A Witness to History

Last month I attended a tour of New York’s City Hall along with some of my fellow Friends of Governors Island volunteers. It was led by a volunteer docent and who really knew her stuff and gave a great tour of this marvelous New York Landmark that has served the city well for 205 years. 

Walking through stately old buildings like this filled with statues, portraits and furnishings from the past always conjures up a connection to historic people and events that almost makes me believe in the supernatural. There is a presence that I can feel in unexplainable ways as though the thoughts and deeds of all who passed through are somehow absorbed by the marble and pigment and transmitted back as some kind of energy. This day these feelings were particularly strong for me, particularly when we went into the city council chamber and stood in the visitors gallery. Thoughts of the last time I was in that gallery 31 years ago swept over me. I had to walk away from the group and discreetly keep my composure as memories of the day that I was a witness to a historic moment here swirled through my head mingling with our guides historic narrative. Standing in that gallery all the emotion and drama that I was a very small part of so many years ago came flooding back in startling detail because I was back where it all happened.

In March of 1986 after 12 years of debate, 17 years after the Stonewall Riots, the New York City Council was going to vote on adding sexual orientation to the city’s non-discrimination law and it had a good chance of passing. I was with a group of activists that had spent the night before in City Hall park in a vigil in support of the law. We were also there all night so we could be the first in line to get passes to be in the gallery for the council’s vote the next afternoon. We were successful and able to fill the gallery and had plans to silently protest the council members who would speak and vote against the bill. There was also a plan for a non-violent protest from the gallery if the vote did not go our way.

I was new to this type of activism and felt a bit unworthy to be amongst so many people with much more experience and bonafides to be there than I. Up to this point I had never been much of an activist when it came to politics and gay rights issues. As a gay man, I certainly had strong very liberal, pro gay rights opinions, but personally I had not experienced a lot of the discrimination and fearfulness that other gay men had. I worked in the theater and lived in New York where it was fairly easy to be open about your sexuality. By the time I arrived in 1973. A new exciting period of freedom of sexual expression had rapidly grown in New York since the closet door was blown open by Stonewall in 1969. I was one of the many young men who dove headfirst into the party without much thought about those who had struggled and suffered for years before or those that still suffered outside of the gay enclaves of New York and San Francisco. I just took for granted that the music would never stop — that the party would never end. In my twenties I wasn’t a bad person, but I was too stupid, self-centered and having too much fun to allow the political struggles of the time to be more than peripheral to my personal life. Then two Harveys woke me up.

It was a film “The Times of Harvey Milk,” a documentary narrated by Harvey Fierstein. I went to an early screening of the film with an old friend who had been the set designer for Harvey Fierstein’s play “Torch Song.” Coming out of the theater I could barely see because tears were still streaming down my face. I’m a sucker for cheap sentiment and cry easily at even the most maudlin films, but I was genuinely moved very deeply by this film. I had been properly saddened and horrified by Harvey Milk’s assassination when it happened in 1978, but this film laid out the story in a way that awakened a deeper understanding and appreciation for the sacrifices that Harvey Milk and other men and women like him had made.

Coming out of the theater I was confronted by an eager young man with a clipboard. He told me he was working for the campaign of David Rothenberg who was going to be the first openly gay man to run for city council. Would I like help by volunteering for the campaign? I did not hesitate and put my name address and phone number on his form. Soon after I was spending many evenings at the campaign office stuffing envelopes and making phone calls to voters. I met a lot of really great people and acquired a new sense of pride in myself for being part of something that might make difference for the greater good. Passing out flyers and registering voters wasn’t going to change the world, but it was a small part of something that would. David Rothenberg’s campaign was not successful, but it did make a difference. He came very close to winning and paved the way for the many openly gay members of our city and state government who were successful in subsequent years. Working on this campaign introduced me to a lot of politically savvy people, organizations involved in gay civil rights and local political clubs — which in turn led to my attendance at meetings, rallies and demonstrations that would not have been on my radar before then. The vigil in City Hall Park was one of them.

I hadn’t intended to spend all night in the park, but I got caught up by the enthusiasm of the crowd I was with. I was not working a regular job at that time and there was nowhere I had to be the next day, so after we did our thing chanting and waving our signs for the eleven o’clock news cameras I decided to stay on overnight with the core group of stalwarts who wanted to be in the council chamber the next day for the vote. It was a chilly March evening. Blankets appeared from somewhere and we huddled together on the sidewalk in the park trying to keep warm and sleep a bit. It was not comfortable and I didn’t get any sleep, but there was laughter and giggles all around. The necessary huddling for warmth amongst strangers in some cases turned into cuddles and strangers became special friends of common cause and shared adversity. 

That’s how I came to be in the visitors gallery of New York’s city council chamber that day. I had never been in City Hall before and to be there for a reason to see the council in action was a new and exciting experience for me. Watching the formalities of an important council vote was quite an education. Once they got to the vote we were there to witness it was to be a roll call vote and most council members gave a little speech before casting their vote. The common wisdom was that we had enough support for the bill to pass but it was not sure thing and it would be close. We cheered every yea vote and the speaker would pound his gavel for quiet. When ultra-conservative council member Noach Deer was called, we stood up silently and turned our backs as he spoke. He was the most vocal and hateful opponent of the bill. During hearings about the bill his supporters from the orthodox jewish community he represented had stood and turned their backs during the testimony of people supporting the bill and we were giving him a taste of his own medicine. It felt so good to literally stand against this bigoted man in this historic room.

The other dramatic moment came when council member Wendall Foster representing a district in the Bronx was called. He was also conservative ordained minister of a largely black congregation and it was assumed he would be a nay vote. I remember him looking around the room and saying in spite of his personal misgivings, he had to believe in the truth of the Thomas Jefferson quote painted on the ceiling of the chamber. There was an audible gasp in the room as he continued in his best pulpit voice, ''In the spirit of Christ I must love my homosexual brothers and sisters, even though I don't understand them. They frighten me. They intimidate me. Yet, I have to live with myself. I vote yea.’’ The gallery went crazy with cheers and applause and it took the speaker several minutes of gavel pounding to quiet things down. Those counting the votes realized that Foster’s vote assured that the bill would certainly pass as a majority of the votes yet to be called were solid yes votes. As that realization swept on whispers through the gallery incredulous smiles broke out all around. Every yea vote after that prompted cheers but was a bit anticlimactic after Foster’s surprise vote. By the end what had started as a determined solemn example of democracy in action turned into a celebration. As we left the chamber there reporters and cameras. People were crying and hugging. Someone with a microphone asked me how I felt about what just happened but I was a blubbering mess with tears streaming down my face hardly able to speak. Being exhausted from lack off sleep and exhilarated from the roller coaster of emotions and real life drama I’d just been a part off left me totally unprepared to respond to reporters questions.  That would not be the last time I was involved in a demonstration, but it was the last time I would be speechless when faced with a reporters microphone.

That day was one I’ll never forget but being back in the place where it happened brought back a lot more detailed memories and allowed me to quietly relive the joyous exhilaration that comes from being a small part of something bigger than yourself — a witness to history. Thank you Harvey Milk, Harvey Fierstein, David Rothenberg and the many countless others who led the way for me to be there.