I was saddened to read of the death of Craig Rodwell. I have been reading about him in Martin Duberman's new book, "Stonewall". Craig is one of the giants of the contemporary gay rights movement. He was one of those present at Stonewall. He figures prominently throughout Duberman's book. Here is a sample: "Craig Rodwell - like Leo Laurence in San Francisco - wanted militant activism to be the touchstone of New York's homophile movement. He was thoroughly fed up with Dick Leitsch's controlling influence over Mattachine, for if Leitsch had once been a militant, he was now, in Craig's view, interested solely in the advancement of Leitsch. He had become a mere poliltician, concerned more with protecting and inflating his own role as the broker between gays and the city administration than with empowering gays themselves, through confrontational action, to build a proud, assertive movement. "Craig was also fed up with the gay bar scene in New York - with Mafia control over the only public space most gays could claim, with the contempt shown the gay clientele, with the speakeasy, clandestine atmosphere, the watered, overpriced drinks, the police payoffs and raids. His anger was compounded by tales he heard from his friend Dawn Hampton, a torch singer who , between engagements, worked the hatcheck at a Greenwich Village gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. Because Dawn was straight, the Mafia men who ran Stonewall talked freely in front of her - talked about their hatred for the 'faggot scumbags' who made their fortunes. "Indeed, the Stonewall Inn, at 53 Christopher Street, epitomized for Craig everything that was wrong with the bar scene. When a hepatitis epidemic broke out among gay men early in 1969, Craig printed an angry letter in his newspaper, "New York Hymnal", blaming the epidemic on the unsterile drinking glasses at the Stonewall Inn. And he was probably right. Stonewall had no running water behind the bar; a returned glass was simply run through one of two stagnant vats or water kept underneath the bar, refilled, and then served to the next customer. By the end of an evening the water was murky and multicolored. "Craig also thought Stonewall was a haven for 'chicken hawks' - adult males who coveted underage boys...." [On the night of June 27]... "Craig Rodwell [was] at the top of the row of steps leading up to a brownstone adjacent to the Stonewall Inn. Craig looked agitated, expectant. Something was decidedly in the air. Craig had taken up his position only moments before... He had been on his way home - from playing cards at a friend's - and had stumbled on the gathering crowd in front of the Stonewall. He was with Fred Sargeant, his current lover, and the two of them had scrambled up the brownstone steps to get a better view. The crowd was decidedly small, but what was riveting was its strangely quiet, expectant air, as if awaiting the next development. Just then, the police pushed open the front door of the Stonewall and marched in. Craig looked at his watch: it was one-twenty a.m.... "As the police, amid a growing crowd and mounting anger, continued to load prisoners into the vanm Martin Bryce, an eighteen-year-old scare drag queen, saw a leg in nylons and sporting a high heel shoot out of the back of the paddy wagon into the chest of a copy, throwing him backward. Another queen then opened the door on the side of the wagon and jumped out. The cops chased and caught her, but Blond Frankie quickly managed to engineer another escape from the van; several queens successfully made their way out with him and were swallowed up in the crowd.... The police handcuffed subsequent prisoners to the inside of the van, and succeeded in driving away from the scene to book them at the precinct house.... "From this point on, the melee broke out in several directions and swiftly mounted in intensity. The crowd, now in full cry, started screaming epithets at the police - "Pigs!", "Faggot cops!". Sylvia and Craig enthusiastically joined in, Sylvia shouting her lungs out, Craig letting go with a full-throated "Gay power!".... "Craig dashed to a nearby phone booth. Ever conscious of the need for publicity - for visibility - and realizing that a critical moment had arrived, he called all the daily papers, the "Times", the "Post", and the "News", and alerted them that "a major news story was breaking". Then he ran to his apartment a few blocks away to get his camera....." "Craig finally got to sleep at 6 a.m., but was up again within a few hours. Like Sylvia, he could hardly contain his excitement, but channeled it according to his own temperament - by jump-starting organizational work. What was needed, Craig quickly decided, was a leaflet, some crystallizing statement of what had happened and why, complete with a set of demands for the future. And to distribute it, he hit upon the idea of two-person teams, one man and one woman on each, just like those he had earlier organized at Mattachine. He hoped to have the leaflet and the teams in place by nightfall. But events overtook him..." Read Duberman's book for Craig's story. We have lost someone of great importance to us all. ================================================================= Rick Miller "Basically, I fall in love Carleton College Library with anyone who'll stay in the room Northfield, MN 55057 after I take my clothes off". rmiller@carleton.edu -Steven McCauley, _The Easy Way Out_ =================================================================