1973 gay bar new orleans
In all, 32 people died as a result of the fire. This picture was taken and appeared in news wires after the blaze: Those gathered on the street watched as flames completely consumed him and his life ended. As dying screams emerged from the building, Bill Larson-the pastor of the church-struggled to get out of a window. Several people jumped from the upstairs windows, some to their deaths below. The entire building was plunged into burning and darkness, causing panic and chaos as people tried to find a way out of the building.Īlthough the New Orleans Fire Department responded promptly, the scene from the street was one of utter horror. When he opened the second-floor door to the wooden stairway outside, the fire that somebody had set on the stairway swept in and began to consume the building. The bartender-confused because he had not called for a cab-told another man to open the door and tell the cab to leave. Meanwhile, the buzzer that indicated a cab had arrived rang. That night, they were singing the song "United We Stand" by Brotherhood of Man:Īnd if our backs should ever be against the wall, Something some in New Orleans just couldn't bear the thought of. When the special ended at 7:00, 40 to 60 people (mostly men, but a couple of women) remained, drinking, dancing, and enjoying each other's company. That afternoon, about 125 people were crammed into the bar for a free-beer special. If Jesus could turn water into wine, hell, we could worship in a bar.Īfter church on Sunday, some congregation members would return to the bar in the afternoon to drink and dance. As for what they thought of worshiping in a bar? Rev. More often, the room was used for drag performances, but it also saw its share of sermons. That roof was a small theater room in the UpStairs bar (so named because it was, well, upstairs-which is relevant in this story). The MCC was an important institution in New Orleans gay history in that it filled a certain organizational void and brought many different gays and lesbians together under one roof. You might have a different impression given New Orleans' reputation, but the only real gay organization that existed in the city in 1973 was the Gay Students Union at Tulane University. Outside of the bar culture, gay organizing in the city was sparse. The small congregation of New Orleans' MCC would meet a similar-but certainly more tragic-fate the same year.įirst, a little New Orleans context. Even the MCC's national headquarters in Los Angeles was burned to the ground in 1973, in addition to another MCC church. This method of violence and intimidation was also visited upon the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), the national gay church founded by Rev. The firebombing of black churches, of course, occupies a horrific place in southern and African American history. Just to make sure you're not caught off-guard. Also, WARNING: There is a very graphic picture portraying death below the fold. NOTE: Most of the information in this diary is taken from Dudley Clendinen's and Adam Nagourney's book Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, which I would recommend especially for this story, which they tell much better than I can tell you here. And so, I'm writing about it, even though just doing the necessary reading for this diary has been quite emotionally draining. student specializing in this particular area of history, I hadn't even heard about this tragedy until I heard somebody read a paper on it at the last American Historical Association meeting, which took place in New Orleans. Normally, that might deter me from writing about the same subject, but I feel this needs to be written again. This has already been written about here at Daily Kos, back in 2008, by latest outrage. Today marks the 40th anniversary of what was and remains the single largest massacre of gay people in our country's history. I'm talking about the arson at the UpStairs gay bar in New Orleans' French Quarter on this date in 1973. And yet it's something that deserves all the remembering it can get. I wouldn't have even remembered it today had I not seen it pop up in my Facebook newsfeed. But something else happened this month-something that, from the start, has not gotten nearly as much attention as Stonewall.
It is LGBT Pride Month, and soon we will be celebrating the 44th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which even the President has commemorated in a high-profile way. Remembering LGBT History is devoted to the recovery of LGBT history, and it welcomes anyone interested in the subject. Much of history is hidden, especially for groups outside the mainstream of dominant culture.