Local

Kameny’s work finds new home

Library of Congress to preserve gay activist’s 70,000 letters, documents

Published

19 years ago

October 6, 2006

Veteran D.C. gay rights leader Franklin E. Kameny has turned over more than 70,000 of his personal letters and documents to the Library of Congress, which will make them available to scholars and researchers.

At a ceremony scheduled for Oct. 6 at the library’s ornate Thomas Jefferson Building across the street from the U.S. Capitol, library officials were expected to join Kameny and many of his longtime friends and supporters to commemorate the library’s acquisition of the Kameny papers.

Kameny, 81, is credited with playing a lead role in launching the modern U.S. gay rights movement in the early 1960s after government officials discovered he was gay and fired him from his job as an astronomer with the Army Map Service.

In what gay activists see as a monumental twist of fate, the product of Kameny’s work on gay rights causes for nearly 50 years will now be placed in the same Library of Congress Manuscript Division that holds original documents of Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Susan B. Anthony, and Bayard Rustin, among many other historic figures.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History also has accepted a collection of 1960s-era protest and picket signs from the Kameny collection that Kameny and his supporters used for the nation’s first-ever gay rights demonstrations in front of the White House.

“After examining the Kameny papers, Manuscript Division historians judged them to be a rich and valuable resource that would allow researchers to more accurately understand the evolution of the homosexual rights movement into a significant social and political force,” said John Earl Haynes, a 20th century political historian at the Manuscript Division.

“The personal detail provided by the material on Mr. Kameny himself and those he assisted in similar circumstances is of unusual value,” Haynes said.

“Nearly 50 years go, the United States government banned me from employment in public service because I am a homosexual, Kameny said in a statement. “This archive is not simply my story,” he said. “It also shows how gay and lesbian Americans have joined the American mainstream story of expanded civil liberties in the 20th century.

“Today, by accepting these papers, the nation preserves not only our history, but marks how far gay and lesbian Americans have traveled on the road to civil equality,” he said.

Haynes said officials with the Manuscript Division first contacted Kameny about obtaining his papers in 1995 after they read an article about Kameny’s work by gay historian David K. Johnson. The article appeared in the official journal of the Historical Society of Washington.

Documents valued at $75,000

Earlier this year, a group of gay rights advocates and supporters founded the Kameny Papers Project, an ad hoc group created to raise money to facilitate the transfer of the papers to the library, according to gay public relations executive Charles Francis, the lead organizer of the project.

Francis said the group’s main purpose was to raise funds to buy the papers from Kameny — so that he could be compensated for his life’s work — and then donate the documents to the Library of Congress.

Its first task was to help Kameny assemble the papers in or orderly fashion and to have them appraised by a professional document appraiser. The appraiser determined the papers had significant historic value and were worth $75,000.

“With advancing years and limited means, Frank Kameny was not eligible for a federal tax deduction, as is common with such an extraordinary donation,” the Kameny Papers Project said in a statement.

Former California congressman and philanthropist Michael Huffington made the single largest contribution toward the purchase of the papers from Kameny, Francis said. He said the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay political group, and the gay groups Gill Foundation, Bohnett Foundation, Log Cabin Republicans, Liberty Education Fund, and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force also contributed to the fund.

Others firms and individuals that provided pro-bono services or contributions included Francis, New York gay businessman Donald Capoccia, the gay public relations firm Witeck-Combs Communications, the Joiner Law Firm, attorney Michele Zavos, and activists Gregory King, Elizabeth Koontz, and Ellen Ratner, according to the Kameny Papers Project.

Huffington and Capoccia have been longtime contributors to Log Cabin Republicans, and Francis is one of the founders of the Republican Unity Coalition, which has billed itself as a gay-straight alliance of prominent Republicans that support gay civil rights.

Kameny vs. J. Edgar Hoover

Gay historians have described Kameny as the architect of the modern U.S. gay rights movement, crediting him with transforming the fledgling “homophile” movement of the 1950s into an assertive civil rights struggle for gays and lesbians.

Most gay activists view the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village as the spark that ignited a new phase in the gay movement that celebrated the slogan, “Out of the closet and into the streets.”

But gay historians like Johnson have credited Kameny with establishing, beginning in 1961, the philosophical and tactical underpinnings for the Gay Pride marches and political advocacy work that followed the Stonewall riots.

Kameny was the gay movement’s equivalent of Bayard Rustin, according to D.C. gay activist Rick Rosendall, in referring to Rustin’s role as a lead strategist for Martin Luther King in the black civil rights movement.

Shortly after being fired from his job at the Army Map Service, Kameny founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, the city’s first gay rights group. Kameny initially modeled the group after Mattachine Society chapters that had formed since 1950 in Los Angeles and other cities.

In some of his earliest papers now preserved at the Library of Congress, Kameny took exception to the prevailing view by Mattachine Society leaders that the groups should keep a low profile. Nearly all of the early Mattachine groups limited their work to research about homosexuality, educating the public on the subject, and helping other homosexuals adjust to society’s anti-gay prejudice, Johnson wrote in his 2003 book, “The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government.”

“Under Kameny’s leadership, the MSW would not remain underground and seek heterosexual authorities to speak on its behalf,” Johnson wrote. “On issues of homosexuality, Kameny argued, ‘we are the experts and the authorities.’” Johnson quoted him as saying.

Among Kameny’s innovations was the publication of a Mattachine Society of Washington newsletter, which the group sent to most top U.S. government officials, including President John F. Kennedy at the White House and all of Kennedy’s cabinet members, and then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

Although most government officials did not appear to pay much attention to the newsletter, Kameny said he was startled in the summer of 1963 when FBI agent John A. O’Birne called Kameny by phone and requested to meet with him.

Kameny said he and Mattachine Society member Bob Bellanger had no idea why they had been summoned to a meeting with the FBI, an the two wondered whether a crackdown against Mattachine was in the works.

To their amazement, Kameny said, O’Birne politely asked him and Bellanger to remove Hoover’s name from the Mattachine Society mailing list, saying that Hoover did not wish to have his name on such a list. Kameny said he told O’Birne that he would have to consult other members of the group about this request and would get back to the FBI with the group’s response.

“I sent them a letter setting conditions for our removal of Hoover from our list,” said Kameny.

The conditions included a requirement that the FBI provide the group with the name of another FBI official to be placed on the newsletter list in place of Hoover and that the group would reserve the right to send Hoover a one-time mailing if an important issue arose.

The FBI never responded to Kameny’s letter. “Hoover stayed on our mailing list until the day he died,” said Kameny.

Hoover, who became notorious for keeping secret files on political activists and politicians – including President Kennedy – appears to have had the tables turned on him by discovering he was powerless to have him name removed from a homosexual rights group, gay activists have said.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Kameny served as an administrative counsel to gays who encountered problems obtaining or keeping security clearances issued by the federal government, becoming one of the nation’s recognized experts on gay-related security clearance issues. He also represented members of the military under investigation for being gay. In advising gay service members, Kameny coined the phrase, “Say nothing, sign nothing, and get counsel.”

He is also credited with creating the slogan, “Gay is Good,” which activists used in protest marches and Gay Pride festivals.

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District of Columbia

Capital Pride wins $900,000 D.C. grant to support WorldPride

Funds not impacted by $1 billion budget cut looming over city

Published

11 hours ago

April 17, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

‘Visitors from around the world come to D.C. to experience our world-class festivals and events,’ said Mayor Muriel Bowser. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Capital Pride Alliance, the nonprofit D.C. group organizing WorldPride 2025, this week received a $900,000 grant from the city to help support the multiple events set to take place in D.C. May 17-June 8.

According to an announcement by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Events D.C., the city’s official convention, sports, and events authority, Capital Pride Alliance was one of 11 nonprofit groups organizing 2025 D.C. events to receive grants totaling $3.5 million.

The announcement says the grants are from the city’s Large Event Grant Program, which is managed by Events D.C. It says the grant program is funded by the Office of the D.C. Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development through a grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration.

Nina Albert, the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, told the Washington Blade that because the grants consist of federal funds already disbursed to the city, they are not impacted by the billion dollar budget cut imposed on the city by Congress earlier this year.

“WorldPride is one of the 11 grantees, and we’re really just excited that there’s going to be generated a large crowd and introducing the city to a national and international audience,” Albert said. “And we think it is going to be a real positive opportunity.”

The statement from the mayor’s office announcing the grants says funds from the grants can be used to support expenses associated with hosting large events such as venue rental fees, security, labor costs, equipment and other infrastructure costs.

“All of those things are things that we do for our major events, including WorldPride,” said Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance. “So, the resources from this grant will be extremely helpful as we approach the final weeks of preparation of WorldPride Washington, D.C.,” he said.

Bos said Events D.C. has been an important partner in helping to promote WorldPride 2025 since the planning began more than two years ago. “And we’re excited to have them now support us financially to get us over the finish line and have an amazing event.”

Both Bos and Deputy Mayor Albert said WorldPride organizers and D.C. government officials were doing all they can to inform potential visitors from abroad and other parts of the U.S. that the local D.C. government that is hosting WorldPride is highly supportive of the LGBTQ community.

The two said WorldPride organizers and the city are pointing out to potential visitors that the local D.C. government is separate from the Trump administration and members of Congress that have put in place or advocated for policies harmful to the LGBTQ community.

“D.C. is more than the federal city,” Bos told the Blade. “It’s more than the White House, more than the Capitol,” he said. “We have a vibrant, progressive, inclusive community with many neighborhoods and a great culture.”

Marcus Allen, an official with Broccoli City, Inc., the group that organizes D.C.’s annual Broccoli City Music Festival, reached out to the Blade to point out that Broccoli City was among the 11 events, along with WorldPride, to receive a D.C. Large Event Grant of $250,000.

Allen said the Broccoli City Festival, which includes performances by musicians and performing artists of interest to African Americans and people of color, is attended by large numbers of LGBTQ people. This year’s festival will be held Aug. 8-10, with its main event taking place at Washington Nationals Stadium.

“Visitors from around the world come to D.C. to experience our world-class festivals and events,” Mayor Bowser said in the grants announcement statement. “These grants help bring that experience to life, with the music, the food, and the spirit of our neighborhoods,” she said. “Together with Events D.C., we’re creating jobs, supporting local talent, and showcasing the vibrancy of our city.”

The full list of organizations receiving this year’s Large Event grants are:

• Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington

• National Cherry Blossom Festival, Inc.

• Asia Heritage Foundation

• Capital Pride Alliance

• U.S. Soccer Federation

• Broccoli City, Inc.

• U.S.A. Rugby Football Union

• Washington Tennis and Education Foundation

• D.C. Jazz Festival

• Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company

• Fiesta D.C., Inc.

District of Columbia

Two charged with assaulting, robbing gay man at D.C. CVS store

Incident occurred after suspects, victim ‘exchanged words’ at bar

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

D.C. police just after 1 a.m. on April 10 arrested two men for allegedly assaulting and robbing a gay man inside a CVS store at 1418 P St., N.W., according to a police report and charging documents filed in D.C. Superior Court.

The charging documents state that the alleged assault and robbery occurred a short time after the three men “exchanged words” at the gay bar Number 9, which is located across the street from the CVS.

The arrested men are identified in the charging documents as Marquel Jose Diaz, 27, of Northwest D.C., and Lorenzo Jesse Scafidi, 21, of Elizabeth City, N.C. An affidavit in support of the arrest for Diaz says Diaz and the victim “were previously in a relationship for a year.”

Court records show Diaz was charged with Simple Assault, Theft Second Degree, and Possession of a Controlled Substance. The court records show the controlled substance charge was filed by police after Diaz was found to be in possession of a powdered substance that tested positive for cocaine.

Scafidi was charged with Simple Assault and Theft Second Degree, the court records show.

The D.C. police report for the incident does not list it as a suspected hate crime.

The court records show both men pleaded not guilty to the charges against them at a Superior Court arraignment on the day of their arrest on April 10. The records show they were released by a judge while awaiting trial with an order that they “stay away” from the victim. They are scheduled to return to court for a status hearing on May 21.

The separate police-filed affidavits in support of the arrests of both Diaz and Scafidi each state that the two men and the victim “exchanged words” inside the Number 9 bar. The two documents state that both men then entered the CVS store after the victim went to the store a short time earlier.

Scafidi “came into the CVS shortly after and entered the candy aisle and slammed Complainant 1 [the victim] to the ground causing Complainant 1’s phone to fall out of CP-1’s pocket,” one of the two affidavits says. It says Scafidi “again picked up CP-1 and slammed him to the ground.”

The affidavit in support of Diaz’s arrest says Diaz also followed the victim to the CVS store after words were exchanged at the bar. It says that after Scafidi allegedly knocked the victim down in the candy aisle Diaz picked up the victim’s phone, “swung on” the victim “while he was still on the ground,” and picked up the victim’s watch before he and Scafidi fled the scene.

Without saying why, the two arrest affidavits say Diaz and Scafidi returned to the scene and were arrested by police after the victim and at least one witness identified them as having assaulted and robbed the victim.

Attorneys representing the two arrested men did not respond to phone messages from the Washington Blade seeking comment and asking whether their clients dispute the allegations against them.

The victim also did not respond to attempts by the Blade to obtain a comment from him. The police report says the victim is a resident of Fairfax, Va.

District of Columbia

Bowser calls for ‘extraordinary’ response to reduction in D.C. budget

Impact on city funding for LGBTQ programs and grants unclear

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Mayor Muriel Bowser warned of ‘significant cuts in District Government services.’ (Screen capture via Forbes Breaking News YouTube)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on April 15 issued an executive order calling for “extraordinary actions,” including “significant cuts in District Government services,” to address a decision by Congress to cut the city’s current budget by $1.1 billion.

The nine-page executive order points out that these actions became necessary after the U.S. House of Representatives has so far declined to vote on a free-standing bill approved by the U.S. Senate last month that would restore the $1.1 billion D.C. budget cut initially approved by the House.

In addition to large-scale cuts in city services, the mayoral order says the congressionally imposed city budget cut will bring about city “hiring freezes, financial impacts to employees, reductions and terminations in contracts and grants, and closures of District Government facilities.”

The order adds, “These are unprecedented actions given that the District itself adopted and is able to implement a fully balanced budget, but they are necessary due to the Congressional cut to the District’s budget and its inaction in timely fixing its legislative error.”

The House adjourned this week on a recess until the end of April, and congressional observers say it is unclear whether the majority Republican House will take up the Senate bill to undo the D.C. budget cut when the House returns from its recess. President Donald Trump has called on the House to approve the bill to restore the full D.C. budget.

Among the D.C. LGBTQ organizations and those providing services to the LGBTQ community that receive D.C. government funding and that could be impacted by the budget cuts are Capital Pride Alliance, which is organizing WorldPride 2025 set to take place in D.C. next month; and Whitman-Walker Health, one of the city’s largest private healthcare organizations that provides medical services for LGBTQ clients.

Also receiving city funding are the Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services for LGBTQ people; and the LGBTQ youth advocacy and services organization SMYAL.

Spokespersons for the four organizations couldn’t immediately be reached to determine if they knew whether the soon-to-be implemented budget cuts would have an impact on the city funding they currently receive.

In response to questions from news reporters during an April 15 press conference call to discuss the Bowser executive order, Jenny Reed, director of the D.C. Office of Budget and Performance Management, said details on specific programs or funding allocations set to be cut would not be known until the mayor submits to the D.C. Council her Supplemental FY 2025 budget along with her proposed FY 2026 budget.

Reed was joined at the press briefing by Lindsey Parker, Mayor Bowser’s chief of staff; and Tomas Talamante, director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.

They and other city officials have said the impact of the congressionally imposed city budget cut was expected to be lessened but remain highly problematic by Bowser’s decision to invoke a 2009 law that allows the city to increase its own spending without approval by Congress under certain circumstances.

The mayor has said under that law, the city would need to cut its FY 2025 budget by $410 million rather than by $1.1 billion. It couldn’t immediately be determined whether House Republicans, who initiated the requirement that the D.C. budget be cut by $1.1 billion, would challenge the mayor’s plan to invoke the 2009 law to reduce the size of the budget cut.

“Without the ability to fully execute the Fiscal Year 2025 budget as adopted and approved by the District, this gap will force reductions in critical services provided by our largest agencies, including the Metropolitan Police Department and the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department,” the mayor’s executive order states.

“The District will continue to work with members of the House of Representatives to urge them to vote to fully restore the District’s Fiscal year 2025 budget and will continue to work with President Trump to strongly encourage the House of Representatives to take that action,” the order says.