GA A MC T U R N S 40 ! C E L E B R A T E A T T H E R U B Y B A L L , S E P T E M B E R 3 0 th , I N M O R R I S T O W N !
CHALLENGE The Newsletter of the Gay Activist Alliance in Morris County - Continuously Serving the GLBTI Community since 1972
Volume 38, Issue 7, September 2012
Once Upon a Time by Mickey Suiter
Picture it, Sicily, 1922 — I mean, Morristown, 1972. The Godfather was king of the box office, Stevie Wonder was topping the charts with Superstition, and Archie Bunker was shocking and entertaining TV audiences on All in the Family. The war in Vietnam was still raging as peace talks stalled and Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign hadn’t yet run off the tracks at the Watergate complex in Washington. On Wall Street the Dow Jones closed above 1000 for the first time. In June, over 5,000 people marched in the 3rd annual Christopher Street Liberation Day March in New York. And four kids from Livingston, Madison, and Parsippany decided there might be a need for a place for gay people to meet in Morris County. Jeff Samuels, Jenni Glaab, John Sheehy, and I had been attending meetings o f L G B T o r g a n i z a t i o n s i n Pa r a m u s , Maplewood, and Plainfield since the beginning of the year and had met many people who were from the Morristown area. So we thought, why not try to start something locally? John was the only one of us out to his family and the Sheehys were supportive. Mrs. Sheehy spoke to her minister about the possibility of our new group meeting at her church, St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Parsippany. He was agreeable but he said he wouldn’t be able to talk to his board until after returned from vacation later in the summer. Being young and impatient we didn’t want to wait, so he suggested we try the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship. We contacted Ruth O’Dell, the building chairperson of MUF, and set up a meeting with her. The four of us had tea with Ruth and her husband one evening at their home in Morris Plains and must have impressed them because the MUF board agreed to let us meet at their facility. The other LGBT organizations we attended met on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and another group rented space at MUF on Tuesday so we were left with Monday for our meeting night. Since it was already August we decided to wait until after Labor Day and chose September 11 for our first meeting. John and I went to the Daily Record office in Morristown to buy a personal ad, the only advertising we could afford. When we explained what we wanted they offered to run our information for free as a press release. Not only did we get free advertising but the paper sent a reporter to our first meeting.
John and I picked up two six-packs of Coke and a dozen donuts on our way to the meeting — not at all sure we weren’t overbuying. We met Jeff and Jenni at the Fellowship and nervously waited, hoping someone else would show up. Finally, Rick, a freshman from Drew University, Jim, a freshman at County College of Morris, and Zi, a middle-aged church organist from Parsippany arrived, Zi bringing two younger friends from New York. So that made nine of us, plus the reporter for our first meeting. We’d doubled our membership in one night! GAAMC was a success! It wasn’t always that easy. For the first several months we rarely had planned programs. We usually just sat around talking. Sometimes people brought guitars and sat on the stairs in the main hall and played, with everyone singing along. The Unitarians were supportive but were a little nervous about the word ‘activist’ in our name, so for quite a while they preferred to call us the Gay Awareness Alliance. Each of the founders quit and rejoined at least once in those first months. We had three sets of officers by the spring of 1973. At that time those who were regulars got serious, wrote a constitution, and brought a little structure to the organization. And the rest is history. Forty years later GAAMC is still meeting at MUF on Monday nights, providing what service we can to the LGBT community. A lot has changed over the years, but I think those nine from our first meeting would still recognize GAAMC and would be proud of what they started. I know I am. Happy Anniversary, GAAMC.
Inside Challenge Challenge Information.... ................................ page 2 GAAMC Events.............................................. page 2 LEAGUE Foundation Awards 100th Scholarship....... page 3 This Month's Contributors................................ page 3 The Marrying Kind: Book Review ...................... page 4 Gleanings: Queer news from around the world .... page 4 Dancing To Architecture: music reviews............. page 5 Calendar ..................................................... page 7 Poetry: ISO................................................ page 12 The Little Box of Concerts.............................. page 12 GAAMC Board Mini-Minutes, April 2011.............. page 13 GAAMC Information...................................... page 14 Online Bonus: Expanded Dancing To Architecture.... page 15