Audio Interview, Michael Robertson, February 2, 2012

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: If there's a need,

then people will rise to the occasion, and I did.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

EVELYN BAILEY: So shall we tell him where we've heard his name?

(laughter)

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Someplace positive, we hope.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You know more than I do.

EVELYN BAILEY: Gordon Urlacher.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, right.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh my gosh.

It's funny you should mention that.

I was just thinking about that on the way.

I thought, well, I wonder if I should mention

that we were working with the Rochester Police

Department, particularly Gordon Urlacher, who we just

thought was--

EVELYN BAILEY: We interviewed him.

KEVIN INDOVINO: We interviewed him.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Did you really?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: He was very open.

Very open.

EVELYN BAILEY: He was sitting right here at this table.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, for heaven's sakes.

I thought so much of him.

I've just-- was mortified--

KEVIN INDOVINO: (unintelligible)

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: --when he was sent to prison and all of that.

It was just like unbelievable.

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, and one of the things

he shared with us was he thought it

was you who rode with them in the police cars on patrol

at Durand Eastman.

And you took him around to see the bars and to meet people.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: That, I don't remember.

So I don't think that was me.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, maybe somebody else.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

Then we'll go way back, Michael.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, let's go before that.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were you born in Rochester?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: No.

Oh, no.

Nashville.

Born and raised in the South.

The mid-South.

EVELYN BAILEY: How did you come here?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: To go to graduate school

at SUNY Geneseo in library science.

Music librarianship, actually.

And ended up then getting a job in Sibley Music

Library at Eastman, my first job out

of library science school for five years.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: What year are we talking about?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Well, let's see, I

was a student at SUNY Geneseo in the fall and spring of 1972-73.

And then it was in the summer of '73

that the Gay Alliance was formed from the U of R GLF group.

I was just reading about that.

So anyway, and that's when I became intensely involved.

I had gone to some U of R GLF meetings in the early days

there.

And it was quite an experience.

It was really something.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Before we get into

that, can you tell us, when you came up into the Rochester

area, were you out and about in the gay community

at that time--

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: --when you first came here?

And what was it like?

What were you finding out there?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Well--

EVELYN BAILEY: We don't need names.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: No.

Actually, I figured out where the gay bars were here in town.

I met somebody while I was shopping, actually, downtown.

And then he introduced me to one of the gay bars that

was the big gay bar for gay men at the time, Jim's Bar.

And so, let's see, but it was really

the University of Rochester Gay Liberation

Front was how I really got to know people

in the gay community.

Because it was right about the same time

that I started attending U of R GLF meetings.

And a friend of mine, Pam Barrale,

she was a student at SUNY Geneseo,

and she was going to the University of Rochester GLF

meetings.

And so I started going.

Met a lot of people from there.

And that was really my introduction

to the gay community was through that.

KEVIN INDOVINO: What was the atmosphere

like in the community?

Was there a lot of concern about being exposed as a gay person?

Any fears or concerns that you have

had about being out in the gay community?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Not for me, and that

was the liberating thing for me, that I really

picked up via the U of R GLF.

That was not to be ashamed.

That it was OK to be gay.

Oh, let's see--

I'm trying to remember the first book.

I read George-- is it George Weinberger?

Oh, gosh.

Now, I've forgotten the title, which is too bad.

But I remember going to U of R GLF meetings

really turned my head around about the whole gay experience.

I didn't feel like I had to explain to people why

I was gay, that there was no need to explain.

There was no need to say, well, it was my mother, or my father,

or this, or that.

And it just completely changed in a much more positive way,

just the whole dynamic of what it meant to be a gay person.

EVELYN BAILEY: So you were closeted before.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: I was while I was in college.

I didn't come out until my last two years of college,

and then it was just to a select group of gay people on campus.

But I went to a Southern Baptist College,

and if it were known by the administration you were gay,

you'd be expelled.

So yeah, I was closeted certainly there on campus

and closeted with my parents.

And with non-gay friends who didn't know.

A couple did, but really, really close non-gay friends,

but that was about it.

So yeah, but once I came here--

EVELYN BAILEY: And at Geneseo?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: At Geneseo.

No, no, that was a really big deal for me

in the school of library science there, to come out there.

And I had some great role models then.

There was a book titled Revolting Librarians,

and it was--

And one of the people in there, by the way,

was Barbara Gittings, who passed away not too long ago,

if you're familiar with all the work she did in the library

profession over the years.

But she was spearheading within the library profession

a task force on gay liberation.

And so I was fortunate enough to be in a profession that

was really on the forefront of being out there on gay issues

and gay material in libraries from the get-go.

So it caused some trouble for me at Sibley Music Library,

because there was an article in the paper

about the gay community here in Rochester.

It was on the front of--

I believe at the time, it was called a Sunday magazine

for the DNC.

And I was pictured in there, and I

was identified as working at Sibley Music Library

at the Eastman School of Music.

And they had taken my picture at work.

Well, some of the homophobes on the faculty and the library

staff wrote letters of complaint to Freeman,

Robert Freeman, the then director

of the Eastman School of Music, saying I should be fired.

They went to my boss, or my boss's boss,

the director of Sibley Music Library, Ruth Watanabe,

and said that she should fire me for having

associated the gay community with Sibley Music Library.

And then the director of the Eastman School,

acting on a letter from one of the faculty members who

complained about it, called me in and said

he was putting a letter in my file,

personnel file that I had violated university policy

by associating the university with a controversial group,

a political group.

And just like I shouldn't be identified as a Republican who

works at University of Rochester,

I shouldn't be identified as a gay person who

works at the University of Rochester,

and that sort of thing.

I just thought it was absolutely outrageous.

Now, the director of the library, my boss's boss,

was not about to act on any of that.

She called me into her office.

We talked about it.

She didn't like the article.

She didn't think it was particularly

complimentary to the gay community.

But she wasn't going to act on it or do anything with it.

And neither did the director of the Eastman School of music.

He just-- it was, I'm putting this in your personnel file

and left it at that.

So I didn't take any legal action against him

because at the time, I didn't feel

like I had suffered any terribly adverse consequences,

except that I had this letter in my personnel

file that I had done this objectionable thing.

So anyway, there were some touch-and-go moments there.

EVELYN BAILEY: So then you rebelled

and you became involved with the Gay Brotherhood.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, well, the incident at Sibley Music

Library was actually a number of years

after I'd been involved with the Gay Brotherhood.

So that was around, I'd say, probably 1975.

And I got involved with the Gay Brotherhood in '73.

The Gay Alliance sort of broke down

into these separate gender-based groups at the time.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, then let's go back a little bit, then.

How and why did you become involved with the GLF and--

EVELYN BAILEY: The Gay Brotherhood?

KEVIN INDOVINO: --the Gay Brotherhood?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Well, let's see, how was through people

I met at SUNY Geneseo, and through them,

going to the U of R GLF meetings.

And the why of it was simply because I

found it very liberating personally

and felt like I could have a big impact on changing

social attitudes towards gay people

by staying involved with the group

and being supportive of the group.

And those were heady times, because there

weren't very many people who were willing to be out and talk

to the media.

And it was easy to see that you could have a big--

just a small group of people could have a very big impact

on the community at large.

And we got lots of positive support

from people who were closeted in the gay community, who

were thrilled to see people speaking up

for the gay community and see us out there in the media.

So I found it exhilarating to be involved

in some type of social activist movement

like this that affected me so personally.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Sure.

So talk to me a little bit more about the Gay Brotherhood,

then.

As I understand it, it was part of the break-off

from the University, right?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Right.

Yeah, when had happened--

EVELYN BAILEY: Were you at the meeting when the women stood

up and said, we're leaving?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: I don't remember, to be honest.

But I was certainly around during all of that.

And certainly, it was clear to me

that most of the women, the vast majority,

felt like the gay movement was being dominated by men.

And that for them, their issues were

more feminist-oriented than lesbian-oriented,

that they felt like, and felt they needed to break

off and form their own group.

So they did.

Yeah, it was disconcerting.

I think a lot of men, a lot of gay men,

were surprised and disappointed.

But eventually, I think that all worked out really well.

Women were able to assert themselves

more in the gay community and in the organization

itself by first separating off as a subgroup and then--

actually separating off entirely.

They weren't even a subgroup.

They formed their own organization

at the time, GROW, Gay Revolution of Women.

And then decided that they would come back.

We were sharing space next door to each other in the Geneseo

Co-op on Monroe Avenue.

And then they changed their name to the Lesbian Resource Center.

And then we decided that instead of the men just

calling our group the Gay Alliance,

then we should join forces with the women,

since they seemed to be interested now in regrouping.

And we could break down the Gay Alliance,

or make the Gay Alliance an alliance of a men's group,

a women's group, a political group, the Rochester Gay Task

Force.

So we ended up then--

we just thought, the men-- we'll call our group the Gay

Brotherhood.

And then together with the Lesbian Resource Center

and the Rochester Gay Task Force,

we'll make up the Gay Alliance.

So the Gay Alliance was originally

supposed to be for men and women,

and then women removed themselves from it

but eventually came back around.

And then men tried to put things on, I think,

a more equal footing by saying, OK, Gay Brotherhood,

Lesbian Resource Center will equally represent.

And it was an era of having co-presidents

so that neither men nor women were dominating the group.

That way we could feel like both sides were having equal

say in what happened.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, this is where I get a little fuzzy.

The women break off from the university group,

and then the Gay Liberation Front

was asked to go off-campus, right?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah.

The community members were asked to go off-campus, yeah.

Leave the student group behind.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And then it's after

that, the women decided to break off,

after you were asked to leave campus?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah, they just stopped.

It was already in process.

Women were voicing, when it was still the Gay Liberation

Front--

KEVIN INDOVINO: So the women were already over at the co-op

while you guys were still meeting on the campus?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: I don't think so.

I think they were just meeting separately.

There were women's consciousness-raising groups

at the time.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, just trying

to connect the dots on the timeline, when

you guys all came together.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah, I recall that in the winter

and spring of '72-'73 there, that women were starting

to really voice their concerns, particularly at GLF meetings.

I remember being at GLF meetings where women would get up

and say, well, we feel like we have our own concerns that

are more concerned about our oppression

as women than our oppression as lesbians.

And so they just stopped participating.

And I remember-- oh, gosh.

Oh, he was the secretary of the group at the time.

He was taking notes.

Well, maybe by the time we leave, his name

will come to me.

But I remember talking to him later.

And he was taking notes when that was happening at GLF.

I think you can check the minutes.

And he was really disappointed, I think, in taking the--

Joseph Johns.

EVELYN BAILEY: Joseph Johns.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Joseph Johns, yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: We've been trying to get to him.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah, and I remember years later,

talking to him about that.

So it was while women who were participating in the Gay

Liberation Front before, the Gay Alliance even formed,

broke off, in spring of that year,

they were already starting to--

they were having women's consciousness-raising groups.

And that was the impetus there for,

I think, women to go off on their own.

Then when the community group was

asked to leave, decide to separate,

we presented it as well, we decided to separate ourselves

from the students.

But it was really the student government,

the homophobic student government

at the U of R saying, we're giving money to the GLF,

and it looks like to us, there's not

any students involved, hardly.

It's mostly just people from around the community.

So they threatened to cut off funds for the group.

And so anyway, so those of us who

were community members going off to form our own new group--

there were no women hardly at all involved

who came along with that.

I think Brea Lilias and Peggy, her partner,

were two women that would come.

And they would say, oh, we don't feel the same way

that the other women do who broke off and formed

their own group.

But there were very few women involved there at the beginning

when the Gay Alliance started.

And then--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Now, were you already identifying yourself

as the Gay Brotherhood then?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: No.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That came after?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: No, that came after--

I'd have to go back and look through the Empty Closets

to see when that transpired.

I'm guessing that that was probably some time in 1974,

then.

The Gay Revolution of Women had formed

and were occupying space in the co-op,

and it did happen to be next door to the Gay Alliance.

And then we in the Gay Alliance started

talking with some of the folks in the Lesbian Resource Center,

then, who were starting to feel, I think,

a little less like they wanted to be isolated from us.

And we were talking, well, let's form an alliance.

And you become part of the alliance,

and the men can have a men's group that's

called the Gay Brotherhood.

And I'm guessing that transpired around '74 or so.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, it had to be,

because you were co-president or president in '74,

of the Alliance?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah, right.

And Evelyn had it straight for the longest.

I kept giving her a hard time, saying,

I don't think you've got that right.

But at some point--

I mean, we all rotated.

There was a small group of us, right?

There's only so many to go around.

So you rotate--

OK, I'll be president of the Gay Brotherhood for a while,

and you be president of the Gay Alliance.

And then one of the times when I was president of the Gay

Alliance later--

I was co-president along with Pat--

I just saw her the other day.

EVELYN BAILEY: Pat Lawrence?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yes, thank you.

Pat Lawrence.

EVELYN BAILEY: But just to get--

I think I have the chronology, but in December of 1973,

Whitey signed the incorporation papers.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah, I had gone and met

with Emmelyn Logan-Baldwin.

And she was known as being supportive of feminist causes,

so we turned to her to help us incorporate.

She had her office right there on Arnold Park.

I don't know if she still lives there or not.

EVELYN BAILEY: She is.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: And I remember being--

I was so taken--

we thought she would do this pro bono for us, but she didn't.

And it cost a fortune for us.

Our way of raising money was to pass the hat at meetings

among whoever showed.

We'd have a program every Sunday night

that was themed on something that involved being gay.

And we'd just pass the hat, and that's

how we paid for the phone bill so we could have a phone.

Paid whatever little rent we paid to the Geneseo Co-op.

And there was no money to pay lawyers for legal fees.

And I'd get a bill--

I'll never forget how upset everybody was

when we got a bill for the--

I think it was five minutes I spoke to her on the phone

about incorporating.

I met with her in person, but I also called her on the phone,

not knowing that one would be charged for time on the phone.

And here's an organization that can barely

get the money to pay the phone bill that month,

and you get this legal bill.

It was a problem, but anyway.

Money was always a problem.

Where's the money going to come from?

EVELYN BAILEY: But you were incorporated in 1973.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then I believe

Whitey became the finance person, the treasurer--

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: --of the organization.

And you became the first president,

or the second president after him.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: The second.

Yeah, right, he was the first president, yeah.

I think Tim falls in there somewhere, though.

Was Tim Mains president before me?

EVELYN BAILEY: No, he was president after you.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: After me, OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's see, '75 or '76.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

But also, wrapped into that whole thing was

editorship of the Empty Closet.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Wrapped into what whole thing?

You mean the Gay Alliance?

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, into the Gay Alliance.

Jay Baker did the paper out of his home.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah.

Well, for a while--

EVELYN BAILEY: But originally, it was on the U of R campus.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah.

I just read the article.

In the May issue, May 1973, there's

an article about, as of July first,

the Empty Closet is being surrendered

by the University of Rochester Gay Liberation

Front students there to the Gay Alliance.

It will become a part of the Gay Alliance.

And so that was another part of the Gay Alliance.

It was really the Rochester Gay Task Force, the Empty Closet,

the Lesbian Resource Center, the Gay Brotherhood.

So we were trying to have all these parts of it.

And the Empty Closet, I mean the Empty Closet, in some ways,

I think a lot of people would say,

is what kept the Gay Alliance going all those years.

It was very popular at bars.

It was really something to have a publication out there devoted

to the local gay community at the time.

Big, big deal.

And lots of people volunteered.

When I think about the thousands of people

that came through the doors who volunteered

and putting the Empty Closet together,

distributing the Empty Closet-- just all of that,

it's just truly amazing.

Truly amazing.

KEVIN INDOVINO: All cut out and pasted.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

EVELYN BAILEY: We have some of those sheets.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Sometimes proofread.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's talk about then you stepping up

to be president of the Alliance.

What was going on?

Talk to me a little bit more about what

was going on with the Alliance as a whole.

And what were the objectives?

What were you trying to do?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: What were we trying to do?

Oh, my.

Somehow, I just, in reflecting all this,

the thing that keeps coming through to me is just survive.

Just survive.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Survive from--

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Trying to keep the organization

surviving--

KEVIN INDOVINO: The organization survive.

Right.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: --the organization alive.

To me, that's what always stands out there,

is that it always felt like it always

felt like it was a struggle to keep things going.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Has that changed?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: No, probably not.

But trying to keep parts of it functioning

like the Speakers Bureau.

The Speakers Bureau was very popular,

particularly with faculty members in the community.

MCC, U of R, other places, RIT, and some of the other community

colleges would invite the Gay Alliance to come and speak,

the Speakers Bureau to come and speak about the gay experience.

What does it mean to be gay, and all that.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well let me touch--

because that was going to be my next question on my cheat sheet

here, talking to you about your work with the Speakers Bureau.

At that time when we're talking, early seventies,

mid-seventies now--

ultimately, looking back at it now,

do you feel like that was a turning

point for the gay community in its relationship

to the overall community?

I can't imagine in the 1960s that universities

were asking people to come and speak about the gay experience.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did you realize that at that point

that this might be a turning point?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

It all seemed revolutionary.

That was part of the attraction in working all this.

It was so revolutionary to the point

that we had death threats all the time, bomb threats.

So you know you're doing something that's threatening--

it's throwing change in the face of people--

when they want to violently react to that by threatening

to kill you or blow you up.

Just the fact that we got incorporation,

then later, you'll see articles in the Empty Closet about when

one of the local state assembly people

realized we'd gotten incorporated in the state

of New York.

He made it a point to say, I'm going

to see to it that you lose your incorporation.

And thought it was an outrage that we were incorporated,

and how could we do that.

That was a big, big step for us to become incorporated

as a not-for-profit organization,

because it was a very hostile climate.

And it was interesting to see who would line up behind you

and who didn't out there in the community.

I think there were always surprises about--

there was more support out there than you

thought there might be.

(knocking)

KEVIN INDOVINO: Come in.

UNKNOWN PERSON: Is Evelyn here?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

UNKNOWN PERSON: Hey, I think they're towing your car.

You might want to--

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, my gosh!

You'd better go take care of that.

EVELYN BAILEY: Thanks.

UNKNOWN PERSON: Yeah, no problem.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, Kevin, I hope I'm not wandering around

too much for you.

KEVIN INDOVINO: No, no.

This is simply our way of getting to know you so that

if we then invite you back to do an on-camera interview,

we'll have better ideas--

OK, these are the four things we want Michael to talk about.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah, no, that

was a big deal at the time, incorporation.

Seeing who would support you, who didn't.

One of the things that I remember,

we always liked it when we got negative publicity, which

was usually the only kind of publicity you got at all.

And the reason we liked it was because it was just

great to have a gadfly, somebody that was after you and saying

bad things about you.

And then it offered us an opportunity to stand up

and say, you're not going to get away with this.

This is not who we are.

We're good people, et cetera, et cetera.

And make them look like they were people with little minds,

or discriminatory people.

But most of all, we had a media committee,

and we learned how to write press releases.

I remember Julia--

Julia Day, I think, was her name.

She worked for WDKX for a long time.

There in the Co-op, they used to have classes on various topics

at the Geneseo Co-op, and she did one

on how to do a press release.

Now, that was a big deal for us as a nascent organization,

to how in the world do we get ourselves

out there in the press, on TV, and on the radio?

And I got a lot of mileage out of writing press releases

in response to a state legislator who says,

I'm going to get you unincorporated.

And we can issue our press releases about that.

And that was really helpful, because the whole issue

of being gay was even negative publicity

was a good thing, because otherwise,

there was silence about it.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You were invisible.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Invisible, exactly.

And it was breaking that invisibility barrier

and just over and over again, trying to get the public

to hear the word "gay."

"Gay is OK."

It's that whole thing of bringing people around

to see that we're just ordinary people, just like they are.

And that you're everywhere, and maybe a member of your family,

or somebody you work with.

And it was part of that whole educational process.

So that was part of the whole gay movement

of liberating ourselves, was being out there in the press.

And you had to work--

again, a small group of us.

And say, OK, who's comfortable here speaking to Channel 13

tonight for an interview on blah, blah, blah.

And so one of us would be designated

and say, OK, I can do it, and go and present yourself on TV.

But there were plenty of people in the organization who didn't

want their last names given.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Sure.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Didn't want their picture in the paper.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, I noticed a lot in those early articles

in the Empty Closet, some people have their last name,

some people just have their first name and an initial.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, people who were schoolteachers

were particularly terrified--

I remember that-- of losing their jobs in schools.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did you catch them?

EVELYN BAILEY: I'm fine.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, good.

It was nice of them to come and warn you.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, really.

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, there was no tow truck

out there or anything.

I parked in front of the dumpster.

Now-- never mind.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, actually, better that there really

wasn't a tow truck out there.

Because by the time you got out of there,

they would have been gone.

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, Gordon Urlacher

parked in the church parking lot across the street--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, no.

EVELYN BAILEY: --and got towed.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, no.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, gosh!

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

I took him down and got him un-towed.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, brother.

EVELYN BAILEY: It's alright.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: How's he doing?

EVELYN BAILEY: He's doing alright.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah?

EVELYN BAILEY: He's retired.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Retired--

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: He lives here locally?

KEVIN INDOVINO: --he goes down south

to visit his family all the time.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: He's a nice guy.

I'll never forget when I went down to the police station

and there had been some arrests made.

And he had a reporter from the DNC

there with him who was interviewing me

about the arrests.

And Urlacher would feed me lines.

Sometimes he'd write something on a piece of paper

and hand it to me to say.

And it turns out, of course, as you probably already know,

I think he had a gay roommate in college.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Nothing he mentioned.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Well, anyway, that's

the story I recall hearing from him.

KEVIN INDOVINO: He did have a gay friend.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: A gay friend.

Maybe that's it, a gay friend.

And anyway, he would say things like well,

there wouldn't be activity in the park or these arrests,

would there now, if society were more positive about being gay.

Then people wouldn't express themselves in unsafe places.

And it was interesting.

It was really a bizarre experience

to have the Rochester police chief have

me come down to his office to be interviewed with the newspaper

guy feeding me positive lines to say to this guy, this newspaper

reporter.

Just bizarre.

But anyway.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, we're still

trying to get a handle on what was really going on.

Because you look back at those issues of the Empty Closet--

1974, 1973, 1975-- those years, they're almost always

about talking about the arrests in the park,

and how many people are arrested.

Or violence against gays in the parks,

gays being mugged, all that stuff.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Part of that was Jay Baker.

Jay was acutely aware of all that.

He made that a focus all the time.

And one of his other big focal points

was religious people in the community,

conservative community, who were getting arrested for whatever,

just showing their hypocrisy.

It's interesting as you look back through there

what Jay decided he would put in the Empty Closet, what

his focus might be.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, and you read

about articles about the city police

going around and taking down people's license

plates, numbers and all that.

Now, if you talk to the police, they'll

say that never happened, but yet there's

apparently reports and evidence that it really did happen.

What's your perception on that?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: I think it probably did happen,

but I have no proof.

And I can't say that I ever saw that directly happening.

I just used to hear about it in a roundabout way.

So I will say I do remember coming out

of the Bachelor Forum when it was located on Main Street.

Now, currently all that's been torn down

and that sort of thing.

But an undercover agent approached

Tim Mains in the parking lot after we'd

left the Bachelor Forum.

And I think he was asking Tim for ID or something,

and Tim hit the roof.

And so-- I forgot, who was with me?

Somebody else was with me.

And we had to--

Tim lost his temper, and that's not a good thing

to do with an undercover cop.

So we were saying, "Tim, OK, let's back off now."

So we're pulling him away, like, OK, cool off now.

Because this officer's getting really hot.

I mean what was he doing there?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, as Tim told it,

he spotted the officers taking down license plates.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Ah.

OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Actually, there was an actual police

car in the parking lot.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Maybe that was the one incident where

OK, what was he doing there?

It must--

KEVIN INDOVINO: And he confronted the police officer

about, why are you taking down license plates?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: Tim stood in front of the police car

and took down its plate.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: That sounds right.

I'm sorry that my memory's not so good.

But I do remember the confrontation.

I do remember us dragging him away,

because that officer was going to drag him away

if it had kept up.

Things were escalating.

KEVIN INDOVINO: What impact do you

think the Gay Alliance was actually having

in the community?

Did you guys really feel that you

were achieving what you were setting out to achieve?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: That's a good question.

How would you measure that at the time?

We were definitely having an impact.

Certainly not intentionally, and I'm not

saying this was a good thing, but we brought the United Way

to its knees.

In 1975, they lost tens of thousands of dollars

because they were the organization--

at the time, there was a problem.

The unemployment rate was going up.

We were having a recession then.

And there was the CETA funding that the federal government

was giving out to locales, the Comprehensive

Employment and Training Act.

And the Red Cross--

I'm sorry, the United Way.

Did I say the Red Cross earlier?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: I'm sorry.

KEVIN INDOVINO: No, you said the United Way earlier.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: United Way.

The United Way was administered the CETA program.

And so John Noble, knowing how these things work--

government, and applications, and all that, said, "Well,

I think we should apply for our own Comprehensive Employment

Training Act positions here at the Gay Alliance, somebody

to train peer counselors and another person

to work on the Empty Closet."

And he wrote up how that was training somebody with job

skills, blah, blah, blah.

So when that went before the United Way and the community

got wind of it, all hell broke loose for them.

And everybody in the community says, "Well, I'm

not getting any money to the United Way.

They're giving money to homosexuals

and this homosexual group."

And they dropped us like a hot potato.

And we were the focus of a city council meeting about all that.

We were in the news constantly then.

And that's when a person named Bill Johnson appeared

from the Urban League and said, "Well, I

don't mind that the Gay Alliance is doing this.

Why don't we administer the CETA funds instead of the United

Way?"

And that was the beginning of a relationship

then with Bill Johnson, the future mayor of Rochester.

And it was a big deal.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did you ever question his motives

at the time?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: No.

I'm sure there was something political about it.

I would assume that gave him some power.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Financial, actually.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Yeah, financial, there you go--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Probably some money for the Urban League.

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: He got some money for the Urban League,

you're right, for doing that, right.

But still, that got us a lot of publicity.

And I felt badly that it hurt the United Way,

but then the United Way did not handle it well.

And I remember a heated meeting with them, with the United Way,

and we were slugging it out over this.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Who did?

Who met with the United Way?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Tim Mains, myself.

John Noble was there.

EVELYN BAILEY: Rob Sweeney?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Maybe so.

Yeah, Rob may have been there.

He was calling himself Bob Sweeney at the time,

now he calls himself Rob Sweeney.

And so-- I'm trying to remember the name of the woman

that I was arguing with.

And I got real hot under the collar.

And it turns out the person that we were really

getting heated with, he didn't want

to fund the position for the Empty Closet.

And I said, that's not fair.

And you're just doing that because of the pressure that's

been brought to bear over this, over us being a gay group,

blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, Tim tried to balance out everything

by taking a very calm approach with him.

And it was with--

oh, he's passed away now, but he was

the city manager under Bill Johnson,

or he was the deputy mayor.

KEVIN INDOVINO: The Deputy Mayor?

MICHAEL ROBERTSON: Oh, you know who I'm talking about, right?

He passed away a few years ago.

Well, anyway--

EVELYN BAILEY: We can find out.