How the iconic PETER HUJAR COME OUT image is stripped of its political meaning and used without context .. by a museum with good intentions

It is sad to see the misuse of a photo by the Leslie Lohman museum.

Background: 

the photo was taken in October of 1969. It is taken from a shoot that was arranged to provide an image for a recruitment poster the Come Out cell of the Gay Liberation Front wanted to make. My lover at the time was Peter Hujar. I asked him if he would do the shoot . He agreed. It was announced at the weekly general meeting of GLF for three weeks that we were taking a picture for GLF's recruitment poster. The location that Peter chose was Wooster Street in little Italy aka now SoHo. I announced at the meeting that it was to be shot on the second Sat of October.Anyone who would show up at 10 AM would be in the photo. It was Peter's idea to have a photo taken of people running in the street. On the day of the photo shoot the people that you see in the photo showed up as well as some others including a gay man of color Ron Ballard. Ron later told me when he rounded the corner to enter Wooster Street, he saw a group of us gathered together He told me that he saw his grandmother's face in front of him. He was not out to her. He said he also realize that he was working in the New York City public schools system; That he could very well lose his job if anyone saw this photo so he turned around and went home. It was my first lesson in understanding dual oppression. A series of shots were turned them over to the come out collective. A very typical deep GLF discussion took place within the cell about what the language on the poster would be.It was decided :

  It would say on the top, COME OUT and at the bottom JOIN THE SISTERS AND BROTHERS OF THE GAY LIBERATION FRONT. I don't think that most young people today realize for people to be out running down the street proclaiming their same sex love and affection fused with erotic pleasure was both dangerous and very courageous,. This group represented the end of the closet and assimilation politics that the homophile movement represented ,,GLF was not single issue and had gender parity in its organizing. We wanted to build a revolution for all people with Out lesbians and gays participating equally. . It was to be our version of the Black Panther party recruitment poster. That Leslie Lohman would appropriate a political photo, strip it of its essential meaning is very sad to me. I am sure it was well intended. Sad is how queer academia fails so often to correctly identify the critical symbols of our liberation struggle. The man in the striped shirt is not John D’emilio, one of my favorite historians, It is Stephen E Dansky. Dansky joined GLF in August of 1969 and joined the Trotskyist Red Butterfly cell. Also in RB were historian and author John Lauritzen, John Knoebel (who later worked for years in the Advocate business office) and John O'Brien. Dansky was active in GLF for about four months and left to join the Effeminists a group founded by the poet Kenneth Pitchford, a gay man married to leading feminist Robin Morgan. The Effeminists denounced the men in GLF as sexist and misogynist . Dansky soon after left active political life and became a psychologist . After his retired Dansky decide to record GLF's radical history. Unfortunately one of the things he did was claim that the GLF photo shoot took place in what is now called Chelsea and publish a series of articles based on his flawed research. When I brought to his attention that Peter had been my lover and I had set up the shoot and knew where it took place, he insisted although he could not remember the location that his research convinced him it was in Chelsea.It was frustrating having him be so dismissive of the actual historical fact., He told me I had made it up . Other than that nightmare experience, Dansky has made a valuable contribution to recording lost history . He did video record interviews with a group he selected to tell of their personal experiences of GLF and/or the first year of Gay and Lesbian liberation. I am grateful he did those interviews. Nicos Diaman , an original member of GLF who lives in SF also has done filmed interviews. He attempted to make a documentary.But could not raise sufficient money to complete it . But these archival materials have been preserved for a future historian, When Yale acquired my archives it contained the original mechanicals of the Come Out Poster. Among the brave and courageous people in this emblematic photo are : Bob Bland (rip), Earl Galvin (rip) John Erdman,jim fouratt,  Lyn Farley , Judy ? Fran Winant (one of the original subjects in Martin Duberman “STONEWALL” who he dropped when she refused to sign off unless he took out his psychological judgements of her out. He refused, she didn't sign and the book in my view lost the voice of a lesbian there at the very beginning. Duberman quickly recruited Carla Jay who had joined about the same time as Steven Dansky} Carl Miller, Dan Smith and Michael Yarr. I believe Lois Hart was standing next to her lover Suzanne but cut out for composition reasons from the photo There remain five women whose names at the moment I can't pull up but I am sure others will add.

Leslie Lohman should have never detached this image from its history and purpose.

Jim fouratt March 29, 2016

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