Frank Kameny Enters History.

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It's official. Frank Kameny has entered history--literally. Forty years ago, this civil-rights pioneer came to the aid of a frightened Library of Congress employee who was accused of "enjoying" the embrace of men. (I am not making that up.) On Oct. 6, that same Library of Congress accepted Kameny's papers and cemented his place in history's pages. Professional archivists will now painstakingly sort thousands of documents--the gift of Charles Francis's Kameny Project, which raised $75,000 to purchase and donate them--and will ensure their availability to generations of students of U.S. civil rights. There is no better record of the torment that homosexuals endured at the hands of their government in the 1950s and 1960s. And there could have been no finer tribute to Kameny than the ceremony at the Library. If there were any dry eyes in the house after Frank accepted the tributes and took his seat, mine weren't among them.

2 Comments for “Frank Kameny Enters History.”

  1. posted by Richard J. Rosendall on

    Thanks for the post, Jon. My eyes weren’t dry, either. What an occasion. Listening to Charles Francis, Dudley Clendinen, and Michael Huffington read excerpts from the historic papers, as we were sitting in the Library of Congress, I had googsebumps. And when Frank himself walked to the podium, it was one of the happiest moments in my career as an activist.

    Watching Frank tell the story of his struggle against the employment discrimination by the Civil Service Commission, and its final capitulation (an official contacting him to tell him, “We have decided to change our policies to suit you”), which I had heard Frank tell before, took on new resonance in that we were marking the transfer of the documents from his own attic to the nation’s attic. I had to keep looking around the room at the other attendees to convince myself that it was really happening.

    I was told by Library staff that they had received some calls about the Kameny Papers event from the staffs of some members of Congress, and they weren’t talking about congratulatory calls. But the donation of papers to the Manuscript Division has been done thousands of times, and this case was no different than the others. Andrea Lafferty of Traditional Values Coalition had called the Library Friday morning wanting to attend, but was told accurately that it was a private, invitation-only event — like many events that the Library hosts. I was working the door, welcoming the guests and asking members of the press to sign in, and was hoping that Andrea would try to crash the event so that I could tell her sweetly that she couldn’t come in. But she didn’t show, and as Charles called Frank to the podium and Frank took in our ovation, the haters briefly vanished as we helped an 81-year-old patriot cross an American milestone.

  2. posted by Bill from FL on

    Thank you VERY VERY much for your bringing “The Kameny Papers” to light and discussing them on your website. I only with that every American could see the sheer misery our kind endured in those days. Having grown up in NJ (the red part) and now living in a moderate-conservative area of FL I can honestly say I have never been closeted. And I owe Frank Kameny a big debt of gratitude.

    Thanks again!

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