Audio Interview, J. Ernest Du Bois, March 22, 2012

KEVIN INDOVINO: Before we go any further,

I just want to make sure I've got the correct spelling

of your name, here.

Is it Ernest, E-R-N-E-S-T and then Du Bois, D-U B-O-I-S.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Capital B.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Capital B. OK.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And if you want to be very correct,

there's a split between the Du and the Bois.

It's two words, actually

KEVIN INDOVINO: No accent or anything but it's Du Bois

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: In French.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: No asterisk no hyphen or anything, just

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh, no, no.

EVELYN BAILEY: Du Bois.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And also, I use my first initial,

J. I'm J. Ernest.

KEVIN INDOVINO: J.Ernest OK, good.

What's J stand for?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: James.

KEVIN INDOVINO: James, that's my middle name.

EVELYN BAILEY: And you were born in Rochester.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I was.

KEVIN INDOVINO: eighty-five years ago?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: 11-19-26.

EVELYN BAILEY: Wow.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I was thinking it.

I wasn't going to say it (laughter).

Good for you.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I was born at Highland Hospital, so I'm told.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: I was born twenty years later, but anyway.

KEVIN INDOVINO: When when did you

start getting out into the Rochester community,

as a young adult?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Shall we I think this is

more you maybe ought to have.

Of course, I went to the Rochester Public Schools,

the old number thirty-three The building is gone.

So the number thirty-three that exists now

is not the building to which I went.

East High School and the East High School that exists today

is not the building that I went to.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did you go to the one on Alexander Street?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Mm-hm.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Class of '44 out of East High School

and class of '48 from the University of Rochester,

with my master's degree the next year.

KEVIN INDOVINO: at U of R so in 1949,

you got a master's in what?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Education.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Education, OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were you a teacher?

In what discipline?

Well

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I taught I did substitute teaching

for a while before they got up enough nerve to hire me

for the secondary schools.

I was not the first black teacher in the school system,

but I was the first one in the high schools.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Wow.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And I was hired

at Ben Franklin in Social Studies and English

because I did both while I was there.

Then, I left teaching and went to Lincoln Rochester Trust

Company, which name probably means nothing to either of you.

KEVIN INDOVINO: It became Lincoln Bank, eventually,

and now Chase, right?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And now J.P. Morgan Chase.

I even get a little pension from there,

I was there long enough enough to pay for my house keeping

man.

And then I went back to teaching and

KEVIN INDOVINO: What years are we talking about now?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: '60 bank, '63 '70 '75

EVELYN BAILEY: You were teaching?

No, you were

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: at the bank.

EVELYN BAILEY: at the bank.

And so you returned in '75?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: '75 until '89, when I retired.

And I retired from School Without Walls.

I was not one of the instigators for the place,

but it was four years later that I arrived on the scene.

And career wise, that's it.

I've been happily retired since June '89.

EVELYN BAILEY: Wow.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I have no desire to go back.

And not because my teaching was unhappy,

it's just that I don't think I can deal with the circumstances

as they exist today.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, they're quite different

quite different.

Well, as we've mentioned before, this is a documentary focused

on the history of the LGBT community in Rochester,

and we want to get a sense of your experience

within the gay community in Rochester,

particularly the early years, you know, pre-Stonewall I mean,

when

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh, pre-Stonewall, I

guess so (laughter).

KEVIN INDOVINO: When did you first come out?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: What does come out mean?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Acknowledge your gayness and start

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: To myself?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, and start

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Probably I was

KEVIN INDOVINO: Seeking out the gay community?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I was probably

about twenty-eight years old before I

could acknowledge to myself exactly who and what I was.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But were you seeking out or exploring

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No, I was doing nothing.

KEVIN INDOVINO: the community before that?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I was much too

busy to be doing anything else.

Nope.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

So you began kind of

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I was just living with me.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So you begin to kind

of recognizing your own gay identity when you were

about twenty-eight years old.

So that would have been in 1934, thereabouts?

No, 1954, sorry.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: '54

KEVIN INDOVINO: '54

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I was eight years old (laughter)

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right, no, '54.

Wow, you're quick.

EVELYN BAILEY: And that was certainly

pre-Stonewall. (Du Bois laughs)

KEVIN INDOVINO: So I mean, talk to me about Rochester in 1954

then, when you know, what were you finding out there?

And how were you finding

EVELYN BAILEY: if you were finding anything.

KEVIN INDOVINO: If you were finding it, yeah.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Well, in those days

it really wasn't you didn't know who was

or who wasn't gay to begin with.

And the only place to go were bars.

EVELYN BAILEY: What bars do you remember?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And the only bar that I ever really went

to much was Dick's.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Was that when it was on Front street?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Front Street.

And Martha was a wonderful person to the gay people.

What happened to her should never ever have happened.

EVELYN BAILEY: No.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: That was just awful.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, so let's not rush through this.

Talk to me about Dick's.

Talk to me about the first time you decided to go to Dick's.

What was it like?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: My brother decided we should go.

He was out.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So you have a gay brother?

OK.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: But I did not know

that he was out, particularly.

I did not we'd never discussed it.

But he finally decided it was time I face myself.

So he took me to Dick's.

He's twelve years younger than I am.

Well, what am I going to say?

It was a smoky, loud place.

It sort of nonplussed me at the beginning.

But I also recognized that people there

were people who were with whom I could associate,

that I realized I was part of.

And so I would go back.

And because as I say, there wasn't anything else,

I went back lots, eventually.

And they moved from there to Stone Street,

and from Stone Street to State Street,

as I recall, and then wound up on South Avenue.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me ask you this

as a gay man of color in 1954, was that an issue for you?

Did you find it an issue in the places you were going?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No, probably see,

I didn't announce being gay.

I just I wasn't said to myself now, I know you knew that,

but I didn't announce it out loud no point (pause).

Being black and being gay well, I

guess it just sort of went together isn't quite right, but

KEVIN INDOVINO: But it's who you were.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Huh?

KEVIN INDOVINO: But it's who you were.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yeah, but what I'm trying to get at

is, you already had to deal with the being black part,

so being gay on top of it didn't matter that much.

It was just go on doing the same thing.

The being black part I never set myself aside,

I guess I have to say that.

I always was who I am, and I knew

that I was worth of whatever I needed to be worthy of, if that

makes any sense.

And I just sort of I didn't bulldoze,

I just kept moving along.

Well, this is going to happen, it'll happen.

And the lady that I did my student teaching for

told me some years later that personnel downtown

had asked her to tell me to apply

to places like Chicago or New York for a job in the schools.

It had nothing to do with the being gay part because

EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, no.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: because at that point,

I just didn't still know.

So you see what I'm saying?

Adding the gay to it didn't I just kept

on doing what I had always did.

And of course, I got hired.

I mean, what are they going to do?

And

EVELYN BAILEY: But you obviously did not take her advice.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: It wasn't her,

it was the man from downtown in the employment office

who was telling her to tell me that.

Oh, she was she told me later, she was very disgusted.

Oh no, Elizabeth Lucket would not

have she was very disgusted with them.

I had proven my worth in her classroom.

She saw me teach and so on.

And eventually, I was teacher of the year in Rochester.

1984-85, they named me the teacher of the year.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Wow.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And I was a little afraid

when that happened.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Why?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Why?

Well, first of all, you're nominated by your coworkers.

And I didn't know they did this until we were in staff meeting

and something was something I overheard and asked, what?

"Oh, yes, we nominated you for teacher of the year."

Oh, thank you.

Inside I'm thinking, oh my god because all I could think of

was some idiot I'm looking for a word

some idiot gay creature who thought

I had done something wrong to him

or her would make a fuss about it.

I just, I could conceive of this happening.

Well, of course, it didn't happen,

but I was really very concerned about it because I knew that

if I was named, and I was almost sure I probably would be

because of all the things around it, I thought, oh Lord, they'll

KEVIN INDOVINO: So I mean, were you

fearful of still being exposed?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: All right.

OK.

And again, this was what did you say 1984, 1985?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: '84, '85 I never said I wasn't gay,

let's put it that way.

I never went out announcing it either.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And I was I know

people had made their own assumptions and so on.

Again, that's fine with me and Tom

and I lived together for eleven years

and we were together for twenty-two before he died.

And people accepted Tom just as somebody

that always was with me.

We were together.

KEVIN INDOVINO: When did he die?

What year?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: '90 April '90.

KEVIN INDOVINO: What was Tom's last name?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Murdock, with a K.

And he understood my concern and he proceeded to tell my family,

who all knew I was gay at this point,

he proceeded to tell them my concern.

I wasn't going to say anything to anybody

but he had to tell them.

So the day it was announced, my sisters

came down to the school on purpose to rally around me.

KEVIN INDOVINO: How many siblings do you have?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I had three.

The sister after me is gone.

I'm the oldest one.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So was it do you have

one brother and two sisters?

Or

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Mm-hm.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I was five years older

than the sister who's gone, twelve years older

than my brother, and ninteen years older

than the sister in West Chester now.

Now, back up on the teacher of the year business.

One thing that happened, we always Tom

and I always had tickets for the classical concerts

at Eastman Theater on Thursday nights,

and we would often go to Tara's afterwards.

We'd park the car over by Tara's walk to the theater,

walk back to Tara's have a drink or two,

and the car was right there, and go home.

Well, here, I had been so scared of these

of what would happen, now, we've done this had done that

for years so that they knew we would probably be coming that

Thursday night because it was a classical concert.

We came in the door, the place stopped, and they applauded.

I was

EVELYN BAILEY: Sure.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, I want to go back a little bit still

and getting a sense of Dick's and Front Street

and what that environment was like.

The initial reaction was, yeah, OK,

this is a place, like, you know, I can start seeking out

people who are like me.

Did you I'm trying to get a sense of like

that Front Street environment because

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Well, I knew it from daytime experiences

from before.

Of course, it was a commercial street.

There were the markets, and restaurants, and so on,

like you said earlier.

My grandfather had worked at Central Trust,

which was over on East Main Street, at Aqueduct Street.

I have no idea what's in there now.

And so he would go to the meat markets down there and so on

and buy the meat for the house and this sort of thing.

And I'd go with him a lot.

In fact, there was a restaurant called Hall's, as I recall,

Hall's.

It reminds me of a later (unintelligible) white tiles

and you know, you can take the hose

and you won't hurt anything.

So I knew it from daytime.

At night time, everything was closed up

except for the couple of bars that were there.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Somebody mentioned another bar

down there, I wanted to know if you know about it.

EVELYN BAILEY: Martins?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Huh?

EVELYN BAILEY: Martins?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yeah, Ma Martin.

I didn't go there but a couple of times.

It was not I just didn't care for it.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But it was was it another gay bar?

Or was it

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yes.

It was it was between it was closer to Main Street

than Dick's was.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

There's also another place I've heard called the Rustic Rooster

or something like that?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: It doesn't mean anything

KEVIN INDOVINO: Or the Rustic or it

was supposed to be on Front Street somewhere.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: It doesn't mean anything to me.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

It may have been gone before 1950s.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: It may have been a straight bar, too,

because there were some straight ones down in there.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Sure.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now, Ma Martins was a part of a restaurant,

I think.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Could be, as I said,

I didn't go there enough to be able to tell you about it.

EVELYN BAILEY: But you did feel welcomed at Dick's?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Mm-hm.

You're talking now, as far as being black is concerned?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh, yeah.

No, the gay people in there the men

didn't but of course, you have to remember once again,

I wasn't in there looking for somebody to go home with,

necessarily.

I was there more for just being part of a group

that I knew I belonged to.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You know, not getting specifically

into names or anything, but what kind of people

were you meeting there?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: What kind of people what?

KEVIN INDOVINO: were are you meeting at Dick's?

You know, I mean, who were they?

Where were they coming from?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I knew some of them,

but I didn't know they were gay until I saw them there.

Who were they?

EVELYN BAILEY: Professionals?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yeah, they were

people who worked in banks, occasionally a teacher,

people who I got to know who people

who worked for themselves.

There were people like it was (unintelligible) There were

the beauticians and there was even

an occasional religious type person

that I would know from other ways.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Nobody talked about it outside Dick's, you

know.

We met up on Main Street "hi, how are you?"

That sort of stuff, and went right on.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, what went on at Dick's stayed

at Dick's, right?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: That's right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: We kind of brushed over U of R stuff

and I don't want to I don't want to miss out on some of that.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Thank you, by the way, for getting rid

of them.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Were there talk to me

about life on the U of R campus when you were there, studying.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: My situation was very strange.

World War II was on.

I came out of East High School in '44.

In those days, U of R had two campuses the Prince Street

Campus and the River Campus.

The Prince Street Campus was where the women were

and the River Campus was where the men were.

When I started going to the U of R in September of '44,

the River Campus was on trimesters.

The Prince Street Campus was on semesters.

And the men had a choice, you can do the trimesters

or you can do semesters on the women's campus.

So I did semesters on the women's campus.

So my first two years of college were on Prince Street.

The war ended and River Campus went back to normal semesters,

and I should have been going there the beginning

of my junior year.

I had opted to be in the honors division and the seminars met

in the professor's homes or back on Prince Street.

I never attended a class on the River Campus.

So I say, my whole situation is very, very peculiar

from that standpoint.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, that surprises me.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And the women were wonderful.

I still hear from some of them, you know, over the years.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, you weren't the only man there,

right.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No, there were fifty of us

about fifty of us in those first two years.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Any gay inclinations

while you were in school?

Do you know of anybody that was possibly gay or coming out?

It was never even addressed?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I never thought of that sort of thing,

no.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Never even thought of it?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

What about the

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Now, I can't say

that I didn't look sometimes at a male

and say don't ask me what was going I just would look.

What was going on, I don't really know.

I did nothing about it, just look.

I wasn't repressed.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

EVELYN BAILEY: No.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I'm not the kind that would be repressed.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You were curious.

We call nowadays, we call it curious.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: OK.

Yeah, I'm not the kind that could be repressed (laughter).

EVELYN BAILEY: But that was I'm sorry.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I was just going

to ask if that answered your question.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: But that was I mean, what Kevin and I have

heard is that even the vocabulary of gay, homosexual

wasn't really talked about in the early '60s

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: It wasn't, no.

EVELYN BAILEY: even early '70s.

That was well, early '60s then.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: '60s, no, definitely not.

Oh, no.

EVELYN BAILEY: And that it kind of existed, but not

in a articulative way.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No.

And you did not have as I indicated before,

when you were out at Dick's "hi, how are you?"

and that was it.

There was not a lot of socializing.

Eventually, I was in a group, but it was a fellow

that I didn't know he was gay until I ran into him in Dick's,

that I had known as a child.

And we picked up and went on and were friends and socialized.

He owned a house and he had gay friends and I got included.

So there was the social part, you see.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Would you feel comfortable about talking

about your first gay experience?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: You mean sex experience?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I feel comfortable about it.

Trouble is, it's hard for me to remember.

(laughter)

EVELYN BAILEY: No one forgets their first.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh, yes they do.

(laughter)

KEVIN INDOVINO: What I'm trying to get a sense of, too,

is you crossing that threshold, you finally making

the decision, OK, this is who I am.

And how did that happen for you?

EVELYN BAILEY: How did you meet?

How did you

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: How did I meet?

Well, you know how I met people.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did you meet him at Dick's?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh, yeah.

Where else?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, right.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I mean, as I say

KEVIN INDOVINO: I don't know.

When I came out, there was fifteen gay bars in Rochester.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: fifteen?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Really?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, you could count

you could count as many as fifteen, yep.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: My word, I didn't know there were fifteen.

KEVIN INDOVINO: There isn't any more, but there

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh no, I realize that, even Tara's is

gone.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Well, what do you want to know about it?

EVELYN BAILEY: Was there a protocol

for saying to someone in Dick's, I'm interested in you, let's

go home.

I mean

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I just wasn't that kind of person.

I didn't do that.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But did somebody do that to you?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And I had no place

to take anybody either, which was another stopping point.

Well, yes, that's what finally happened

is I went back to a hotel with a guy, and we had sex,

and I went on.

Got up the next day and went to work.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were you in then, would you

have been considered to be in a relationship with this person?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No.

In a hotel, passing through town.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Completely safe

KEVIN INDOVINO: So it was someone that was visiting,

it wasn't even a Rochester

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yeah, yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Hotel, OK.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I didn't get sexually involved,

particularly, with the people that I

associated with socially.

There was a it's interesting, they

were two it was two different things.

There was being social with this group that I've mentioned,

and then there was the occasional sex,

but not with them.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So in the social group

that you found yourself aligned with,

what were the things you were talking about?

What kind of what year or time period are we talking about?

And what are the kinds of things you guys were talking about?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: This would be in the '50s, and into the '60s,

into the '70s.

We talked about everything.

You're not supposed to talk about politics, religions,

and sex we talked about all of them.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's take it one at a time.

As far as politics go, I mean, was there

discussions about politics within the gay community,

and making changes for the gay community, back in those days?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No, it was more general politics.

Looking at people who wanted to support those who would support

the gay community, yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: But that was not the driving force.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That is kind of a little bit of gay activism.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yeah.

Very little, yeah.

It was not the driving force.

We were interested in politics as politics.

Were you Republican or Democrat or whatever none of the above?

EVELYN BAILEY: Do you recall who the mayor was in Rochester in

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Which gay mayor

do you want to know about? (Indovino laughs)

EVELYN BAILEY: Well

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's start with the first one.

EVELYN BAILEY: All of them.

(laughter)

KEVIN INDOVINO: What do you know?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Well, Samuel Dicker

is reputed to have been gay.

I did not don't know that for a fact at all.

KEVIN INDOVINO: He Samuel what was is the last name?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Dicker.

Yeah, with that name he ought to have been, right?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Dicker.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Well, certainly,

what's his face Peter Barry.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, his name has come up quite often.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh, yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Again, nothing that we can substantiate.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I can.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I've met him at parties and stuff.

I did not other than the fact he kissed me twice.

EVELYN BAILEY: That's affirmation.

(laughter)

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me, you know,

let's explore that a little bit because OK, he

was mayor at the time, when you were meeting him

at these parties?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Mm-hm.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So what was the general consensus

about this mayor?

And you know, it was all hush-hush, right?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh, sure.

But if he was in the group at a party,

he was part of the party.

And the party accepted who he was, knew who he was,

and that was it.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But everyone in that party

realized that his suspected gayness

needed to be kept under wraps.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh yeah, you didn't

go rushing around discussing it, no with other people, that is.

EVELYN BAILEY: Democrat?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yes.

EVELYN BAILEY: Barry?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yeah.

Dicker was a Republican, as I recall.

Has Stephen May's name come up?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Mm-hm.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Mm-hm.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did he kiss you at a party?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, OK.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I disliked his father so much.

That's another story, nothing to do with any of this.

EVELYN BAILEY: Which of those two people

changed the decor at city hall to be pink?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I don't know.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But, let me ask you this,

why did you bring up Stephen May's name?

Again, how did

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: He was reputed to have been gay.

I don't actually know it for fact.

KEVIN INDOVINO: No one really knows.

Yeah.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: But I've heard it

from so many reliable people that I suspect he of course,

when he got married a few years ago,

it was plastered over the New York Times.

Everybody was going, what?

Gordon DeHond from the Board of Education,

and I ran into him a couple times in bars.

The Bachelor Forum, when it was at Main and Goodman,

was one of his hangouts.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So back to I want

to get back to these social groups,

then, where you were talking about religion, and politics,

and sex, and all that.

You're in these social groups with these people,

and yet, you know, and you've got these politicians,

like Peter Barry, and Stephen May,

and Gordon DeHond who were secretly in the gay underground

any discussions about that?

Any discussions about who these people were?

And any discussions about the

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No, just accepted.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Just accepted.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And it should be pointed out

that that wasn't the only social group that I was in.

I had expanded so that I more more friends than just them.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, sure.

And I understand that.

I'm just kind of

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: And the reason I

say that is because somebody like Peter Barry

was more inclined to be among some of these other groups,

not that original one I was talking about.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

I'm just trying to get a sense of,

what was being talked about back then?

You know, as far as gay activism,

as far as the gay community, as far as

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: It wasn't.

It wasn't.

KEVIN INDOVINO: It wasn't at all.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: It was more "Hello, how are you?

Have a drink."

Awful lot of drinking gay people did.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were the bars raided at that time?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Well, wait, I was going to say something.

The drinking, now, I'm talking about at parties, not at bars.

That why I wanted to stop there.

Were you asking me just now, what?

EVELYN BAILEY: Were the bars that you were

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Oh, raided.

EVELYN BAILEY: in raided?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Well, I never was raided,

but I guess the police kind of would

every once in a while I think they knew that they

could put it on the record.

They would hassle.

But I'm sure they all paid under the table.

I can't positively say that, but I'd

be very surprised if they didn't because Martha was certainly

very open about everything.

And police would come in and look around

and smile at Martha.

Of course, they didn't get drinks while they were on duty,

but I'm sure they were being paid off one way or another.

EVELYN BAILEY: The very first Dick's on Front

Street was there a dance floor?

Was there just a bar?

Was there a

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No, there wasn't a dance floor.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were there tables?

Were there

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: There was a long bar, tables

before you got to the back area, and the back area was booths.

And I usually sat in the back area, in the booth.

EVELYN BAILEY: Did she serve food?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No.

EVELYN BAILEY: So it was just alcohol?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Mm-hm.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Over the course of the decades,

'50s, '60s, '70s, into the '80s how have you seen,

from your experience, the community change or grow?

You know, what have you noticed as being the most

significant changes in who we are

as a gay and lesbian community in Rochester?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: How that community

has changed, not how not how the community generally

has changed?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Well, I don't think they're as desperate.

KEVIN INDOVINO: What do you mean by that?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: (pause) I've got

to go out and find somebody and have sex that kind of drive

is missing.

That's good, it's gone.

That doesn't mean that there aren't people out there looking

to have sex, I'm sure there are.

But that drive that used to be there doesn't exist.

That's because it's more open, more accepting.

You don't have to go to a gay bar to do it anymore.

I think that more thoughtful people,

for lack of another word, began to move into the community

or become leaders in the community,

and began to take it forward so that the community became

more acceptable.

And then, of course, Rochester being Rochester,

the kind of people that were in the general community were much

more open minded than you would find

in some places in our fair country, even today.

KEVIN INDOVINO: It's interesting that you

bring that up because one of the focuses

we are trying to get a handle on or one

of the ideas we're trying to get a good sense of

is why Rochester?

What is it about Rochester that has always

been a little bit more tolerant, or a little bit more

open-minded?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Education and the kind

of industry that was here, which demand, in many instances,

people of education.

Oh, sure that's and the cultural situation here.

EVELYN BAILEY: Cultural situation being?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Well, all aspects

the people who were the cultural leaders, let's say, again,

were these same educated people who

were working for the skilled industry that

was Rochester's leading I'm saying leaders in Rochester

came out of industry and the university,

or the universities.

And they pretty much of course they had the money

and they pretty much drove Rochester society.

And you had these people who, in turn,

finance things like the orchestra, the gallery,

the museum to a certain extent, those kinds of things.

Museums, I should say, probably, now.

And they set a standard.

But their standard was not exclusive in as much as

that they could include, and did.

And they included religious differences,

racial differences these things did not bother these people.

They set a tone in this city.

I don't know that they were doing it consciously,

although I'm sure Mrs. Harper Sibley was doing it

consciously.

She was a wonderful woman.

But there was just always this acceptance.

You've heard of Town and Country?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Mm-hm.

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: That was a nice place.

And Mrs. Clayla Mrs. Hawley Ward Clayla Ward

hung out there all the time.

Oh, she was part of this group.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Mrs. what was her name?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Mrs. Hawley, H-A- W- L- E- Y,

Hawley Ward that was her formal name.

I can't actually tell you

KEVIN INDOVINO: Is that Ward Scientific Equipment?

Or

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: I should have I

should ask Alan that question.

I'm not sure that those two Wards

are related any more than than Mrs. Harper Sibley was not

Sibley Lindsay and Curr.

There were two sets of Sibley's.

Mrs. Hawley Ward's nickname I can't remember her real name--

was Clayla, C-L-A Y-L- A. And she hung out

at Town and Country.

And you got to know Mrs. Ward and you spoke to her.

And the gay guys were there all the time,

and she was friendly with them.

I remember when her son and grandson were killed

in a tornado over in Ohio, I sent her a note,

you know, just saying, I'm so sorry.

Well, what I got back I was surprised

the mailman was able to bring it up the steps heavy

stationery, that old linen stock, with a big black border,

and thanking me so much and so on.

This was the kind of people they were.

They were nice people.

They appreciated differences.

I don't think that some of them are

real I don't think people realize

today what those particular kinds of people

were what they did.

How they did form the Rochester society, the community.

So that's what I'm saying when I say that the Rochester

community was very different from lots of other places.

You wouldn't have had that in New York,

but New York is just plain too big for that.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

Did you, in later years, ever get involved in gay activism?

Did you ever get involved with the GAGP?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: No.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Any of the programs that they were doing

or just

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Like what's his face, Neil Patrick Harris,

he said, yes, I'm gay, but I am not a gay activist.

I am an entertainer, and that's my job, and that's what I do.

I was a schoolteacher a banker, a schoolteacher,

and that's what my job was, and that's what I did.

And that does, I support it.

Don't misunderstand.

Financially, as well as, once in a while

if there was something that needed

to be I needed to show my face at, I would go to.

But basically, no, I was not a leader and activist.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me ask you this

in the course of your years, what

has been the best part of being gay in Rochester, for you?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Best part that's an interesting question.

Well, I guess, maybe because I met so many gay people who

were kind of people that I would like to be part of, to know,

and so on, and that kind of thing.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Would it be that the opportunities existed

to be able to socialize in different areas?

J. ERNEST DU BOIS: Yeah, I guess you could put it that way

because I was just comparing in my head other places

and I don't think I would have been as happy.

I loved New York, but I never wanted to live in New York.

It was much too big and impersonal.

And I felt I could be myself.

I never hid my gayness, as such.

As I say, I never just went out and said I'm gay,

but I never hid it, as such.

I felt that if people knew I was gay, all right,