Audio Interview, Cynthia Woolbright, January 30, 2012

KEVIN INDOVINO: --that's always been a champion

for the underdog--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Exactly.

KEVIN INDOVINO: --a champion for civil rights and activism.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Susan B.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Even before that.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Frederick Douglass,

if we go back, yes, exactly.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So we're trying to frame, how is it

that a community like Rochester could have

such a strong gay movement--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Why do we have that?

KEVIN INDOVINO: --and not only for civil rights,

but our reaction and our response to the AIDS crisis--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Oh, yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: --all of that?

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Oh, yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: And your name came to us--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: I love Bill Valenti.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right, because of--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Emily.

EVELYN BAILEY: --Emily.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: God bless her.

EVELYN BAILEY: But your involvement

with AIDS Rochester, your involvement

with the alumni group at the--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Oh, was it University of Rochester?

EVELYN BAILEY: --University of Rochester.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: And I think your current involvement

with the Rochester Area Community Foundation

to begin an LGBT funding--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Oh, I'm not really involved in that

at this point, no.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: That might be something that--

you might be forewarning me of what Emily

is going to be doing with me.

But that's OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: But not formally, at least

at this point, or even informally.

EVELYN BAILEY: So how did you become

connected to AIDS Rochester?

What were the--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: How did it happen?

EVELYN BAILEY: --pieces that brought you?

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: So this is where you want to start taping.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did you press record?

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: You need to press record.

EVELYN BAILEY: I did.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Oh, you did?

So you got yourself on there before.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: All right, great.

You'll just of course edit out the ums and everything else,

correct?

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Thank you very much.

Well, let's see.

I moved here to Rochester in 1986 spring.

My husband and I had been married for a year.

I was living in Boston and he was living here.

And we decided it was probably going

to be easier for me to get employed here

than him to get employed in Boston.

So I moved here.

And I'd always been active.

I guess I would say that I've always been active.

I came from an activist family growing up,

strong democratic roots.

I always tell people that until I really went off to college,

I really only think I knew one Republican family in my town.

I sat at the feet of my grandmother

while she was marking people off at the polls and voting.

And I handed out flyers all around.

My grandfather was a county sheriff

and my uncle was a mayor.

So that just has been a really active family.

And so that just has been the way I was raised.

And then of course I went to college

in the late sixties, early seventies, so there you go.

I was very active in some of those movements and stuff.

And I remember reading about when they first discovered

this sort of virus or disease that had come to the United

States and was infecting gay men,

is really how it was framed.

And I was thinking, well, that's really strange.

How'd that happen?

And so I just kind of kept reading the news.

And then when I moved here to Rochester,

after I got here in May, I was trying to think of, OK,

what do I want to be involved in?

I've done these different things over my life.

And I guess I should backtrack and tell you

that when I started working professionally

after I graduated from college a few times--

a few degrees, rather--

I was in student affairs work.

And so a lot of the work I did back in the seventies

was around sexism, racism, and homophobia

in terms of leadership development.

And in our division of student affairs,

we worked with student government leaders, student

organization leaders, residence hall advisors,

all those kinds of individuals in terms of student groups.

And I remember in the mid to late seventies

a couple of students coming out to me

and talking about the difficulties and challenges it

was, particularly at that time and particularly even

at college.

I think at that time, they probably had no clue--

that just wasn't-- whereas today,

there's a much greater awareness,

much in general about who we are.

And so I was really wanting to be fairly helpful in that.

And so because we were doing a lot of the racism, sexism,

and homophobia training, it just was sort of a natural fit.

And I probably became known on campus

as like, you can go to talk to her, or something like that.

So I did a lot of that work with colleagues and with students.

And so that was my background.

And then when I wrote, I did a book.

I edited a book in our professional association

in student affairs and on leadership

and trying to look at it from different perspectives,

instead of a white straight male perspective, because I

of course discovered that, oh, that's really weird,

leadership is all supposed to be this way.

Just think, oh, my gosh.

As I became more and more aware of myself,

both as a white person, as a female,

and as a straight person, recognizing

that all the models I had learned from were,

like I said, white male straight.

And I thought-- and I didn't really

understand when I was going through college,

I was like the only woman in the group of student government

leaders.

I was the first woman president of the program

board, the college union board.

So I was a lot of first women--

EVELYN BAILEY: What college?

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: --in college.

Pardon me?

EVELYN BAILEY: What college?

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Oh, it was a Southern Illinois University

in Edwardsville.

And so that was just a big part of that.

And even in college, I recognized--

I got some really good training with a woman

who was our student activities advisor.

She's actually a woman of color who happens to be also lesbian,

although she wasn't out at the time.

And I remember the workshops we used to do with her.

And it really-- this was early seventies.

And this situation happened.

You started the--

I remember the last time we were doing this,

we were getting prepared to be orientation

leaders for the university for all the incoming students.

And she had selected eighteen of us.

Now, just imagine.

This was 1971.

And she really wanted to hit all the areas on campus

and have people really feel comfortable,

etcetera, etcetera.

So we went through this week-long--

the eighteen of us went through this week-long training program

workshop series.

We went away for three or four days.

We came back and did other stuff.

And the eighteen of us, a few of us knew each other.

But we really came from--

I think we had about twenty thousand or so students.

So we came from real different walks of life.

We probably at that point would have been the best diversity

poster, even back then.

And so I remember after going through all this training

thinking that--

we all thought we were pretty confident about knowing

who we were.

And then the last thing she did was she

sent us through this workshop series--

I kid you not-- it lasted eight-and-a-half hours.

Where you started in the middle of the room.

And she had on one side strongly agree, over here strongly

disagree, and then grades all around it.

And we would all start out in the middle of the room.

And the first one of course was easy.

I think she started--

to this day I'm not sure I remember.

But it was something about--

oh, I don't know-- political beliefs or something.

And so she read a statement.

And people would run to their area.

And then she would take that statement

and add a little bit more.

And then she would add a little bit more.

And so you would see you had to really take the topic

and go inside.

Well, as she did that, then the issues or the statements

became deeper and deeper issues.

So it dealt with everything from sexism and racism

and homophobia to just really important topics

that we were doing.

And after we got about-- oh, god we were exhausted.

She was really hitting us hard.

This was probably the prelude to--

I don't know-- touchy feely stuff (unintelligible)

something.

Anyway, excuse me.

I remember one of our colleagues,

one of our student leaders, Eric, whom I knew.

About forty-five minutes into it,

he stayed in the middle of the circle and never left it.

And people-- we had a chance to argue and go back and forth.

And the rest of us would kind of move around a little bit

and stuff like that.

And it would be basically like how do you handle this?

How do you handle this personally?

And then how do you handle if a student comes up to you

and says x or y or if you observe stuff?

So it was really getting intense.

So I kept watching Eric.

And I'm thinking, OK, he's really smart.

I'm missing something here.

So all of a sudden, about three-and-a-half hours into it,

it hit me.

I'm an advisor.

This is not about me.

It's about them.

And I've got to be really open minded.

And so it was like, oh, god, I finally get this.

So I went back.

So Eric and a couple other people and I were--

there were eighteen of us.

And a few of us were in the middle of the circle.

But these got into intense debates

about, how could you say that?

Because we thought we were all great

and we had done all of this leadership stuff

and everything.

So anyway, long story short, you realize

that no matter what your own values are, when you're

in a counselling situation or and advising situation,

you have got to really be aware of who you are and all of that.

So that was very intense.

And I obviously have never forgotten that.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: And in that group,

we had white, black, male, female, gay, straight.

We really had-- and actually, there were a couple of students

from--

one was from not Pakistan, somewhere in the East.

I can't remember now where.

But we had-- so it was also not just all--

we hadn't all been born in the United States.

There were some international students.

So obviously we went through that summer.

And oh, my gosh, it was just a huge turning point for me.

So fast forward then.

I go into student affairs.

And that's really how I kind of came

to then being involved in racism, sexism, and homophobia.

That was sort of like how it all happened.

OK, so fast forward to I move to Rochester.

And I'm thinking, what do I do?

I was leaving student affairs as a profession,

going into this alumni and development, which I really

didn't completely understand.

I'm sure I ever do right now.

But I really didn't understand it then.

And so I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

And I remember sitting on our back porch in August.

There was a Sunday the D and C-- and there's that Local Living

section.

And I opened it up.

And there was this big picture of Jackie Nudd.

You know who I'm talking about?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Uh-hm.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: Um-hm.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: (unintelligible)--

EVELYN BAILEY: And she was a large woman anyway.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Well, I was going

to say larger than life would be a good thing.

So I read this.

And it talked about her, the beginning of AIDS Rochester.

And it said that if you wanted to volunteer, to call.

So Monday morning, I called and said I'd like to volunteer.

And they told me to come down and blah, blah, blah.

So I went down.

I filled out some forms.

And they said that before I could do anything,

I'd have to go on a retreat.

So I went on a retreat in September.

And that Friday night at the retreat,

I thought, wow, this is a really interesting group of people.

I thought, really interesting group of people.

And I just met people and that kind of stuff.

And the next morning, I'm an early riser.

So I got up.

I went into the women's area where the showers

were and met this woman.

We were both early risers.

Her name is Babs, Barbara Purvis.

And so she and I, when we got out the shower,

started chatting with each other about,

oh, you're an early riser, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

This is your first?

Yes, it's my first, that kind of stuff.

So we went outside.

And breakfast wasn't until eight.

I think it was six thirty at the time.

And we were just starving.

And we saw these two men that were out also.

And so we started talking with them, Mark and Phil.

And so the four of us just ended up

kind of hanging together through the retreat.

And we all for were volunteering then.

And we all four ended up doing development work.

Because at that point, these services

were nowhere near what they are now.

This was life, death.

The minute you got diagnosed with HIV,

it wasn't long before you were dead.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: And there were a lot of people I met,

almost all men--

I don't think I met any women that were HIV at the time--

but that were HIV, and lost some along the way.

And then I also from my student affairs

had a really, really close friend of mine, Randy, who--

how do you (unintelligible) someone in past tense--

is, was gay.

And so he was the first diagnosed

that was really close to me.

These other people I had met.

And obviously they became close to me.

But Randy was this longtime friend.

He and I had done a lot of work together on these topics.

We served on committees.

We were just really good friends.

And the thing with Randy was that he really

didn't want to talk about it.

And it was really hard for-- there was a group of us.

There were four of us that all hung out together, five really,

and Randy being one of them.

And so the others of us would call and say,

what's going on with Randy?

He's not returning my phone call.

And this is long before email and all those kinds of things.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: And so when I'd call Randy,

Greg would say-- his partner would

say-- to me like, well, he's not feeling well, or he's not here.

And it was just like-- and I'd call him at work.

He's out.

So I'd call home.

It was just those kinds of things.

And so Archie and Gay and Ray and I

would kind of talk and be like, what's going on?

And finally, Archie and Gay went to Amherst, Massachusetts.

Randy was in student affairs at UMass Amherst.

And they just lived closer by.

And they went to see him and showed up at his house

and found him very ill.

And he just-- he wouldn't tell anybody.

He just didn't-- at that time, this was really early on.

So we are all pretty devastated.

And literally within a month, he was dead.

And that really hit home.

And at that point, I was doing my work with AIDS Rochester

as well.

So long story short on that, I got

working with AIDS Rochester.

And just a minute.

I have to ask this question.

How public is some of this going to be?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, it will go public.

It will be available to the public.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Will your audio?

EVELYN BAILEY: Our audio will be archived--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: --and will be saved.

It will not go public as the documentary will.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: The documentary, of course

I would understand that.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Right.

No, it's OK.

I just needed to know.

So I was working with volunteering at ARI.

And we were starting the first fundraiser.

To this day, we sit on our deck outside, the four, Babs, Phil,

Mark, me, and the other members of the development

committee, the fundraising committee, about seven or eight

of us.

And literally, we went through--

people decided to go get-- who went to RPO,

people went to different places where there's a playbill

and had the donor reports.

We literally, literally sat down and went through every name

and rattled them off.

And Mark or Phil or someone would say,

good, they'd be great.

They'd be great allies, couples, whatever.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: So we literally put that first list

together.

And this was back before computers.

So we were at our typewriter doing this.

And this was-- so we wanted to do a fundraiser.

And of course this was also when ARI, we

weren't putting on the envelope ARI's address.

People didn't want to get mail with any of that stuff.

So that was the environment that we were working in.

It really was.

And it just was really hard because it

was just very impressive, on top of everything else.

And people didn't want to go out and talk

about being HIV or having AIDS, not at that point.

And it was just a very hard environment.

And of course just all the backlash too at that time,

about, well, they should get it.

They should get it.

You know all that crummy, crummy stuff that was happening.

But anyway, we had our fundraisers.

And we did really well.

We had some at--

we had one at George Eastman House.

We did a movie and got a film documentary

guy that came and did it.

White something or other it was called.

And we previewed that and had a fundraiser.

That was our very first one.

And I think we made-- oh, we thought we

were so-- we were so excited.

We made something like 985 dollars or something.

We were just stunned.

And then we did another event at Harry's, the workout place.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Harro?

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Harro, Harro East.

EVELYN BAILEY: Harro East.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Harro East, thank you.

Not Harry's, Harro East.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Anyway, we did an event there.

And we had balloons out in front and the whole entrance

and stuff.

And people were wanting to walk in,

but wanted to act like were they members of the club

or did they just have to-- could they stop and talk?

It was really interesting.

I have pictures of all this.

It's still really fun to have it.

And so we did fundraising.

So we raised money.

And so we did a lot of those kinds of things.

We would meet on people's front porches.

ARI didn't really have an office that was big enough for us,

etcetera.

OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: Can we--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: OK. (unintelligible).

EVELYN BAILEY: --stop for a minute?

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Oh, I'm sorry.

EVELYN BAILEY: When you first got involved,

there was no office.

There was no--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Well, there was.

It was-- let me think.

Where was it?

Jackie told us that she had started it

on the back porch of her house initially.

And at that point, this was the first office.

I'm trying to think of where it was.

It was small.

EVELYN BAILEY: Tara's?

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Where?

EVELYN BAILEY: Tara's on Liberty Pole Way.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Could be.

EVELYN BAILEY: Above Tara's?

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Yeah, I think maybe that was it.

EVELYN BAILEY: It was a bar.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Yeah, actually, I

think that was where we were.

I'm pretty sure.

Because we were in two different places.

Because then we went and found someplace else,

I remember, a little bit later.

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, Tara's is here.

You go down.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Yes, we had a fundraiser there.

EVELYN BAILEY: You go down and turn the corner.

And that's Liberty Pole Way.

And I think your second office--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: The office was there.

You're right.

EVELYN BAILEY: --was on Liberty Pole Way.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Because we had an event in the bar, yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: You're right.

You're right.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then there was

a hot line at the Gay Alliance.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Yes, OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: But that was primarily a phone.

And we didn't have secure space.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: No, I remember that.

EVELYN BAILEY: Or you didn't have security space.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: No, no one did.

EVELYN BAILEY: But we also had a gay hot line there as well.

So I think that the two kind of became one.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: We were helping each other.

What I remember though is that after doing this

for a few years, it was evident to some of us

that the organization was moving--

or no, the epidemic, I'll say, was moving at a very fast pace.

And this was also when right around that same time

Helping People with AIDS was organized.

And we did some-- and Helping People with AIDS

did some of the dining for-- not the Dining for Dollars,

but they would do the dinners at everybody's house.

And then we would go downtown.

I remember the first few years, we went downtown to what was

Sibley's.

EVELYN BAILEY: Midtown.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Midtown.

And then everybody would converge there at ten o'clock

at night.

And there were different themes.

We had this cruise.

We had-- I don't know--

whatever with just all kinds of deserts

and the drag queens and just music.

And it was great.

And so my husband and I hosted some of them.

And then others of us would go into it and stuff.

And this is also when-- early on, that

was when I first met Bill Valenti, because that's when he

was doing his work at Strong.

And I remember hearing his name right away

in terms of his work.

And Jackie was making sure that those who thought they might be

were getting tested and doing--

we were driving people to Strong in unrecognized cars.

I'm not sure that anyone would have thought

we were-- it wasn't like we were driving a car that said AIDS

on it or anything.

But we were doing transportation.

We were doing a lot of those kinds of things.

So there was that kind of work coordination with them.

And anyway, like I said, this went on for a few years.

And some of us really felt like the disease was moving so fast.

And some of us didn't feel like the organization was

responding, wasn't as nimble as it should be.

And so we were trying to figure out

how to best help contribute to a different type of leadership

in the organization.

So we got together, the four of us, this four original group.

And we got the-- and Jackie had said--

and Mary Lou, her partner, was the head of volunteers.

And just for me, from an organizational perspective,

I thought, isn't that kind of weird to be the director

and have your partner on your staff?

I don't care if you're gay, straight, or what.

That's just--

EVELYN BAILEY: A conflict of interest.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: --I think it's a conflict of interest,

would be mild.

And we always had to have two people sign checks.

And it was usually the two of them that signed.

There were just all kinds of things that were happening.

EVELYN BAILEY: We can turn this off--

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Oh, no.

EVELYN BAILEY: --if you would prefer.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: It's OK.

No, it's OK.

So anyway, Jackie was really trying

to get the board to move.

She wasn't sure, I think, where it really needed to go.

Jackie was, from my perspective--

let me just say this.

If it wasn't for Jackie, who was big as life, literally

and figuratively, I don't think ARI would have ever gotten

off the ground.

There would not have been something like that.

So to her, much credit is owed.

I really do believe that.

I do think then as organizations develop that leadership,

as I had come to learn it in respect, not--

what you really want in a leader is the right time

and the right place in the organization.

There are a lot of people that can be leaders.

It's just a matter of timing.

Who is at this particular point in time with this organization?

And who has the skill set that works best?

So some of us felt like that was not lining up as correctly.

And I would say too that I think that Bill Valenti and what HPA

was doing was really doing some great service things too

on the health care side.

That was very important.

And we just didn't seem to be behind the-- we weren't--

I don't know that expression, eight ball thing,

behind it, in front of it, whatever it is.

We just didn't seem to be lining up as fast

as things were moving.

So we got together, a group of us.

And I asked Jackie for the minutes of the past year's

meetings and stuff.

And so we poured through the minutes and the bylaws.

And we were a little surprised at some of the information that

was recorded at the time.

And we decided that we could--

we began to identify.

we sat that Sunday afternoon--

I can still remember that-- in our house--

we lived on Genesee Park Boulevard then--

in the dining room at our round oak table

that my stepdaughter still has, and went through boxes of stuff

and cleaned out files and really put it in order,

but also read information, and decided that--

there was an upcoming election of board members.

And many of the board members had been recruited,

and rightfully so, rightfully understood, as members

in a circle with whom Jackie knew.

And again, I'll just say that--

but the disease was going much further much quicker.

And so we looked at when the next election was going to be.

And they had this really funny clause in there

that if you were a volunteer at AIDS Rochester,

you could vote on the board, which I had never heard,

which was one of their--

EVELYN BAILEY: Wow.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: --funky rules.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: Usually bylaws don't work like that.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: But this one did.

And quite frankly, it was to our advantage.

So the four of us sat there.

And we knew which board members were going off.

And we knew which positions we needed

and how many we needed for what.

And so we did some brainstorming of names of people.

And we identified them.

And then we divvied them up.

And each of us with whom we knew went and talked to them

and asked if they would consider themselves to be on the board,

be nominated.

And so people agreed.

And we went to the board meeting.

And I said to all the members of our development committee,

please make sure you're there.

We want to make sure we vote.

It was an annual meeting of which not many people came.

But we did.

And so when the vote happened, everyone

that was nominated that we brought in

was accepted, voted on, and approved.

So we walked out of the meeting.

And I remember the four of us said, "We've done our job.

That's all we can do."

I mean, in terms of the board.

And then we kept doing our work.

And it wasn't soon thereafter, too

far after that, that Jackie and this new board

with a combination of members hit

a line at which there was not agreement.

And so she was asked to resign.

And she, being bigger than life, with her organization,

her work, her this, she wasn't going to go down lightly.

And so she calls.

And she at that time she'd call a news conference.

And again, back in that era, you call the D and C

and talk about AIDS, and people would

run because it was big news.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: And so she was out publicly.

She was on TV.

Someone saw it, and we all started calling each other.

Did you see it?

Did you see it?

Hazel-- oh, what's Hazel's last name?

You know who I'm talking about?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: She was the chair of the board.

And so she got caught blindsided.

Because she was coming out of a meeting.

I think she used to work for Jordan Health

Center or something like that.

My husband was the chair--

was the treasurer.

And when they couldn't reach Hazel, next thing

I looked out our front room door and there

was some news station coming up the door

to ask if my husband was there.

I'm like, well, actually he wasn't, which was good news.

So when he got home that night, I said,

"The news, D and C would like for you

to call them in the station."

He goes, "Why?

What happened?"

Hazel Jeffries.

That's it.

EVELYN BAILEY: Jeffries.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: So anyway, that went on, that fiasco,

for--

I don't remember-- a good few days.

And it kept getting ignited.

And Hazel went in front of the press.

And they did this kind of stuff.

And Hazel and the board and the attorneys got together.

And I'm not sure how long it took,

but they agreed on a package.

And basically that was when Jackie and Mary

Lou left Rochester and went--

I think they went to Santa Fe or Albuquerque,

someplace like that.

And there was another member of our community--

I can't remember his name--

who had been on the board.

And he was one of the early-- well,

I think he may have been even one the very first ones

in Rochester diagnosed.

And he went out with them too.

And he died shortly thereafter.

I remember that, because some people still

stayed in touch with them and you'd

hear stuff back and forth.

So the board then needed to find a new executive director.

So they interviewed.

And if I'm not mistaken, I think my husband

was on the search committee.

I'd have to check that out to be sure, but I think so.

Anyway, they interviewed and found Paula.

And so Paula was hired.

And she came.

And we were here for probably about another six

months or a year maybe with Paula, and then we moved.

And we stayed in touch with Paula, but we had moved.

And she was beginning to organize things a little bit

differently and stuff.

So that's the experience here.

When we moved, I continued my own involvement

on AIDS in AIDS organizations in Vermont, Burlington,

in Northampton, wherever we lived.

And I'm really pleased that Northampton still

has-- they just had their twentieth chocolate auction,

silent auction, and are raising still lots of money

from it, which is great, which is one that we started.

EVELYN BAILEY: Great.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: I remember pulling the tables out

of the alumni house where I worked to get them all set up

and going and begging people when we first started.

So I've been active in the AIDS thing

ever since then, and also just in terms of gay, lesbian,

transgender issues and stuff.

Back then it was just gay, lesbian.

And so that happened.

While I was still here though, I was working

at the University of Rochester, because that

was the other piece you wanted to know.

And so I was working at the University of Rochester.

And I was moved into the alumni house

and working with their reunion classes and stuff.

And I worked there and went through a reunion.

And again, my work at the University of Rochester--

when I first got there that first year,

I was in the administration building.

And again, everyone in my environment,

with the exception of probably administrative assistants

and one other person, were all white straight men.

And I'd walk down the hallway where all the presidents

and the board members were.

And I just didn't-- when you're in student affairs,

it was much different of an environment,

much more progressive, I would say, on college campuses.

So it was just really strange for me

to have come from the environment I did of openness

and diversity and stuff, and to find myself working then

in this environment.

And so then when they asked me to go over the alumni house

and organize some reunions, and the alumni-- alumni.

I keep saying, "alumnee"-- the alumni

had not been really engaged at the University of Rochester.

It was an era when they really had the university--

and some would argue today.

But clearly the university was at a point

of the emphasis was on research and professional masters

and doctoral.

It was not on undergraduate students.

So when I would meet with alumni, typically

the ones that come back for alumni weekend,

they were not just upset, they were disenfranchised.

They were angry about what had gone on while they

were undergraduates.

And I'm thinking, oh, dear.

So thinking about my student affairs experience I had,

I'm thinking, this is going to be interesting.

So during my first year doing that, I went over and talked

to student affairs people, which of course everybody

in alumni development thought, why do you do this?

Why wouldn't I?

So I went over.

And I knew the people over there,

because my husband had been involved in student affairs

at one point with the university.

So I went over and talked to them.

And sure enough, there in the mid-eighties

and in the later eighties, there was not only

a young Democratic group.

There probably was a young Republican group too.

But there was the beginning of a Gay Alliance.

There was an African-American--

I think back then it was called BSU, Black Student--

you know.

These were the heyday where names were different.

EVELYN BAILEY: Um-hm..

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: And so there were these different groups

that were forming.

I'm thinking, like, OK, I've got to believe

that if these organizations are forming,

there must be alumni out there that would find affinity

with these groups.

So I went back and I talked to my husband

who used to work there.

And I said, "Alright, I need help."

I went back and I found out first of all that

in our alumni database, with exception of gender,

we did not have anything recorded

in terms of race or ethnicity, let alone

there was never a field called "partner."

And that's so much a reflection of the society.

But also in terms of race and ethnicity,

back then you couldn't ask those questions.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: You weren't asked when a student applied

for admittance.

So of course they didn't have records.

So I said to Bill, "OK, I've got yearbooks.

I've got access to yearbooks.

I can have a student go through literally the black student--

go through the yearbook and find people of color,"

that we would call that now, black back then.

I can't-- I don't--

there wasn't a gay student group back then

that was identifiable.

And quite frankly, when you look at these pictures, not sure

I can tell.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

CYNTHIA WOOLBRIGHT: So I said, "You got to help me."

So on the African-American side, he told me the person to call.

And I did and got connected and started that group.

I also very much wanted to start then--

I wanted to start a women's group.

But the current chair of the board, who was a woman--

I wrote this big proposal, why we

need to have a women's group.

And she shot it down.

It's a typical-- sadly, but it's a typical queen bee syndrome.

I got here.

They can all get behind me.

Do you realize you're the only woman on the board?

So I couldn't go anywhere with the women's thing.

And I think they all thought I was nuts trying to figure out

who was gay and lesbian.

And I think they really thought that I

couldn't do it, which is really all anybody needs to tell me.

So I went to my husband again.