Histories of the gay rights movement often focus on coastal cities like New York and San Francisco, but as author Catherine rose Macri points out in her fascinating new book liberating Lawrence Lawrence Kansas and the University of Kansas specifically were both hotbeds of LGBTQ plus activism throughout the 1970s My name is Clay wirestone. I'm opinion editor at Kansas reflector, and in this week's podcast, I spoke with mockery about the example set by these early activists and what they have to teach us today. So what leads you to tackle this subject and to write this book,
it had sort of a inauspicious start, I would say. I was at a I had had some ideas for dissertation prior to getting through my coursework when I got to my the time where I was going to write dissertation, the topics I had come up with weren't really topics to pursue. At that point, I talked to my advisor, and I had looked at all kinds of issues related to gender, and she approached me and said, You know what? I got this request from the research folks that somebody has put forward a grant and would like some research on this group, the Lawrence day Liberation Front. Are you interested? And at first, I hadn't heard of them, I didn't know who they were, even though I later found out they were right around the corner for me for many years, just with a different name. But I did a little research, and I thought that would really be interesting through my time directing Women's Center and women, women and gender equity center, I have spoken with so many students who have had issues, who have some they have struggled to find their place. They've been ostracized by their family. They don't know where they fit in the scheme of things, others who would share their triumphs. I got all sides of the story, and so I was really motivated. Also. I have very close family members who are in the LGBTQ group, so I care about it deeply, and so I decided it would be a great issue to pursue. And I did turn in a sample of writing, and my sample was approved, and I was able to go forward. And was really pleased, because the more I got started, the layers just kept unwrapping, and I found more and more and more about the group that just drew me in,
well and this and this is all all fresh, basically, like this is not something that's been dealt with in book form before this, right? I mean, this is, and you're, you're doing a lot of primary source research, yes. I mean, so talk about that. Like, how much, how much, how long did you end up working on this? My
dissertation took about three years. And keeping in mind, I worked full time, and plus, while I was writing that, it didn't go super fast, but for my dissertation, I did about 30 interviews, and then I talked to David, sat one of the primary people I mentioned In the book, and he was saying, Are you thinking about a book? And I said, Well, I sort of was. I don't, I don't know if there's enough interest that people would be interested in me writing a book. He said, give it a try. And I talked to my advisor, who said, independently, I think this would make a good book, and I just need some reassurance that there would be an interest in me pursuing it. I started, I ended up, after a couple of false starts, I didn't get very far. While I was still working, the year that I retired, it became my full time focus, and so then it took, I'd say, three or four more years to write it, put it together, and I did 36 more interviews in that time. That was fortuitous. I ran across Michael Stubb. Years, we ended up doing a big event. I wanted to do a 50 year anniversary event. It didn't end up being quite 50 years because COVID happened right in there, but during that time, I was partnering with the Watkins museum of history on this big event. Because I was retired, I needed to have some institution backing me, rather than doing it totally on a volunteer basis. And besides, they're great people to work with. So they had set up a website, and one of the people had sent a note to will Haynes, the person working with me, saying, I don't know what's going on with the history over there, but I'm afraid you aren't going to get it right. So will set me the note, and I contacted him. There we went. I was so thrilled, because they were many. I ended up getting connected with many people I contacted, but they didn't know me. They weren't getting back to me. I didn't have there was no reason to trust me that I was going to really want to present their story, but with Michael being the intermediary, they agreed to talk to me, and I got huge amounts of other additional information that was irreplaceable.
Well, I mean, and it's, it's, it's a really, what's interesting is, you, you start the book, certainly, if you you know, just looking at the cover, thinking, you know, thinking about it, just as a you know, the the beginnings of the then gay rights movement in Lawrence, Kansas in 19 in 1970 and it's like, oh, that seems like such a small story or so contained. But as you say, there's so many layers in the book, and you it goes in so many directions. I mean, like, as as the lives of the people do, tell me a little bit about, you know, I think it's, it's really valuable that you spend the time in the book doing this. Tell me about Lawrence at this time. So like 1970 it's, it's not necessary. I mean, it's a it's an unusual time.
It is, yes, absolutely. And I think especially if you think of students today, they probably wouldn't believe Lawrence was what it was in the 70s, because it was, there was quite a split, as I understand it. There were those people that were conservative and really didn't want all these quote, unquote infiltrators. There were lots of issues with excluding African Americans. There was a big deal with the swimming pool, where black African American people were not allowed to use the swimming pool, and many people in Lawrence were up in arms about that. And I mean, just that's one issue to think of in how split the city was it wasn't like we're all arm in arm liberal progressives. There were many people that did not like the infiltration of the quote, unquote hippies. I put that in quotes because I'm not sure what a hippie is, but the people who were into drug culture and counter cultural ideas, and there was a whole group that gravitated to Lawrence. It was right on I 70 coming through. Drugs were plentiful, and that was one of the appeals. There was a lot of drugs, as I had been told by many. And so there was a big culture that was built up, but at the same time split, so it created an interest, plus there's a university then to contend with, where it brings in young, mostly young people who add to the culture, people from different places had heard through the grapevine, certainly not the computers, but that Lawrence is a happening place. Let's go. That's, I
mean, that's the thing, right? Is you, you still have phones, like people still were able to call each other. It's,
well, I mean, this is something that you know Michael Stubbs had talked to me about too, is that it's like people assume that if you're talking about 50 or 60 years in the past, that it's like, oh, it's so impossibly long ago. But people could still fly to cities, people could still call people were aware of what was. Going on,
yeah, you get your car and you drive on I 70, yeah, and so it was
so things that were happening on the coasts, things that were happening in popular culture, like they were showing up in Lawrence, yeah, you know, maybe not instantaneously, but certainly within a month or two or three,
right? Exactly, which is
where I mean because, because this is the point you have. So when you're talking about the LGBTQ movement, the kind of the big event, the legendary event, is Stonewall, which is 1969 Yes. And then you have the founding of the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front in 1970 Yes.
So people assumed it was that that motivated the founding, which it wasn't. But
so, so take us back. I mean, my point is, things happened fast, yes, but talk a little bit about the founding in kind of the context of these other things happening. Yeah.
One thing I want to say ahead of time is so I was really interested in you were talking about how news travels. What I found in Lawrence journal World Around that time when Stonewall happened. So I looked in about a month of Lawrence journal worlds and Lawrence daily, journal world, it was back then, and starting the week after Stonewall and looking through Not a peep, not a word. And you know, the news organizations had information on these things, and there was a story at crack me up on Trisha Nixon's tour of the White House with these guests and the tea that they had and but not a peep about Stonewall now the daily Kansan. Of course, it was summertime, and not a lot was published during that time, but it's interesting, the lack just, it wasn't even the visibility was low, it was no visibility. It wasn't talked about. Other things were probably talked about. I wasn't looking for those, but it was a low priority issue in those times well, and
if you heard about it, it was probably because you heard about it from someone else. That's right,
it wasn't newsworthy.
So, yeah, so, so then, how does, how does, how does the LG, LG, LF, yes. How does it get started up then,
in 1970 David had David stout, one of many people who had a very important role, but he was the one who actually began the group. He had come back to finish an undergrad degree in social work in I'm going to say I don't want to be wrong on this 1969 I believe, and he's taking a class and a social work class. And his project for his social work class was to go and look at resources for gay and lesbian folks. Topeka Lawrence, Kansas City, and so he interviewed a lot of people in all three areas. And one of the people he interviewed was a guy at Lawrence high. And so I believe it was about, I don't know, late spring, that this guy came to David, and he said, You interviewed me. You did all those interviews. What are you going to do? And David said, these are not his words. I'm sure. He said, basically, well, I did it for a class project. I'm sure I'll use it when I graduate. That's what I'm doing. And the guy got mad, and he said, No, you have all this information. You need to do something. And David said, again, sorry. No, go. I'm I'm trying to finish up, and this is what I'm doing with it. So a while later, this young man came back to him and handed him a flyer. I'm going to read you what the flyer said, because I never get it right when I don't read it. It said, out of the job. Johns and into the streets. Get out of the Johns and find this meaningful quality existence as a gay person called gay liberation at in quote, stouts personal phone number. So there's David. His name is all over. This guy posted flyers all over the city in the play in Lawrence, the places that gay people tend to congregate. And I think it was really oriented the young man who did it, I think he was aiming at males. So in the places that men would hang out, sure, and so David is like, Oh my God. Now what do I do? I wasn't looking for this. And so he was living in a place called The Body Shop, which is one of those white, decrepit houses down in the Orient neighborhood. It was just called the body shop. I could not find an exact reason why, but many people told me they thought the sexual union, you end those with that, is why it was called that. But we won't know for sure. Anyway, she lived there. There was a friend that lived there, female. Her name is Elaine Reisman, and Elaine said, Don't worry, I'll be there with you. We'll just have the meeting here, and we'll go from there. And so the day came and seven people showed up. Well, he's probably expecting a non slot, but seven people for a group with a name like that is pretty substantial. And they got together, they talked at length about their lives, what it was like being gay, and there were, I believe, two women. Were there five men and so across the spectrum, what it was like being gay and lesbian, and some of the problems and worries about campus, and they said, Let's meet again. That's how it started.
Well and, and you you really lay out in the book, you know, how very conservative in way, in many ways, the KU leadership is at this time, absolutely like, this is not, I mean, so all of the, all of the stereotypes that people have about higher education these days, I mean, this is, You know, it's, it's, I mean, I don't want to say it's military exactly, but I mean, these are, these are largely old white guys who are running things, and they are very traditional.
There was not a woman among the higher administration at all.
And I mean, not that, not that women couldn't also be bad,
but nobody who was African American,
yeah, and so it's just, it's a very kind of limited perspective, and it really sounds as though like no one quite knew what to do once these Kids showed up with this and started making noise exactly,
especially because the legislature did not want this topic to be brought up at all. And the regents always, you know, bound by what the legislature does, that's where the funding comes from. Did not want to make the legislature mad, and so they walked very cautiously. Chalmers was the chancellor at the time, and he actually was very much for students, but I think he had been giving given marching orders that you're on thin ice, you need to not do anything that makes us mad, and he knew this would make them mad. He actually was there by the skin of his teeth. He had there had been a vote because they were angry that the student he had not controlled the student protests, and so they had a vote, and he was kept on by one vote. Well,
and the perspective of this is too right, is, I think it's in six. It's when does the union burn? It's 70, okay, so it's, it's, I mean, so this is all happening at the at the same time, and it's, you know, the days of rage, or whatever they called them in Lawrence, these are incredibly fraught times. It's like everything is, I mean, there's, there's so much tension. I mean, larger. You know, connected to Vietnam, I mean, and civil rights struggles as well. And this is just one more thing.
It was the summer of 70 that that happened, and so that is when the group got started. And Chalmers was very definitive with the group. The Student Senate was very supportive. They went, they met a couple times independently, and they said, you know, to really function this group, we need to get a space, we need to be and to get, not what sort I'm looking for recognition. We need to be authorized as a student organization went to the office that handled that and thought it would be easy, because it generally was, and it was anything but. And so the battle began, and student senate in the fall semester all voted to recognize lglf, and Chalmers voted it down. And that happened again in the spring, and Chalmers voted it down. And so clearly he was, I'm not going to say, between a rock and a hard place. He might have done this whether or not he was on the chopping block. It could have been, you can't assume, what somebody's intentions were, but it could have added to his desire to not budge an inch for that group.
Well, and this is something that ended up, it ended up being litigated. Yes, the a famous First Amendment attorney got involved. Yes, William Spencer, right, and, but that ultimately, like they, I mean, not to, not to give away the whole story here, but they didn't win, correct?
One of the things that was great though, in the in speaking with people who had gone through that, is they didn't win on paper, but they felt they had won because they got the attention the administration and the campus as a whole that were here
well, and I mean, all of this was was covered very extensively. This is what you talk about. You know, you don't have any coverage of Stonewall. But then within a few years, with this legal battle, this is on the cover of The Daily Kansan. I'm assuming the journal world covers it as well. Yes, and that's a big
shift, and it made the news. The Walter Cronkite covered it on his one of his nightly newscasts. So it really, and that went everywhere, or at least it was, I think that was national news, Yep,
yeah, yeah, and so, and that's, and, you know, and again, it's, it's just, it's so, it's so interesting because, you know, I talked to people about this, the cultural moment of the 70s is really unusual. Yes, when you look at like, what's going on with gay rights, with women's rights, with with everything like it is so like, you know, it can be difficult to remember that it's, you know, it's a very quasi, I mean, kind of progressive age, or ends up that way, I'd
agree, yeah,
you know, before you kind of get retrenched again in the in the 80s. But the talk a little bit about like, so, you know, you talk about, actually, what happens with the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front is that actually, really quickly they become what they really wanted to be. Like they became those campus resources, yes,
right, which was really revolutionary. I use the word revolutionary a lot, because looking at other groups around the country, and there were a number of them, this one was among the early groups. It was not the earliest, but it was among the first number of groups that got started. And most of them, I'd say, were for social and support purposes. People needed somewhere to hang out and feel safe and meet other people who could understand them. But few went the whole. The umbrella like, for instance, they had a peer call in line. And through the time it evolved, Elaine Reisman, who was also in social work, did her practicum, and she started the gay counseling center. And then they had actual trained therapists doing that work. But up till then, it was people within the group who'd take a call and provide support that was very important, people from all over called not just Lawrence, but across the country, they found out through some network that that existed, and they had numbers of like resources, like attorneys, health care providers, that that's got to be really useful for somebody. Certainly the social part was big,
well, and I, you know, you also note that they have, you know, they started up a speakers bureau, and, like, almost immediately, we're getting requests from people all over town
within the first couple weeks, which, you know, remarkable.
And I think what's funny is, so, I mean, as we were talking, before I started recording. I noted that I was involved in careers and allies, which is one of the descendant groups of this. They changed their name every seven to 10 years, but, but even when I was there in the late 90s, early 2000s you know, many of these things were still going on. Like the speakers bureau was still around. I went to speak to a number of classes on campus, yes. So, I mean, it was, it was, there was a real tradition of that. And it was, it was interesting too, because, like, I mean, you have a campus like KU which is, you know, it's a major research university, and yet you do get a number of students who their heads are kind of really, you know, their heads are kind of blown off, frankly, when it's like, oh, wow, that's different people here
well, and I think for, particularly for people from small towns, If they were gay or lesbian, nobody talked about it, and many people said to me, I thought I was the only one. I didn't know there was anybody else like me around where I was growing up. So to come to campus and hear people talk about your experience is pretty empowering.
So, you know, we're talking about this, this book, The Times of the 70s, all of that. You know, we're going through a little bit of a time of cultural retrenchment. Now, I would say. And that's a whole other discussion, in a way, but I wonder for you, working at this book for for the so many years, and then looking at the looking at the landscape today, are there, are there lessons, you think, from the way that these these these folks, work together.
I found this great quote. I thought I made it up, and I was excited to find I didn't Maya Angelou said, you can't really know where you're going until you know where you've been. And I think that is such an important lesson that just looking back and looking at what people did during other times, you can take the lessons from those times and use them and shape them to fit your time. And I do think they were so revolutionary. They were outside of the box. They had no one to follow. Nobody had done a group quite like that. So they did it themselves. They said, What do we need? Let's do this. Let's do that. And as they went forward, they figured out what was needed and they provided it. So I think that's a really important lesson. You can't sit back and wait to see what's out there. You, as they say, take the bull by the horns, and you say, what's needed? What do we need to do to make a change for better for us? So that, I think was really important. They were very visible. At a time where it was very frightening to be visible, you could be expelled. There were people on campus. Us who were followed by administrators. I have been told this. I'm not making it up. And how terrifying. You know, it would be easy to say, August, shut up now, because somebody's watching me, but they did it anyways. They gave their the name of the group is very radical at that time, maybe not now, but it was then, and they allowed themselves to be visible in the fight. I think that went a long way. I think it was not just what they did. They did really remarkable things, but it was how they did it. I heard not only from people in the group, but people outside the group, who said, who talked about their welcoming approach. Some groups were had more of a trying to think of the right word, push like you don't get us well, you weren't with us then, rather than you know, you might not know who we are, but we're like you. We're people. We happen to love different people than you do, but we're just like you. Get to know us. Come in. Their dances is a good are a good example of that. They were open to anybody. And apparently at one point, 1000 people showed up. I don't know where they fit in that ballroom, but they say there were that many people. And, you know, I think that the manner and the approach went a long way to making people willing to take a minute to listen. And I think right now, I'll just say, from my perspective, there's a lot to be angry about, and it would be easy to look at people who, in your age group, think differently than you do and not want to have anything to do with them, but by doing that, you there's no room for a bridge. I get the anger, I really do. But I also think if there's no way to extend a bridge, there's never going to be any coming together of any sort. A long time ago, we had done a program, and we brought this wonderful speaker. Her name is Connie Burke. She is in the she's in the east, and she runs an LGB center, LGBT plus center that's known throughout the country. And her message was, we need to come together. And her message was wonderful. It was not in any way saying, give up your values. It was just, we need to find a way to not sit in our silos. And some people came to me, and they were really angry that I sponsored that presentation. They said, No, I'm angry. I don't want to come together. Don't tell me to come together. I want to be here. I get it, but I also think progress will be made that way. I.