American Experience; Stonewall Uprising; Interview with Dick Leitsch, 2 of 3

It's all about me and my friends, me and my friends do this and we was it and all that. I would mafia and the liquor thing worked out. I mean, like, nobody. Could you tell me in a summary way, what was the Madison Society even used their name? Oh, the Madison Society was founded in 1950 in California. Oh, one was very dangerous to be known to be gay and they needed a name that wasn't too committing and so they chose Madison and I think it's Matasino in Italy were court gestures who could be only people in the whole kingdom who speak truth to the king because they did it with a smile. And so Madison, it was just like a closet name. And when I inherited the society, it was

already around for 15 years, 20 years or something and it had a meeting in the gay community and we never got around to changing it. You know, we probably should have, why did you, why was it important, why have a society like that? Well, I have a society because there was no place for anybody to get together. I mean, so people could get together and meet and so that we could, you know, make some changes in society and they may not make changes in society. The original Madison Society is split and an organization broke off and called us the one incorporated and one incorporated put on a magazine and the magazine had articles about homosexuality and the law, homosexuality and the church, things like that, no stories, no fiction, no sex and they had subscribers and the post office said, we're not carried because it was about homosexuality. It was, they considered, I've seen, even mentioned homosexuality and print and so one incorporated went to this, all the way to the United States

Supreme Court and won the right to publish articles about homosexuality. We had to be careful all the time about meeting. We did have a monthly, a magazine society in New York. We had a monthly forum at Freedom House which of 40, 40, 40th Street and we have speakers, guest speakers and stuff and we had to be very careful that people didn't like, you know, crews and make out there because there were probably always a plane closed cop in there and they were closed to stay on it and they said, we need meeting place for idiots or whatever. But as it was, we just had speakers and we got to, we got to wait with it all right and everything. But it was very risky in those days to meet and when we started doing pickets and demonstrations, we'd hire buses and go to Philadelphia and Washington and demonstrated independence hall on the 4th of July, walk around the state and park and demand equal rights there. And on the bus trips, the New York City police

department always sent somebody to go with us and we didn't know he was a cop and we made like 20 trips and finally he confessed, he said, you know, I'm with the New York City police department and they sent me to make sure that this wasn't just a sex sort of thing and he said, I've reported to them that you're very sincere organization and stuff like that and they said it was okay for me to reveal myself to you and that's how we found out about it. Do you talk about the marches and fill it off here and tell the animal and what, how did you dress, what was your purpose for it at the point? Well, these things were organized by Frank Kamini from the Washington's and Madison Society and Frank's very conservative and he insisted that all the men had to wear suits and ties and all the women had to wear skirts and blouses and no slacks for women and men couldn't wear sports jackets and Gregory Batcock and one of his friends came on the ride once wearing sports jackets and chinos and a tie and Frank went on a march because they weren't wearing suits and ties.

This was all very, you know, very conservative. Okay, I got you, but when I pick you in the head, you pick up the phone and say I'm sorry and we don't have a ring, it's just doing stuff. I mean, there's so many clothes in this house. Okay, can you tell me a little bit more about what, how do people dress in the marches and fill it up yet? What do you think, I mean, why do you think leaving even Frank Kamini out of our understandances or what do you think was the idea behind the dress code? Well, when we had these marches and fill it up in Washington, there was this dress code and the people who organized the marches decided all the men had to wear suits and ties and the women had to wear skirts and blouses and women couldn't wear slacks. But I think the thing was that they were trying to make homosexuals look establishment because in those days, whenever anybody talked about homosexuals, they always refer to them as being swishy and imprested in all this other stuff.

And I think the idea was to just dress everybody up and make them look kind of ordinary because these are the days when the beetles were black suits when they performed. You know, people didn't dress like they did in the 70s. In the 60s, people were still wearing suits and ties. And the organizers of these marches seemed to be trying to make homosexuals look very establishment. And in New York, when we had the SIP in it, Julius is when we did other activities and stuff, and when I was on television and stuff, we wore suits and ties because we wanted to people in the public who were wearing suits and ties to identify with us. And oh, they're just like us. We didn't want to come on wearing fuzzy sweaters and lipstick and being freaks. We wanted to be part of the mainstream society. That makes sense. Or would you criticize more by other days? O.J. factions were always criticizing one another. And it made it seem society. We tried to be an umbrella organization and tried to sort of all needs of all gay people. And we had a couple of other guys who volunteered in the office and a lot of this fuzzy sweater crafts.

Well, it's just not right having all those leather queens around. And then there was a law in New York. There was against the law that were closed at the office of sex in public, unless you were on your way to a formal license costume party. And so we would buy a license once a month and it hold a drag ball. So drag queens had some place to go. And the leather queens and the fuzzy sweater queens. Well, it's just not right, not actually identifying with drag queens. I mean, drag queens are just awful. Nah, nah, nah, nah. Yeah. Oh, my god. And it turns in front. How did it feel to March in a group? I mean, we're talking about the 60s right now. It's so easy to imagine. Everybody's seen it. Or been in my grade. But in fact, then, what did feel like to get together in a major city? Well, the very first demonstration we had in New York was on Easter Sunday. And I can't remember the year. I think it was 63, but it might have been 64. And it happened because Fidel Castro had announced that he was going to put all the gay people in Cuba. In concentration camps.

And so we organized a march in front of the United Nations. And it was very controversial in the medicine society. Half the people, more than half the people were so against it. And the few of us who were like considered radical. We organized this thing. So we're going to march. And so about 20 of us. And we went on march back and forth in front of the United Nations building on Easter Sunday. And the other one stood on the other side of the street and watched this. And they said, what came, because we know you're going to get beat up. We know you're going to get arrested. So we came to protect you in case you needed help. And so we marched back and forth. And all these people leaving church on Sunday in their Easter finally will walk past. And we didn't know how they were going to react. But they were all wonderful. And I think it was because they hated Castro more than they hated homosexuals. But they'd come over and say, God bless you. God bless you. It's about time you spoke up for yourself. You people need to speak up for yourself and demand your rights. And we got a very positive reaction and almost no negative reaction. And after that, it was easier to start having demonstrations. Because we showed that it could be done. You don't get arrested. And you don't get beat up for it. And in New York City, what were your biggest battles against the mayor?

What were you talking about, like, really in 1969, the riots? What kind of conduct was mayor Lindsey sort of proposing him? Well, when I came to New York, the mayor was Wagner. And mayor Wagner was varying as homosexuals. And he was always cracking down on homosexuals and sending the cops out to raid places and doing things like that. And it turns out that he had the son that everybody assumed was gay, Robert Wagner Jr. And it was assumed that he wasn't gay because he was worried about his son. And as President of the Matters in the Society, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. They wouldn't even ask about letters. They never take a phone call or phone me or anything else. And then John Lindsey became mayor.

And things loosened up a lot because this is kind of a long story. There was an election in 1964 and Barry Goldwater ran for president against Lyndon Johnson. And the October surprise that year was Lyndon Johnson's oldest and best friend got arrested for homosexual activity in a YMCA in Washington, D.C. And the Republicans reacted very badly, which you might expect. And John Lindsey was a Republican. And he said, no, this is not right to pick on people homosexuals like this. And so he quit the Republican party and became a Democrat and came back to New York and became mayor. And so I wrote to him and I said, did you really mean that? Are we just grandstanding? And he wrote back and he said, no, I really mean it. I don't think people should just ruin it against homosexuals. And so thereafter, I was able to reach him and reach his office. And we started getting things done. And that's how we beat in trap and that's how we got the pressure taken off the gay community. And we were successful in ending police and trap in New York.

We organized three of us, as I said earlier, it was against the law for a licensed liquor premise to serve homosexuals. And so we organized a sit-in and we went to several bars and got served. And we finally went to Julius' which had been raided because someone had been arrested there for homosexuals' solicitation. And so we went there and they wouldn't serve us. And so we sued. And the court said, no, the liquor authority cannot do this. Everybody has to write the piece for the assemble and the state can't take you right away from you. So you can go to bars. You can meet in bars. You can meet in restaurants. And so we did. And the reason Stonewall got raided was because they had no license. And that's the excuse for raiding them. But licensed premises were illegal. And so managing had established that you can meet, you could go places and the police couldn't pick you up and set you up for arrest and things like that. And that you could go to bars and restaurants.

And things were clearing up. And people, all of a sudden, realized that the world could change. That we don't have to be impressed forever. We can do things. And if we fight hard enough, we can make changes in society. And so the one night the cops walked into Stonewall and raided it. And they were like, no, no, no. We know now. We don't have to take this crap anymore. You raided our bars for 20 years. And we put up with it. Not anymore. Now we're legal. Now we can do things. And it was basically because of John Lindsay and Mattishine that this was possible. And the people were inspired to take action on their own. Until then, they just sat around, let themselves be kicked around. I thought that there was a crackdown going on. Well, there was a crackdown when Lindsay first took office. And that was for two reasons. One was basically, it was a real estate grab. They were trying to clear out Times Square. Because in the 1930s, they had built Rockford Center. And then the war came. And they wanted to move over to Sixth Avenue, which was the very sleazy street in those days. And because there had been an L down the middle.

And so there was nothing but bars and sleazy joints on both sides. And the war came. And you couldn't get building materials. After the war, they built up Sixth Avenue. And they only had one place to go. And that was Seventh Avenue. But Seventh Avenue was Times Square. So they had to destroy Times Square. So they had to get the real estate. And so they walked in. I guess what I'm referring to is the rate that there was a intense focus on raise in a year election year in 1969. In order to project more. I don't think there were a lot of raids in 1969. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember there being a lot of raids in 1969. How about Todd? Ed Koch, did you have any? I had Koch, yeah. Ed Koch. When I first came to New York, Ed Koch was running for district leader in the village. And he read what was called the sad campaign. He promised that he would change the laws regarding astronomy, abortion, and divorce. What?

When I first came to New York mayor, John Ed Koch. John Ed Koch was running for district leader. And his campaign was called the sad campaign. Because he promised that he would reform the laws relating to astronomy, adultery, and divorce. And he lost badly. He lost very badly. And so he ran again. And the next time he ran, he ran on the basis that he would clean up the village. And he would stop all the disorderly activity going on down there. And he targeted the coffee shops, which were all over McDougall Street. And we're very popular. We kissed some suburbs that come in. And that's back in the days when he'd go in here, Bob Dylan, for three bucks, you know, playing an acoustic guitar. And there's a lot of gay activity on the street and stuff like that. And Koch promised he would clean that up. And he was, he and Carol writes, or who was this co-leader at the village independent Democrats, we're always calling the cops in city hall and demanding the Washington Square Park, the village square, 678 street,

be cleaned up, and the homosexuals be the devious, be chased away. And so he organized the thing in the village. And in Times Square, it was basically the landlords were trying to, to distress the neighborhoods. So they could get the property cheap and remodel it, which they've done now. And so, okay, okay, just speak to me. Keep talking to me. And, right, okay. I'm sorry, I just have a tendency to look away. So it wouldn't, so it comes with, was your friend or not friend gay? He was not a friend of gay. He was not a friend of gay. So he encouraged the police to go out and, and he didn't encourage it. Trap it, perhaps, but he was encouraging the cops to get the homosexuals off the streets out of the parks in the village and to clean up the village and the coffee shops and everything else down there. And that was the whole focus of that meeting that Mayor Lindsay Held at the village gate at our Dulughoff's restaurant. The first thing they talked about was the coffee shops and the kids on the teenage kids on the streets and the young people.

And then the second thing they got into was homosexuals and entered the artist because they were also against all these art exhibitions and stuff. And you can read about it in the newspapers and Koch just had a fit. I mean, Koch was so furious when the mayor said there would be no more police entrapment. And Koch was no friend to gay people until God long after he became mayor. And about the time he was coming mayor when he needed our votes, then he changed his tune. But, you know, he's always been an opportunity. All politicians are an opportunity. So do whatever gets some votes. You know, you learn that. You know, I didn't really talk about what it felt like. What role did the bars gay bars play for you? Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. It's gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the south. It was the only place where we could go, be with our own kind, be ourselves. And they were social centers.

And if you needed a job, you go to a bar and talk to people. And somebody would, oh yeah, my company is hiring come here. If you needed a place to live, oh yeah, there's an apartment in my building. It comes to my landlord. And that's where you met your friends. It was the center of your life. And why, you know, why couldn't you just put up with the raids? Well, we did put up with raids. You had no choice. You put up with the raids. It was annoying. You know, you go to a bar and a bar would open. And you would go to it. And it would last two or three months. And then these newspapers, the Dorothy Kilgallin, it was a columnist in the newspaper. And it was a man columnist in that newspaper too. And they knew all what was going on in the gay world. And all of a sudden, they said, oh, such is such a bar. It's now a hangout for the Queens. And so the cops are coming to raid the bar. And so you would, the bar you went to for like, you know, three months. All of a sudden, it wasn't there. You have to go find another one.

It's easy to find another one. Because when they raided the bar, you know, in America, you can't take a person's business away from them without a court trial. And you can't go in and take it. And so the way they found out, if a place was, the way the establishment of a place was gay, was that they were simply playing closed cops again. They would get solicited or say they were solicited as gay person here. So now we can close the bar. However, we have to have a hearing before the liquor authority or a trial. And so what they would do is put a sign out of front saying, this is a raided premises. And they would put a cop on a uniform cop on a stool inside the door all the time the bar was open. And you knew it was a raided premise. And that would happen until the court case came up. And then if the place was found not guilty, or the person who was arrested was found not guilty, the bar could open up again. It could go on. Otherwise, if you get closed down, those are licensed. When you were, have you been in a bar that was raided? Oh, yeah. Well, usually the cops just came in. And so this is a raided premises. And they would take the bartender and a manager or whatever.

And maybe a couple of people who were particularly flamboyant or outrageous or in drag or something. And they would put them and hold them here. And they would tell everybody else to leave. And we would just go. And you'd go on and stand on the street or hang around for a while and nothing happened. And you'd wander on down the street and look for something else to do. And then you'd go home and call all your friends and say, well, last night they raided. But did you feel like an invasion? Of course it did. It was just average. Of course, it was an invasion. I mean, you felt outraged and stuff. I knew, God, this is America. What's this country come to? This is not what they told us in the civil class in school. But you lived with it. You were used to it. After the third time that it happened or the third time you heard about it, and that's the way the world is. And so that's why it was important for Madison to do something about it to try to stop this. How long can this go on? And some of this felt kind of bitter. Like, you know, these people have been around for,

they've been gay people forever. Why didn't anybody do something about this before? You know, why are these people sitting under a bus letting this happen all these years? I always had trouble with the older gay guys. And particularly after Stonewall, a whole bunch of PhD types. Like, I shouldn't, mom. You won't print this. But Paul Goodman, Martin Duberman, and all these kind of people. They were PhDs. They all had names. And they all had money and stuff like that. They were older than we were. They'd been around forever. And they did absolutely nothing. They were more against what we were doing, because we were rocking the boat. And like shaking their world before they established themselves in. And then after Stonewall, after the aftermath of Stonewall, they all came out and started this gay organization. And they all went out and started classes in homosexual history, and started at the homosexual therapy sessions, and started making money out of it. And man, I was ready to kill every one of them. I hated them all. You bastard sat there and let's just happen. And now you're making a fortune out of it. You know?

So here's a paper rustling somewhere, if anybody in some of my voice is looking at it, what I hear is your hand sometimes, moving a little bit, putting away your leg. Oh, okay. It doesn't get picked up by the light. Okay, sure. Okay. By the way, we should let you class of water. Yes, I'm good, actually. Okay. Well, we're coming out. Are we rolling with speed? Why, please? Oh, okay. You know, it's just a detail. When we came in, did they ever give you or did they rest in people big? Is there something about them having business cards at lawyers? Do you want to talk about that? Having business cards? Oh. One of those days, there were three lawyers that handled almost all the entrapment cases. And when you got arrested and you got to the police station, if you didn't know a lawyer, they were happy to refer you to one of the three. And two of them were women,

and one was a man. And that's all pretty much all they handled. We're just entrapment cases. And some of them also handled prostitution cases. I remember Irwin Strauss told me a story once about having a case in when the Jefferson Market Courthouse was still a courthouse. And he said he had this prostitute. He was arrested by 20 times for prostitution. And he went to the judge, and he said, I demand my client be tested. She said, she's a virgin. And the judge said, a virgin. She's been arrested 20 times for prostitution. Irwin Strauss, I'm telling you this woman is a virgin. She's not a prostitute. And so they sent her off from medical examination and results came back. And she was a prostitute. And Irwin said, she was just selling blood jobs. She was saving her for the man she was going to marry. But there were these people, and they had, you know, these three lawyers had invested interest in keeping a trap and going. They used to call the menacing and give us a hard time because we were putting them out of business. I mean, there's always a captive listener.

There's always somebody making a buck out of everything. What's the meaning of that buck? Who is making a buck from who? If you look at the Stonewall and then the politics behind it. And when you look at the guy, you know, Ed Murphy? Well, Stonewall, you know, Ed Murphy was making money and he was paying somebody else and paying the people he worked, they were paying the people they worked for. And then since they didn't have a liquor license, you support, you presume that somebody in the liquor authority was being paid off. And you presume a couple of cops in their local precinct were making a few dollars out of it for not rating it when they didn't have a license in the window. And it did run for a very long time without a license in the window. And somebody was unallowing that to happen. But were we doing a raid because the cops were made off? Well, you know, the reason... What was the purpose of a raid? Well, raiding bars was very strange because quite often, the local precinct was getting paid off to let the bar operate. And then somebody would come downtown and close the bar, or raid the bar. And then the local precinct would be cut out of their money

so they weren't always happy about that. And in David's book, they talk about when the cops were inside, the locked inside of Stonewall and they called for help. And somebody cancelled their call on the police radio. And you wonder if it was somebody in the precinct down there who were irritated because they weren't going to make the pay off in that bar any longer. So, tell me about it. You think we, undercover operations, so many levels. I mean, the mayor wasn't behind. It sounds like... The mafia and the cop and Gays are somehow in bed with each other. You know, they're all enemies. Well, they were. I mean, you know. We were dependent on the mafia for places to go. The cops were dependent on the mafia for a little money under the table. The mafia was dependent on the Gays for customers and clientele. And the mafia was dependent on the cops to keep to allow them to stay open. And it was all intertwined, you know. It's interlocking webs. Like society always is.

But so underground. Well, yes. But, you know, when you make something illegal, that's what you do, isn't it? You establish... Yeah, people establish underground connections because people are going to connect one way or another. And if you don't let them connect honestly, they'll connect dishonestly, you know, because human needs, you know. Were you involved in a truck scene? Being in human rooms? Truck scenes? No, I was never much around to our sex. I'm kind of conservative about sexuality. I like partners and bedrooms and things like that. I guess I've had a few outdoor scenes, but it's not really my thing. A couple of easy outcomes. I'm curious about what... How many people go to a magazine? I don't have a vision of what... What do you mean in his life? Well, the magazine's society had about 300 members, and most of whom were inactive. And then we had maybe 30 to 50 people who were very active. We had all kinds of committees. And we met once a month. And then we had committee meetings all the time.

And then once a month we had this public forum at Freedom House where we would have people come and talk. And when I first got involved in the organization, they usually had psychiatrists and lawyers and stuff like that. It was all very heavy duty. And then I decided that we needed something to attract more people and we didn't need to be so heavy anymore. And so the first person in that contact was Judith Christ, who was the film critic for New York Magazine. And I wrote her a letter of which began. Dear Mrs. Christ, the only thing a gay man likes better than a Betty Davis movie is a Judith Christ review of a Betty Davis movie. Would you come talk to us? And she showed up and she was a huge success. And we had her back like three times. And then all of a sudden she started giving lectures and seminars. And so we kind of made a career for Judith Christ. But... Did you put in the meetings what... What means... Well, most people... Most people used pseudonyms because they had jobs or they were afraid their family would find out they were gay

or something like that. The thing is, the day before Stonewall, everybody in New York, except for me, was a closet queen, just about. And the day after Stonewall, everybody was a gay leader and a wide open and a radical. But at the magazine meetings, almost everybody had a pseudonym or else they didn't use their first names or something. And we didn't really... meetings basically were business meetings. And we all knew one another and stuff like that. There was nothing really going on that we had to use names and stuff. And the public meetings we just had usually me or one of the other offices of the organization presided and introduced the speaker and the speaker spoke. And then we had a question period. And there were no names involved and stuff. The only time names were... The only time names were used was when we had to talk to the press or be on a radio or television or something like that. And there was Bob Millen who used his name. And I used my name. Question about names for actually places to congregate. Did you know the Oscar wall bookshop was very late.

There was very late, they came along right before Stonewall. Because when I joined Manishing Craig was still in Manishing and he didn't have a bookshop. And the big bookshop... The big bookshop actually, the big gay bookshop was on the corner of Christopher and Hudson. It was called a studio bookshop. And it was kind of like a... We're not going to get into that. Who was Craig Robwell? Craig Robwell was this guy who was in Manishing and then he decided he'd been raised a Christian scientist. And he was... And he hung out in the reading room. So he decided there should be a gay reading room. So he saved his money and he opened a bookshop on... Well, he opened a bookshop on Commer Street and then moved it to Christopher Street and sold gay books. And it was... He only sold nice gay books. If you wanted to buy gay porn or stuff like that, you had to go someplace else.

It was a nice little... Nice little middle-class bookshop. Is that important? Yeah. Well, there was this other bookshop down the street called Studio. This sold nice books. It sold porn books. It sold porn films. It sold leather chaps. It sold sex toys. And it was like a gay supermarket. They sold paintings. If you paint it, they would sell your paintings. And it was like a gay supermarket. And it was very big and very popular and stuff like that. Craig's place was nice and proper. And there's other places like anything goes. It was a very nice place. It wasn't ugly or sleazy. It was nice. Do you think you must try to do something and make a point? Yes, he was trying to make a point. Nice middle-class homosexuals. I think God named his book the best little boy in the whole world. Craig was one of the best little boys in the whole world. His reaction to Stonewall, everybody else is being radical. I wanted to tear down society or do this or do that. And Craig got an American flag and about 10 people. And they marched to Washington Square Arts

and sang God Bless America. Which is about kind of pathetic. There are many ways. Everybody has their own way of, you know, sure. Okay, let's go straight.