Out of the closet, and I guess finally, most people that I was closely
associated with knew that I was gay, but certainly not wide circles of
folks in town or all over Roxbury. In '84 there was a state issues
convention, and prior to that the governor had come out with what I
regard of a very homophobic policy on foster care in terms of gays and
lesbians not being able to be foster parents, and there was quite a
controversy here. He got very uptight about it and there was a big
battle raging. Well, at the state convention, out of around 3500
delegates, there were 13 gay and lesbian delegates, not exactly a large
delegation. Not to say that there weren't more in the hall. And we were
pressing for an amendment to the state charter of the Democratic party.
I've never been in such a big fight over nothing. There's a section of
the charter that reads, "The Democratic Party will outreach to," and
then they have the laundry list—blacks, Latinos, women, the handicapped.
Outreach to, not grant any kind of whatevers to. So we wanted the words,
"lesbians and gay men" inserted, and he pulled out—it was the only roll
call vote at the convention—he pulled out his entire machinery against
this charter amendment. We got over a thousand votes. We lost 2 to 1,
but we did get over a thousand votes. In the process though, his
operatives had put out the misleading information, which is the kindest
way I can say it, that this was a threat to the black community because
we would be for taking
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blacks in terms of all other kinds of things, which was absolutely not
true. Now, the delegation that I was with, I'm vice chairman of my ward
committee which is pretty much the black delegation at the place, which
all sits together because it's by area and since segregation is here. So
most people did not know, a lot of people in Roxbury, who I was not that
closely associated with for a number of years, didn't know that I was
gay. But before the convention, this was to be the only real debate in a
way. There were to be four speakers, four for and four against, this big
roll call vote, the only one. So one of the black city council was going
to be one of the speakers, and it looked like he was not going to show
up. He actually did. So the gay and lesbian political leadership came to
me and said, "Pat, you have a lot of standing with the black community,
and if we can't get so and so, will you be one of the speakers on the
rostrum." So I thought, "Well, what the hell, if I'm going to come out,
I might as well do it before 3500 people." So I was on the stairs going
up to the rostrum when the city councilor got there, so I did not have
to do it. But that time, in my own delegation, the Roxbury delegation,
it was pretty well open. So I have the governor to thank for that, one
of the few things I have to thank him for. Then for a while, for about
six months, I got involved, for the first and only time, in just
specifically gay politics here. I was on the steering committee of the
Boston Lesbian-Gay Political Alliance. But I soon got out of that. I
don't like single issue politics, and my efforts are almost totally
devoted to building the Rainbow Coalition, which
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we had before Jesse started it nationally. So I'm an officer in the
local Rainbow. I was Jesse's field director for eastern Mass, and I was
the one Jackson rep of the four Massachusetts reps on the platform
committee at Denver and Atlanta. So I was very briefly in the… But at
the time of Chapel Hill, I was not, I knew that I was gay. I didn't
quite know what all it meant, but I was not active in that. Though I
often think that, as I mentioned earlier—now, I wonder, if I had not
taken some steps I did in the… And one of the important things as a
white southerner or a white, in terms of the black civil rights
movement—and the Rainbow Coalition is a multi-cultural, multiethnic, but
the movement was certainly a black movement—is that it wasn't just for
justice for black people. It also freed me. I mean, I was sick and tired
of what the segregation system and that whole thing did to me. So my
being involved it was a process of freeing me, and I think you don't
free part of yourself. I didn't realize that then. I often wonder if I'd
not been in the civil rights movement if I would have ever come out of
the closet in terms of sexuality. It certainly took me a long, damn time
after that to come out. And the closet's an awful place to die. I saw
that sign at a Gay Rights March once, and it's very true. But I was
not…