CHAMPAIGN-URBANA GAY LIBERATION FRONT
As soon as Jeff Graubart’s video and microphone turned on for our Zoom interview, he asked me, “What interests you in gay history?” I told him my elevator pitch, and we started the interview. Jeff was a member of the Champaign-Urbana, IL, Gay Liberation Front.
Something that stuck out was the brash actions that Jeff took–while he was in college, mind you! He attempted three times to pass a city gay rights bill, successfully worked to overturn the local anti-drag law, protested the local gay bar for their treatment of their LGBTQ clientele, and ran for mayor! This is all in the span of two years. He did not stop, either. When anti-gay terror Anita Bryant came to Chicago, Jeff and his group, Citizens for Gay Action, organized a large demonstration to block her concert at the Medinah Temple on June 14, 1977. They were able to surround the venue and prevent many of Bryant's supporters from entering, leading to a very small turnout for her event.
This demonstration in Chicago is credited with sparking a renewed energy in the gay rights movement across the country. Just two days later, a demonstration against Bryant in Houston drew 10,000 people, and a week later even more people marched in San Francisco. So the Chicago protest was a pivotal moment that helped reinvigorate the fight for gay equality in the face of Bryant's anti-gay campaign.
—August Bernadicou, Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project
“Back in my youth, gay people stayed hidden. That changed in the 1970s when people started demanding rights, but when I was younger, everything was hidden.
When I was a high school senior, I went to anti-war demonstrations in Chicago. There were a lot of radical gays in Chicago at this time. People were passing out flyers, and one of the flyers talked about Stonewall. When I went to university, I became completely radicalized. Everything that was happening was really inspiring. I was in the Gay Liberation Front before I even had sex with men.
I got the Champaign-Urbana Gay Liberation Front recognized as a student organization by the University of Illinois. It was founded before I got there. There were people who met at a coffee house in the spring of 1970. I didn't get there till the fall of 1970. I just started it up at the university as a student organization. That was a big step because gays didn't feel like they could be recognized by a university back then.
In October 1971, there was a pivotal event I’ll never forget. It was a Halloween party in Champaign, and the police raided it, arresting people who were dressed as women. This was Halloween, mind you, and it caused a huge uproar. Youth in the community clashed with authorities, and the whole incident was a flashpoint.
At its core, it was about me pushing back against a cross-dressing law. That fight culminated in a major victory—but it also led to a breakdown. Here’s what happened.
At the time, I was a radical, but my focus wasn’t tied to any one political ideology. My main causes were gay liberation and opposing the Vietnam War. After the arrests at the party, I decided we needed to go to the city council and demand they repeal the law. But the prevailing leftist mindset was against it. The mood was, 'We can’t go to the city council—they’re fascists. Engaging with them is participating in fascism.'
I didn’t care. I went anyway. That decision isolated me. A campaign was started to ostracize me; no one would even talk to me. So, a few days before the council meeting, I decided to escalate things.
There was a well-connected man in Champaign named Maury Claybaugh–a gay man who was part of the local mafia. He frequented the bars, and I knew he had clout. I announced that if the council didn’t repeal the law, I’d chain myself to the podium and out him publicly. That threat earned me a death threat in return: if I outed him, I wouldn’t live five seconds after the meeting.
The pressure was too much. I had a nervous breakdown and checked myself into the Student Health Center. I was ready to give up. But on the night of the council meeting, a woman named Diana showed up at the hospital. She told me, 'There’s something you’ve got to do.' I told her I couldn’t, that I wasn’t allowed to leave because they had my clothes locked up. She grinned and said, 'I brought you your clothes.'
So, in the pouring rain, I escaped from the hospital and headed to the meeting. Word had already spread that I was hospitalized, so the council felt safe. They assumed I wouldn’t be there. The meeting had barely started when I walked in, soaking wet, and everything stopped. The council members started whispering to each other. Then, the mayor announced they were voting on a proposal to repeal the cross-dressing law. Moments later, it passed—unanimously. They were terrified of what I might do.
It was a surreal moment. Across town, a teach-in was happening at the university, led by people who thought I was a disaster for the movement. They believed direct action like going to the city council was counterproductive. I walked into that teach-in with Diana, announced that the law had been repealed, and the room fell silent. Then, someone started clapping, and soon the whole room joined in. The leaders just sat there, fuming.
That event changed everything. It rallied support for those of us who believed in direct action. We essentially took over the Gay Liberation movement in the area from the faction that wanted to sit around praising Fidel Castro and Chairman Mao without fighting back.
Over time, I started aligning with a group of radicals who supported me. They were Trotskyists, so I moved toward Trotskyism. But that didn’t last.
There were several other pivotal actions that we participated in. One of them involved the Wigwam, a bar on campus that a lot of gays and radicals went to. The Wigwam management decided to ditch their gay clientele and adopt a sports bar persona instead. This shift came with hostility—they started dumping beers and ashtrays on gay patrons and generally abusing them. So we organized a big gay demonstration at the Wigwam. The newer activists from Gay Liberation were there, and we had about 30 people ready to sit in. The plan was simple: if they dared spill beer on us or dump ashtrays, we’d respond with another Stonewall. We were ready to tear the place apart.
At first, they treated us surprisingly well—so well that most people left early. Only a few of us stayed until near the end. That’s when they decided to act. Someone came over and dumped an ashtray—or maybe it was a beer; I’d have to check my notes—on our table. There were four of us sitting there. One guy, who had polio and couldn’t really fight, decided to leave. But one of their thugs followed him downstairs and threw him out onto Sixth Street. I didn’t see that happen; I stayed upstairs, still seated, wearing this yellow helmet with 'GAY' printed on it. I have no idea where it came from.
As things escalated, one of the women with us went to make a phone call to let others know what was happening. A man came up to our table, threw either a beer or an ashtray at us again, and I stood up and punched him. He was stunned. In the chaos, I ran to a nearby payphone to call the police, but by the time they arrived, the bar claimed we had started it. The police, predictably, did nothing.
We decided to organize a picket of the Wigwam, and the student newspaper, The Daily Illini, endorsed it in their Friday edition. The picket kept people out of the bar that night, but the owner retaliated by hiring thugs to attack us. We sharpened our picket signs for self-defense, and when the thugs arrived, they started throwing people into the street. Fights broke out. At one point, I saw a friend of mine being beaten up, and I came at his attacker with my picket sign, but I froze. I couldn’t do it. Luckily, the guy eventually ran off.
Two days later, during an anti-war demonstration, we spotted one of the thugs. We created a makeshift grapevine to follow him while trying to get the police to intervene. When they finally arrived, they questioned him: 'Did you assault these people in front of the Wigwam?' He admitted it outright, so they arrested him, my GLF brother Bill Stanley, and myself. When we went to the police station, we learned this guy was a university football hero. Instead of pursuing charges against him, they congratulated him and charged us with defamation of character instead. The Urbana police told us flatly: no gay person could accuse a straight person without defaming their character.
They verbally abused us. They warned us that if we ever tried to press charges against this 'upstanding American' again, they’d make sure we spent a year in prison. But they didn’t know who they were dealing with. As soon as we were released, we went straight to the State’s Attorney’s Office and demanded a grand jury investigation. The State’s Attorney agreed, but every time the grand jury convened, the officer in charge of the case was conveniently 'on vacation' or dealing with a 'family emergency.' It was a blatant cover-up.
I was frustrated. I decided to run for mayor as an Independent Socialist to expose what was happening. I used my campaign to highlight the corruption, but the stonewalling continued. The inaction was eating away at me. After an assassination attempt—someone shot a high-power rifle through my neighbor's apartment, thinking it was mine—and mounting PTSD, I left school and moved to Chicago, hoping to escape the demons haunting me. But they followed. The trauma was constant. I’d replay the events in my head, fantasizing about what I could’ve done differently. It started to spill into my personal life—I became angry, violent even, lashing out at my sexual partners.
Eventually I decided to return to Urbana to settle the score. I walked into City Hall and told them I wasn’t leaving until I got justice—or until they arrested me. Surprisingly, the mayor, who I’d gotten to know during my campaign, let me stay. Supporters brought food and even a bed to the City Hall lobby. Newspapers covered the sit-in, and although I received death threats, I refused to budge.
After 23 days, the mayor revealed the truth to a leftist council member, who passed it on to me: the cop who’d arrested me was the son of Urbana’s city clerk, Duane Eckerty. The city had orchestrated the entire cover-up to protect him. The truth made the papers, and the backlash was swift—both father and son had heart attacks and ended up in the hospital.
Ironically, while I was in Chicago, Urbana had become the first city in Illinois to pass a gay rights bill, something I’d fought for before leaving. The mayor told me, 'You got the gay rights bill passed, and now you’ve put them in the hospital.' I decided I’d finally achieved justice and returned to Chicago.
I don't know what gave me the audacity to do all of this, especially being so young and in college. I was always antagonistic. To me, it's like an alcoholic having a drink—the anger comes back.”
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