Audio Interview, Sue Cowell, January 23, 2012
- SUE COWELL: So even though I've worked on other races--
- I mean, honestly, with Tim's, it wasn't an issue.
- But in the early stages of working
- on Louise Slaughter's race, it was a little bit of an issue.
- I ended up-- that was more Fran Weisberg's paranoia.
- Because there is a whole article here about Louise's race.
- And there was going to be an interview.
- And they had wanted to interview me.
- And the kibosh was put on it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Can we go back to your earlier days before 1970.
- SUE COWELL: Before 1970?
- EVELYN BAILEY: Where were you born?
- SUE COWELL: I was born 1952 in Jamaica, New York.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Jamaica?
- SUE COWELL: New York.
- It's a--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Queens.
- SUE COWELL: --city.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- Yeah.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Did you go to school in New York?
- SUE COWELL: No, we moved out to Long Island.
- I don't even know exactly when.
- Probably when I was, like, four or five.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And high school?
- SUE COWELL: We lived in Hicksville,
- the home of Billy Joel.
- Billy Joel had a garage band, Plainview, East Meadow,
- all those towns.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- Were you out then?
- SUE COWELL: Oh, no.
- No.
- But I mean--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Did you know you were gay?
- SUE COWELL: Well, I knew I was a tomboy.
- And I knew I liked playing with my male friends, plus the age
- breakdown on my street is like, the boys were my age.
- But there were a couple of girls,
- they were a couple of years older than me.
- And at certain points, that doesn't really work,
- because I'm a little shrimp.
- And they're into boys, and I was just into playing with boys.
- But I knew from having a major crush on--
- I was always the teacher-pet type
- of thing, and not for all my classes,
- but I had my favorites.
- So my art teacher was one of those first adults who
- sort of treated me like I was the adult, not like I was
- a kid, like you would actually have conversations
- and things like that.
- Then I'd help her prepare--
- even after I left and went to junior high,
- I'd go back once a week or sometimes more and just help
- if she was doing art shows and things like that.
- And so I think that was more where
- I started to develop emotionally as opposed to just being
- a little rug rat running around and playing baseball
- and beating up boys.
- Only once.
- So that was a turning point just to be able to start
- to even know yourself.
- And I know at one point that I wanted to marry her.
- But I wouldn't let me think about it
- for too long, because I knew it was never going to happen.
- It's sort of like titrate the thoughts, control them.
- So I knew it, but I didn't act on it
- until when I was in college, right around the time
- that I was graduating.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Where did you go to college?
- SUE COWELL: SUNY New Paltz.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Was that around about '69, '70?
- SUE COWELL: '70 to '74.
- But again, I liked it so much that I stayed around
- for an extra year.
- It was kind of wild times, because my friends that I--
- my friend Kathy-- that was my Joni Mitchell hair,
- and that was my friend Kathy.
- And so we both were able to--
- we both wanted to go to SUNY New Paltz.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You almost look like twins.
- SUE COWELL: I know.
- And we were actually able to share,
- to get the assignment we wanted, which we wanted
- to share a room together.
- And so I don't know.
- New Paltz was just really--
- it was in the Woodstock days.
- And we had the Tripping Fields, so people would just
- drop acid and go listen to Joe Cocker and The Airplane
- and whoever else was coming through town.
- And it was just kind of really wild times.
- And then I had been interested in journalism.
- So in high school, I had taken a journalism class.
- And then in college, we took one.
- There was a group of us.
- And we put together an alternative newspaper
- to the regular one, and--
- EVELYN BAILEY: It wasn't banned?
- SUE COWELL: No.
- I mean, it wasn't really banned.
- I mean, the journalism person sort of stood up for it.
- I mean, it wasn't like all that ridiculous.
- But there were some satiric pieces
- that maybe they didn't appreciate,
- like we were trying to just explain that--
- I did a column about cooking the iron board.
- Because basically, the only place
- you could really have the strong enough outlets to have anything
- that you could really put up a frying pan on
- would be where you could plug your damn iron in.
- And we would just mock the fact that they
- think the place is so safe, and everybody in the whole freaking
- university is blowing out these thing.
- So serious but kind of stupid also.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: But it was alternative politically,
- socially.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: It wasn't a gay newspaper, right?
- OK.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, no.
- I don't know-- I wish I'd-- that's the one thing I
- don't think I have is a copy of it.
- It was called The Anduril.
- EVELYN BAILEY: The what?
- SUE COWELL: Anduril.
- I don't know.
- It was something from one of those crazy Tolkien
- or whatever that people were into back then.
- I don't have it.
- From my high school journalism I do
- have my layout sheets for the Cowell Courier,
- and writing about the Chicago people
- and when Easy Rider came out.
- And I don't know.
- See, and then you didn't have computers.
- So you actually wrote each word.
- And you could cut things out of newspapers
- if you wanted a comic or something.
- But you had to do the headlines and write the copy
- and everything.
- It was kind of fun.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: God, I can't imagine.
- EVELYN BAILEY: What was your degree in when
- you graduated from New Paltz?
- SUE COWELL: Psychology.
- I was going to go into teaching, because like I said,
- I had a lot of good teachers, and I enjoyed that.
- But I took one education class, and I couldn't stand it.
- I feel immediately-- it's like just because I might want
- to teach kindergarten doesn't mean
- I want to be treated like one.
- Again, it was just very--
- I just have a streak if I don't want to do something,
- then I just won't do it.
- And then the psychology was-- they
- were always cooler professors anyway.
- So I did that.
- But then I just realized that back then, things
- were all more behavior mod stuff,
- so we'd go to institutions with children,
- and just make it simple.
- Give them M&M's, they'll do whatever you want.
- And it's sort of like, this is ridiculous.
- This is not what I want to spend my life doing.
- I did do an internship at the children's
- psychiatric hospital.
- And that was different, because it wasn't this big state
- institution.
- But then I wasn't really exactly sure
- what I was going to do when I graduated.
- So I took a year off.
- I knew what I was going to do, which was to have fun,
- because I had--
- there was a group of friends who were a year younger than me.
- So my cohort left.
- Actually, Kathy stayed around for a while.
- But then I thought, well, let me just hang out here
- for the summer and go be a waitress,
- and did the twenty-four hour waitress thing.
- And I don't even know when I had the epiphany that--
- because I always did like sciences.
- I liked biology and all that kind of stuff
- when I was going through school.
- So I had this flash of well, what about nursing?
- Because that seems like a perfect combination,
- because you have to have the technical skills.
- And you have to have the medical background.
- But you also have to be able to deal with people.
- And that's just as big a part of that.
- So I just got this idea.
- And I swear to God, I don't even know exactly where or when
- or how at any point.
- So I'd already graduated.
- So I started to do research and figure, OK--
- because then nursing was really militaristic.
- It's like you have to get your bachelor's before you're
- a nurse.
- So you have to--
- and it has to be in nursing.
- It can't be in any other field.
- So when I did the research, there were three places
- where you could take a bachelor's
- in something that was somewhat related,
- maybe not bioengineering or some crazy thing,
- but that you could go and you could
- get a master's in two years, and would be for the nurse
- practitioner program.
- And what they would do is--
- it was a stepped-up program.
- So you were heavy-loaded sciences the first year.
- And then they start to build in the practical part of it.
- And it was Yale, Case Western, and Pace University.
- Those were the three programs at the time that would give you
- that opportunity.
- And then you'd do an internship.
- So I spent the summer in Santa Rosa
- in between when I graduated.
- I went out to Santa Rosa, because my friend
- from the nursing program had friends there.
- And they had a family medicine area.
- And some of my friends from New Paltz
- had gone out to San Francisco.
- So I figured, well, what better place to do that.
- And then we also--
- my friend that I went up to Santa Rosa with--
- we went and took the nursing boards down in LA
- on the St. Mary's cruise ship, because that's
- where they were doing it.
- (laughter)
- It was a repurposing.
- It wasn't moving.
- So it kind of worked out.
- I went to the program, and it was good.
- You had different placements, so we were in Flower Fifth Avenue
- Hospital.
- We were in the VA Hospital.
- We did public health nursing, home visits and stuff.
- And so for me, it worked out really well.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So from there, you came here?
- SUE COWELL: Mm-hm.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, I wanted to step back, though,
- before we get that far yet.
- I want to first touch base on your coming-out experience.
- Was it in college?
- Was it after college?
- When did you first start realizing it?
- SUE COWELL: Well, I realized it in college
- when I was an undergraduate.
- But I didn't really act on it until after I had graduated.
- And I was still--
- that time when I was going to just be carefree.
- And there was also a thing that-- because I
- had boyfriends.
- And of course, they all turned out to be gay.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That's usually the case.
- (laughter)
- SUE COWELL: Danny and Larry and Pedro.
- But yeah, then it was actually when
- I was doing the night shift at the diner, these group of women
- come in.
- And it's like, oh, so there actually
- could be others like me around here.
- We had more than one.
- And so I just somehow hooked up with one of them.
- And then it was obvious to me that that's what was missing.
- Even though before you came--
- the straight women at the time-- because it was also
- the whole overlay of just the whole feminist movement
- was emerging.
- But the straight women, they weren't really--
- I don't know-- accepting, but they basically
- didn't believe that I could be gay, because I had long hair.
- So it's like, all right, well, I guess maybe I'll have a drink
- and then maybe just mosey on down the road here.
- But for real, it was just a different time.
- I mean, people were just feeling their way through all of that.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And the images were really significant,
- though.
- I mean, the fact that you weren't gay
- because you had long hair speaks volumes
- of what women thought gay women or lesbians or dykes
- would look like.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: During that time,
- did you ever either experience or hear
- about any kind of tension or animosity
- between what was the women's rights movement
- and what was, maybe then, gay and lesbian rights movement?
- SUE COWELL: No
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- Yeah.
- SUE COWELL: No
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Because I've heard some rumors
- here and there--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- SUE COWELL: No.
- No.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: --that the women's liberation movement
- wasn't always that accepting.
- SUE COWELL: Right.
- Because-- yeah, I think that they just
- felt that if it was known that there were
- lesbian activists within the group,
- that it would sort of handicap or it would just make it more
- difficult for them to get their message out
- and received in a proper way.
- But the reality of it is that we were there.
- The first NOW conference down in Houston or wherever the hell
- it was--
- maybe we were involved.
- We've been involved with every social movement.
- My partner marched in Selma.
- I worked around AIDS stuff.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- So what brought you to Rochester and why?
- When and why?
- SUE COWELL: Well, the job.
- So I graduated in '74.
- I play around for a year.
- And then it was time to go to graduate school.
- So after I was done with Pace University
- and I was in my internship out in the West Coast--
- my partner and I were still together.
- Just we were separated for the summer.
- And the nurse practitioner movement was very early.
- And the nurse practitioner movement actually
- sort of grew out of Rochester.
- I don't know if you caught the story about Loretta Ford.
- But she was the dean of the School of Nursing
- for many, many years.
- And she was inducted into the women's hall of fame
- this past cycle, because the nurse practitioner
- movement was really born out of Colorado and Rochester.
- And it was just the whole concept
- that women could do more, nurses could do more than just fluff
- pillows and give you Jell-o.
- And so at that time, it's why I'll say--
- not maybe like a priest, but I feel like I got called here
- because where else would I find two jobs for nurse
- practitioners in the same city and in Rochester of all places?
- So Holly got a job at the Anthony Jordan Health Center.
- And then I got my dream job at the University of Rochester,
- because I wanted to work with young, healthy people
- because I wanted to have fun and not be in a--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So Holly was your partner?
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- EVELYN BAILEY: What year was that?
- SUE COWELL: That was in '77.
- So you know, I was out on the West Coast.
- And then I get this letter saying
- that she took a job at Jordan Health Center in Rochester.
- And I cried.
- It's like what the fuck?
- (unintelligible)
- Rochester?
- You gotta be kidding me?
- But I thought, well, I can be alone, or I could say,
- all right, I'll try, and if I don't like it,
- I guess I'll have to make a decision then.
- But it wasn't--
- I really was more interested in Boston,
- because I had a group of friends who went up there.
- I was more interested in being in a city
- than being in the hicks.
- But again, fate has a way of trumping what you want.
- I don't know.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, if you didn't get here until 1977,
- then you pretty early on got involved in gay activism here.
- SUE COWELL: Oh, yeah, just about immediately,
- because I lived around the corner from the co-op.
- So what happened is--
- so I come from my interview.
- Holly's in town.
- And we know that we're going to be looking for an apartment.
- And I turn on the TV.
- And the gay alliance was picketing city hall
- over CETA funding.
- So I'm like, now a different kind of WTF,
- like, what is this all about?
- So in between that happening and then just driving
- around and looking for the cool parts of the city that
- would be the hippie whatever, we found a place over there
- by the Co-op.
- And once I sort of got settled, I went over and checked it out.
- And Pat Collins was there.
- And Pat talked with me for a while
- and just gave me the lay of the land.
- And then I was at the University of Rochester then.
- And so I was in the health service
- over in the medical center, but I also did a lot of stuff
- with student affairs staff because we had a student
- advisory committee and we did different types of health
- promotion trainings at that point.
- And we developed a whole series on sexuality, brochures that--
- contraception and other things, too, and
- worked to just be able to provide good sexuality
- services there.
- And she called me up at work and said, can we go to lunch?
- So we went to lunch.
- And she threw the potato, and I grabbed it.
- (unintelligible)
- But only because it's fun.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Because I don't want
- to just jump over this, your initial impression
- or involvement in the gay community here in Rochester--
- in your talk with Pat or in your first kind of trying to scope
- things out, what was your initial impression
- of who we were as a community, particularly a gay community?
- SUE COWELL: Well, I wouldn't say completely heaven,
- but it was pretty damn good compared
- to what I had even when I was down in Westchester.
- So that's more towards the city, but it really
- has a big rural overlay.
- You have to go into bars along Route 9,
- and it's not really a sense of community.
- And I dated one woman for a little bit of time there.
- But I didn't really click with the people there.
- And this certainly wasn't a sense of community.
- And it was also a little different.
- I mean, not that people don't organize around alcohol,
- but it was pretty much like drinking fast.
- And I had my one straight friend at college just
- tell me, "Well, it sounds like it's good
- that you don't fit in."
- So I had that balance.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So by 1978, you're with the Gay Alliance.
- You're writing for The Empty Closet,
- doing commentaries and stuff.
- Just kind of talk about those early days for you.
- SUE COWELL: Well, there's a lot of stuff in here.
- I was on the board.
- I was-- I don't know--
- maybe only twenty-five or twenty-six
- when I became the president the first time.
- I can ever do the math.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What year was that?
- I forget.
- SUE COWELL: Well, I came here in '77, and I was born in '52.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That's twenty-five.
- SUE COWELL: Twenty-five.
- So I was twenty-five.
- And then--
- EVELYN BAILEY: You were president after Pat.
- SUE COWELL: Um-hm.
- EVELYN BAILEY: After Pat Collins.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And that would have been '78.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, probably right around that time, too,
- just the precursor to the Rally for Rights.
- Yeah, because the other thing was I just
- worked in a really supportive environment at the University
- of Rochester at that point.
- But at a certain point between coming here with Holly
- and then Holly leaving because we separated--
- I was with somebody else then-- but they were always
- really cool to any of my friends and things like that.
- And there would be little work parties.
- And people were accepted.
- And they were a site for residents to come and do
- training and learn things.
- So they were accepting.
- But it wasn't like I wore a rainbow
- flag to work or whatever.
- But then when this Rally for Rights
- came around based on the whole Anita Bryant coming
- to town and that craziness, I thought, well,
- I should at least tell my boss before she just sees me on TV.
- So I did that.
- And it was like a non-event.
- And then my administrative person was Ruth Hopkins.
- And she was a feminist.
- I mean, she probably could have been a lesbian.
- But she named her daughter Susan B., Susan B. Hopkins.
- So I was just really fortunate to be
- around a really great group of people
- so that I didn't feel any threat to my life or my work
- or anything.
- If anything, it just enhanced.
- And my boss, the head of it, was Cliff Reifler,
- who was a psychiatrist.
- And he could look kind of intimidating and kind
- of gruff, whatever.
- But I would say having my father that I had, who was Italian--
- he was kind of old-fashioned.
- I just always say if I didn't make my own way,
- I'd still be home listening to the radio.
- So I was always--
- if somebody says I can't do something,
- then I'm going to do it.
- He wouldn't take my training wheels off
- because the boy across the street got his off.
- He said, well, I'll take them off,
- but I'm not putting him back on.
- Well, I waved to him.
- "Thanks Daddy."
- Just stuff like that.
- And that kind of stuff is just sort of, I guess, just nature.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: This Is a totally off subject,
- but how do you have an Italian father
- but with a name like Cowell?
- SUE COWELL: Because of Ellis Island,
- and it anglicized when they came.
- It was my dad's dad.
- It was actually originally Callo, like C-A-L-L-O.
- And it's funny because now with everything so computerized,
- my sister and I actually went to the website at Ellis Island.
- And we have the manifest and everything.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I did that with my grandparents.
- One of my-- my grandmother's brother, when he came over he
- changed his name from (unintelligible) to Richards.
- Going through the obits, I'm like,
- who the hell's this Christopher Richards?
- SUE COWELL: I know.
- There are sometimes I wish--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Anyway, It was totally off-subject.
- SUE COWELL: --my name was Italian.
- Yeah.
- So I don't know.
- So I just got involved and--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, just talking about those early days
- of, again, the Rally to Rights.
- What was the atmosphere like?
- What was the sentiments like in the community?
- What were you trying to achieve?
- SUE COWELL: Well, in some ways, it
- was a little bit controversial.
- It was sort of like you had the lesbian feminists.
- And then you had gay men.
- And then you had some women, like lesbians,
- who were trying to just bridge the whole thing.
- And I wanted to call it the Rally for Human Rights,
- not the Rally for Gay Rights.
- Well, all the radical women didn't like that
- and whatever, whatever.
- But that was the whole point, is why do we
- have to be the only ones advocating for our rights
- and freedoms?
- Other people could come help.
- God knows we've helped plenty of other movements.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Were you one of the people heading it up?
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- And it's even a picture here of crazy George Moore.
- Not the-- there were the two George Moores.
- But the one that really was psychotic.
- Yeah.
- And we did things like this.
- That was Mike Macaluso from the Citizens
- for a Decent Community.
- they call it the original CDC.
- Yeah, I don't know.
- This is a lot of stuff here.
- Oh, and we went big with it.
- We brought Leonard Matlovich, who
- had been discharged from the Air Force.
- We brought Kate Millett.
- One of the men in the community had a little prop plane
- and went down to Poughkeepsie and picked her up
- and brought her in.
- Karen DeCrow, who was still sort of
- closeted, but she was the president of NOW for the state.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Was that Kate?
- Kate DeCrow?
- SUE COWELL: No, Karen DeCrow.
- Yeah, I'd have to go back and get some more of the names.
- OK, so here's one of the pictures
- from the Rally for Rights.
- And over a thousand people came to this thing.
- And it was basically conceived as an answer
- to Anita Bryant's visit to Rochester.
- The rally marked the beginning of the community
- through the enlargement of our understanding of oppression,
- according to Kate Millett, 1970.
- Other speakers were Leonard Matlovich,
- Adam (unintelligible), national gay lobbyist Karen DeCrow,
- former NOW president, Dr. Ken Smith, Colgate Rochester
- Divinity School.
- And perhaps Matlovich said it best
- when he said, "If Anita Bryant is a born-again Christian,
- she should try, try again until she gets it right."
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Love it.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- So that was a pretty big thing, to get that many people out
- there.
- And we got a lot of media attention.
- And Bill (unintelligible) spoke at it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And she came to the--
- Henrietta--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Dome Center.
- EVELYN BAILEY: The what?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: The Dome.
- EVELYN BAILEY: The Dome Arena.
- Do you know the Dome Arena has no record of her coming?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Did she actually come?
- I had heard somewhere along the line
- that she canceled out that event.
- SUE COWELL: No, I'd have to really go back and look and see
- if we have that in here.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That's something we have to question,
- if she actually came or not.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, the Dome says
- that there was no such rally.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: No rally?
- This rally.
- EVELYN BAILEY: No, she never--
- she did not appear at the Dome.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Which makes me question even more if she
- actually came or not.
- Because if she didn't, if she cancelled out, then no,
- they wouldn't have any record.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Did she actually--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What was the date of that rally?
- Because if you can just do a search in the DNC
- and see if she actually came or not.
- EVELYN BAILEY: It's in that Rochester chronology, too.
- SUE COWELL: Looking for the bumper stickers.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That's OK.
- We can find out later.
- Just do a search on the DNC.
- EVELYN BAILEY: It would have been 1979 and 19--
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, OK, yeah, it says here, too,
- Sue Cowell, George Moore elected co-presidents in January
- of '79.
- And then--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, the whole Anita Bryant thing
- was in '79, right?
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, the Rally for Rights was in '78.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: '78?
- SUE COWELL: It does--
- it says, "Anita Bryant performs at the Dome."
- EVELYN BAILEY: But when I sent Nicole,
- the first archival consultant, over to the Dome arena
- to ask them and to talk to them, they
- said they have no record of her being there.
- SUE COWELL: Well, maybe they don't have a record,
- but I'm just thinking somebody who
- does the Ride for Pride with Jeanie is managing the Dome.
- He was interested in me going out there and looking
- at what spaces they have in case we ever wanted to rent.
- So maybe I can have Jeanie--
- EVELYN BAILEY: There are--
- (unintelligible) has video clips from the Rally for Rights
- and from Anita Bryant.
- I'll check on those again.
- But it would be interesting to find out if she didn't come,
- why she didn't come.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, it sounds to me like she did.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, yeah, because this is our information.
- I don't think we would have made it up.
- EVELYN BAILEY: No.
- It comes from The Empty Closet.
- SUE COWELL: Right.
- EVELYN BAILEY: You know?
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- So--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's move forward.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So in '78, it was the Rally for Rights.
- And in '79, you were elected president of the Gay Alliance.
- That election wasn't public, though.
- Did people vote at that point?
- SUE COWELL: Oh, I don't know.
- I can't say, really, they did things legitimate. (pause)
- But I'm just looking for that picture
- that we had already seen.
- 1980 board-- well, no.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I don't think we sent out a mailing or anything.
- I think it was the slate was presented,
- and the board voted on it.
- SUE COWELL: Right.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, it's usually just a board vote,
- right?
- SUE COWELL: Mm-hm.
- Especially in those days, it's not
- like when you're a member of an organization, a membership--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So '78 you're active with the gay alliance.
- You are doing rallies around town.
- SUE COWELL: And marching with the women,
- Take Back the Night crew, too.
- Flower City Fights Back Peacefully.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And were you a part of Women Against Violence
- Against Women?
- SUE COWELL: No, I mean, I wasn't a member of it.
- I supported what they were doing.
- But they were also--
- the things came back around.
- They were also kind of the more radical
- and really wanted to focus their energy on women's issues.
- And that's why I just felt like, well,
- it's really about everybody having rights.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So what was Take Back the Night about?
- SUE COWELL: Basically, just women taking to the streets
- to protest violence against women, rape of women,
- and that women don't feel safe walking the streets.
- And there was also tied to different ads that were out
- at that time, like when alcohol played an even bigger role,
- so Black Velvet ones with all the sexy women and all.
- So that women would go out repasting--
- they'd climb up there.
- They'd throw paint.
- Or we'd paste over offensive images.
- And it was just the dynamics of women waking up and saying,
- you know what?
- I have a brain.
- I can have more out of my life.
- I don't need to let other people define who I am
- or what I can do and when I can do it.
- And so it was just--
- it was that kind of thing.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So that was '70--
- you were president '79 and '80, and then--
- SUE COWELL: And again in '85, I thought.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- Were you still at the U of R?
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, I was at the U of R until--
- I was there eleven years, '77 to '88.
- Because at that point, then, it was
- a couple of different things.
- One, I sort of had done everything
- I felt like I could do at the U or R. I established--
- at the infirmary where kids would stay overnight
- if they were sick, we established a nurse manager
- there.
- Instead of just having the different nurses float
- in and out, you do a shift.
- And then nobody's in charge of anything.
- And it was one of those things I talked
- to my administrative boss, because things were just
- getting kind of screwed up a little bit.
- And she said, well, that's a great idea.
- Do you want to be the manager?
- Well, I'll get it going.
- I don't really want to be the manager manager, but--
- so I did that.
- And then I started the health education program.
- And I left as the chief of the health education unit.
- And then with all the AIDS stuff that I was doing,
- I became involved with the area task force.
- And we developed on that with Bill Valenti, myself,
- John Altieri, some other people, the first regional plan
- that really addressed the issue of AIDS.
- So I got to work with the deputy director of the Health
- Department, Mark Merkens, because he
- was involved with that.
- And there were changes going on at the health department.
- Because we actually-- the early days of AIDS Rochester,
- it was really Jackie Nudd, myself, a few people.
- And we were always trying to get into the Health Department
- to talk to people about testing and what are they doing
- to address the issue, and--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- I'm going to pull you back, because I don't
- want to rush through this.
- Let's start at the beginning when AIDS reared its ugly head
- in Rochester.
- You were still at the U of R. Where did the beginning start
- with you and Bill?
- And how did that all come about?
- Because from what I understand, the first meeting
- was on your front porch or something like that.
- SUE COWELL: Well, yeah, we named it on my porch,
- but we probably met in some other places.
- So Bill Valenti had two positions.
- He was in the infectious disease unit,
- but he was a hospital epidemiologist.
- And then the other part is that he also
- worked down in the University Health Service.
- And the thing that was just so valuable to me
- working in that setting is that they would have Journal Club.
- So people would bring different articles
- that were contemporary of issue, and that's
- when those early Center for Disease Control reports
- started to come out.
- And see, I already knew in the late seventies--
- I was writing stuff about increased rates
- of syphilis in gay men.
- And so the medical community knew that, but--
- not that it's a great thing to have,
- but it could be treated with an antibiotic.
- But as more and more evidence surfaced that, well, there
- seems to be even more going on than just syphilis,
- I had already been writing about that.
- So when the first official reports came out through the--
- the morbidity and mortality reports.
- We needed to start addressing that locally.
- And Bill Valenti told somebody else up
- in the infectious disease, because Bill was more
- dealing with hospital-acquired infections and things
- like that.
- He wasn't really doing the research part of things.
- So he told one of the people up there to come down and see me,
- because they had gotten to the point where
- they wanted to start doing a screening clinic locally
- to see if--
- is this an issue in this community and if so, where
- are we going with this?
- So Tom came down and talked to me.
- And this is the other thing that's
- so cool about where I worked because they allowed
- us to then, after hours, do a screening clinic that we
- publicized in the community that they could come in.
- At that time, it was just pretty simple stuff.
- You could do a blood draw, and you could
- look at the t-cell counts.
- But you still really didn't know exactly what it meant.
- And that's this whole part of it here.
- Because Tim Sally--
- I don't know if you remember Tim?
- EVELYN BAILEY: Um-hm.
- SUE COWELL: But Tim and I went to the Red Cross
- when they were going to not allow gay men to donate blood.
- We said, well, we've got to go talk to them,
- because they at least have a responsibility
- to educate the community, not just say, no thanks.
- And so this was the first piece of literature.
- It's the only one I have left.
- But look at the number on it.
- It's the Gay Alliance number.
- And--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, the hotline was here.
- And Jackie Nudd was president--
- SUE COWELL: Um-hm.
- Right.
- EVELYN BAILEY: --of the Alliance.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, but we jumped ahead a little bit,
- because initially we didn't even have a name for it yet, right?
- SUE COWELL: Right.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So through the screening clinics
- that you started developing, what, then, came out of that?
- SUE COWELL: Well, we started to--
- I guess the turning point was there
- was one fellow who had moved back to Rochester to be
- with his family.
- He had been in New York.
- And he was seeing friends get sick.
- And he was thinking that he was getting sick.
- And he was getting sick.
- But his family did not welcome him with open arms.
- And so he had an apartment.
- And it became evident that the medical establishment was not
- going to take him shopping or pick up
- his prescriptions to him.
- So now we need something else to help people
- like that in that situation.
- And that's where Helping People with AIDS kind of developed.
- Although initially it was kind of more fundraising.
- But it wasn't as involved with HPA.
- EVELYN BAILEY: HPA happened after AIDS Rochester
- came into existence.
- SUE COWELL: Right.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- And HPA took care of costs that could not be
- covered by medical insurance.
- SUE COWELL: Right.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And for many men--
- at that time, it was mostly men--
- when they lost their job, they had no place to go.
- And they couldn't pay their rent.
- And they couldn't pay for prescriptions.
- They couldn't pay for AZT, because it was so expensive.
- So HPA arose, came into existence
- because men in the community-- the community needed the money
- to help these people survive for as long as they could.
- But AIDS Rochester started--
- that hotline began on your front porch with you and Holly.
- Was it Holly (unintelligible)?
- SUE COWELL: Don (unintelligible),
- who is a psychologist at the U of R, Mark Allenwood
- and his partner, Randy.
- I think Valenti was there.
- He probably was.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think he was because he mentioned that,
- having meetings on your porch.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- And--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Holly.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah probably, to some degree.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Jackie Nudd?
- SUE COWELL: No, not at that point.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about that meeting on the porch.
- And what were you guys talking about?
- And what were you identifying as being the greater need
- to address?
- SUE COWELL: Well, basically, what I
- said that there are people who are getting sick,
- and they don't necessarily have the support of family
- or even friends, like the one guy that moved back.
- He had lost touch with people.
- And so it was really more the social support for them.
- And we had the vision that this was just the beginning.
- It's not like this is going to get better overnight,
- so that you kind of had to realize
- that the sooner you can start building this network,
- the more prepared you're going to be when the shit really
- hits the fan.
- And that's also just part of that medical background.
- As you know, things can smolder.
- It's not like everything just happens gradually,
- but it's like it smolders, and then
- you're already behind the eight ball
- because it's out of control.
- And I remember even when the kaposi
- sarcoma, which is the skin cancer that used to be
- (unintelligible) and when it was referred to as a gay cancer.
- And I don't know if I actually used that term.
- But I know Mike went and got really upset about it.
- Saying, "That's ridiculous.
- There is no such thing."
- But it was--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So talk to me about some
- of the initial challenges that you
- had to overcome within the community as a whole
- in trying to get this organization going,
- trying to deal with the perceptions of what
- this gay disease is.
- SUE COWELL: Well, part of it is that I
- didn't try to go it alone.
- And there were some really good allies.
- There was this woman, Kristen, who was
- a nurse in the cancer center.
- And she became a really great ally.
- And we would go out and do presentations on campus.
- And let's see if I have--
- I think there's another one that has some other stuff in it.
- (pause) Yeah, there was a poster of something we did. (pause)
- Yeah.
- I'll have to find it.
- I have other bins of the stuff.
- But-- yeah, I don't know.
- So we knew that we needed to get volunteers.
- We knew we needed to get money.
- We knew that we needed to try to interface
- with the other organizations that have been more established
- but would be somewhat amenable to working with us.
- And the Red Cross, they were more so
- than the Health Department at that time.
- It's funny because in the Health Department
- they have this mentality, you save every piece of paper.
- When I went back over there to be the AIDS Coordinator in '88,
- there was all this stuff.
- There's notes, like had Jackie and I
- gone there to talk to them.
- I wish I had kept copies of them.
- Because the county delayed the offering
- the test because they weren't getting money to do it.
- And they really were, because under public health law,
- the Health Department gets a major subsidy from the state
- of 40 percent to the dollar.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, isn't this public health?
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, right.
- And so it was like they were like in a pissing match.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me ask you this--
- interesting question.
- You came to Rochester, and you started working at U of R,
- and you became really active as a gay activist
- for the gay community, gay and lesbian community.
- At some point, did the AIDS activism
- start to upstage or overshadow your initial gay and lesbian
- community activism?
- SUE COWELL: Yeah I don't know if upstage is--
- it definitely added another thing to my plate, so to speak.
- Because it was kind of a more immediate crisis
- that was going on.
- But I think, just with the careers
- that I have sort of strung along,
- it kind of has all worked through relatively seamlessly.
- And even the political stuff that I have done, I ran--
- God, almighty.
- Loud through that door.
- Running Tim's first race, and I ran Susan John's first race.
- And then I worked on Louise Slaughter's race.
- And I took a six-week leave of absence from the U of R
- because I went into Ruth Hopkins and said,
- "I'm never going to ask for maternity leave,
- but I'd really like to have six weeks off
- to go work on this campaign."
- And she said yes.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Wow.
- Great way to approach it.
- Wonder if I could get away with that?
- EVELYN BAILEY: But the other thing
- that's true about the AIDS crisis is
- it was the activism arena--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That became the gay rights movement
- with itself.
- That's where I was trying to go with it,
- but I didn't want to put those words in her mouth.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, well, for better and worse
- it became the movement, because it
- did divert a lot of other resources and energy
- away from some of the issues that we still have today.
- EVELYN BAILEY: But there were also
- medical issues that were addressed simultaneously
- in terms of gay rights in that arena--
- partners being able to visit partners, access to care--
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- Well, it certainly exposed a lot of issues
- that maybe we hadn't really confronted,
- because it would just be individual couples or whatever.
- But now when it's the whole community knows somebody or--
- it was a catalyst for other things, for sure.
- EVELYN BAILEY: At any point during your involvement
- with the AIDS epidemic, did you get to a point
- where you practically threw up your hands and said,
- we can't stop it?
- SUE COWELL: No, because it's an infection.
- It can be stopped.
- But the biggest problem was not the disease.
- It was really people's--
- it's not so much behavior as the fact
- that you're dealing with human beings.
- And it's like my thing.
- Most people do the best they can on any given day.
- And sometimes that's not enough.
- Because the hard part about change is you
- have to actually change.
- And so we're doing education and stuff like that, but it's--
- that was the thing when I went and worked
- at the county, because it was all
- about trying to train people using a model of stages
- of change so that you can actually help facilitate
- the change as opposed to making them run out the damn door
- because you're judging them or saying, why don't you do this
- or why don't you do that?
- But it's still a long, upward--
- doesn't matter if it's smoking or weight or anything.
- I mean it's just--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Who were the players that
- were supportive of beginning AIDS Rochester, beginning--
- not just the hotline?
- Do you know?
- Were you a part of that growth?
- SUE COWELL: Well, Bill and I and John,
- we put together one of those first grants to the state.
- The one thing in New York state, the first director
- of the AIDS Institute, was Mel Rosen,
- who was a gay man who was a social worker.
- And so I think early on the state,
- New York state relatively speaking, things were moving.
- People understood this is really like something
- we better pay attention to.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And so you wrote a grant.
- For what?
- SUE COWELL: For a health educator.
- Because that was the other epiphany.
- It's like, OK, now we have HPA.
- So we have parties.
- We have money.
- But then it's like, well, another WTF--
- our taxes.
- We pay taxes.
- Our issues should be being addressed
- through the systems that already exist right now,
- but we're out here creating a whole parallel universe
- to address things that really we have to do,
- but we really shouldn't have to do.
- You see, people are really naive.
- I've been through so much.
- Makes me feel really old.
- When I went to the county, Mark Merkens, who's the deputy,
- wanted me to apply.
- So fine.
- So I apply.
- I get the job on a--
- not a temporary basis, but I would
- have to go through the civil service and all
- this other crap.
- That was the year that Tom Frey got elected
- as the county executive.
- Well, I was the Democratic leader
- for the twenty-third legislative district,
- which was Tom Frey's district.
- So he knew me.
- And I knew some of the other players.
- So when I was actually appointed,
- the health director was Joel Nitzkin.
- And he was all about smoking.
- And they were coming in as a new administration
- with this really long, long history of Republican control.
- And just lots of nonsense that's sort of the same now.
- And so I reported directly to the county executive's office.
- And when I went to meet Joel, he didn't even hire me.
- It was downtown hired me.
- And so then when I meet him, he gets his pencil
- and he writes the org chart.
- They're advisory, but I'm a direct report to him.
- So I just take it.
- It's OK.
- And then my next meeting when I go down there
- and meet with Clay Osborne and Bridget Shumway,
- Clay takes out his pencil and makes eraser marks.
- No, you report here.
- And I became a little bit of a mole in the sense of they
- were trying to clean house and get things to be functioning
- the way they should.
- And I said, well, as far as the Health Department goes,
- maybe you take a dumpster out there
- and you just start all over.
- Everyone's idea is spending the morning reading the paper.
- And so it began a process of professionalizing it.
- And they ended up asking Joel to leave.
- And there was a woman deputy director
- who really wanted the position.
- But I'd seen her in action, and I don't know.
- I just didn't think that that was really going to be helpful.
- There are some people that are good,
- or they maybe lack some things, but they have others.
- I didn't think that would be a really good idea.
- And there was somebody else who had
- come to town who I did know, which was Andy Doniger,
- because his wife, Pat Coury-Doniger and I met
- each other a long time ago.
- And I had been doing some training with her and all.
- And he has a MPH.
- He's more than qualified.
- He had been the director for the health department down there.
- And so my whole thing was, all right,
- so there's going to be public pressure to hire Karen.
- But you can take your lumps now and end up with no problems,
- or do the reverse.
- I think you gotta go for the best person for the job.
- And there'll be some political flack.
- But there was really very little.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So Doniger became the--
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, yeah.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And his focus was--
- SUE COWELL: Public health.
- Andy, he was a public health professional.
- The department just needed a lot of help.
- They weren't really involved so much in the community
- as maybe they really needed to and then
- creating the partnerships with the University of Rochester,
- where instead of sending all of the labs to ACM or something,
- send it over to the area that does all the infectious disease
- stuff so that when they started to develop the technology
- to test for chlamydia or these other things,
- you were there and even doing viral cultures.
- So it was that kind of thing.
- You just step up your game if you really want to be leading.
- You want to be on the cutting edge.
- And so they went that way.
- And he's still the health director today.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Was there any negativity
- toward the community in that?
- Not in-fighting or not negativity toward Doniger
- or other people who were players, but was
- the attitude positive toward really moving on, working
- in education and prevention?
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, I think for the most part, yes.
- I think in the beginning people were still
- kind of afraid of it.
- But again, a lot of it is when you--
- it's the individual people who are
- drawn to a cause that kind of make it or break it.
- And if you go there, and you're not
- going there to preach or say stupid things,
- you're there to provide useful information
- and to give whatever kind of support you can give people,
- then people are pretty perceptive.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: In comparison to other communities
- around the country, would you say
- Rochester was unique in the way we reacted to the AIDS crisis
- really early on?
- SUE COWELL: Well, I think so, too.
- Because it's a smaller community,
- it was sort of like when Chuck Schumer voted for DOMA
- and the Brooklyn LGBT community picketed his house.
- And then Mark (unintelligible) and I
- are saying, in Rochester, upstate, we don't
- have a whole lot of allies.
- So the thought of marching outside of Louise's house just
- doesn't make sense.
- Rather pick up the phone and make an appointment
- and talk with them.
- So I think it's just how you approach it.
- And we were very lucky to get other professional people who
- were willing to--
- so it wasn't just one person doing all the education.
- And then because I had that political background,
- it was useful.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, let's get into politics.
- You were going to say something.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I was going to ask about the separation
- from the U of R and CHN.
- That whole process whereby they get
- into research, the U of R. And Bill and Steve Schiebel
- got into direct care.
- What was the position of the Health Department
- or the community in that?
- SUE COWELL: Well, I don't know.
- The university was doing research,
- but they were moving towards realizing they need
- to provide medical care also.
- It's hard for me to say entirely.
- Honestly, I think we needed the community-based health
- care as an alternative to the infectious disease unit.
- But I think part of what accelerated
- that is that Bill was getting a lot of media attention.
- And so some people don't like to be upstaged.
- So I think it was really a combination.
- It wasn't all black and white on either side.
- And even clinically, there are probably some things
- that the U of R can do better clinically.
- Or it has more resources than AIDS Care.
- I don't know that for a fact.
- But I think it is good to have a community alternative.
- EVELYN BAILEY: When did the perception of it being
- a gay disease begin to change?
- SUE COWELL: Well, I think when more women were
- being identified either through sex or IV drug use.
- But it's also hard to know about the early demographics,
- because if you were a junkie and you died in the place
- that they found you in the street,
- they're not necessarily at that time
- doing autopsies or trying to figure out what you died from.
- They see the tracks and it's like, that's it.
- So it took a while to just dig a little bit deeper than just
- beyond gay men.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think we covered AIDS.
- Among all this, you're still politically active,
- getting involved in the political scene for local reps.
- SUE COWELL: Well, right now I have
- to be a little careful about that.
- But I did go to the (unintelligible) fundraiser.
- I mean, I sort of say I still am a United States citizen.
- So I do have some freedoms.
- But I can't--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Where did it start?
- Did it start with Bill?
- Was that your first?
- SUE COWELL: Oh, you mean in terms of politics?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.
- SUE COWELL: No, no, it started in '85 with Tim Mains.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, so it started with Tim first.
- OK.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- Pfeiffer, Ellen Pfeiffer, I think
- was going to be his campaign manager.
- And then she decided to run for a city court judge position.
- So then they came to me to see if I would run Tim's campaign.
- And I had never done a race before.
- I can't remember if I'd been on the committee then.
- But anyway, it just seemed like, well, I'll give it a shot.
- It's organizing.
- It's making phone calls and trying
- to get everybody moving in the same direction.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What was it about the request
- to run his campaign that appealed to you?
- SUE COWELL: That it would be a challenge.
- I'd learn something.
- I'd meet people.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: But also you were
- running a campaign for the first openly gay person running
- for office.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, I didn't necessarily
- think of it as a cause.
- It was a cause, but that is not even the whole reason
- why I did it.
- It's sort of like there is a selfish part of it,
- too, that it's, oh, this will be interesting.
- I'll learn something.
- I'll meet people.
- I'll see what this is all about.
- I'll just deepen what I really know.
- And I had been the committee chair for a while,
- and I learned stuff from that.
- And that came in handy when then Susan
- decided to run because I was the leader of one
- of the committees.
- And that's how you would get nominated
- at that point, of who's going to be the endorsed candidate.
- So I don't know.
- I just--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Do you run Susan's campaign,
- her first one?
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- EVELYN BAILEY: OK.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- With the whole political thing is that as time has gone on,
- people get more sophisticated on how to actually win an election
- and what you have to do to target your people.
- Well, in theory, it's easier to get a supporter to the polls
- than to convert somebody to be a supporter.
- And so it started where a couple of people
- decided that it would be a good idea to primary Gary Proud,
- because he really wasn't that good on our issues
- other than he gave us money.
- And at the same time in Westchester,
- there were women who were developing voter identification
- campaign, where you would actually call people and test
- questions with them to see where they
- stood on a spectrum of things.
- And so we had this meeting.
- And there was a group of people, Allen Gallant, Susan John,
- Fran Weisberg and I think Patty McCarthy, to talk about this.
- Is this the kind of campaign we could do here locally and maybe
- pull off a win?
- And so everyone talked about it.
- Seemed like a good idea.
- Then it's like, oh, who's going to run?
- And I thought Susan would be the best one,
- because she was an attorney.
- But I understood she was an attorney,
- and she was very smart and this and that.
- But Susan's also got her own peculiarities,
- and she really didn't want to run.
- So then it's like, did I want to run?
- It's like, no, I'd rather elect them than be them.
- But--
- EVELYN BAILEY: That would have been interesting.
- SUE COWELL: I know.
- Well, I think it would have been just a little bit too
- before the time.
- But you never can tell at this point.
- Well, it was 1990.
- Maybe not.
- But all you have to do is go sit in the assembly chamber
- and think oh, my god.
- It's-- no.
- Not where I want to spend most of my time.
- Yeah.
- So again, it was just like another challenge.
- And the thing is that even with Tim's race,
- because the Democratic Party here has always
- been really supportive, it's like I didn't really
- have to do it alone.
- My kitchen cabinet was Fran Weisberg, Patty McCarthy,
- who was the county clerk, and Brian Curran, oh,
- and Betsy Rowland, who was the commissioner
- for the Board of Elections.
- So that was my kitchen cabinet.
- We would meet.
- They would help.
- We'd make decisions.
- Brian was really good at basically doing the strategy
- plan of what you have to do to get to 50 percent plus one.
- And it's sort of based on the demographics
- and how many are primary voters, people
- who are really committed, and just different things
- that you deal with.
- And he worked out a whole plan that
- involved a street campaign of just introduction,
- like an introductory thing on the candidate,
- reinforcing name recognition, than getting out the vote,
- so that each person would kind of
- have at least three contacts.
- And (unintelligible) got involved with the race.
- He ran that field operation.
- And then at that point, he was at the Health Department
- also, but at the State Health Department in the Sexually
- Transmitted Disease Clinic.
- He was working as a public health rep there.
- So up on the eighth floor, where my office was,
- there would be a whole lot of activity going on there.
- They used every damn day of vacation time I had.
- And when the whole race was over and we won,
- they looked at my time sheets, but I was all legit.
- So it was just stuff like that.
- It just felt really cool to get a woman in there who
- is pro-choice and pro-LGBT.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, that would be my next question.
- When you worked on Tim's campaign, and Susan's campaign,
- and Bill (unintelligible) campaign,
- and whoever else's campaign, what significant impact
- do you think getting those people elected
- had on the local gay and lesbian community?
- SUE COWELL: Well, I think quite a lot because it's not
- like we were a minority group.
- We were part of the pack.
- We were integrated into it.
- Yeah, we were a part of what made it happen.
- And the community kicked butt on all those races
- and turned out the volunteers and the fundraising.
- And oh, geez, there's so many things, even
- like the military ban at the school district.
- Well, we got that because we raised money for the school
- board candidates.
- Yeah, there's just so many different things that
- being a player in the political arena
- resulted in tangible benefits for the community.
- Then it just becomes a snowball.
- Then it's like you're screwed if you don't
- support the gay community.
- EVELYN BAILEY: But it was because of your success.
- SUE COWELL: Right.
- Well, yeah, if we had failed every race we'd be nowhere.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: But I think you alluded to this--
- at some point along all of this, you kind of learned
- how to play the game.
- SUE COWELL: Well, yeah, I'm going
- to really make myself tired.
- What happened-- so I did all--
- I did Tim's race in '85, Susan's in 2000,
- and then Louise's in '86.
- So I tell people I had three different races, three
- different partners, not a coincidence.
- (laughter)
- But Susan John's was my last race
- because when I finally hooked up with Marta, I thought,
- I'm not going to blow this.
- (laughter)
- Because it is very demanding.
- And thankfully, I got finally got partnered
- with the right person who had her own life
- and wasn't dependent on me to feel good about herself.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That's the important thing.
- SUE COWELL: So then I took a year off or something, the year
- honeymoon.
- And then in '92--
- when was the pink flamingos?
- Wasn't that '92?
- EVELYN BAILEY: No, it was before we moved to Atlantic Avenue,
- I think.
- SUE COWELL: You think so?
- EVELYN BAILEY: Or maybe it was after.
- SUE COWELL: I have something about that at home.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Maybe it was '92.
- Maybe it was '92.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, I think it was a little bit later.
- So anyway, so Larry Champoux sets up
- that thing in the political caucus, whatever.
- And then Dick Dadey, who was the founding director of the Pride
- Agenda comes up to Rochester, and he did a little scoping
- out ahead of time.
- I think he talked to Tim.
- He said, "I'm looking to recruit some board
- members from Rochester.
- Who should I talk to?"
- So he said Don Belack and me.
- And it was really good timing for me,
- because I was sort of at a point where
- I would love to be able to meet new people,
- learn something else, just learn from other people.
- And so it worked out really well for me.
- And it was a great experience.
- And that's the twenty-five thousand from Jeff Sorauf
- that we got.
- And it was a whole different level.
- You had fifty-thousand-dollar-a-year
- donors.
- You had this powerful, massive community compared to us.
- And I got to make some big decisions
- because they wanted to have an upstate-downstate type
- of thing.
- And I was co-chair for almost six years, first with one guy
- and then by myself and then with Jeff.
- But it was really great, like the whole endorsement
- of Chuck Schumer.
- I remember we were sitting around the table,
- here HRC is going to support D'Amato, which I understand,
- and he supported ENDA.
- But that's on a federal level.
- We're a state organization.
- And D'Amato did nothing to help LGBT issues in New York state.
- And so we took a chance.
- We took a risk.
- If you're going to call the question,
- then he better freaking win.
- So we did.
- And he did.
- That's when, on the national level,
- people started to really take a look at the Pride Agenda.
- That kind of stuff, I just think, is really fun.
- Do the calculus.
- I can do calculus when I'm thinking about strategy,
- but I can't do regular math.
- (laughter)
- So it's just been wild.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, let's talk about more recent years.
- What is going on in this community?
- Where do things stand?
- And what do you see as still being
- some of the greater challenges?
- SUE COWELL: Sustainability of the organizations we have.
- It's kind of a universal thing.
- As much as we all fundraise, it never
- seems quite enough to push through to that other side.
- And I've talked with Matt Foreman who--
- he had been a past ED of the task force
- but also the Pride Agenda.
- And he's now with the Haas Foundation in San Francisco.
- And the studies show that 3 percent of people who are LGBT
- give to LGBT organizations.
- 3 frickin' percent.
- And he's saying, we don't really know why that is.
- And for Rochester, I make an assumption.
- And it's a used assumption, but just
- the fact that overall, we have it pretty good here.
- And so maybe there's no imperative,
- like, well, you know, I'm good.
- Are you good?
- Good life.
- Who's hurting?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: But I'd put that in perspective
- that that's pretty much a general consensus
- with the overall population of what they support.
- Only about 3 percent or less of the overall population support
- anything.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, that's true.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Only about 1 percent
- to maybe close to 2 percent of the population
- support the arts.
- It's closer to 1 percent, really.
- SUE COWELL: All right, well, I didn't know that statistic.
- So we're not really different from the rest of the world.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So if you've got 3 percent--
- yeah you're thinking, why isn't everybody supporting us?
- And part of that is, well, they don't see the need,
- because they're not affected by anything.
- But if you look at the overall community,
- that 3 percent number is really about the average of anything.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well for many years,
- I think we had battles to fight.
- We had benchmarks to make.
- SUE COWELL: Yeah, there were things to coalesce around.
- EVELYN BAILEY: There was domestic partnership.
- Then there was marriage equality.
- Then there was affirmative action.
- Here in Rochester, you had major opposition
- with Michael Macaluso and the Moral Majority
- and the Decent Minority and--
- SUE COWELL: (unintelligible)
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- And also you had a tremendous number
- of people who not only were involved politically,
- but for the size of Rochester, you
- had an incredible number of organizations
- operative and working.
- SUE COWELL: Well, back then, they
- didn't have the city newspaper but they had the Rochester
- Patriot, which was the lefty paper
- and Louise Slaughter and Fran Weisberg,
- they were all part of that thing.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And back then also,
- it was part of being part of the community.
- That's how we developed or built our community.
- Nowadays, that sense of community, I don't think,
- is as important to a lot of gay and lesbians.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I think the sense of community for anyone
- is not important until crisis hits.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.
- Exactly.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And that's personally and community wise.
- When do you need your family community most?
- When you're in distress.
- And so then you pull together and people come together.
- What's next on the political agenda
- that the gay community, the LGBT community,
- needs to have happen?
- SUE COWELL: Well, we need to get more involved
- with the federal races.
- We need more-- until DOMA is repealed,
- we're not really going anywhere.
- So I don't know.
- But it's going to be, I think, a much longer cycle
- to get that done.
- But we have to-- it's like with anything.
- You're never going to finish if you don't start.
- EVELYN BAILEY: GENDA?
- SUE COWELL: Well, that's important.
- I think that that will pass in New York state.
- It's unfortunately, a lot of--
- I'm sure Cuomo spent a lot of his political capital
- on marriage, which is not saying that it's fair.
- But it's-- like with--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: It's reality.
- SUE COWELL: Well, back to the Pride Agenda.
- I mean, my whole mantra is that we don't make the rules.
- We just play by them.
- And it's been shown that money makes a big difference.
- 1996 was the first time we had openly gay delegates
- at the presidential convention.
- And that was because Jeff Sorauf was a big money guy,
- and we got--
- I went to Chicago in '96, and we had a smattering.
- I think we had about seven or eight LGBT delegates in '96.
- And then in 2000 I went again, but I don't know.
- We work hard.
- And then I think people who were running the party politics see
- it, and you get kind of pulled into things.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Where does New York state go?
- Where do we-- what's the next challenge here?
- Or are we out of challenges?
- SUE COWELL: Well, you always have
- the challenge of maintaining.
- Well, we're going to have a big challenge keeping Harry
- because of the redistricting.
- And so I just decided to have breakfast
- with Tom the other day.
- And they're trying to make sure he doesn't just get cut out
- of his high performing city districts and get
- thrown into Henrietta.
- So Harry's going to need help.
- That's part of the problem.
- You can go on a roll, and it's success, success.
- You're really going up there.
- But then through things that you can't control,
- like these stupid legislators who,
- instead of doing an independent redistricting,
- are just doing their own goddamn thing anyway.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What about the future generations coming up
- behind us?
- SUE COWELL: I don't know.
- I pray for them.
- I don't know.
- The social networking and everything,
- it does kind of put you instantaneously in touch.
- So I think that there is definitely
- a group of younger activists and philanthropists who
- will come up through the ranks.
- I don't want to judge them harshly
- like our parents maybe judged us.
- But I don't know.
- It's, unfortunately, it's that time will tell.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Talk just a little bit about the Riverview.
- Because you were--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Riverview but any of those places
- that you were pandering when you came here.
- SUE COWELL: Well, that's actually in here, too,
- which-- (pause) well, I think this was
- something with the Riverview.
- It was totally the hangout for women.
- And so we actually did a fundraiser for the Riverview,
- because we wanted to clean it up so it would be a nicer place.
- So, "The first annual picnic and all around fun time,
- Alix Dobkin, lesbian feminist singer and writer,