#MikeCook

My Conversation With Harvey

Enduring Gloucester 3 Comments

“Boy on Stacy Boulevard”  @1976 Lynn Swigart  Courtesy of Trident Gallery

A post showed up on my Facebook page recently that asked who I would like to spend an hour with on a park bench talking about the state of the nation and the world.

Initially, I thought about men and women like Robert Kennedy, FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Rosa Parks.

But then I realized the person I would really like to spend some time talking with, as a sixty-year-old gay man who remains very concerned about the still tenuous progress my community has made on the civil rights front, is Harvey Milk.

In November, it will be forty years since  Harvey and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, Harvey’s colleague on the city’s board of supervisors.

In 1978,  when Harvey and Moscone were assassinated, I was a junior at Merrimack College. I was living in a state of constant fear that someone would find out I was gay.

I dated girls, played intramural hockey and lacrosse with a level of intensity and aggression that was totally counter to who I really was. But appearances and illusions in 1978 were critical, or so I thought, to survival itself.

I was in my dorm room with friends drinking beer and doing bong hits, with the Grateful Dead blaring on the stereo, when the news came on about the assassination of the nation’s first openly gay elected official.

The things my “friends” had to say in response to Harvey’s murder were the last straw. Still, I kept silent.

I decided I could not spend my senior year in the dorm. My parents, not knowing the truth about why I wanted out of the dorm so badly, agreed to let me live my senior year at the beach house and commute to school.

I got a dog of my own, decided to get honest with myself, and ever so slowly began to inch out of the closet.

Thirteen years later, I wound up moving from Cambridge to Gloucester to oversee NUVA’s HIV and AIDS counseling, testing, and prevention programs.

Prior to coming to Gloucester, I worked for several human service agencies in New Hampshire and metro Boston. It was in those positions that I, for the first time in my otherwise very sheltered and privileged life, saw the impact poverty and economic struggle have on individuals, families and entire communities.

Harvey Milk saw that impact as well. When he migrated from NYC to San Francisco to settle in the increasingly gay Castro District, he quickly recognized the long-standing working-class nature of the neighborhood. He worked hard to build bridges between long-time working class, straight residents of the Castro and the thousands of gay migrants flocking to the neighborhood from all over America.

Harvey’s camera shop became not only a hub of gay rights activity but also a place where union truck drivers who delivered Coors beer met to organize and strategize against the Coors family’s efforts to bust their union.

For many blue collar residents of the Castro, Harvey was the first openly gay man they’d ever met. Many were impressed by his commitment to working with them to fend off the gentrification going on in the rest of the city.

That gentrification was a phenomenon driven by wealthy, downtown elites, many of them erstwhile liberals, gay and straight, like California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s multimillionaire real estate developer husband, and the very wealthy gay man who founded the national gay newspaper called “The Advocate”.

But Harvey really won the hearts of the long-time, straight, blue-collar residents of the Castro, and the union truck drivers fighting Coors in particular, when he got all the gay bars in the Castro to stop selling Coors beer in a show of solidarity with the truck drivers.

Those blue collar, straight, Castro residents were as significant a factor in Harvey’s election to the board of supervisors as the newly arrived gay boys who never dreamed one of their own could win elective office anywhere.

Ironically, members of the wealthy, downtown, “liberal”, gentrification pushing establishment, including Dianne Feinstein, her husband, and the owner of the Advocate, did all they could to prevent Harvey from winning the Castro district seat on the board of supervisors because he was an obstacle to their agenda.

So, I’d like to sit on a park bench with Harvey to pick his brain about two things.

The first is the troubling rise of classism and elitism within certain elements of the gay community that mirrors what Harvey confronted and challenged in 1970’s San Francisco.

Harvey warned the gay community, particularly its more affluent members, that it was making a mistake aligning itself with San Francisco’s wealthy “liberal” elites, whose agenda of unregulated real estate development and gentrification would, in the long term, alienate and anger the long-time blue-collar residents of old city neighborhoods like the Castro.

In one speech, Harvey warned that the wealthy downtown, “liberal”, gentrification pushing elites were transforming San Francisco into a city where only the wealthy would be able to afford to live.

That speech went over like the proverbial lead balloon with Dianne Feinstein and her real estate industry political contributors.

Harvey gave that speech more than forty years ago. To say that speech proved prophetic is an understatement.

I see very real similarities between what Harvey warned about forty years ago in San Francisco and what is happening in Gloucester today.

I am sure if Harvey was sitting with me on a bench on the “Boulevard” in the city I affectionately call a “mini San Francisco,” he would wholeheartedly agree.

The second thing I would like to pick Harvey’s brain about is the gay rights front. Much progress has been made in recent decades, but there are some very troubling signs looming on the horizon. I worry more than a few in the American gay community, especially among the community’s more affluent and largely self-anointed political leadership, are not paying attention because they have grown complacent and too comfortable with the current status quo and their relationship with today’s affluent, straight, liberal, elites – particularly within the Democratic party establishment.

The troubling signs on the horizon relating to gay rights are not just limited to the United States.

The rise of far-right, faux-Christian, neo-fascist, nationalist politicians and parties is a global phenomenon, and in more than a few cases, gay men and lesbians are routinely scapegoated as the “others” that right-wing politicians, like Donald Trump, blame for a country’s problems to mobilize their followers.

A case in point is Costa Rica. A far-right, fundamentalist Christian minister may yet win the presidential runoff election, and the cornerstone of his campaign is his rabid opposition to gay marriage.

More locally, the Reverend Scott Lively is challenging Gov. Charlie Baker in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Lively is a rabid homophobe who, in 2009, was a consultant to the Ugandan government as it contemplated implementing the death penalty for gay and lesbian Ugandans.

Although Lively will never be the MA GOP’s gubernatorial nominee, he does have a following among the Bay State’s small but vocal far-right, Trump-loving, Republican base – including several people on Cape Ann.

But more troubling than Scott Lively’s longshot candidacy for governor, at least for this old school, Rooseveltian liberal, is the sad reality that many of the gay community’s straight, liberal “allies” have often been unwilling to go to the mat on our behalf.

For example, in 2009 the fundamentalist Christian organizers of the National Prayer Breakfast invited a Ugandan bishop who’d been a forceful advocate of the death penalty for people involved in same-sex relationships to attend the event.  Since its inception in the 1950’s, the breakfast has been a “must attend” event for sitting US presidents and any politician who aspires to the presidency.  When word got out about the Ugandan bishop’s presence, the gay community begged Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to boycott the breakfast. Neither one of them did.

So, for a long list of reasons, the person I would love to have a conversation with on a bench overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Stage Fort Park is Harvey Milk.

And what a fascinating conversation it would be.

 

Michael Cook is a long time liberal and gay rights activist who saw the uniqueness of Gloucester from the first moment he drove over the bridge during his move from Cambridge to Cape Ann in 1991 to run NUVA’s AIDS education and services programs.

 

June Should Not Just Be Gay Pride Month, It Should Be Gloucester Pride Month

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By Michael Cook

Gloucester Pride. © 2016. Joy Buell

Gloucester Pride.                                                                      © 2016. Joy Buell

 

As I passed by City Hall earlier this month and saw the rainbow flag flying, I couldn’t help but reminisce about the night almost twenty five years ago when, on December, 1, 1991, about one hundred people gathered at the foot of the steps that overlook Warren Street for what became the first of several annual candle light vigils to commemorate World AIDS Day.

My late roommate, the Gloucester born and raised John Barnes, had been a driving force behind the first World AIDS Day candlelight vigil but, sadly, was unable to attend. He was hospitalized with pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, one of the many potentially lethal opportunistic infections that so often took the lives of people whose immune systems were compromised by their underlying HIV infection.

That first vigil Johnnie had such a hand in getting started spread to other towns the next year, from Lynn and Salem, and Lawrence to Newburyport, as other communities followed Gloucester’s lead in directly addressing a painful issue so many communities would have preferred to ignore.

John recovered from that bout of PCP, but by late spring it became clear his time was running short so we, his family and friends, prepared to make good on our promise that he would die in his room at 51 Fort Square overlooking his beloved Gloucester Harbor.

Johnnie was too weak to participate in that year’s AIDS Walk in Boston, so I and our neighbor, a young boy of eight who considered John one of his “bestest friends”, walked together on John’s behalf. That little boy sported a tee shirt his mom had custom made for him that had an image of Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” on the front. Mickey apparently was both Johnnie and the little boy’s favorite Disney character. On the back, the boy had his mom print, “John is my best friend. John has AIDS. I hate AIDS. But I love John ’til the end of time”.

I still have a picture of that little boy, who is now a 33-year-old, six foot, four inch, 250 plus pound galoot, riding on my shoulders because, as eight year olds are wont to be at the end of a six mile walk, he was too tired to cross the finish line on his own power

On July, 3, our upstairs neighbor and “sister in the fight”, who just happened to be the nurse coordinator of the VNA’s  AIDS home care program, insisted I take a break and spend some time on the Boulevard to watch the Horribles Parade. I ran into colleagues from NUVA and, as we were chatting, this overwhelming urge to get home came over me.  I finally hit the steps at 51 and threw open the entry way door.  Our “sister in the fight”, and VNA angel, greeted me by saying simply, “He’s gone.”

We made the necessary phone calls, but the funeral home informed us they couldn’t get “down the Fort” for a couple of hours because of the Horribles Parade. The minutes ticked away. The little boy’s mother and her husband came over just as the hearse was arriving. We all said our good byes.  Just as the hearse pulled away from the house, this huge burst of purple fireworks (purple was Johnnie’s favorite color), lit up the sky over the Fort. The little boy’s mother looked at me and said, “You know, he planned this.”

Over the next few months, Gloucester lost several other leaders in the local fight against AIDS, most notably the very wise and gentle Sam Berman, one of the original founders of the North Shore AIDS Health Project. Those were sad and mournful days, but there was also a spirit afoot in the city among those of us impacted by the epidemic that, despite the deaths and sadness, lifted our spirits.

The fundraisers at the old Grange Gourmet’s upstairs theater became events we all looked forward to because, despite the pain, illness, and deaths, they provided an opportunity to celebrate life, the community of Gloucester, and the leadership role it had taken in the state’s fight against the epidemic in some of its darkest days.

As I passed City Hall earlier in the month and saw the rainbow flag flying, I realized that spirit is still very much alive here in Fish City. Nothing exemplifies that reality more than the city’s courageous and compassionate response to the prescription opiate/heroin epidemic that is taking as many young lives today across the country as the AIDS epidemic did a quarter century ago.

I also realized that June should not just be recognized as “Gay Pride Month”. It also ought to be known as “Gloucester Pride Month” because, when all is said and done, this wonderful, sometimes frustrating, but always interesting city by the sea has an awful lot to be proud of – an awful lot.

 

 

Mike CookMike Cook is a long time liberal and gay rights activist who saw the uniqueness of Gloucester from the first moment he drove over the bridge during his move from Cambridge to Cape Ann in 1991 to run NUVA’s AIDS education and services programs.

 

The Legacy of Fr. Daniel Berrigan

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Michael Cook

 This essay may seem to some Enduring Gloucester readers as touching on concerns beyond the blog’s local purview. However, my hope is that it will prove to have some relevance to the issues we are facing in Gloucester, as the fishing industry continues to change and the subsequent economic, social, and political consequences of those changes become apparent, along with how we, as a community, think about the best ways to respond to those changes. 

This April 9, 1982, file photo shows Daniel Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest and Vietnam war protester, marching with about 40 others outside of the Riverside Research Center in New York. AP phot

This April 9, 1982, file photo shows Daniel Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest and Vietnam war protester, marching with about 40 others outside of the Riverside Research Center in New York.   AP photo.

                                     

On April, 30 the world lost a man who, for me, personified what it means to be a Christian generally and a Catholic more specifically.

I am, of course, referring to Father Daniel Berrigan.

The Jesuit priest and scholar’s life-long commitment to peace, social/economic and political justice, often put him at odds with not just the American political, legal, corporate, and military establishments, but also with factions of his own Church.

Like many of his fellow Jesuit and Maryknoll priests and nuns, Berrigan’s work and activism took him to Latin America, Southeast Asia, as well as right here at home.

In 1968, Berrigan became the first American priest to be arrested in the 20th century after he and eight other men of the cloth and the laity set fire to dozens of draft cards they had taken from the local draft board office in Catonsville, Maryland. They became known as the “Catonsville Nine”.

Along with his activism against the American war on Vietnam, Berrigan also became a vocal critic of US foreign and military policies in Central America in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Berrigan was one of the few American priests who dared to publicly criticize Pope John Paul II, for his failure to attend the funeral of the Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero. Romero was assassinated by a US trained senior Salvadoran military officer while celebrating Mass the day after he called on the Salvadoran military to stop the slaughter of their impoverished fellow countrymen on behalf of the country’s  ruling junta.

In the 1980’s, Berrigan joined with Father Ron Hennessy, a Maryknoll missionary in Guatemala, to raise the American public’s awareness of the involvement of the US government, military, intelligence services, corporations, and Christian fundamentalist groups in the propping up of a succession of right wing Guatemalan regimes that carried out what can only be called a genocide against the long oppressed Maya population.

As Berrigan aged, he shifted the focus of his fight for social, economic, political, and environmental justice to the United States. He became a vocal advocate in New York for hundreds of thousands of low wage workers who, lived under the constant threat of looming homelessness because their stagnant wages simply did not keep up with the ever escalating costs of rents throughout much of the state.

He spoke eloquently of stable, safe, and affordable housing, not only being a fundamental human need, but also a fundamental human right. He worked to shatter the myth that the homeless are homeless by choice, or that all homeless people are drug addicts, drunks, mentally, or some combination of all three. He brilliantly linked the problem of homelessness to the growing wealth and income inequality in America and to the gentrification of once socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods.

He advocated forcefully for the belief that we are today’s stewards of Creation and that we have a moral obligation to do all we can to pass a livable and sustainable planet on to those who follow us.

Berrigan was a powerful advocate of the belief that, like housing, health care is not merely a privilege, but a basic and fundamental human need and right.

Berrigan’s passing, and his long history of activism, inspired me to think about what is happening here in Gloucester and why it is so important for people of good will and good faith to come together to strategize about becoming a constructive and influential force in determining what direction the profound changes confronting the city will take, so that all of Gloucester’s residents, not just its most affluent, can continue to call this beautiful, and sometimes bedeviling place by the sea, home.

We need to figure out how to protect our natural wonders and unique oases, like Ten Pound Island and Dogtown, from those who see them as lures with which to bring tourists to the city in pursuit of the dollars that, will in reality, only enrich a few, while leaving many others working in the service and tourism industries whose wages will not allow them to continue to live in America’s rapidly gentrifying “Oldest Seaport”.

Many people view these issues and challenges solely through the lenses of politics and economics, but, perhaps because of my renewed interest in the Catholicism of my birth, I also see a spiritual/religious aspect to these issues, and a spiritual/religious obligation to speak out about them precisely because they are at the core of the causes for which men and women like Father Berrigan, Archbishop Romero, Ghandi, Dorothy Day, and Harriet Tubman lived and died.

Gloucester, like the nation itself, is fast approaching some kind of crossroad. We here on the island have only a limited ability to impact what happens “over the bridge”, but that doesn’t mean we cannot, if we work together, have an enormous impact on what crossroad we go down locally, so that we can truly become a community that embraces the belief that things like housing and access to health acre are not just privileges reserved for the lucky few, but fundamental human rights to which all people are entitled.

We just have to come together to try.

 

Mike CookMike Cook is a long time liberal and gay rights activist who saw the uniqueness of Gloucester from the first moment he drove over the bridge during his move from Cambridge to Cape Ann in 1991 to run NUVA’s AIDS education and services programs.