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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview K-0196, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
In this interview, longtime Chapel Hill, North Carolina, city councilman Joseph A. Herzenberg describes his experiences as a gay man in a southern town. He remembers a life relatively free of discrimination first as a young man growing up in New Jersey, where his parents accepted that Herzenberg and his brother were both gay; then at Yale University, a homophobic place where nevertheless Herzenberg did not experience a great deal of direct discrimination; as a member of Chapel Hill's gay community, a community that flourished in the diversity of a college town; and finally in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area, where Herzenberg has enjoyed a long career in local politics. Herzenberg seems to be an active member of the gay community, helping found gay advocacy organizations, for example, or urging the president of the UNC system to respond to a homophobic threat. However, in this interview, he more often positions himself as something of an observer of, rather than a participant in, gay life in Chapel Hill, remembering parties he did not go to, romantic encounters he did not participate in, or homophobia he feels he rarely experienced. The result is a thoughtful interview that will be useful to researchers interested in the experiences of gay men in the South and the rhythms of the gay community in one southern town.
Longtime Chapel Hill, North Carolina, city councilman Joseph A. Herzenberg describes his experiences as a gay man in a southern town.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Hello, this is Chris McGinnis. I am interviewing Joe Herzenberg at my house today on 700 Bolinwood Drive in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Today is Wednesday, November the first and the time of this interview is 5:00 pm. This tape is being used for an independent study, a History 91, which is an oral history class, which focuses on the history of gays in Chapel Hill over the twentieth century. This tape will be stored in the Southern Oral History Collection, or actually, the Southern Historical Collection, which is located in Wilson Library on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill. The number of this tape is 11.01.00-JH.1. Here we go. All right Joe, actually, we have already, I have listened to the interview that you did in 1995 with Joe Mosnier.
It's five years already.
Yes, it has been five years.
Right up the street.
Yep.
On Hillsborough Street.
Oh okay, one moment, I'm sorry, this is—
Yeah, I am from a small mining town in the hills of Northwestern New Jersey—Franklin, there was a big zinc mine there, and when I was a kid, the mine ran out of ore and the town was pretty depressed for quite a long time. My parents and grandparents all lived there and I went off to college at Yale and I stayed there for a fifth year and got an MA—and then I went to Mississippi in 1964 and taught at a black college, Tougaloo College, for five years before coming here.
And you came here in 1969?
Yes, on the first of September.
Great, and you—where did you do you undergraduate, that was at Yale?
Yes, and I have an MA from there as well.
Okay, great. Let me see here, so tell me a little bit about the political positions that you have held in this town over the years, in Chapel Hill, when you first started—
Well, I first ran for office in 1979, I didn't win, I ran for the town—a seat on the town council. The only thing that I have ever run for. And I didn't win, but there was a vacancy on the council, and I was appointed to that vacancy. And I served for two years and I ran to keep my seat, I was defeated, I ran a couple of more times, almost gave up on it, and then in 1987 I ran and won and served for the next six years, eight years all together.
Great, when do you first remember interacting with another gay person in terms of meeting a gay person in your childhood?
Oh—
Someone in your community perhaps, or someone in your town.
My father's older brother was interested in the arts, in particular in theater, he and his wife were. And there was a summer stock theater near my uncle and aunt's home. And they had friends who were connecting with the running of that theater, including a gay male couple. I would have met them—
What date was that, roughly?
In the middle 1950s—
Wow.
You know, when my parents and my brothers and I would go to my uncle and aunt's house, sometimes they would be there. I mean, I don't even remember their names.
So your family was pretty accepting of them as homosexual males?
Well, mainly yes. My father—they were very flamboyant, these two guys.
I see.
And I didn't either to tell the truth. But, you know, my father was Jewish, my mother was not Jewish, so we generally weren't terribly bigoted about people.
Great, great, so when did you yourself come out; publicly, privately, to yourself?
Well, I certainly knew that I was different from other people, you know, when I was in junior high school, but back then, you know, what could you do about it? That is to say, in today's language, "There were no positive role models." The role models were pretty negative. Even this couple from the theater, they may have been good at their work, but their style, their social style wasn't very positive as far as I was concerned, so I don't really come out until—to myself—what was your question?
Well, when people come out, often, I know that I experienced this and other gay people have told me this—that you recognize you are gay yourself, maybe early on in life and later on you come out to people in general, and you know, whether it is family, friends, to everyone, you talk about being openly gay.
Yes.
I know that your political coming out was another part of it.
Yes.
That happened in the mid '80s or early '80s.
Well, I don't come out to anybody really until, oh brother, well for a few minor exceptions until I am in Chapel Hill. In the early '70s.
Okay.
With my family, there was this peculiar thing, I have a gay brother.
Is he younger or older?
He is five years younger. And he came out to his draft board, because he
did not want to be drafted. And I cannot remember exactly when
Right.
And so that is also when I came out to my parents.
I see, so you came out at the same time when your brother did basically?
A little later, yes.
Okay, how did they take that? Two sons at once couldn't be easy.
Well, I think that my mother in particular wanted grandchildren, and she saw that as some sort of a setback. But, basically, our parents always supported their sons, you know, and so I don't ever remember hearing a negative word about it. Except for the unlikelihood that the two of us would produce any grandchildren.
Right, that was the only minus.
We had another brother who eventually produced grandchildren.
Okay, to carry on the line. So you did not ever necessarily experience any discrimination from your parents because of your orientation?
No, no. I don't ever really remember being discriminated against by anybody, tell the truth.
Really? Wow.
No, I think the only kind of discrimination I suffered was sort of my own, you know, internalized homophobia. That is the only kind. You know, I am sure that I have forgotten about something, but I do not consider myself a persecuted person.
So when you came to Chapel Hill, did you consider it a gay friendly town? Was there, I guess, '69, early '70s, did you see a very out gay community? Did you know many gay people?
Well, the thing that you have to understand is that when I came here, it was my intention to stay here as short a time as possible, I was hoping that in three or four years, I would be out of here, and back to Mississippi in a job that I liked. So, I almost deliberately did not pay attention to what was going on in Chapel Hill. It wasn't until I had been here three years until I got sort of sucked into the McGovern campaign, that I began forming, you know, attachments that would eventually become sort of permanent. So I didn't really pay much attention. I was aware of some things that were going on, because I read about them in the newspaper, or I had heard about them, or read them. But, you know, when I arrived in '69, only a few months later, Chapel Hill had elected a black mayor—
Right, Howard Lee.
They used to have the elections in May, instead of November—and I knew about the reputation of the town, and so I just, I don't know—I just sort of assumed that the general level of tolerance would extend to gay people as well.
So you did not see any acts of discrimination, there wasn't anything—
No.
—In terms of people—I don' t mean to harp on discrimination issues—it has come up twice.
Yes, if there was, I was oblivious to it; I was just not paying attention. I walked from my apartment to Wilson Library and back home.
So you worked in Wilson Library, or you just studied there?
No, I just did research.
Oh, I see.
So, I didn't pay any attention to what was going on.
Well, so I guess, in 19—so did you know any—I was going to say 1975, of course, was when Carolina Gay Association was formed.
Yes, and I read about that in the newspaper, but since I wasn't generally speaking, out, I didn't pay much attention to it.
Right.
I think that it was a good sign, but that's about it.
Right, right, well, I remember later on the—when I was involved in the
CGA [Carolina Gay Association], CGLA [Carolina Gay and Lesbian
Association] and then B-GLAD [Bisexuals, Gay Men, Lesbians and Allies
for Diversity] it became B-GLAD the year that I joined, myself, and I
remember you, I think you had
Was that the beginning of the academic year?
You know, I just remember that you spoke.
What year was that?
It was probably 1992.
Oh well yes, while I was in office, every year, I think, every year I spoke at the first CGA or whatever meeting of the year.
It was in the Great Hall then, in the Student Union—
Yep, yep.
So you had started doing that, when did you start doing that? Probably—
Well, you see, I wasn't out when I was first in the council in '79 and '80, but beginning in '88, I would have done that for several years.
Okay, so when do you first remember meeting and getting to know other gay people when you started putting down roots and deciding that you might stick around Chapel Hill?
Well, I think fairly early, but since I wasn't thinking about this in any structured way, I am not sure that I knew any other gay people here until '75.
Okay.
That might sound like a long time to you.
No.
But all of the first gay people that I knew, there may have been an exception; I knew them, because of politics. That is, for example, I knew this guy who was a graduate student in library science. He was a friend of a friend. I did not know him very well, but it was clear that he was gay, and I knew that he was active in CGA, and—
Do you remember his name?
No, I could look it up somewhere.
Okay.
And when a friend of mine ran for mayor in 1975, you see CGA was then was almost brand new.
Yeah, it was actually formed in Professor Unks', in Professor Unks' living room I found out.
Is that what he said?
That is what John Short said and then Professor Unks confirmed it.
I never heard that.
That is only what I have heard, of course I wasn't here, so.
It's possible.
Did you hear something to the contrary?
No, but I had never—no. In any case, I lost my train of thought.
I'm sorry.
Oh, I asked this guy whether they had any process for endorsing political candidates, since I wanted support for my friend that was running for mayor, and I believe that they endorsed him. I am not positive about that, it is so long ago, it was 25 years ago, and frankly, I cannot remember any specific contact with another gay person, over some gay matter. That is, I knew gay people already before then that were gay, but we didn't talk about it.
Right, you just didn't discuss it.
That's right, not before then.
Okay, interesting.
And then I began figuring out, one way or another, that a fair bunch of people, most of them men, no lesbians at that time, who were active in local politics, were gay.
But it definitely existed—
Not a lot of people, maybe 8 or 10.
—as it does today, and a lot of people that I know of aren't necessarily open. So, you could, you didn't know much about it, but your general perception was that, I mean, did you ever hear of anybody in town in the '70s talking about gays or the formation of CGA—was this something that was discussed in the mainstream? Was that still a time when issues like that weren't really discussed?
Well, they may have been discussed, but I don't think I can recall any discussions of them.
Right, right. Now, were you ever involved, or ever went—because I know—over the years, I have gotten this from John, there have been different gay bars around Chapel Hill.
Yeah.
I know you have gone to coffee houses and so forth, did you ever
go—there was one that—it is a place that they call Hell now.
No, that's not where it was.
Oh really?
No there were two gay bars in town early on, and I never went to either of them, but I know where they were.
Oh, well, tell me.
And they weren't where Hell is, that building was not even built then.
Okay.
One was Pegasus, and the other one was, oh boy. Well, they were both
downstairs, and they were both in businesses that were not gay during
the daytime. They only became gay like at 9:00 at night. One was right
within the one hundred block of Chapel Hill, what is that restaurant—is
it called?
No.
It is a remaindered clothing store.
Oh, yeah, yeah okay, so it was under that?
Yeah, there is a bar down there—it has food too.
Yeah, I know exactly where you are talking about.
Well, that's one and the other one is a bar that is called The Cave. On West Franklin.
Oh, okay, I thought that The Cave had become Hell, but it is still The Cave.
Yeah.
I don't frequent straight bars ever, so I just knew generally where it was. So those are the only two gay bars that you knew of? There was one—
Yeah, and they weren't at the same time either, I think that one replaced the other. There was a fire at the one on East Franklin and it closed. It closed for quite a while, I believe, and then the one on West Franklin developed. But I never went to them. The person who can tell you a lot about that sort of thing is Dan Leonard.
Dan Leonard.
He lives in Carrboro, he is, in my view, the senior gay activist in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
Really? I have never heard of this guy.
He [Dan Leonard] is—for years. He came to Carolina as an undergraduate
and I think he wanted to be a medical student and something didn't work
out right, but he worked in the medical school for years. He finally
retired a couple of years ago and he became a nurse, and he either works
in Durham or Alamance County, I can't remember which, but he can tell
you a great deal
Yeah, Professor Leloudis mentioned that to me and a few other people.
Well, they started here in Chapel Hill; I didn't go to the first few. I was a little too—
They were called the Southeastern—?
Gay and Lesbian Conferences.
Gay and Lesbian Conferences, okay.
I think that the first one is about 197—It is only a year or so after CGA is founded that they—that these things started.
So roughly in 1976 or '77?
Yes, and they went on for about ten years, and they just sort of, there was no need for them anymore. They mainly met on college campuses around the Southeast. Well, at one of these conferences, like in the early '80s, when I did go, Dan Leonard had a workshop on local gay history. And he had all of these big sheets of paper, you know on an easel, and he put them all over the wall in this room in the Student Union, you know there was one for "social circles," "bars"—
So this was a history?
Yes, just this kind of thing that you were interested in.
Yeah.
Now, whatever he did with those big pieces of paper, it would have been wonderful if he had kept them.
Definitely.
Because, his own memory was very good, but in this case there were about fifteen other people there, another person who knows about this sort of thing is Charlie Delmar. D-E-L-M-A-R. He know lives in Durham, he is a textbook salesman, so he is sometimes difficult to get up with because he is traveling around the South selling books. He was one of the founders of something called Friendly Castle. Have you heard of that?
No, founder of Friendly Castle.
Friendly Castle was a house, a small house, on Friendly Lane, which was for a long time—
The Castle Parties, I remember those.
That's right.
I went to the very last one, it was '92, '93, when Doug Ferguson did it.
That's right, well, that's right, well, Charlie was one of the founders of that, I believe.
Oh, very good, great.
And even though, he may have been—excuse me—he may have been too old to
be a student. I can't remember what he was doing here in
Yeah, sounds like a great idea.
So, you, the first one you, the first Southeastern Gay and Lesbian Conference that you attended was roughly in the 1980s, was it, did people just meet in general—how long did it last?
A weekend usually, you know it would begin on a Friday night, or maybe even a Thursday and go until Sunday morning, or Sunday afternoon.
Did a lot of faculty come in?
No.
Was it mainly just students and activists?
No it's mainly student activists and some people were older, like me. Even though I was still a graduate student, I suppose—
It is easy to be old in this town.
Oh, they discussed everything under the sun.
Did they have little groups that split up?
Yeah, they would have big speakers who would speak to the whole gathering, they would have whole workshops, there would be meals, there would be religious services, it almost always ended with some sort of vaguely Protestant, ecumenical service, when I was in Chapel Hill. I never—did I ever—I did go to Raleigh, it was at [N.C.] State one year.
Oh.
But, when it was held here, usually there was a vaguely protestant religious service was held in the Forest Theater, you know, on a Sunday morning.
The vaguely protestant.
Yes.
I think they did something—an Atlantic Conference I think it was called,
NACHO or something like that.
Well.
Whether it was just social, or was if it was activist oriented, they had a lot of different things?
Yeah, I think that it had every purpose under the sun. You know, some people just went to pick up somebody.
Right, just to meet people.
Other people went because they wanted to overthrow the existing society.
I mean, really
Unfortunately, the person who most knows about that is dead. A great guy
named Lee Mullis. M-U-L-L-I-S, L-E-E, Mullis, who also knew more about
CGA in the early days than anybody else who was still left in Chapel
Hill. Most of the founders of CGA, well,
Right.
But Lee stayed here. I don't what he did with all of his papers. He was a very organized person. You might check in the Southern Historical Collection to see whether he gave them his stuff. Or he might have given them to Duke, I don't really know.
Yeah, I looked in the references, and I am always wondering if I am looking in the wrong places, but so far, I haven't run across anything. I have found CGA's old archived Newsletter, The Lambda—
In the North Carolina Collection?
Yes.
Yeah, well, he was probably the person who gave it to them. Because he was really very organized. It wasn't that they weren't interested.
Right.
Although there probably was a point when they weren't interested.
Apparently, you had studied, or had started a few organizations such as OLGA? The Orange Lesbian and Gay Association?
Well, not me just by myself. I never started anything by myself.
Oh, okay, well, these organizations, they mentioned, there was a whole flurry of organizations that came off toward the end of your tape in 1995.
Yes.
OLGA was one of them—
It still sort of exists, well not—
What did OLGA do?
OLGA does what it has to do.
Great.
And that is why OLGA has not done anything lately, because there has not been the need to do anything.
I may get the name of this wrong, but apparently at one time you were involved in something, they were called the Stonewall Dinners, is that correct?
Oh yes.
Would you tell me about that?
They started in 82 or 83, I mean, I have all of their records at home. No, the idea was that there would be an annual supper for our community and it started in a small restaurant in Carrboro—it has been out of business for years, in what's the old train station in Carrboro—
Okay.
We had it there for a couple of years.
Spring Garden, is that what it was?
No, Spring Garden is across the street from the train station.
Oh, I thought that was the train station.
No, the train station is the persian carpet place that is there now.
Okay.
And we had about twenty-five or thirty people there the first couple of
years, and then, beginning in 84, I think, we thought we should turn it
into a fundraiser, and so we started having them. The first year it was
held at the Community Church, from then on it was held at Binkley
Baptist Church, because their
Just to confirm, is Gloria Faley the lesbian—
On the school board—
—On the school board who has children?
She and Susan have two sons.
Right.
She cooked this pasta supper and people—we asked people to give contributions, we didn't ask for anything specific—we said $5 if you could afford it or something like that, and then we gave the money to gay or lesbian groups that needed it. And we eventually were raising about $2,000.00 a year, you know, it wasn't a big deal, but it was nice. And we did it until about five years ago and then we were just worn out.
So it ended roughly in '95?
Something like that, we did it for about 15 years, 14 years maybe. '82 to '96, something like that.
Great, what was the breakdown there in terms of gender? Was it—
Well, it started out being—having somewhat of a male—in fact one year only one lesbian came. I remember that very well.
First year, one lesbian came?
Bless her heart
Yes, probably to do with perhaps with Pride 2001.
Whatever
Or you may be doing it independently.
It was fun anyway, while it lasted.
Yeah, it sounds like something that would be worthwhile to renew if at all possible.
I think we might make some changes, but we will try.
Right, great.
Well, did you ever see, I mean, I know, for instance, I am someone who goes to bars, but I don't necessarily like the bars, and I like dinners and dinner parties and that kind of thing, did you ever see, when you became more acquainted with the gay culture in this area, did you see any different groups of gays, different types? I mean, of course there is every kind of gay under the sun, as many as different kinds of people, but did you see factions, if you will, in the gay community?
I don't think factions is the right word, because that suggests that these groups were at odds with each other somehow.
Right.
I would just call them social circles. And I think that there were lots
of them. And I think that Gerry Unks or Dan Leonard, or what's his
I think that I have heard of this gentleman, in fact, in fact I was hoping to interview him, he was in his 80s and he died just within the year.
Yeah, I think maybe six months ago, fairly recently. So, I think that
there were a lot of these things. Another person who would know about
these is David Jones. David, would know about them because his dead
lover, Alan Burman, went to college and law school here and was part of
some of those things, or Lee Culpepper. Lee is a lawyer, he works for
the University. I mean, there are other people who know those—I wouldn't
say far better than me, because I don't know
That was Mary Renault?
Yeah, R-E-N-A-U-L-T. She is a South African novelist who wrote about gay
people in Ancient Greece. I believe Hoagie, who by the way, as far as I
know, the first person in North Carolina to die of AIDS, he died around
1983, he owned—he was a student here and later owned a little book store
on University Square. A Little Professor Book Store, you know it is not
a chain, it is like a franchise. He worked there and he bought it from
the older couple that started it. And I believe that Hoagie started this
thing called the Mary Renault Society, which may still exist by the way,
it was a book reading group, and that group met I think once a month on
a Sunday evening, and they talked about a book, or they had a—sometimes
they had a guest speaker and the guest speaker would give a talk about
something and there would be a discussion, but what was posing, that's a
lay word, the façade was that it was a book club, but it really was a
social network, you know, I went to it for a while. Trying to make them
more political.
Get them involved politically. So, you mentioned AIDS and HIV and this
person, the first person that you knew of, or probably one of the
earlier people who died of AIDS, Hoagie Gaskins. How did you see HIV and
AIDS affecting the community? I mean, I am sure that there were many
people who died in the Chapel Hill area. I mean, did it really affect
social circles? I mean, did it change? I seem to have—from what I have
heard from other people, there was somewhat of an integration
No, I—
Or any effects that you saw of HIV and AIDS on the community. In terms of changes—
Well, I am sure that it had an effect, but what effect it had beyond that people lost friends, I don't know.
Right, right.
I'm sorry.
No, no, that's all right.
Did you ever know, or have you heard of any places where gay men tended to meet each other on campus or anything of that nature?
Well, of course, not me!
Right.
You see I worked, either doing my own research or I even had a part time job once in the Southern Historical Collection, which was in the basement, and there used to be a kind of smoking lounge down there outside of the men's room, and that was clearly one such place, and I believe, I mean, it wasn't a matter of me going there, but I had to walk through it.
Right.
—A couple of times a day.
Right.
And I think that there was also one in some men's room in Bingham Hall. But the most famous one would have been Carroll Hall.
Would that have been in the basement as well?
I don't really know.
Did you ever hear anything about Murphy Hall?
Nope.
Great. So did you ever—
I know that the one in Carroll Hall was in International Guide Books
Did you ever know of anything that you ever knew of in terms of campus police cracking down on those places? Did people ever get into trouble—you know for cruising in those places? Was there any ruckus on campus that you saw as a result of the cruising?
No, but I was aware that some people thought there was. That is to say,
since I didn't really participate in it, and I don't mean to say that I
never did that, but I was so uninvolved with that sort of phenomenon. I
had friends who were, and they would say that at certain times
University Police were more interested than others. The university
administration even got interested at one point. I am trying to remember
when that was, it was after Sitterson Hall was built. Sitterson Hall had
a lot of very expensive computer equipment in it and the University was
concerned about theft or even damage to that equipment and I remember a
meeting that I
Trysting?
Yes.
And this was the word for cruising?
But gay male bathroom sex.
What was her name again?
Her name still is Susan Ehringhaus.
Oh, okay.
She is the legal advisor to the chancellor.
Ah, I have spoken to her before.
And she somehow thought that this group of gay and lesbian leaders—
Would be able to do something about this, I think. The student body
president was also there, it was a strange meeting. We drank a lot of
They were not too concerned. So, you never, to your knowledge, you never saw a write up in the DTH, or anything of that nature.
No, no, I would be surprised if there was. I mean, there could have been, but I don't think so.
Okay, great, great.
Now, Dan Leonard will tell you that when he came here as an
undergraduate, now he is about my age, or maybe even a year older, that
he was warned by some uncle that behind every bush on campus there would
be hiding either a Communist or homosexual. And I don't know about the
Communist, but I think that the homosexual part was true. Blood on the Old Well. Have you heard of
this book?
No.
It is an awful book, I don't mean by awful, I don't mean that it is wrong, or anything like that, although it is wrong. It was written by a woman—her name may come to me. It was published around 1966 something like that, a woman whose husband was denied tenure in the philosophy department. And she argued that the university in Chapel Hill was run by this secret cabal of Jews, Communists, and homosexuals. You would have to read the whole book, it is not very long, maybe a couple hundred pages, to figure out that is what she is getting at, because she is not a very good writer.
I wonder if that would be in the North Carolina Collection?
Oh, I am sure they will have it. Even used bookstores still have copies of it. And they gay part in this book is based on what I suspect were a couple of cases of gay students who killed themselves. And she says that what happened to these guys was that they were killed because they weren't participating—they weren't cooperating with this secret group who was running things. You know, they were blabbing or something and so they were rubbed out.
Yes, or the gay, Communist, Jewish Mafia. But, I mean, she doesn't say as much about homosexuals as she does about Communists and Jews, because when she wrote the book it wasn't so fashionable to be writing about gay people, but we are there. And I think we even—to the extent that this book has any plot, we help provide some plot because one of her really big bad guys was the chief of campus police, who was the amiable Brooklynite name Arthur Beaumont, he was just a very kind-hearted Yankee, who how he got to be head of the University Police, I don't know, but she sort of accuses him of covering up these murders. Which, if they were—I don't even know if anybody died, but if they did die, I suspect that they were suicides and not murders.
Right, right. When you came to Chapel Hill, it was still definitely a
majority male. As things, you know, as things progressed and it became a
majority female eventually, which it is today, I wonder if you would, I
wonder if you would have any commentary of that, I mean, you might not
necessarily see how it effected the gay community, but if you saw any
general—if you know if it effect the gay
Well, remember I was long out of college when this happened, so what I am going to say is not so much based on direct personal experience as what I have heard from other people or what I know has happened in other places. No, I went to a college [Yale] where there were 4,000 male undergraduates, and where there was an incredible amount of homophobia. I don't remember ever having a conversation that dealt with homosexuality, for the four years that I was in college. Even to this day, almost forty years later, of the thousand men who were in my class, only about four of us have come out.
Wow. Did any of them ever say that they had been sexually active in that all male environment?
No. There was even a gay bar in New Haven that I used to go to and didn't—I mean, it was like these ones in Chapel Hill that became gay bars after nine or ten o'clock at night.
Right.
I went there for its rice pudding and didn't even know until years later that it was a gay bar late at night. So anyway, my point is that when Yale went co-educational, the presence of women and, you know, in a few years, a large number of women, made it much easier for gay men to be out. I don't quite know how that works.
Interesting.
But I do believe very strongly that it does work. It may simply be that women are less homophobic than men, I don't know. And I believe that the presence of large numbers of women certainly helped the undergraduate gay organization. That is, they were—because women were very important members of CGA, CGLA, whatever increasingly as women became more numerous. There was even for a while a sort of separatist lesbian organization—
At UNC?
Yes, it wasn't called that, it was just a women's organization.
But it was dominated by lesbians, I would guess, for four or five years. My God, but what it was called I don't know. After all of these years.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
All right, this is the second side of the interview with Joe Herzenberg. This is tape. 11.01.00-JH.2. All right Joe, you were talking about another lesbian organization that was—
Well, I mean, it drained women out of CGA, or CGLA, and it was—they weren't interested, they weren't as interested in politics as CGA or CGLA was.
Was it more of a social organization?
No, they were probably would say that they were interested in politics;
it was a kind of feminist politics of sort of—
Special interest rather than direct involvement.
Well, more involving—I'm not very good at describing it, am I? I don't know, anyway.
But it was definitely a separatist lesbian organization.
Well, it was a women's organization, there were no male members. And I believe that it was primarily lesbian, yes.
Oh, okay, that will be interesting to learn more about.
I am sorry that I can't remember what it was called.
No problem.
Did you ever know a lot about—traditionally in closeted societies and
even today, a lot of the gay male population is
No, I think that I effectively cut myself off from that by being too out, so those people were reluctant to—
Associate.
Yes, I don't. I am trying to think of anybody. I am sure that if I thought about it I could come up with a few names of people who were in that category, but. And you know, there always were people who were relatively conservative, I don't mean in terms of supporting Ronald Reagan conservative, I mean, they were personally more conservative and their style was more conservative. I remember once going to a small supper party at a gay faculty member's house, a student had asked me to come with him to that party and the reason was that there was a conservative gay man there, at this party who was a scientist, I forget—a biologist I think of some kind, who has been dead—who died not too long after this supper—who he wanted gay organizations to take gay out of their names. I think what he was working on was the gay and lesbian health project in Durham. He wanted them to—and he said that he could get them a lot more money for their work if, if they called themselves something else. And I said, "Well, that may be, but they are not going to change their name, it is a waste of time to bother them."
Right.
I mean, the whole point of that organization is to have that name.
Right.
He didn't really appreciate that, I think. So—
He didn't happen to be married or anything like that, did he?
No, I just mentioned that as another, another—and conservative is not quite the right word, just a more closeted approach to things.
Yeah, there was definitely a trend in gay history—
Oh sure.
Especially, you know, when you are experiencing something like McCarthyism or something.
Yes, of course.
You want to be mainstream—
Yes, and there was good reason for it. No, I wouldn't criticize those
people necessarily. I just think that just as we have to try to
understand why they were that way, it's important to point out that they
didn't understand what other people were in another way. That is, this
guy just could not understand why the Gay and Lesbian Health Project
wouldn't want to change its name.
And he thought that if they said homosexual or—
No, I don't think that he wanted that either.
He didn't want anything.
No, maybe "Alternative Health Project," or something, I don't know what he wanted to call it. But, I knew those people in Durham, they were not going to change that for anything.
Right.
The whole point of that organization was to be out there.
So people who were gay and lesbian could get there.
That's right. It does strike me that even today, in the year 2000, there are remarkably few UNC faculty who are out.
Yes.
Which that is a—
Because there is a fairly large gay and lesbian contingent as well. I mean I know of six, seven, eight people—
Why that is, I don't quite understand it.
Yeah, interesting. Great, well, another thing that I was going ask. I
was just reading this book Lonely Hunters by Dr. Sears
and there was a particular area in it about the black civil rights
movement and there were three gentlemen, Pat Cusick, Quinton Baker, who
was an African American, and he just went by an alias, John, who was a
Morehead Scholar. And they were here, Quinton, actually, I found,
actually I found according to this article still—he lives in
Hillsborough now, and is in his 70s. Do you know these gentlemen?
What?
Well, as in 1997 he lived in Hillsborough.
Yeah.
I don't know if he still does.
He does.
He does? So, do you know them?
Yes. John Dunne is dead.
Right.
I know Quinton fairly well. I don't see him very much anymore, but I have met what's his name, from Alabama—
Quinton Baker?
No, Quinton—
Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Pat Cusick?
Pat, I've met Pat a couple of times, he lives in Massachusetts, he lives in Boston.
Ah, okay.
But I have never talked with them very much about what awareness there was in 1963 and 64, that is when the stuff he's—
Right.
And I can't remember who Sears has talked to, so why he knows that, I don't remember, do you know?
Why he knows what, I'm sorry.
That the three of them were gay.
Right, how he knew that the three of them were gay?
Yes.
I have no idea, apparently, I mean throughout the article, they talked about Cusick was struggling with it and John Dunne and Quinton Baker were actually lovers.
Yeah, I don't—
And so I don't know how. Apparently it was rumored and apparently a lot of people in the movement knew, they just didn't ask them about it. In fact, the NAACP repeatedly questioned Quinton about his orientation and he denied it. Well, he didn't deny it, he just said, "My private life is my private life, and I am not going to—"
That is what Sears says.
That's what Sears says.
Yeah, I don't know if any of that is true.
Really?
Yes. Maybe, but I don't know that it is. And—
So, basically, he would know, because it was kind of known, in fact there was a Reverend LaVert? L-A-V-E-R-T who was.
LaVert is the first name.
Oh, LaVert is the first name?
Yes.
And he was involved in some of this, and it is kind of a humorous story he asked Pat Cusick when they were driving down for a meeting in South Carolina with Martin Luther King if he was gay.
Yes.
And Pat Cusick said, "Well, yes, I am a homosexual, but I have never
acted on it." And he said, "Well, how did you know?" and he was like,
"Well, I read it on the bathroom wall of the Carolina Coffee Shop."
LaVert Taylor.
Okay.
Taylor was his last name.
Okay.
Well, I am not saying that none of that is true.
I was just curious if you knew them, and what you knew of them. Because I think that Quinton Baker would especially be someone that I think would be interesting and worthwhile to interview even if he was just, you know, active and went to N.C. Central I believe. And, you know, it would be interesting to get his perspective, of the gay community because apparently he was somewhat involved in it in that period of time.
Yeah, I have never talked to him about that.
How do you know Quinton Baker?
Simultaneously, a bit of irony, bizarrity to the entire story is that one of the main conservative columnists in the DTH was one Armistead Maupin.
Yes.
Who later did, you remember, I don't know if he was around, he may have gone to San Francisco by that time. Did you ever run into Armistead?
Yes, well, he would come back every once in a while.
What was your impression, was he a particularly conservative person when he came out?
No, well—
Initially he was.
I don't much about Armistead's coming out, but you know, I know a bunch about growing up, and you know his family was very conservative and he used to say that Jesse Helms gave him his first job.
Yeah.
That sort of thing. But somewhere along the line he changed, so you know, I don't know when that happened.
Yeah, very interesting. I guess that was in the early 70s when he was
writing this book [the book by Armistead Maupin, Tales of
the City], so you know, in ten years so much had changed.
Great, well, is there anything else that you think would be interesting
that you would like to add, did I miss anything, in terms of the gay
community, gay life? Other important gays of Chapel Hill over the years?
Well, I think that the biggest thing that I am ignorant about is lesbians in the early days.
Right.
And I think that when you speak with, if you do, with Gerry Unks, or Dan Leonard or Charlie Delmar for example, that you try to figure out if there was a lesbian presence here.
In this paper I am going to focus on gay men.
Okay, well that makes it easier. Yeah, because I think that is a more difficult subject to get at.
But, there is no doubt that what Dan Leonard's uncle or whoever it was
said about the Communists and the homosexuals was sort of true about the
homosexuals, that is, and I think, historically speaking that state
university towns like Chapel Hill, in the South, I am talking about,
probably were places where there was some concentration of gay activity,
gay social activity, I think you could probably find something similar
in Athens, Georgia, or Tuscaloosa, Alabama, or Charlottesville,
Virginia, because college towns are more liberal, more tolerant. Chapel
Hill, because it wasn't just a place where people from North Carolina
came, it was a place where people came from all over the South, much
more than those other places that I just mentioned, so it had a wider
drawing and so, you know, there might be gay people from Mississippi, or
Tennessee or whatever who ended up here, because they thought that they
could be more open, maybe not very open, but more open about being gay
and still be in the South. They didn't have to go to New York, or San
Francisco. They could just come to Chapel Hill. And they were right.
That it passed so quickly?
Pardon?
That it passed so easily, with no problems—
There was never even a vote on it, they just wrote it in.
I remember the discussion in the interview with Joe [Mosnier] about that. That is pretty phenomenal
Well, I just think that they all knew that, you know, they all knew a
few gay people. I am beginning to think by the way of some of those
married people—
Right, well, you always wonder are those people going to be allies or enemies and often they could be either.
Well, I don't know any who could be enemies. The ones that I know, they haven't been very active supporters, but they have been sort of passive supporters.
In terms of votes they can make.
Or, you know, yeah. So, and mainly, maybe, it is because there has never been a moment of crisis for the gay community in Chapel Hill, there has never been a time when the gay people felt that they had their backs up against the wall.
As a group.
Yes, there—I will give you one example which is political in a sense,
but not—In 1984 when Hunt and Helms were running for Helms' Senate seat
there was a higher level of political homophobia than usual in North
Carolina. And one day I got a call from my friend, Lightning Brown he
was walking to work, dental school, or where ever he worked at then. He
was working for a program dealing with autistic children. And this woman
he knew in the library science school had stopped him in a parking lot
somewhere on campus and shown him this letter, it was an anonymous
letter that was sent to about 25 or 30 members of the faculty. They were
not named. The letter was sent. Obviously the envelopes had somebody's
name on them. But the Xeroxed letter that was inside, it had a list of
things like, "Assistant Professor of Romance Languages," "Full Professor
of Physics," you know things like that, "Assistant Dean of this,"
"Associate Professor of that." These people who were identified only by
their rank, were presumed all to be gay. And they were told to resign
before they were exposed. And this woman in library science told
Lightning that the man in library science, who had received this letter
and given it to her, was frightened by this letter. So, Lightning said
he couldn't do anything about it, he had a busy day to work, he said,
"do something about it." Well, I don't really respond very well to
things like that, I was in bed when he called, it took me a while to get
up. So, what was I going to do? In the
Wonderful.
And he even, and this seemed to me at the time, and still today, sixteen years later, seemed to be kind of odd, this was not on the Mosnier tape? I didn't tell this story?
No.
What he told me was that he regarded this as a violation of the university's sexual harassment policy. Well, I think that this is a very creative use of the sexual harassment policy—
Yeah.
But that is fine with me, if it is okay with him. He told me he had
already called the SBI [State Bureau of Investigation] about this and,
and he assured me that he would do whatever had to be done to find out
who sent this letter and he sent a memo to the departments where these
people were since he couldn't tell who they were, assuring them that he
had done something about it. So I really felt great, you know, and I
went home. But that is sort of what you want, or you think probably
won't happen, but it did. And, of course, there was actually another
letter a little later in which, it was typed on the same typewriter, you
know, the same kind of type, where it talked about gay and lesbian books
in the library, the should be gotten rid of.
Did they ever find out who this individual was?
Nope, nope. No, it was mailed from wherever it was mailed.
They didn't put a return address.
There was no return address, there was nothing like that, but I think, you know that is what in theory, that is what you expect people to do, when something threatening happens, now that woman told Lightning that this colleague of hers was afraid and that is what I told Friday. You know, I don't even know who this colleague was. I just heard secondhand that somebody in library science was afraid. And I thought that that was enough to bring it to the attention of him. And he thought so too, so that was nice.
Wonderful, yeah.
But that is the kind of place that I would like to think this town and university are. Whether they are or not, I don't know.
Whether they are staying there is the bigger issue.
Yeah, well I think that, as I told you, just last week the town council passed this motion to let the United Way know that they did not want the United Way to have discriminatory groups receiving United Way money.
Which, the Boy Scouts are under the United Way, aren't they?
Yeah, that's what they meant.
So, it was a direct thing with that. Interesting, interesting. As an Eagle Scout myself I am aware of a few homosexuals within the Boy Scouts.
Oh, somebody told me that the first gay man—
Doug Ferguson was an Eagle Scout, too.
Lightning's most valued possession was his merit badge sash.
Yes.
I wonder who got that when he died. Lonely Hunters and is referring to the chapter
entitled "The Father, Son and Holy Ghost"] when it first came out, but
that is awhile ago.
Right, Lonely Hunters. We just picked it up because of
the "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" Chapter that was dealing with that [the
black civil rights movement in Chapel Hill]. And Joe Mosnier, who
specializes in oral history of the civil rights movement.
Yes.
He wasn't aware that those three individuals were homosexuals.
Well, except for this book, nobody has ever mentioned that. Now, I have
never, I mean I know that Quinton is, and I know that Pat Cusick is it's
hard.
Is he somebody closeted?
No, no, no, no, no; quite the contrary. Perry, Perry Deane D-E-A-N-E Young. His name doesn't ring a bell, I guess?
No, not at all.
He lives in the basement of the Women's Center at 210 Henderson Street. He is a fairly prominent gay journalist, who is in kind of semi-retirement here in Chapel Hill.
Okay.
He is also about 60. He was a UNC student who dropped out to become a
reporter and came back here to finish his degree several years ago. He
wrote this book about the National Football League's only, so far as I
know, gay The Dave Kopay
Story, K-O-P-A-Y. And he wrote a book called God's
Bullies about fundamentalists.
I have heard of that, I have heard of that.
And some other things too. But he was here early on.
Well that sounds like a good person. This interview has been spectacular, but these names are even more exciting, to be able to speak to them.
Yes. Now I will say in general, I am suspicious of people's memories, even my own. But, whether it is Gerry Unks or Charlie Delmar, or Dan Leonard, or Perry Young, all of who I have recommended to you.
Right, I am already interviewing Gerry Unks.
I know what memory does to people, or what people do to their memories,
how they make them fancier, and that is just what people are like. And
sometimes, you begin to lose the ability to discriminate between what
you want to believe and what really happened. That is a serious problem
with oral history.
Well, thank you so much, I think this worked out very well.
Well, I hope so, I wish I knew more things about what you are really interested in.
No, well actually, you covered a lot of them.
END OF INTERVIEW