Tinderbox

  9.Robert McAnear, Facebook message to author, January 25, 2017; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 305; McAnear to author, January 6, 2017.

  10.Interview with Ronald Rosenthal, June 14, 2016; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 21; interviews with Richard Everett, September 30, 2016, and August 25, 2015.

  11.Everett interview, September 30, 2016; Rosenthal interview; Weiss, “Blaze Victims’ Names Sought,” 3.

  12.Rosenthal interview.

  13.Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “29 Dead,” 1.

  14.Rosenthal interview; Angus Lind, Lanny Thomas, and Walt Philbin, “Twenty-Nine Dead in Quarter Holocaust,” New Orleans States-Item, June 25, 1973, 1; LaPlace and Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed,” 6.

  15.Everett interviews, August 25, 2015, and September 30, 2016.

  16.Everett interview, September 30, 2016; Bill Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 1; Rosenthal interview.

  17.Rosenthal interview; interview with Dan Bugg, June 14, 2016; “Atlanta Church Chartered,” In Unity, June–July 1972, 13–14, https://issuu.com/mccchurches/doc.

  18.Interview with Steven Duplantis, March 11, 2016.

  19.Ibid.

  20.Ibid.

  21.Ibid.; interview with Stewart Butler, July 20, 2014.

  22.Duplantis interview.

  23.Ibid.

  24.Ibid.

  25.Ibid.

  26.Ibid.

  27.Ibid.

  28.Ibid.

  29.Mary Ann Cherry, “Gay Pride 1973” (unpublished manuscript, October 2012, available at http://morriskight.blogspot.com/2012/10/gay-pride-1973); Craig Kaczorowski, “Mattachine Society,” 2015, glbtq.com, www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/mattachine_society_S.pdf.

  30.Cherry, “Gay Pride 1973”; Daniel Winunwe Rivers, Radical Relations: Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and Their Children in the United States Since World War II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014); photograph of Cockapillar float, 1972, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives.

  31.Jonathan Katz, Gay American History (New York: Crowell, 1976), 412; “Interviewing Morris Kight,” Causeway (Gay People’s Coalition of New Orleans newsletter), January 1974 (read at Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files, James T. Sears Papers, Duke University Libraries, Durham, N.C.).

  32.Cherry, “Gay Pride 1973”; Randy Wicker, “Gays Pour Through New York,” The Advocate, July 18, 1973, 5.

  33.Arthur Evans, “National Structure Still Gays’ Critical Need,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973, 27; “Stonewall ‘Historic’?,” The Advocate, August 15, 1973, 16.

  34.“Gays Just Watch L.A. Beating,” The Advocate, July 18, 1973, 22.

  35.“Four Policemen Hurt in ‘Village’ Raid,” The New York Times, June 29, 1969, 33; William Yardley, “Storme DeLarverie, Early Leader in the Gay Rights Movement, Dies at Ninety-Three,” The New York Times, May 29, 2014 (www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/nyregion/storme-delarverie-early-leader-in-the-gay-rights-movement-dies-at-93.html); K. Stormé DeLarverie, “Storme on Stonewall,” Stonewall Veterans’ Association, www.stonewallvets.org/StormeDeLarverie.htm; interview with Brendan Flaherty, November 12, 2016.

  36.Flaherty interview.

  37.Yardley, “Storme”; “Police Again Rout Village Youths,” The New York Times, June 30, 1969, 22; “Hostile Crowd Dispersed near Sheridan Square,” The New York Times, July 3, 1969, 19.

  38.Rosenthal interview.

  39.Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); Bugg interview; “Directory,” In Unity, August–September 1972, 27, https://issuu.com/mccchurches/doc.

  40.Troy Perry and Thomas Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), 78.

  41.Ibid., 77.

  42.Ibid.; interview with Troy Perry, December 2, 2014.

  43.Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 78; Troy Perry and Nancy Wilson, “Report to the President for the White House Conference on Hate Crimes,” November 1, 1997, 2, LGBT Religious Archives Network (http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/upstairs-lounge-fire), Berkeley, Calif.; Perry interview; “Directory,” In Unity, June–July 1972, 27, https://issuu.com/mccchurches/doc.

  44.Perry interview.

  45.Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 80.

  46.Perry interview.

  47.“Homosexuals in Revolt,” Life, December 31, 1971; “The Militant Homosexual,” Newsweek, August 23, 1971, 45–48; Perry interview.

  48.Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 80; Wicker, “Gays Pour Through New York,” 5; Cherry, “Gay Pride 1973.”

  49.“Re: Gay Activist Alliance,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, March 17, 1972, posted on GLIB.com, www.glib.com/fbi_gaa_06-10-2002_docs.html#2; Bruce Lambert, “Morty Manford, Forty-One, a Lawyer and Early Gay Rights Advocate,” The New York Times, May 15, 1992 (www.nytimes.com/1992/05/15/nyregion/morty-manford-41-a-lawyer-and-early-gay-rights-advocate.html); Eric Pace, “Official Accuses Maye of Assault,” The New York Times, April 25, 1972, 11.

  50.“Maye Cleared of Harming Homosexual,” The New York Times, July 6, 1972, 38; Pace, “Official Accuses Maye of Assault,” 11.

  51.Cherry, “Gay Pride 1973”; “Aid Mounts for New Orleans,” The Advocate, August 15, 1973, 22.

  52.Paul Breton, “United We Stand” (unpublished manuscript, August 1973), National New Orleans Memorial Fund Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives; Perry interview.

  53.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 37–38, 30.

  54.Ibid., 37.

  55.Ibid., 38, 46–47.

  56.John Gill, transcript of phone interview with The Advocate, 4:30 a.m. PST, June 25, 1973, New Orleans Upstairs Bar Fire/Advocate Records, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives.

  57.Anonymous, The Cajun Queen: A Complete Guide to New Orleans Gaydom (New Orleans: Minotaur, Inc., 1974), 17.

  58.Bill Rushton, “Fire Tragedy Confused Both Straights, Gays,” The Advocate, July 18, 1973, 9; “Miss Lill and Mr. Craige Plan June 30 Wedding,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 15, 1973, sect. 4, p. 6; Winston Lill to Robert Hess, June 29, 1973, Records of Mayor Moon Landrieu, City Archives.

  59.Rushton, “New Orleans Toll,” 15; Morris Kight, transcript of phone interview with The Advocate, June 27, 1973, New Orleans Upstairs Bar Fire/Advocate Records; John LaPlace, “Endless Lines of Blood Donors Flock to Charity,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 8, 1973, 2.

  60.Gill, transcript of Advocate interview, June 25, 1973; Veterans Administration to Thomas L. Baril, February 6, 1974, National New Orleans Memorial Fund Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives; Henry Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account” (unpublished manuscript, November 14, 2013), LGBT Religious Archives Network (http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/upstairs-lounge-fire); Lucien Baril, transcript of phone interview with The Advocate, 4:30 a.m. PST, June 25, 1973, New Orleans Upstairs Bar Fire/Advocate Records.

  61.Duplantis interview; interview with Stewart Butler, July 20, 2014.

  62.Ibid.

  63.Duplantis interview.

  64.Kubicki interview, September 5, 2015; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”

  65.Kubicki interview, September 5, 2015; LaPlace and Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed,” 1.

  66.Kubicki interview, September 5, 2015.

  67.Ibid.; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”

  68.Kubicki interview, September 5, 2015; Butler interview, March 11, 2016.

  7: Liberation Descends

  1.Bill Rushton, “How the Media Saw It,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 5; Bill Rushton, “Fire Tragedy Confused Both Straights, Gays,” The Advocate, July 18, 1973, 2; “Twenty-Nine Died in Suspicious Flash Fire,” The Irish Times, June 26, 1973, 7; David Wigg, “Twenty-Nine Killed in New Orleans Cocktail Bar Fire,” The Times (London), June 26, 1973, 5; “Fire Sweeps Bar, Kills Twenty-Nine in N. Orleans,” International Herald Tribune, June 26, 1973, 4; “Blaze in New Orleans Bar; Twenty-Nine Die,” The Sydney Morning
Herald, June 26, 1973, 5.

  2.Eric Newhouse, “French Quarter Revelers Trapped,” The [Portland] Oregonian, June 25, 1973, 1; “N.O. Lounge Fire Kills Twenty-Nine Persons,” Baton Rouge State-Times, June 25, 1973, 1; Wigg, “Twenty-Nine Killed in New Orleans,” 5; John LaPlace and Ed Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed in Quarter Blaze,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 1; Clancy DuBos, “Blood, Moans: Charity Scene,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 1; John LaPlace, “Scene of French Quarter Fire Is Called Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ Hitler’s Incinerators,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 2; Rushton, “How the Media,” 5; interview with Clancy DuBos, May 18, 2016.

  3.LaPlace and Anderson, “Twenty-Nine Killed,” 1; LaPlace, “Scene of French Quarter Fire,” 1; Roberts Batson, “Out of the Ashes,” Impact, July 3, 1998, 14 (read at Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones Research Files, James T. Sears Papers, Duke University Libraries, Durham, N.C.); DuBos interview, May 18, 2016.

  4.“Twenty-Nine Die in Bar Fire,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1973, 1; “Bar Fire Kills Twenty-Nine in French Quarter,” Newsday, June 25, 1973, 3; “Twenty-Nine Die in New Orleans Fire,” Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1973, 1.

  5.Roy Reed, “Flash Fire in New Orleans Kills at Least Thirty-Two in Bar,” The New York Times, June 25, 1973, 1; “Flee Fire, Plunge to Death,” Chicago Tribune, November 30, 1972, 1.

  6.“Twenty-Nine Die in New Orleans Fire,” 1; “Gay Liberation Stages March to Civic Center,” Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1970, 27.

  7.Reed, “Flash Fire in New Orleans,” 66; Michelangelo Signorile, “Out at The New York Times: Gays, Lesbians, AIDS and Homophobia Inside America’s Paper of Record,” The Huffington Post, November 28, 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/new-york-times-gays-lesbians-aids-homophobia_n_2200684.html; “Four Policemen Hurt in ‘Village’ Raid,” The New York Times, June 29, 1969, 33; “Hostile Crowd Dispersed near Sheridan Square,” The New York Times, July 3, 1969, 19.

  8.Reed, “Flash Fire in New Orleans,” 1, 66; “Flash Fire Kills Twenty-Eight in New Orleans Bar,” The Washington Post, June 25, 1973, 1, 22.

  9.Interview with Roy Reed, September 24, 2014; Rushton, “How the Media,” 5.

  10.Rushton, “Fire Tragedy Confused,” 9; videorecorded interview with Clancy DuBos, conducted by Royd Anderson, April 22, 2008 (courtesy of Royd Anderson); Henry Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account” (unpublished manuscript, November 14, 2013), LGBT Religious Archives Network (http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/upstairs-lounge-fire), Berkeley, Calif.; Johnny Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn: The Up Stairs Lounge Fire (self-published through BookLocker.com, 2011), 40; Bill Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 6; Susan Fosberg, “It’s a Faggot Bar—Did I Tell You?,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 7; Clayton Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-Two Deaths in a New Orleans Gay Bar, June 24, 1973 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2014), 72; Bill Rushton, “Society Real Culprit in New Orleans Tragedy?,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973, 7.

  11.Robert McAnear, Facebook message to author, January 9, 2016; Lanny Thomas, “Have Labels Overshadowed Twenty-Nine Deaths?,” New Orleans States-Item, June 28, 1973, 16; interview with Joseph Bermuda, March 31, 2015.

  12.“Behavior: The Homosexual. Newly Visible, Newly Understood,” Time, October 31, 1969 (http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,839116-1,00.html); Silas House, “Deliver Me from Deliverance: Finally, a Hollywood Movie Gets Appalachian People Right,” Salon, October 25, 2015, www.salon.com/2015/10/25/deliver_me_from_deliverance_finally_a_hollywood_movie_gets_appalachian_people_right/.

  13.“Film Fare,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 8, 1973, 15; Thomas Borstelmann, The 1970s: A New Global History from Civil Rights to Economic Inequality (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011), 106.

  14.Rushton, “Fire Tragedy Confused,” 9; Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” 1.

  15.Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” 1; “Families Urged to Appeal LA Welfare Payment Cuts,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, July 19, 1973, 46; Mary Gehman, “N.O. Women’s Movement: A Comprehensive History,” Distaff, October 1973, 9 (read at Louisiana Research Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans).

  16.“Sniper Shoots Firemen,” Chicago Daily Defender, January 8, 1973, 10; James H. Gillis, “Relations Law Being Studied by N.O. Council,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 8, 1967, 1; “Nominees for Human Relations Committee,” 1972, Records of the Human Relations Committee, City Archives, New Orleans Public Library; Philip Hannan to Arthur Screen, August 29, 1972, Records of the Human Relations Committee; HRC Answer Desk pamphlet, 1973, Vieux Carré Courier Collection, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans; Leonard Moore, Black Rage in New Orleans: Police Brutality and African American Activism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010).

  17.John E. Rousseau, “Mobile Answer Desk Now Serves Five Neighborhoods,” Louisiana Weekly, January 15, 1972; interview with Troy Perry, December 2, 2014.

  18.Perry interview; Troy Perry and Thomas Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), 81.

  19.Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” 1; Sharon Swindall, “Dead Man Was Pastor to Other Fire Victims,” New Orleans Daily Record, June 26, 1973, 1.

  20.Bill Rushton, “New Orleans Toll Thirty-Two; Arson Evidence Cited,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973, 2; interview with Florence Jumonville, April 9, 2015.

  21.Interview with Brendan Flaherty, November 12, 2016; interview with David Williams, January 21, 2016.

  22.“966,” Larison, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records, Ohio History Connection, Columbus, Ohio; Mrs. Ada Hill, “College Corner: F and S Club Holds Meeting,” Hamilton [Ohio] Daily News Journal, January 21, 1971, 18; “Boli Issued Decree to Nellie Lairson,” Hamilton [Ohio] Journal—The Daily News, September 9, 1947, 7; “Larison,” Butler County Children’s Home, 1936–1941, 3–4, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records.

  23.“Larison,” Butler County Children’s Home, 1936–1941, 3–4; “Roscoe,” Butler County Children’s Home, 1936, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records; “Indian Legend Portrayed: Children’s Home Cast, Resplendent in Red Paint and Feathers, Appears Before 200,” Hamilton [Ohio] Daily and News Journal, June 26, 1935, 9; “Roscoe Larison,” Butler County Children’s Home, 1940, Children’s Home Association of Butler County Records; “Grace Methodist Program Sunday,” Hamilton [Ohio] Daily and News Journal, June 18, 1942, 13.

  24.“Entertainer There,” Hamilton Daily News Journal, June 24, 1951, 6.

  25.Interview with Naoma McCrae, May 12, 2016; interview with Mary David Mihalyfi, May 4, 2016.

  26.Interview with Skip Bailey, August 21, 2015; Jerry McLeod, “Family Solves Mystery After Learning Uncle Died in Infamous Upstairs Lounge Fire Forty-Plus Years Ago in New Orleans,” New Orleans Advocate, June 10, 2015 (www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/entertainment_life/article_bf16d3d9-b8e7-5994-8066-6dc1fa27bca5.html).

  27.Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 81; Rushton, “After the Fire Upstairs,” 1.

  28.Interview with Ronald Rosenthal, June 14, 2016.

  29.Swindall, “Dead Man Was Pastor to Other Fire Victims,” 8; Rosenthal interview; interview with John Meyers, February 3, 2016.

  30.Interview with Paul Killgore, June 14, 2016; Meyers interview, February 3, 2016.

  31.Interview with Rene Sirois, February 7, 2017; interview with Larry Bagneris, August 24, 2015.

  32.Killgore interview, June 14, 2016.

  33.Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 81–86; interview with Henry Kubicki, September 4, 2015.

  34.Lucien Baril, transcript of phone interview with The Advocate, 4:30 a.m. PST, June 25, 1973, New Orleans Upstairs Bar Fire/Advocate Records, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries, Los Angeles; John Gill, transcript of phone interview with The Advocate, 4:30 a.m. PST, June 25, 1973, New Orleans Upstairs Bar Fire/Advocate Records; Tro
y Perry, transcript of phone interview with The Advocate, June 26, 1973, New Orleans Upstairs Bar Fire/Advocate Records; Kubicki interview, September 4, 2015.

  35.Kubicki interview, September 4, 2015; William Richardson, letter to the editor, The Voice of Integrity 1, no. 2 (Summer 1991), LGBT Religious Archives Network (http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/upstairs-lounge-fire); Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 81; interview with Richard Everett, July 27, 2015; “List of Persons Identified or Presumed Dead,” New Orleans Police Department Criminal Investigation Division, July 27, 1973, Vieux Carré Courier Collection, Earl K. Long Library; Eric Newhouse, “Smokie,” Associated Press, June 1973.

  36.Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 86; hotel receipts, rooms 1003 (Paul Breton) and 1004 (Morty Manford), National New Orleans Memorial Fund Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives.

  37.“Aid Mounts for New Orleans,” The Advocate, August 15, 1973, 22; Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 86; Charlie Ferguson, oral history interview with Mark Cave, May 7, 2009, New Orleans Life Story Project, Historic New Orleans Collection.

  38.Angus Lind, Lanny Thomas, and Walt Philbin, “Twenty-Nine Dead in Quarter Holocaust,” New Orleans States-Item, June 25, 1973, 1; Rushton, “How the Media,” 5.

  39.Rushton, “How the Media,” 5; Baril, transcript of Advocate interview, June 25, 1973; Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Twenty-Nine Dead,” 1, 6.

  40.Bagneris interview, August 24, 2015; Jervis Anderson, Bayard Rustin: Troubles I’ve Seen (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 17–18; Eric Pace, “Bayard Rustin Is Dead at Seventy-Five; Pacifist and a Rights Activist,” The New York Times, August 25, 1987, 30.

  41.Lind, Thomas, and Philbin, “Twenty-Nine Dead”; Perry and Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, 87.

  42.LaPlace and Anderson, “29 Killed,” 1; Bill Rushton, “Forgetting the Fire,” Vieux Carré Courier, July 6, 1973, 1, 6; Clayton Delery, “Thieves, Queers and Fruit Jars: The Community and Media Responses to the Fire at the Up Stairs Lounge” (paper presented at the First Annual Louisiana Studies Conference, September 26, 2009); Robert McAnear, Facebook message to author, January 6, 2017.