze today shiseido find an article about the past you will find the article of the middle east with an understanding in asia there looking for any context. And this is what i bring up in the book. Were gay people subject that they were placed in camps and were experimented on just like other groups that have a you know, that . Because gateman coming out of bars and Community Centers in the 70s in order to do the research the genocide the people that were killed were not all the jews but also gay men. To mention the gate people exterminated. And that they uncover this fascinating story of a culture that existed and also wingate newspapers. So they would come along way. And then to figure out what happened to the next day you would reach him read about that nazi genocide. So they see themselves as connected. The tale initially had be trying to explain how gay peoples lives existed beyond the sexual culture and that rationalization and my publisher said no. People will not get it so i thought about stand by me because that is at the moment that they were singing united we stand divided we fall. We will be together so the notion of community and culture when sam smith won his oscar recently he said i am so proud to stand together with other gay people so that is a metaphor just like coming of the closet is a metaphor id like standing together the bookstand i meet as a community and a culture. One more question. Thanks. [applause] this limit one new thing he has written 1962 never published, he was writing at that time but not the commentary that is one of the surprising things he wrote to every day of his life. He wrote for the human voice to develop their early career on radio he wrote to read and not to reread. But in this 11962 he said it is possible that communism will take over but i think it is more likely that communism will just collapse because it isnt the fed isnt an Economic System is just a form of insanity and a violation of human nature doesnt make sense Company Wants to live like that. You think it is an interesting view. But it was reagan applying his common sense not everything to communism it doesnt make sense. Nobody would tolerate that they would not stand for it and he had this idea of this colonel you finding repeated in various forms when he starts to do the really interesting radio commentary in the late 70s of the place to really develop his political ideas between his losing campaign for president in 76 in the Winning Campaign in 1980. That eccentric view matched up with others. You find also that reagan hated Nuclear Weapons he calls himself up pacifist in the 30s parley with his early involvement of theater like what he went to see when he was very young which is a play about the First World War but a british play that is compacted and the trench warfare. It had a huge impact also in the Second World War making training films in hollywood at a military base. The base was cents the up early films of the liberation of auschwitz. He claimed he was one of them that liberated auschwitz. He never said that. But he did see in 1945 films of the emaciated prisoners and the piles of corpses that had he he fact actually ron, jr. Remembers his father trying to make kim watched this years later to understand about humanity. Another thing that influenced his idea that nuclear war would be glorifying and unacceptable and he thought after he became president that his mission was to reduce the threat of Nuclear Weapons. The conventional view or the conservative view is that he had the strategy of peace through restraint with the military buildup to force them to collapse is surrender but i dont think that is all what happened. He was desperate for connection and negotiation in the Reagan Library you confine these long handwritten letters the hero when he was president and they are touching. You and i have the power to destroy the world and also save the world and make peace and we have to communicate and talk to each other every he was reaching out to form a connection and would get back these letters about western imperialism and clearly they were dying. One after the other but he cannot make any connection and he was terribly frustrated and upset for what is going on during the heyday of the neo conservative reagan is on board for that but its also really unhappy because he thinks the world is getting more dangerous and when he finds out that the soviets actually think United States might attack we have aggressive designs on then he is shocked. How could they think that . We would never do that and the second term he turned around completely it is more like the repudiation the when he tried during the first term did not work and at that point it is of possible to radical disarmament. And of course, this is tied up. With a nuclear shield