Pat Cramer oral history
- Q: Hi, my name is April Arcibal, and I’m here with Pat Cramer. We are doing an interview
- on the American studies project for Professor Laurie Green. It is November 1, 2017, and
- we’re here at Pat Cramer’s home, located in Austin, Texas. We’re going to talk to
- Pat about her experience with activism in Austin, Texas. So to start off, when and where
- were you born? A: I was born in Seattle, Washington in 1949,
- and I moved to Austin in 1967 to go to UT, and I don’t know why I decided on UT at
- all. They had this program called Plan Two, and that was my major. It was Plan Two, which
- is basically you don’t know anything, so you just -- and I didn’t graduate until
- 1977, and I graduated with a bachelor of science in nursing because my plan at the time, when
- I started studying nursing, was I knew that nurses made a lot of money. And I was going
- to become a nurse and make a lot of money, and of course save it all because I was a
- hippie, and we saved money. You don’t buy shit. And then I was going to move out to
- the country, you know, and live out on a farm. That was my idea. Well, in the meantime, that’s
- when we went out on strike and I had -- course, you know, had to quit school so I could participate
- actively in the strike, you know. And all these people came out to our picket line,
- the New American Movement folks, and I became part of the Bread and Roses collective, which
- was this house over on, just west of UT. It wasn’t Pearl. Maybe it was Rio Grande. I
- can’t remember. It was over there. And it was the progressive organizing space at UT.
- And the New American Movement met out of there, and other groups did too. And so we had all
- this labor organizing going on over there, and oh, we just had a good old time and -- organizing
- marches, you know, against the nuclear power plant and anything else that we need to organize
- around.
- And my experience at UT was, it was very great. I had a great time at UT. You could drop in
- and drop out so easily, and it was so inexpensive that you could -- you know, I went, you know,
- I dropped out and went to Mexico for a while and came back. And then I went back to school,
- and then something happened, and I moved to Houston and went to work in Houston for a
- while and came back. And then I went on that trip around the world with that international
- school, and when I came back, that was the early ’70s. I wanted to keep on traveling,
- and I knew that I would get embedded though once I returned, and sure enough that is just
- what happened is I got embedded in life back in Austin. And so I stayed, and that’s,
- I think, that may have been when I decided to study nursing. I don’t know. Because
- that was -- and I graduated in -- I must have been working. I don’t know. I was down in
- Houston for a while working, and it was when I was taking classes for nursing school, and
- that’s -- and I was a shuttle bus driver, and I was active with the Bread and Roses
- and everything like that. And I dropped out when we went on strike because it was such
- a thrilling experience. I had to be part of it, and --
- Q: So what type of strikes were you involved in?
- A: Well, just that one, but I’ll tell you what, back earlier in Austin history was the
- Economy Furniture worker strike, which still resonated at that time in Austin. And Gonzalo
- Barrientos, who used to be our state senator, was an activist with the Economy Furniture
- strike. He helped organize the Latinos. And the Chicano movement was going on at the same
- time, you know, and there was marches from Saint Ed’s down South Congress to the capitol
- for the farm workers. Oh, and Cesar Chavez, they were organizing for Cesar Chavez, and
- then when the workers down in the valley thought that Cesar Chavez wasn’t getting around
- to them fast enough they formed a Texas farm workers union, and so we all supported the
- Texas farm workers union, marched to the capitol. There’s just lots of stuff going on, and
- I just learned so much about the labor movement and the history of progressive, you know,
- progressivism in the United States from the New American Movement people. And the women’s
- political caucus formed I don’t know when nationally, but I remember it was around,
- I think, Janna Zumbrun, who was a lesbian activist, joined the women’s political caucus
- around ’75, and they cut their teeth on political endorsements and organizing people
- to volunteer for candidates and get out the vote and get people elected.
- Well, after the success of the women’s political caucus Janna was the one who wanted to start
- the lesbian/gay political caucus and wanted to endorse, and I had come out in ’76, and
- so me and my girlfriend fell right into that organizing. And there was -- Anita Bryant
- was going through the United States with her campaign to save the children from homosexuals.
- She was the spokesperson for orange juice, the Florida orange juice industry. And she
- came through town, and we just organized a big old rally down on Auditorium Shores, you
- know, against her. And there was this -- two distinguished retired military people, people
- who had been kicked out of the military for being gay, and they went on a national tour,
- and there was the MEMCC, the Metropolitan Community Church had just formed, which was
- a queer church, and so Troy Perry, who was a minister who started the church, he went
- on a tour. And so what we did, we wanted Austin to be on their tour, so we organized a banquet
- for them. And that was right around Anita Bryant time and all that time, and it was
- after that, ’78, that we formed the lesbian/gay political caucus here in Austin, and Janna
- and Steve Thomas were chair and co-chair, and my girlfriend was on the board. I was
- just a -- I was an activist. I just did whatever needed to be done at the time. And so after
- that I started -- I stopped focusing on issues, issue campaigns like the anti-nucs and abortion
- rights and women’s rights and went more for electoral politics. But all sorts of organizations
- were going on, and you know, we all helped everything that we could. So anyway, that
- was ’78, and then in ’79 Houston formed their political caucus, but we were first
- in the state, and then also in the early ’80s we formed a lobby and organization too, but
- that’s the ’80s, and we’re not into that. And let’s see --
- Q: So tell me your experience in, I guess, creating one of the first lesbian/gay --
- A: We used mimeographs, okay. There was -- I don’t even know if they had a Xerox machine
- back then. Okay, so we ran mimeographs, you know, and our newsletters were mimeographs.
- We borrowed a mimeograph machine from down at that place on the drag. People’s Community
- Clinic started in the basement of that Congregational Church right there.
- Q: Oh, wow, because that’s - okay. A: That’s -- yeah, it was in the basement
- of that church that they started People’s Community Clinic. And it was there for many
- years. And where was I going with that? I don’t know. I don’t know. Let’s see,
- and People’s Community Clinic, and they helped people, you know, bunch of hippies,
- you know, go there to get their healthcare, but being -- ifs you were a UT student you
- could get healthcare at the UT health center, which was very fortunate. The breakfast project
- was Larry Jackson, and it was part of the Black activist’s movement in east Austin,
- coming out of east Austin, and the Brown Berets were the Chicano activists at the time. And
- they were very active too, you know, supporting all the labor struggles, and they had these
- brown berets and (inaudible). And they were organizing, you know, about that boat racism,
- getting after those -- that boating stuff in east Austin over by Fiesta Gardens.
- Q: Can you explain a little bit about the boat?
- A: So it was every summer Austin -- I don’t know. It was like this old Austin chamber
- of commerce types organized an annual summer fair and fest in August of all times. August,
- oh, my God, so hot here, to do anything -- but they would have music, and then part of their
- (inaudible) was having these boat races on Town Lake east of I-35, and it would deafen
- the community for days with these boats, and it was all these rich white people, and so
- of course, you know, the people felt, you know, like they were being sat upon. And so
- anyway, that was one of the projects that the Brown Berets took on, was getting the
- boat races out of east Austin. So all the UT activists went to go help, you know, and
- there was demonstrations and people getting beat up and by the cops and everything like
- that, but eventually, you know, those boat races did get stopped. And yeah, it was successful.
- A: How long did it take for that? Q: Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. Not
- too long, a couple years maybe, yeah. I can’t remember when they stopped it. I would have
- to look it up, yeah. And so anyway, the -- and then was just a lot of Chicano activism, Black
- activism, and the breakfast project, Larry Jackson’s breakfast project was part of
- that. And sending kids over to the UT to collect money, you know, for just doing whatever the
- hell Larry Jackson wanted to do. I do now know what he wanted to do. And let’s see.
- I remember the biggest anti-war demonstration. I remember just being on Tenth Street in between
- Caprice and Colorado because I think we were heading for the, from the governor’s mansion
- down to the capitol, and the tenth street was packed solid with people, and it was a
- lot of UT, you know, professors and workers and students.
- Q: At that time, were most of the -- was the population mostly UT students, people from
- the university in Austin? A: Well --
- Q: Because I know it wasn’t as developed as it is now.
- A: Well, you know what, I don’t know how many students were in the student body at
- the time, but with the population of 150,000, I don’t know if they included the students
- in their count. I don’t know. So anyway, yes, UT students were a big part. That was
- -- they were the leaders of the anti-war effort in Austin. It came out of UT. I know that
- SDS was active, but I never found out about SDS until, you know, later on. You know, New
- American Movement was the first activist organization, you know, progressive organization, that I
- associated with, and SDS, I guess, came before that.
- Q: And what was SDS exactly? A: Students for a Democratic Society, and
- they were -- they organized, you know, on campus in the ’60s anti-war efforts. And
- you know, I don’t -- see, I’m not familiar with the early stuff of that. But I know it
- was a large anti-war group. And Black Panthers was around at that time too. And all sorts
- of stuff going on. It was a time of a lot of people, you know.
- Q: Doing a lot of things? A: Yeah, and the thing was is that the ’50s
- was such a repressive era, you know. It’s like, you know, it was so white bread, so
- Eisenhower, (inaudible) Eisenhower, and Leave it to Beaver, and it was just so unreal. It
- didn’t really have anything to do with reality, what we were seeing as students on campus.
- It was, you know, a totally different world, and I think, you know, it just broadened everybody’s
- horizons to be in Austin at the time and coming from a repressive society, you know, era of
- the ’50s, and all of a sudden to we have people, you know, and I guess it all came
- from the Black movement, the Civil Rights Movement. That started all the activism in
- the ’50s, and it all bowled over into the ’60s, and everybody started to question
- and disagree on the status quo and going along with the president and whatever the general
- -- oh, no, no, no, no. Q: Well, especially in Austin because Austin
- is so liberal compared to the rest of Texas in general, so.
- A: Mm-hmm, and I didn’t know that at the time, but hey, 50 years ago, and let’s see,
- and I do remember running north form the capital, you know, trying to get out of the tear gas
- after one of the demonstrations. That may have been that big one. I think that was after
- Kent State. In the ’70s there was these students killed on Kent State campus, and
- people erupted over that, and also there was some secret bombing of like Tonkin Bay. People
- got real upset over that, and that spawned big demonstrations, you know, when shit would
- hit the fan like that. And so it would be really big protests, and on campus there was
- this place called the Chuck Wagon Café, and that’s where a lot of people met up and
- talked about stuff, and there was even a sit in there. And I don’t know if they used
- tear gas to shut it down or not, oh yeah. And I, you know what, I was always -- felt
- like I was -- I never wanted to be a housewife. You know, I loved my parents deeply, but when
- they’re -- you know, it’s like, my mom’s life was all about her children and keeping
- the house. Q: Right, well, that was the status quo back
- then, to be a housewife. A: Yeah, yeah, and I didn’t want to have
- anything to do with that. I knew that way back when. I knew that was not for me. And
- so I always was, you know, doing whatever the hell I wanted to do. And you know, of
- course it drove my parents crazy, but you know, they still supported me, and I was -- I’m
- sure, you know, I was rude. I’m sure I was just a terrible child sometimes. I’m sure
- of that, but I’m grateful to them now, you know, for everything they did for me, you
- know. I wouldn’t be the person I was, but I was just ready to try anything new, and
- I wasn’t scared. And thankfully, you know, I’m still around to tell these tales, and
- thankfully I never had to go to jail or anything like that. I went to jail one time. That was
- when -- I think that may have been the ’70s. I can’t remember. It was Kissinger, Henry
- Kissinger who had been Secretary of State under Nixon --
- Q: We’d have to look it up. A: I know. Henry Kissinger came to town. We
- all knew he was a war criminal, and so we had a demonstration planed on the UT campus
- where he was speaking, and we all just stood up silently and held a banner that said, you
- know, you’re a war criminal or something like that, and the police all arrested us
- and threw us in jail. That was the first time I’d been jailed as part of a protest, but
- we did have a lawyer, Bobby Nelson, all lined up. She and her husband, Martin Wiginton,
- owned the split rail, which was a great place to go to just south of the river, and then
- they had this place called Emma Joe’s up by (inaudible) on Guadalupe, and so anyway,
- Bobby Nelson was our attorney, and we just spent, you know, a few hours singing songs
- in the jail, and then they got us out. It was so funny. This was when I was a little
- straight girl, and I had gone with my boyfriend the previous night to a gay bar with our gay
- friend. It was called Pearl Street Warehouse. And we -- he got into a fight with the DJ.
- Well, they called the cops, and they hauled our gay friend down to jail, and so I stupidly
- talked my boyfriend into going down to the police department and telling them he did
- nothing wrong and try to get him wrong. And of course when we went down to the police
- department, and I knocked on the door -- my boyfriend tried to talk me out of it, but
- oh no, I wouldn’t hear that. And I’m sure alcohol was involved. And so we went down
- to the cop shop, and I knocked on the door, and they opened it up, and I said, “We’re
- here, Kent Carrington, he was arrested, and we wanted to see if we could get him out.”
- He said, “Oh, do you?” He said, “Just wait a moment.” So he closed the door, and
- then he opened the full door, and he and another cop came out and arrested us both and threw
- us in jail overnight for public intoxication. Q: Oh no.
- A: It was -- and so we spent the night in jail the night before our planned demonstration.
- And I was in a cell with this woman who had been high on drugs at some concert, and they
- popped her and threw her in jail. So we got out the next morning. I went over to UT, you
- know, we were in the demonstration, by God, I was back in the same booking room the very
- next afternoon. And the cop looked down at me. He said, “Weren’t you in here last
- night? And I -- what were you in for?” “You know,” I said, “armed robbery.” I was
- such a smartass, yeah. But anyway, it was so funny. The two times I’ve been to jail
- it was back-to-back, you know, overnight and then a few hours the next afternoon, and you
- know, it was funny. That was -- that must have been like ’75, something like that,
- because I’m still a little girl, straight girl.
- Q: What age were you at that time? A: Let’s see, I was born in ’49, so I
- was like 26 in ’75. I was a late bloomer. What happened was this girl who was in one
- of my classes for nursing school, she went to Galveston to go to PA school, physician
- assistant school, and she came back. And when she came over to visit me she said, “Guess
- what, Pat?” I said, “What?” She said, “I’ve got a girlfriend.” I said, “No!”
- And I had never thought about that. You know, had never thought about that, crossed my mind,
- but after she talked about it I started thinking. I started thinking, well, you know, I don’t
- have a lot of girlfriends. You know, I mostly hang out with the guys, you know. And that’s
- very interesting, and that just started, sort of set my mind in gear, and then one of the
- bus drivers, one of the other shuttle bus drivers was this girl, and she, you know,
- made it known that she was bisexual. Well anyway, I sort of developed a crush on her,
- and I asked her out, and that was how I came out, was we kissed, I fell in love, you know,
- and oh, we were meant to be. And I had no problem being queer. I didn’t have any problem
- with that. There was no -- I didn’t go to -- my family didn’t have any church in our
- house, you know. We didn’t get told what was right and wrong except you be good, you
- know, follow the golden rule, you know sort of stuff like that. So I had -- I didn’t
- think there was anything wrong with it. Some of the guys I knew -- oh, this one guy said,
- he said, “Oh, that’s so terrible. That’s like taking an ice cream cone and dipping
- it in shit.” Isn’t that awful? Yeah, yeah, that was his reaction to my news.
- Q: A horrible analogy. A: Yeah, how perfect for him, you know, so
- anyway, but I didn’t have any problem with that. I, you know, there was a women’s community
- here like you wouldn’t believe. We had our own bands. We had dances. We gave dances.
- We had so much going on, and then there was the Houston women’s international thing
- in ’77, and that was right after I’d come out, so I knew a bunch of women who’s gone
- down for that, you know, and we were -- we did some work on campus, you know, organizing
- and supporting that effort, you know, raising money to help women get to Houston and stuff
- like that. And so it was just a lot of -- and all these lesbians, a lot of them were activists,
- you know, and so these were all the people we turned to to help us work on campaigns
- and sign them up and become members of the lesbian/gay political caucus, and of course
- they all became members. You know, we were young, burgeoning women at the game, you know,
- the Stonewall had been in 1969 in New York City, that was what they called the start
- of the gay rights movement. And earlier in Austin there had been a radical gay -- or
- the radical gay front, something like that, gay liberation front had formed, but I didn’t
- know anything about that. Janna did, Janna Zumbrun, she and her girlfriend started a
- lesbian newsletter that went out. Q: Oh, cool.
- A: Oh, yeah, so you know, and then she was real active with the women’s political caucus,
- and then we all started being lesbian/gay activists, and we also went to the women’s
- political caucus because you know there was -- a bunch of people we knew were active in
- there. And so we were active too, and -- Q: So did you become an activist after you
- came out or before? A: Before.
- Q: You did a little bit -- A: Before, definitely before. It was when
- I went on strike is when I would say I became an activist because it was like organized.
- Before I was an individual, not a member of any organization. After ’74 or ’75, whenever
- that strike was, was when I became a member of an organization and worked with an organization.
- Yeah. And New American Movement was all over the country, you know, and I went to a national
- convention up in Chicago, met all these Chicago activists, these old communists. Oh, it was
- just great. We had a great time. We had just a super time. And you know, me and my girlfriend
- drove up there too, and she was part of New American Movement too, you know, when she
- and I started going together she started going to Bread and Roses. We all started doing everything
- together. She became an activist too, and we went up to Chicago for this national convention,
- ended up staying there. And for the summer we got a job doing some typing or something
- like that for some leftist up there. I can’t remember who it was, but it was this place
- they called the summer palace. It was this big apartment on the Southside of Chicago,
- but it had these 12-foor ceilings, huge rooms. It was a real old building, you know, back
- when they made these huge old buildings, and he lived in that. And so we stayed there.
- It was fun. We had a great time. And let’s see. Maybe that wasn’t the summer of the
- convention because that was the summer that Elvis Presley died. You know how you kind
- of mark things by -- after that convention I got a ride with some activist from the west
- coast, and I headed to California because I didn’t have to be back at work or anything
- until September, and I think Elvis died in August. I’m not sure. Somewhere, one year,
- but that was the year I went to the west coast, and I visited them, and then I hitchhiked
- up and down the coast, and hitchhiked backed. People hitchhiked in those days. When I got
- back from my international travels and I landed in, what, New York City, I hitchhiked to Ohio,
- to my parents’ house. Q: Really?
- A: Yeah, to my parents’ house. Q: With everything you had you just --
- A: Yeah, I didn’t have any -- you know, it was just a backpack. You know, yeah, you
- just hitchhiked. Q: You just stand on the street, be like,
- hey, can I get a ride? A: Stick out your thumb with the sign and
- you get rides. Everybody did that. Q: (inaudible)
- A: Yeah, it was, yeah. And let’s see, and I stayed involved with New American Movement
- for many years after that, but mostly I became active with the lesbian/gay electoral, lesbian/gay
- political caucus. We -- our first year, 1980, was when we endorsed our first candidates
- and worked on their elections and got our people elected, and you know, it was a new
- thing, you know, for Austin, you know, to have, you know, queer people asking questions
- about how you stood on 2106, which was the sodomy statute, which was, said it was illegal
- for males or females to have sex with one another. You could only do it, you know. And
- it was, a person commits an offense if they, oh gosh, I used to know the words because
- I was part of this theater group called I Pass for Straight in the late ’80s, and
- we sang the words to the sodomy statute on [laughs] stage, you know, as part of our act.
- And it was hilarious. Q: Oh, I bet.
- A: Yeah, and part of one year, our ALGPC printed up a tee shirt. It was this – Gary Hattic’s
- idea, 2106, and then we stamped repeat offender. [laughs] And it did not get repealed until
- that case in Houston, Lawrence and somebody got caught having sex when the police busted
- into their apartment. They charged them with sodomy, and it went to the Supreme Court.
- And it went to the Supreme Court, and that was the law that brought down all the anti-gay
- statutes, including the one in Texas. Q: Wow.
- A: Yeah, I was part of a lawsuit in the mid-80s too. Texas Human Rights Foundation, you know,
- filed a lawsuit which was a gay, you know, like an NAACP or MALDEF, you know, the legal
- arm. And filed a lawsuit, you know, against 2106, and you know that was our main focus
- for years was repealing, getting 2106 off the books, and it didn’t happen until whenever,
- the ’90s. So -- Q: It still happened.
- A: Yeah, oh yeah. Q: Took a while.
- A: Yeah, so anyway, it was -- and then, oh man, oh, there was this guy in town, Steven
- Hotze, the Neo-Nazi. Oh, he wanted to -- they, in the late ’70s, Austin Human Rights Commission
- passed a rule that said you couldn’t discriminate in housing or public accommodations on the
- basis of sexual orientation. Well, Steven Hotze led a movement called the Citizens for
- Decency to get that off the books because they wanted to be able to discriminate where
- they chose to. They didn’t want to rent to a gay person. They wouldn’t have to.
- They didn’t want to serve a gay -- and see, what would be going on, we would be going
- into these clubs -- this is what happened. We went to the Driskill, and to test the ordinance,
- okay, this fair housing ordinance, we went to the Driskill. And there’s like four couples,
- two boys, two girls, you know, two sets of girls, two sets of boys, and we started dancing
- as heterosexuals, and then switched in the middle of the song, and they made us all leave.
- Oh yes, they made us all leave. They got us out, and I think that’s -- I can’t remember
- what the progression of events, maybe that was -- I don’t remember, but we did that.
- We did that. We’d go to these bars, you know, that were advertising women only -- happy
- hour for women, and then they would let the guys in right. Well, all those nights we’d
- go down there to -- [laughs] and they would throw us out too. Oh, God, oh yes, oh yes,
- we had quite the time. [laughs] Oh yes, and let’s see. What else? What else?
- Q: I know you were talking about the economic basis of the Vietnam War.
- A: Yes, okay, so that’s when I got -- New American Movement explained about capitalism
- and what that was and how that was behind our war efforts and the industry of weaponry,
- which I believe is probably the second most profitable industry behind pornography, which
- is the number one profitable industry in the world. And I bet weaponry would come number
- two, and it’s people making money. And that’s why, you know, they wanted to go to war, was
- to keep their, you know, markets open so they could sell their goods and stuff like that,
- and it was all economics. And I knew we had no fight with those Vietnamese people. We
- had no fight with them, you know. It was all economics, so that’s what they taught me,
- and that’s how I came to an understanding of the world and how it runs. And all of a
- sudden everything became very clear because you could see where the power was and you
- know what the economics were behind everything. So that was very interesting to me, and it
- answered all of my questions. And -- Q: So you mentioned stuff about the women’s
- political caucus. Then you talked about how it formed. So do you -- what other things
- do you do now, as being a retired activist? A: Well, I’ll tell you, my heart is still
- -- my heart is very soft for people, you know. I care very deeply about people, and so now
- my -- what I volunteer for is, you know, it’s like family elder care. I’m a bill payer
- for a couple of disabled people. And Meals on Wheels, my clients there, those people
- need a meal delivered to them, you know, every day. And I used to belong to the handy wheels.
- I would go out and fix things in people’s houses and stuff like that. And whenever Project
- Transitions or one of the gay organizations needs volunteers I always volunteer to show
- up, you know, and help do whatever it is that needs to get done. But I just don’t serve
- on any boards, except my neighborhood association, you know. But I always will -- if there is
- a call to step up, I will always step up. I will always do that just because it’s
- in me. And it’s something that never leaves you. If you have a call to help others you
- will always help others. Q: Yeah, you’re able to do it.
- A: And so I, you know, that’s, I think, where all my motivation comes from. It’s
- that basic golden rule. Do unto others, you know, as you would have them do unto you,
- and helping others, there is no other thing that I think you can do in your life that
- has greater value than helping others. That’s it. And -
- Q: I can agree with that. A: Yeah, and so all the activism is all about
- improving conditions, you know, making things more just and more fair. And that was the
- bottom line for everything. There was -- justice needed to be done, you know. Fairness, equity,
- things were not right, and guess what? They never will be, and so that’s why there will
- always be people agitating to improve things, to make changes. And I guess thank goodness
- there always will be, you know, because unfortunately, gosh. Of course, I just saw Blade Runner,
- oh man, I’ll tell you. When I think about the future and what the future holds it’s
- kind of scary. Q: It is kind of scary. I can agree.
- A: Yeah, yeah, especially with global warming and all our major port cities are going to
- be, you know, a large part of them are going to be under water.
- Q: So was global warming and climate change and all that, was that ever --
- A: No. Q: That wasn’t ever talked about?
- A: No. Q: In the ’70s, it wasn’t even a thing?
- A: No, Earth Day started in the ’70s and also recycling. I remember getting active
- in recycling in the late ’60s, early ’70s. That was a hippie thing. Yeah, you know, everybody
- disdained hippies. You know, your ideas are stupid. You know, we are a consumer culture
- not a, you know. Q: Look at it now.
- A: Right, and so many ideas have proved out to be very valuable ideas, and so the Earth
- Day came out of environmental action, and Rachel Carson’s book about DDT started a
- large, you know, awareness of the environment back then. That was in the ’50s Rachel Carson
- published her book that showed the harmful effects of DDT, and they got that banned.
- And I think everything sort of grew on the backs of that as time progresses. And the
- Matagorda Bay and anti-nuclear power was basically an environmental movement, you know, to protect
- the environment because nuclear energy was, you know, potentially a catastrophic, you
- know, source of energy. Q: Yeah, no, it’s hard to imagine what it’s
- going to be like in the next couple years. A: Yeah, well, hopefully we’ll have a lot
- of wind and solar energy. Q: Right, but you never know.
- A: Yeah. Q: So --
- A: We had a -- back in the early ’70s I was living in this co-op over on west of Lamar,
- and this one guy, he wanted to start a big garden, and he talked some farmers into letting
- us have an acre of land off of East Martin Luther King. And by God we ran out there and
- we planted potatoes and stuff like that. Oh, my God, that was back to, you know, that was
- the whole hippie thing, go grow your own food, you know, do all this stuff, go back to the
- land. Q: And you did that.
- A: Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, but I’ll tell you what, that acre was big. An acre is a
- huge amount of ground, oh, my God. It was just, oh, my God, it was -- [laughs] he had
- a lot of ambitions, and I was sort of taken aback by the size of it, but nevertheless,
- it’s just one of the things we did. And you know, Wheatsville Food Co-op formed back
- then too. Q: Oh cool, okay.
- A: Mm-hmm, and before Wheatsville formed there as a group going down to San Antonio every
- Saturday and going to the farmer’s market down there and bringing back produce, and
- we met at this place at 29th and Lamar. And that’s where we would get together on Saturday
- afternoon to pick up our produce. And that sort of -- the people involved in that sort
- of, I think, started Wheatsville Food Co-op back then. And there was this Good Foods store
- on 29th street, which was the precursor to Whole Foods.
- Q: Right, I’m trying to think where all that is because I use to --
- A: It was in a -- it was a house on 29th and you know that, where Breeds is? That is -- it
- was one block west of that, of Breeds, in a house on a corner, was Good Foods.
- Q: That’s so cool. I can’t imagine that because I live, you know, a mile, not even,
- like maybe a half a mile from there, from that house. I would have never known it was
- that. A: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- Q: That’s really cool. So what active change have you seen since being at UT from the ’70s
- to now? Have you seen any sort of positive change, I guess you could say?
- A: Well, the thing is, oh man, I can’t believe you all have to pay so much in tuition. That
- is such a stressor, you know. I just -- Q: Because you were saying it was only 50
- dollars a semester. A: Fifty dollars a semester was our tuition
- and fees. And books were the big thing. They were like 225 dollars.
- Q: That’s the cost of one of my books. A: God, oh, my God. So any -- that’s one
- change I can see is that it’s so expensive to go there now.
- Q: Even living in student apartments and student living. It’s like, you know, living in an
- apartment north, you know, it’s crazy, yes. It’s very expensive.
- A: And another thing is that UT used to be the focal point in Austin. I mean, it was
- UT and state government were the two biggest employers, and now that the city has grown
- so much I think UT is less of a, you know, focal point for organizers.
- Q: Really? A: But I don’t know. See, I’m not on campus,
- so I don’t know. Q: There are a lot of organizations. It’s
- very, very broad over there. I mean, but there’s hundreds of organizations. I’ve never been
- a part of one, so I don’ really know how they work, but.
- A: I’m sure it’s like everything else, you know, you have a board, or it depends
- too. It may be ad hoc, or it may be formal where you got to have a, you know, board directors
- and a bylaws and stuff like that, if it’s formally organized. Otherwise you just, you
- know. One way, if we wanted to get names on a mailing list -- we wanted to create a queer
- mailing list -- well we would go, we would write a petition, get people to sign a petition
- and get their names and addresses that way, put them on our mailing list, and put [them?]
- ALGBC mailing list that way.[Editor’s note: ALGPC stands for Austin Lesbian/Gay Political
- Caucus.] Q: Oh, wow.
- A: Oh, yeah. Q: That’s one way to do it.
- A: Yeah, yeah, just get a petition, get people to sign.
- Q: And they’ll sign anything. A: Of course, if it’s something like anti-2106,
- everybody will sign that. Q: And as long as they don’t have to pay
- for anything they’ll sign it. A: Mm-hmm.
- Q: I mean, you see a lot of people nowadays trying to get you to pay for something and
- then sign. You’re like, eh -- A: Nah, nah, uh-huh, uh-huh.
- Q: Walk away. A: So I think that -- so I don’t know what’s
- going on at UT these days. Q: So you’re not too familiar with it anymore?
- A: Mm-mm. Q: When was the last time you went back?
- A: I was over there registering voters in the 2000s. I remember I was still working.
- So it was before 2005. Gosh, that’s 12 years ago. But I go to UT, let’s see. I’ve ridden
- my bike through recently. I can’t remember. Oh, I took part in a study of kinesthetic
- at the Greg, at the gym, the stadium. You know, they have a department of kinesiology.
- And these students were doing studies, and they were looking for volunteers and came
- to my senior center. Paid me 25 dollars to walk on a treadmill. Hey, I did that. Yeah,
- so yeah, that was the last time I was at UT, and go to the UT women’s basketball games
- sometimes. And so now it’s mostly to events. If there was a lecture I wanted to hear, sometimes
- they have guest speakers, I will go to that. In fact, I saw, who was it that spoke at the
- KUT studio. There was some -- a woman activist who -- what’s her name? The woman -- Gloria
- Steinem. Didn’t she -- she came to UT. I think it was last year, and spoke at a KUT
- forum, and so I got to be in the audience for that.
- Q: Oh, cool. A: Yeah, so if UT brings in speakers, you
- know, somebody I want to hear, I will go over, you know, and hear what’s going on. So if
- I hear something interesting going on, oh yeah, I’ll go to UT, oh yeah. I used to
- take classes, you know. They had informal classes. I would take informal classes from
- UT. Q: So you were pretty involved in your college,
- young adult years. Were your siblings at all the same way or even your parents or were
- they -- A: No, no.
- Q: This was all new to them? A: Yeah.
- Q: How did they react to -- A: Well, my sister said she’s proud of me.
- And my mom and dad, I never told my mom and dad what I was doing, never.
- Q: Like all college students. A: Never, never, ever. They did not know anything
- that I did, you know, because I didn’t want them -- you know, I’m sure I knew that they
- would be shocked and horrified. So of course I didn’t tell them anything, come on. [laughs]
- And my sister, you know, she was a year and half older than I, and she was never a rebel,
- you know. I guess I was because I just didn’t like the status quo, pissed me off. And then
- my other -- my brother, who’s five years younger than I, he’s the one that’s severely
- ill with schizophrenia, and he graduated from high school, went to college and had his first
- psychotic break, and has been ill ever since. And so he sold underground newspapers up in
- Dallas before he became ill. I went to a Jimi Hendrix concert with him in Dallas after my
- family moved there, and he was a, you know, his mind was out there even then. But he became
- psychotic, and his mind doesn’t work anymore unfortunately. And then I have a brother five
- years younger than him, and so he was just a -- he was, you know, eight years old when
- I left the house, so I never really knew him. And so he was a partier in college. He went
- to college at Ohio. He was a partier and a doper and stuff like that and had fun. But
- I -- he wasn’t an organizer or anything like that. But whenever I called -- and then
- he moved to Austin in the ’80s. He would always be a volunteer for me whenever I needed
- one, you know, and we had a march or anything like that he would be a volunteer, you know.
- Q: So you guys were still close. A: Yeah, one of the most exciting things that
- happened, in 1979 we had our first national march, March on Washington to lesbian/gay
- rights [sic]. And we organized. There was this guy in Houston, Ray Hill, who is still
- an activist down in Houston, and he was one of the main organizers, and our goal was to
- get 100,000 people to Washington, DC back then, which was, you know, that was our goal.
- And so we organized in Austin. We had fundraisers, you know, to get people to Austin. Of course
- every, you know, all the -- we all went. Of course we did, oh, my God, that was so -- exciting.
- Q: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) A: Yes, we got 100,000 people there, and we
- had, you know, we had the mall. You know, we had speakers, and it was a big success,
- and that was our first national march for lesbian gay rights, and we had a great time.
- Q: You had 100,000 people over there? A: Yeah, from all over the country, and that
- was at -- you know, we were riding those subways lines in DC, and you’d get on the subway
- it’d be all queer people. Oh, it felt so great going to the grocery store. Oh, there’s
- all these queer people everywhere. It was so exciting. We had a great time doing that.
- Q: That’s awesome. A: Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. And
- that was just 10 years after Stonewall. Q: And Stonewall was?
- A: Was the -- a bar in New York City that got raided by the cops.
- Q: Oh, I just learned about this. A: Yes, and do you know why? Why the queens
- were also mad? It was the day that Judy Garland -- Judy Garland had died, and her body was
- on display in New York City. So all the drag queens, of course, got all dressed up to go
- see Judy Garland, and that was going on all day in New York City. Everybody was passing
- through viewing Judy Garland, and then they went to the gay club, to Stonewall. And so
- when the cops tried to raid it that night they just fought back, you know. It ended
- up they locked the police inside. They were throwing things and setting cars on fire,
- police cars on fire, and that was what they terms the start of the modern gay rights movement.
- But before then there had been people, there had been gay organizers before then. They
- would dress in suit and ties and go march in front of the capitol, you know, in DC protesting,
- you know discrimination and stuff. They were brave people because you could lose your job,
- everything, you know, and just get totally screwed over if they found out you were gay.
- But these people were very brave. And they also, I guess, had their way of making a living.
- Some of them were lawyers and stuff like that. Q: We eventually got to society saying, okay,
- it is fine, you know. Unfortunately it had to be like that. It couldn’t just always
- be fine. A: And then I think there was another march
- in ’83. I can’t remember, but one of our local girls said, “We need to have a march
- in Austin.” And we’d never had a gay rights march in Austin. So we did in ’87. That
- was our first lesbian/gay rights march, and that was the biggest march Austin had ever
- seen, they said. Q: It was successful?
- A: Oh yeah, it was huge, oh yeah. Q: How many people were in the march?
- A: I think there was like 30,000 some. Oh yeah, it was huge. Oh yeah, it was a big success.
- Q: I mean, Washington was 100,000 and 30-something --
- A: Yeah, yeah, but that was, you know, you didn’t have to travel to come to Austin.
- Q: That’s true. A: So anyway, we couldn’t believe it in
- the middle ’90s when people said they wanted to get married. You want to get married? What
- the hell are you talking about? I mean, we were radical activists, you know? We were
- not into getting married and joining the military. Oh, my God, that was the two big things, you
- know, these centrists gays, not radical gays, wanted to do. They wanted to get married and
- be able to join the military. [laughs] We didn’t know what to do with that. And they
- went ahead, you know, and they kept getting at it. It was these activists in Hawaii, actually,
- that started the marriage thing going. Q: Oh wow.
- A: Oh yes, way back then. It was these activists in Hawaii.
- Q: That’s really cool. A: Mm-hmm.
- Q: I’m assuming in Honolulu where the base was? Was it military aspect too? Like --
- A: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what, you know. We were, you know, we didn’t know
- anything about them. We were radical activists, sorry. We don’t do marriage. No, no, no.
- Q: That’s funny. A: Yeah, yeah.
- Q: So your experience as an activist, you would say, has been positive?
- A: Oh, definitely. Q: It’s been great.
- A: And I think that, you know, it’s like I am still an activist, although I’ve kind
- of retired, but I, you know, I am much more active than a lot of people. And I consider
- myself retired. Q: So when you say you’re more active than
- a lot of people -- A: Yeah, it’s like my neighbors who are
- raising their family. They don’t have time to do anything. They’re raising a family.
- You know, these people are making a living, you know. And it’s like that’s where your
- focus is, right? And my focus was never on making a living or having children or raising
- a family, so my focus was always on working for, you know, equality and justice. And I
- still am not concerned with making money or -- and I have no children, so you know, hey,
- that’s -- I can continue to be active really, compared to other people who have family to
- worry about, and jobs, stuff like that. My jobs were -- I worked at a variety of jobs.
- I was a nurse for two years before I realized, oh, this was not for me.
- Q: For two years? A: Oh yes, it was --
- Q: And that’s what you went to college for? A: That’s what I went to college for, and
- I dropped out in the middle of nursing school, went back, got my degree, went to work at
- Brackenridge, stayed there six months, and they wanted me to be a charge nurse, and there
- was no way I was going to be a charge nurse. Q: What’s a charge nurse?
- A: That is in charge of the floor. It’s like one time my patient -- oh, nurse, oh,
- nurse -- and she started vomiting bright red blood. And then she started -- excuse me -- she
- started shitting bright red blood. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran to the charge nurse,
- and she saved that woman’s life. She said, “Pat, go get me a bucket of ice and some
- saline, and an NG tube,” and she was calling the ER, emergency room, to get her operating
- room ready for her. And she put an NG tube down the woman’s stomach and put in ice
- cold saline to try and stop the bleeding. An aorta had given away at the lining of her
- stomach and was bleeding into her stomach, and that’s why she vomited bright red blood
- and expelled bright red blood from her rectum. She was internally -- well, I didn’t know!
- I didn’t know, and what if I was charge nurse and somebody came running to me with
- that? Oh, no way Jose, I said, uh-uh, no. I am not. By action or inaction you could
- kill somebody. Oh no, no, no. No. So what I did was I went into private duty nurse,
- and I went into different, you know, scenarios, and I was a, you know, a visiting nurse. I
- had a license, and that’s what they needed to give drugs and stuff like that, but eventually
- I left, and I started driving a school bus.
- And for AISD, for the handicap students. And when I was doing that, and I was doing, you
- know, I was on the board of this and that, and I was doing fundraising and being an activist,
- and I met a woman who was working for this representative out of Houston, and that’s
- how I got my job in the capitol working for that rep was meeting this woman at a mail
- out. And this was in 1980, and so I went to work for this rep and stayed there till ’85,
- and then Cecilia Burke, who was a member of the political caucus, had just been appointed
- tax collector, asked me to come be her secretary at the tax office, and so I left the capital,
- and I went to the county. And so I got to be -- and Cecilia was an activist, so I got
- to be an activist, you know. At work I was helping her. I was doing all the stuff that
- I needed to do. I went on several boards, but that was my last job was Travis County,
- and I retired after 20 years of service. And I loved my job.
- Q: In the early 2000s? A: Yeah, in 2005. Yeah, and I had started
- work at Travis County ’85 as -- I was working for a Stacy Suits, he was a constable, and
- between sessions, you’re staff, you needed to find some work. So I worked for Stacy,
- and I needed some dental work done, so I begged him to make me a permanent employee so I could
- get dental insurance, and that’s why I got my anniversary date was ’85 before I went
- to work in the tax office in ’86. And I had been, you know, being a -- I worked on
- a couple of campaigns. I was paid staff on a couple of campaigns, Pam Reid, you know,
- took over from John Milloy, who took over from Ann Richards when she was county commissioner,
- oh yes, oh yes. Oh, it was great. Q: He had a very busy life.
- A: Yeah, and Ann Richards’ husband Dave Richards was our attorney for our striking
- shuttle bus drivers, American Transit Union Workers. He was our attorney.
- Q: Oh wow, that’s convenient. A: Oh yeah, oh yes, he’s an activist, oh
- yes. Him and Ann Richards were democratic party activists from the get-go. I saw her
- too, back in her drinking days down at this bar, you know. Have you ever seen somebody
- stand on an aluminum can and touch the side with the foot and then collapse it? I saw
- her do it. Q: What?
- A: Yeah. Q: I’ve never seen in that in my life.
- A: Oh yeah, it’s like a magic trick. I saw Ann Richards do that.
- Q: Wow. A: Yeah.
- Q: Do you have any other final thoughts on being an activist?
- A: I think it’s a great life. I think that it’s energizing, and it’s -- and also
- it’s like, it is, it’s like a wave that always is there, you know. It’s like a wave
- of energy that’s always there, I guess, as long as there’s human beings, and activism
- will always be there. It’s just a kind of energy.
- Q: Are you still in contact with any of your fellow activists?
- A: Oh, sure. Oh, yes, definitely, I see them. Not as much, you know, parties is where I’ll
- run into them, you know, stuff like that. Q: But you still know them.
- A: Or -- yes, definitely, oh yeah. Q: Awesome, well, thank you so much for this.
- This is great experience. It was a lot of fun talking to you.
- A: Yes, April. Q: I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
- A: Mm-hmm, and let me find a blank piece of paper, and I’ll sign.