[TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
I am sorry.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
That is all right.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
Okay, we are on the forth side of the interview with Quinton Baker, the
number for this tape is, 02.23.02-QB.4
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
I—the experience of having the interview, I guess I felt almost as if
there was almost some kind of connection or some kind of a—
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
This is Jim Sears?
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
Jim Sears—that there was some kind of—you know he talked about his
relationship, his partner, his work, and then you almost felt that there
was some kind of trust factor that was being built. Once the book came
out and then he started—I felt betrayed by that trust factor.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
So he built—was it a period of meetings that he built this trust factor
up?
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
Right, yes, and I felt that—
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
There was a rapport built to hopefully have a more open—
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
Yeah, and I felt that he exploited that. I have not heard from him since.
I had no clue that I had been mentioned in the new book.°
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
I remember when we spoke about that, and I was thinking, "Should I have
mentioned this?"
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
I had no clue, and then when he spoke in Raleigh, the business group, in
which he did this description of me and Pat being lovers, it was all for
his, for him to sell his book, because it was not true about the way of
our relationship.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
He wasn't being a real historian; he was just making up things to—
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
Right, and Pat and I had been friends all of these years.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
You had just been sexual.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
We had never had a sexual relationship, it never even crossed our minds,
okay, we were just friends, and what ever he said was sort of like, "The
son of a black sharecropper and the grandson of a founder of the Ku Klux
Klan are lovers." I mean that's—
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
Were you invited to come to the Business Guild?°
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
Didn't know that it was coming to town.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
And that they were going to be talking about you.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
Didn't have a clue. If I hadn't had a friend who's an attorney who was
present and called me up to tell me what had happened, I would have had
no idea.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
Had you spoken to Jim [Sears] about this later on?
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
No.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
Did you ask him not to have that initially shared?
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
Yes.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
I mean, not to even have the—you didn't even want it published
necessarily in Lonely Hunters, "The Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost?"
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
He had the right to use the tape for the book but he did not have any
right to use the tape publicly in any way whatsoever.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
And certainly not for the second book.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
And not for the second book, no.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
Okay, when I spoke to you on the phone for the first time, and I was
surprised that I had gotten you [Laughter]
so it was something.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
I was surprised that you had got me too. [Laughter]
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
You were like, "Damn, I got caught."
You said something to the effect of, "I want to be known for something, I
don't want my legacy to necessarily be just the civil rights movement
and my activism that I was involved in the 1960s, If I am remembered, I
want to be remembered for a broader picture." I think that is the idea
that you expressed to me. Correct me if I am wrong. Why don't you tell
me a little bit about this and for the people who will be listening to
this, what you want to be remembered for beyond just the civil rights
movement. Maybe that is just a facet, but other things.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
Well, a significant amount of my energy and my life has been spent on
issues of justice of issues of fairness and equity; I have been involved
in a lot of efforts with communities and strengthening those
relationships. I would like for my legacy to be the totality, excuse me,
of my life. I have also spent a lot of time with people about
relationships and how we are friends and how we are not friends, or how
we accept people. It is all connected to what perhaps, prompted me to be
involved in the civil rights movement, but I think I have made
significant contributions to life and the well-being of mankind since
1960, my life did not stop with 1960 and so if you are going to talk
about me, talk about what I am doing currently, if you want to relate
that to my work in the '60s, that is okay, but just don't talk about
what I did in the '60s, or what radical I was in the '60s. I am not the
same person I was in the 1960s, I mean—.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
You are still a radical now.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
I am radical in different ways. I won't march. I will not march.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
Would you go to a pride parade?
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
I don't go, I don't march for anything. [Laughter]
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
You have done your dues.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
I have paid my dues in terms of marching. I have been to a pride parade.
The only pride parade that I have ever been in was in Boston, and that
was really at a very controversial time, because it was a time that I
was in a stock brokerage firm. I mean I have made my statements, but I
have to do it the way that I do it. I cannot do it the way that people
think it ought to be done. When I came back here, many people in the
Chapel Hill community wanted me to be the same person that I was when I
left in the '60s. Or that they knew and how they related to me. I am a
different person. My analysis of conditions and problems that we face
are different now. And my actions are predicated on that analysis, not
some analysis before. I would like people to stop marching every Martin
Luther King Day. I mean, you would think that the only legacy that he
left was marching. [Laughter] In terms of
that, we have to find a different way. So, that's all my statement
means. I am doing different things, they are all connected to what I
believe is right and just in this society—look at the total picture.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
Is there anything else that you would like to add?
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
No.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
Thank you very much. [Laughter]
END OF INTERVIEW
1. The rally that Quinton is referring to was
held the day after the election of a new mayor in Durham, Mayor
Grabarek. The exact date of this meeting was Tuesday, May 21, 1963 at
St. Joseph's Church in Durham, North Carolina.
2. Chris is referring to the federal law the
"Defense of Marriage Act" passed in the mid-1990s which defines a
marriage as a union between a man and a woman, patently excluding gays
and lesbians from marriage.
3. The Sears papers are a collection housed in
the rare books and manuscripts department of Duke University. In this
collection are Dr. Sears's research notes, which include copies of the
column written by Armistead Maupin. The column was entitled, "View from
the Hill," and was very conservative on economic and race issues. This
column was written from 1963 to 1964.
4. Brian Kinney is a fictional character in a
Showtime Movie miniseries entitled "Queer as Folk." This
mini-series/sitcom focuses on the lives of several gay men and lesbians
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Free Men
Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones
7. The business guild being discussed is the
Triangle Business and Professional Guild (TBPG) a business organization
made up of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people and their
allies.