Lonely Hunters

by Sears, James T.

• ISBN13: 9780813324746
• ISBN10: 0813324742
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-08-01
• Publisher: Westview Pr

Summary

This is the story of Southern gays and lesbians in the twenty-year span between the end of World War II and the Stonewall Riot that sparked widespread gay rights consciousness. Across the United States, this was an era of courting and cocktail parties, Johnny Mathis and Jack Kerouac, with a Southern culture aptly depicted by Tennessee Williams-genteel attitudes and behavior covering, in a thin veneer, baser passions just barely contained. But this veneer was developing cracks that would soon divide society in hotly contested battles over race, sexuality, and gender.InLonely Hunters, James Sears, noted gay writer, academic, and media commentator, has compiled the real stories of gay men and lesbians who were raised in the social hierarchy of the South and who recall their coming of age when the status quo of American society as a whole was on the cusp of great upheaval. Most notable, of course, was the battle being waged for the civil rights of blacks, but another, less visible battle was also taking place-that of cultivating gay identities, peer groups, and a subculture no longer hidden by Southern convention. Though maintaining social stature was important for many gay men and women at the time, accomplished by hiding their identities through so-called Boston marriages and the common arrangement of gay couples living in duplexes and posing as heterosexual partners, others had come out of the closet and were beginning to work for gay rights. It is the real lived experiences of participants in these pivotal social transitions that are collected here. The people and stories collected here are the parents of today's gay rights movement, and the message is clear-gays and lesbians, and the rest of us, have come a very long way.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii	(4)
Jim Kepner
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(11)
1 Purging Perverts in Paradise: The 22nd Street Beach, Coupon-Clippers, and the Tongueston Trio	12	(36)
2 Dark Nights of the Soul: Charley Johns and the Chicken Ranch	48	(37)
3 Ferreting Out the Lesbian Menace: The Purple Pamphlet and the Deans of Women	85	(23)
4 The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: The City on the Hill Struggles with Civil Rights and Civilities	108	(55)
5 Dawn Arises in Aristocratic Charleston: The Gordon Langley Hall Affair	163	(22)
6 The Blue Fairy and the Making of a New Activist Generation	185	(27)
7 The Mississippi of the Homosexual and the Politics of Dialectics	212	(46)
Afterword: A Conversation with Barbara Gittings	258	(5)
Notes	263	(21)
Sources	284	(21)
About the Book and Author	305	(1)
Index	306