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2. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Allan Jay Sindler and Sophie Payeff Sindler
- Date:
- 34842
- Description:
- Sophie “Skip” Payeff Sindler, born in Aiken, South Carolina, in 1930, and her husband, Allan Sindler, born in Bishopville, South Carolina, in 1925, discuss their family histories. Skip’s parents met in Chicago after emigrating from Knyszyn, Poland. Skip recalls encounters with antisemitism while growing up in Aiken. She describes her brother Kivy Payeff’s service in the military in Germany during World War II, and the traditional nature of services at the Aiken synagogue, Adath Yeshurun. Allan’s father, Frank Sindler, a tailor, emigrated from the Lithuania-Latvia region and married Pauline Schwartzman, a native of Baltimore. They followed Pauline’s aunt and uncle, Louis and Mary Schwartzman Slesinger, to Bishopville, South Carolina, where, for decades, Frank ran a men’s clothing store. Allan describes growing up in Bishopville, his Jewish education, and the Bishopville Hebrew Congregation. Allan and Skip raised their family in Camden, South Carolina, about 25 miles from Allan’s hometown. Allan, a chemical engineer and award-winning sculptor, discusses some of his artwork. Other topics discussed include: Sumter’s Temple Sinai, changes in Jewish religious observance, and possible reasons for the decline of Jewish congregations in small Southern towns like Camden. The transcript includes comments inserted by Allan Sindler during proofreading.
3. Interview with Colleen and Nichols Condon, September 30, 2020
- Date:
- 9/30/20
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Colleen Condon (pronouns: She/Hers/They/Theirs) and Nichols Bleckley Condon (she/hers), the first same sex couple to receive a marriage license in South Carolina, discuss their personal lives, their courtship, and suing for (and winning) marriage equality in the state. Colleen Condon speaks of her extended family and her Catholic upbringing in Charleston, noting she was so concerned with family and societal expectations that she never considered being lesbian. She married and had a son before coming out. Growing up in the upstate, Nichols Condon was not so religiously oriented. She attended Winthrop University, and also married. Both speak to their sadness in having divorces possibly sever larger familial networks. Each describe their coming out process, explaining it is not a one-time event and expressing fears of losing more conservative siblings, with Colleen Condon’s experience being more public, due to her serving on Charleston County Council and eventually as head of the County’s Democratic Party. After they met, their relationship grew quickly, with Colleen Condon humorously describing her proposal of marriage. They eventually decided to defer marriage until it became legal in South Carolina. They note the difference in LGBTQ acceptability between Charleston and Greenville, SC, mention their devotion to pets, how femme presenting lesbians are often assumed heterosexual, and other topics. When a ruling in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld same-sex marriage in its jurisdiction (including SC), the couple became involved, due to attorney Colleen Condon’s ongoing work on such issues, coordinating with Nekki Shutt, Malissa Burnett, Lambda Legal, the ACLU and South Carolina Equality. Nichols and Colleen describe swiftly escalating events, as their request for a marriage license to Charleston County Probate Judge, Irv Condon, a distant relation of Colleen’s, was accepted, but then was delayed. They gained national and international attention as they became the test case for same sex marriage in SC. Both describe the backlash and some of their fears, as Colleen Condon details the intricacies of the various cases, noting how their 2014 lawsuit against SC was part of the 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell v Hodges legalizing same sex marriage. They married in 2015 and both, reflecting on the ordeal, conclude it was worth it. The interview ends with Colleen Condon speaking on work that still needs to be done in SC, specifically on transgender and gender confirmation issues.
4. Interview with Harold Brody, October 21, 2021
- Date:
- 10/21/21
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Harold (Hal) Brody (pronouns: Him/His) discusses growing up in Sumter, SC, his work and interest in the theatre, his medical education and practice as a dermatologist, and his co-founding of the national Gay and Lesbian Dermatology Association. He describes the small-town nature of Sumter, his experiences of anti-Semitism and homophobia there, and then moves on to his undergraduate experience at Duke University, where he became involved in theatrical productions, and consulted a psychiatrist to come to terms with his sexuality. Attending the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC, from 1970-74, he continued therapy, dating both men and women, and continued to pursue his passion for the theatre in Footlight Players and Charleston Opera Company productions. He mentions anti-Semitism and racial prejudice at MUSC yet reports that a representative of the Mattachine Society addressed the student body. After an externship in Boston, he went to Houston and continued at Emory University in Atlanta, where he first began to encounter HIV/AIDS patients and prejudice against them, staying on as faculty and fulfilling his career there. Soon comfortable with his sexuality, attending annual conferences of the American Academy of Dermatology, he noticed other LGBTQ physicians, and in 1980, he and a small group of friends began an organization called the Dermatology Specialists. Over the years it grew into the Gay and Lesbian Dermatology Association, incorporated in 2011, which helps advance the careers of LGBTQ dermatologists and addresses dermatological issues for people in the community, including treatment of wasting in long term HIV/AIDS survivors and cosmetic surgery for trans people. He speaks with pride of advances in his profession, mentions his association with the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, and talks on his continuing role in the theatre, often producing equity and non-equity shows. After the loss of a long-term partner, Brody became reacquainted with Donald Eugene Smith, whom he had met years earlier, and they married ca. 2016. He also talks about his political advocacy for Democrats in Georgia, reflects on the needs of understanding history, and speaks of mentoring younger LGBTQ dermatologists to be future leaders.
5. Interview with William "Bill" H. Carson, June 02, 2022
- Date:
- 6/2/22
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. William “Bill” H. Carson (pronouns: He/Him) discusses the challenges growing up as an African American gay male in Columbia, SC, his Harvard and medical school education, professional life as an out psychiatrist, and his subsequent international work in corporate pharmacology, while also addressing his patronage of the arts. His school teacher parents did their best to shield him from the worst aspects of segregation, with little disparagement of LGBTQ people, but with few role models available. Education was of prime importance in his environment. Turning down Senator Strom Thurmond’s appointment to the US Naval Academy, Carson went to Harvard instead, participating in the Harvard Glee Club and gay life on campus while avoiding Boston, then experiencing racial tensions. Outed just as he began to attend Case Western Reserve Medical School, he embraced the opportunities of self-growth and educating others. His status (coming out professionally before doing so with his family) continued in 1988 as he became a psychiatry resident at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. He mentions the local LGBTQ scene, describes board work on Lowcountry AIDS Services, and the current lack of knowledge among younger gay people of the battles of that era. Beginning a long-term relationship in Charleston, Carson left in 1998 to work for Bristol Myers Squibb, in charge of life cycle management programs of the drug Abilify. That led to his 2002 employment with the Japanese company Otsuka working with the psychopharmacological drug aripiprazole. Carson talks of the learning curve regarding Japanese culture and his subsequent work with international drug conglomerates, noting his excitement in learning new skills and points of view, necessary on national and international boards. Carson is also Board Chair Emeritus of the Sphinx Organization, helping in its mission to promote the careers of Black and Hispanics in the field of classical music. He speaks of the production of Omar by Michael Abels and Rhiannon Giddens, whose world premiere at the Spoleto Festival USA in brought him back to Charleston; he also discusses being a co-producer of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop on Broadway. He sums up the possibilities of gene therapy in possibly helping cure diseases such as AIDS, and despite retiring in 2020, he still stays connected with various boards and projects.
6. Interview with Kristin Graziano, May 31, 2023
- Date:
- 5/31/23
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Kristine Graziano (pronouns: She/Her/Hers), out lesbian sheriff of Charleston County, describes growing up, her work in, and attitude to, law enforcement and other topics including domestic life and volunteer services. Born in Utica, NY in 1966, never really knowing her father until an adult, she was raised in Virginia by her mother, along with a younger brother and sister, after her parents divorced. Living near Charlottesville, and with a house on the Chesapeake Bay, Graziano spent time on the water, and credits coaches and others for inspiring her work ethic and dedication to goals. She worked her way through Piedmont Community College and the University of Virginia, attending when she could afford it. She did not find racism an issue until she came to Lowcountry in 2002; the Gullah language presented a barrier, and she was confronted with racist language and attitudes. There were no role models for coming out, but she embraced it, and it was a non-issue with her family. Her attraction to law enforcement began as a teenager. Her sister was kidnapped, and escaping, she ran into the arms of a policeman. While that was traumatic for the family, Graziano “knew right away. If I had any purpose, that needed to be my purpose.” She eventually became a master police officer in Charlottesville, when crack was an epidemic, and later served in Charleston as a deputy sheriff, working on patrols, at first out of her depth in Black rural parts of the county. She eventually made the SWAT team, first disqualified due to being a woman. Seeing the need for reform, she ran for Charleston County Sheriff in 2020 during the COVID epidemic, at first wary of, but then embracing, the Victory Fund dedicated to electing LGBTQ candidates. She shares her views of law enforcement, noting that compassion and giving chances to the incarcerated, is not weakness. She addresses changes in diversity and outreach within her department, also describing crises, such as the death of a mentally ill inmate, faced as soon she entered office. She speaks of meeting her wife, Elizabeth, the raising of their two sons, her other businesses, coaching the women’s soccer team at the College of Charleston and volunteering for Hospice.
7. Interview with James Sellers, October 13, 2023
- Date:
- 10/13/23
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. James Sellers (pronouns: Him/His) answers questions about his upbringing in the city of Charleston, SC, and his knowledge of Jack Dobbins, victim in the gay-related “Candlestick Murder” that occurred in Charleston on October 31, 1958. Speaking by phone from Quincy, Massachusetts, he recalls his childhood home at 101 Meeting Street, later the Anchor Bar, eventually torn down, his parents and brother and various homes where they lived. He speaks of the naivety of his group of friends, mistaking gay men cruising at the Battery for communists, the reluctance of adults to address such issues, his experiences acting as a teen with the Footlight Players, mentioning many there by name, and taking art lessons at the Gibbes Art Gallery (now the Gibbes Museum of Art). In March of 1958, through the Footlight Players, he met the 29-year-old Jack Dobbins, who showed an interest in the 18-year-old. With no experience, Sellers panicked and describes Dobbins’ respect in honoring his wishes and the care and respect Sellers received. They eventually developed a relationship, and when Dobbins was murdered a few months later, Sellers, then in army basic training in Columbia, SC (where the commanding officer was a friend of Dobbins), was shocked at how the victim was misrepresented in the press, and how his assailant, who bludgeoned him with a candlestick, presented a totally different version of Dobbins, contradicting everything Sellers knew of him. Unable to speak out against the verdict that set Dobbins’s killer free, Sellers eventually left Charleston for art school and relationships, while still designing costumes for the Charleston Ballet Theatre and a Tricentennial production, celebrating the state’s 300th anniversary. In passing, he mentions John Zeigler and Edwin Peacock of the Book Basement, Patricia and Emmett Robinson and Kit Lyons and Dorothy D’Anna of the Footlight Players, Russel Wragg, William Halsey, Corrie McCallum and others. Sellers eventually moved to Boston, became an occupational therapist, and turned down the opportunity to work at the Medical University of South Carolina due to his more advanced political and social views. He describes his family’s servants, coming out to his father and his mother as an adult, and how his recent reading a history of LGBTQ Charleston brought back the events to him, and how discussing them with the interviewer has brought him some closure and peace on the subject.
8. Interview with Mike Schwarzott, September 3, 2020
- Date:
- 9/3/20
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Michael Schwarzott (pronouns: He/Him/His), dubbed the “grandfather” of the Charleston, SC area LGBTQ movement, speaks of his personal life, the navy, and being a social activist. From the Medina, NY area, Schwarzott grew up in a non-religious family, had some early same sex experiences and joined the US Navy, serving on a submarine based in Charleston, with expeditions to Rota, Spain. When found kissing another sailor in Spain, he was returned to the States and honorably discharged in 1976. In Charleston, he worked briefly at the Lion’s Head Inn gay bar, noting possible mafia connections, detailing vice squad raids, and explaining how service men were protected. He describes local gay life, mentioning taking up collections to pay bail for those, like drag queen Africa (Bryan Seabrook), arrested at the Battery. He soon returned to NY, married, and had two children. In 1989, he came back to Charleston to work in food service at the Veterans Administration. Noting changes in the city, he speaks of roommate, and later partner, cosmetologist Byron Wiles, whom Schwarzott cared for until his death from AIDS and lung cancer in 1993. He became involved with the founding of the Lowcountry Gay and Lesbian Alliance (LGLA) and describes its early meetings and members; he was also active in the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), which drew more people than LGLA. When reporters wanted a response from the LGBTQ community about pushback against a possible gay gym, Schwarzott, vacationing in New York, agreed to speak to the press, which he did via video link. He subsequently became a visible presence, speaking out on LGBTQ issues, prompting some negative reactions from LGLA, versus positive reactions from the general public. He describes the demise of LGLA and the creation and growth of the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), noting how its 501(c) 3 IRS status helped the organization succeed. He served on AFFA’s board and continued to speak publicly as he brought in speakers including Mel White, the drag queen Lady Chablis, Troy Perry, geneticist and film maker Dean Hamer and his partner, Joe Wilson, and others. He also addresses the controversy between MCC and Open Door Christian Church and Reverend Wilhelmina Hein. One of his proudest accomplishments was bringing the AIDS Quilt to Charleston during the 1997 Spoleto Festival. He then sums up his years as an activist and encourages others to follow his footsteps.
9. Interview with George Holt, June 29, 2020
- Date:
- 6/29/20
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. George Holt (pronouns: He/Him/His), a noted small-scale developer and designer of unique homes, reflects on his life in Charleston, his founding of the newsletter Gay Charleston, and his current professional projects. Born in Madrid, Spain in 1959, he moved to Charleston with his family when his father retired from the military in 1974. He attended Stall High School and the College of Charleston and was happily astonished with what he found in the local gay bars he started attending at age 17. He describes the closeted attitudes and prejudices of the day, noting violence against LGBTQ people, and tension between gay men and lesbians, and his visit to the women’s bar, Frannie’s. Unlike others, he always believed “the world was the problem”, not him, and in a bar, the Lion’s Head, he met the gay priest who had counseled his mother when she had sought advice on her son’s homosexuality. Holt, who is White, describes the African American drag queens he knew (Bryan Seabrook aka “Africa”, Teraja, Ms Edie and Wally) and his discovery of the caste of color in local African American society. After spending time in Chicago, he returned to Charleston and with friends and advice from Armistead Maupin, launched the publication Gay Charleston in 1981. He describes the difficulties and successes of running it, noting other contributors, including Keith Griffith (1959 – 2012), later to run a sex-focused publication in San Francisco, and the local Unitarian minister, George Exoo (1942 – 2015). He also speaks of Barry Kohn (d. 1987), who revived the paper, as well as his personal and professional relationship with his partner Jerry Moran. Holt attended the first Pride March in South Carolina (ca. 1990), as well as the National March on Washington (ca. 1993). Reflecting on changes in the city, Holt expresses his delight in how younger people are much open even while they don’t understand the difficulties of the past. He explains his current interest in workers’ and immigrants’ rights, his desire to counter the mistreatment of older people, and his determination to provide sensible and pleasing housing for all, including the handicapped. At the end of the interview, he recalls how he was “set up” previously on local media, attacked for being gay, and how glad he is to let younger people take up the cause.
10. Interview with Greg Kanter, June 26, 2023
- Date:
- 6/26/23
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Greg Kanter (pronouns: He/Him/His), an out gay rabbi, discusses his life, the adoption of two children, one trans, and the impact of anti-trans laws on his family. Born in Cincinnati, OH and growing up in St. Louis, MO, he lived mostly with his divorced single mother. He matriculated at Hebrew Union College after graduating from Knox College in Galesburg, IL. When finishing the degree, he realized he was gay after another student came out as lesbian. Aware of anti-gay bias, he kept quiet on his sexual orientation to achieve ordination. He was hired by a Reform congregation in Minneapolis, MN. Coming out to the senior rabbi created conflict, the congregation allowing him to finish his two-year contract. Before going public, Kanter came out to his parents and his brother, who also confessed to being gay. As part-time rabbi for a gay congregation in South Florida, Kanter grew the organization, but members rejected his desire to include families and children. He met Mike Merrill, a non-Jew, who became more conversant with Judaism, and they became partners. Wanting children, they gave up surrogacy, turning to international adoption instead. When that the adoption of a child named Elijah was imperiled, they turned to in-state adoption, with Merrill acting as a single male, LGBTQ couples not being allowed to adopt. Alayna, born premature, was in their care when then the international adoption came through, too. Elijah immediately identified as female, and both parents demanded her school accepted her as Emily, which it did, having faced similar issues with Jazz Jennings, eventually known for her public appearances and cable television show. While Kanter was accepted in a synagogue in Del Ray Beach, FL, trans issues there were not embraced. Subsequently, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE) in Charleston, welcomed Kanter and Merrill and their two daughters. Once the SC legislature discussed bans on gender-affirming care for minors, and the Medical University of South Carolina cancelled care, Merrill began taking Emily out of state for treatment, and the couple, with Emily’s permission, went public. In July 2023, with concerns for Emily’s health, and fear of further anti-LGBTQ legislation, Kanter announced the plan to leave for another state where he and his family would be protected. Concluding, Kanter discusses being a gay rabbi in Charleston, the need for allies fighting for LGBTQ rights and an upcoming Pride service, the first in KKBE’s history.
11. Interview with Robin and Gil Shuler, August 18, 2020
- Date:
- 8/18/20
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Gil (pronouns: He/Him) and Robin (pronouns: She/Her) Shuler, a heterosexual Caucasian couple, discuss their work in the 1999 film The Corndog Man, produced in the Charleston area, featuring African American actor Bryan Seabrook, also known, in drag, as Miss Africa. The Shulers speak of their work in local theatre with Steve Lepre and others and of Gil’s friendship with filmmakers Jim Holmes, Andrew Shea and David Steen, who, visiting in the area, asked for his help. The story, revolving around a character to be portrayed by actor Noble Willingham, who had committed to the project, needed locations, extras, and others to fill out the project, which had a minimal budget. Gil and Robin Shuler explain where many of the scenes of the film were shot, including in their yard and how they “wrangled” others to appear in the film. Of crucial importance was the casting of a drag queen, and it was Robin’s friendship with Bryan Seabrook, whom she had met at the King Street Garden and Gun Club, that brought a new racial perspective to the movie. She explains how she first visited the Garden and Gun Club years before as a Jewish high school student on a trip from Sumter to Charleston one weekend, found a diverse and accepting community there, and how that ultimately resulted in her decision to move to Charleston and attend the College of Charleston. She later went to other gay venues, but referring to “the Gun Club,” she states, “there was no place like it anywhere,” and she made friends for life there. The Shulers discuss the trouble they went through in getting extras to work long hours for no pay and how they moved Seabrook into their Mount Pleasant, SC, home to save him from homelessness during the filming and how their children loved him. With digressions on Seabrook’s death and funeral, they return to the topic of the film, which won some acclaim and became a bit of a cult classic, without making a large impression locally. The Shulers did not make any money on the film, and possibly never seeing the final cut, they did not realize the social “message” of the film and its powerful impact on viewers.
12. Interview with Anne B. Lee, July 30, 2020
- Date:
- 7/30/20
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Ann Borden Lee (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) discusses her life before and after transitioning. Born in Wilmington, NC in 1947, she was raised in a very spiritual family, and spent early years in Chapel Hill, NC, where she and a friend crossed dressed. Always feeling “alien” and faced with “an issue with no answer” regarding gender dysphoria, she became an overachiever, accomplishments being her only route to feeling normal. The family moved to Charleston where her father taught at the Citadel and Lee did a lot of “guy things”, trying to meet society’s expectations. She attended Davidson College, and the Medical University of South Carolina, later doing a residency in Florida. Concentrating on work was a way to disregard the tensions caused by trying to get others to believe that she “was a healthy, heterosexual cis-gendered male.” She married, lost her first wife of twelve years to breast cancer, a diagnosis that impacted their decision not to have children. Working for decades as a general and trauma surgeon, Lee woke up one day determined to claim her authentic self, and to fully engage in life. Much of the interview centers on the positive changes that have occurred since that day; she notes how her reading of the existentialists and her participating in Jungian dream work and discussions in Charlotte, NC, have given her frames of reference on life. No longer needing the shadow self, James to help her survive, she discusses patriarchy, the toll it takes on men and women, the different natures inherent in males and females and the issues facing other trans men and women, particular trans women of color. She describes her coming out on Facebook, relates reactions, and describes how she wants to re-engage, realizing she can’t demand instant acceptance, having lived as an “impostor” and a “liar” for years. Decrying homophobia, racism, and sexism, she describes how many “feel purer” by looking down on and attacking others. It was her outsider status, and her “woman’s heart” that marked her empathy as a surgeon, she believes. While acknowledging how privilege had worked for her, she champions women and discusses her late in life found peace, sometimes wishing it had happened sooner. A firm believer in God, she sees Charleston and society changing, and ends the interview discussing her new legal status, gender fluidity, surgical options, and her desire to live life to the fullest and represent and help those in her community.
13. Interview with Jenny Turner, February 11, 2020
- Date:
- 2/11/20
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Jenny Lee Turner (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) speaks of growing up in West Virginia and Virginia, attending the University of Virginia for her undergraduate degree and obtaining a master’s degree in clinical counseling at The Citadel and her professional life mostly in Charleston, SC. Her coming out as a lesbian was complicated by her rural, religious and working class background, and she was shocked coming to Charleston in 1979, which seemed less sophisticated than Norfolk since Mt. Pleasant “didn’t even have sidewalks.” She worked in counseling at the Department of Social Services, got to know gay men and lesbians in the community, attending some bars and social events. As a White professional, she was dismayed by prejudice aimed at, and poverty she discovered in, the Black Gullah community. In private practice, she volunteered with Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS), working with gay men with HIV, helping to set up the buddy program, and becoming friends with many who lost their lives to the disease or to suicide. She describes the fear and backlash AIDS prompted and much of the interview focuses on Corey Jerome Glover, the young Black child with HIV she and her partner, a physician, fostered as an out lesbian couple, even when state laws forbade that. She describes Glover’s short life and death (in 1994 before the age of three) in vivid detail and notes the depression that overcame her when she moved to New York. Returning to Charleston, she worked with the Medical University of South Carolina’s Institute of Psychiatry with teens with drug and other issues and she was injured when attacked in a charter school in North Charleston. Retiring in 2003 with post- traumatic stress disorder and osteoarthritis, she worked with therapy dogs and focused on her long-term relationship with Patricia Graf whom she married in Seneca Falls, NY in 2014. She talks about her own maturation and that of the local LGBTQ community, mentioning the NAMES project and Lynn Dugan’s founding of the Pride parade and the Charleston Social Club for lesbians. Noting the changes in Charleston, she calls it “a whole new world, and I’m wondering if the kids…these days…realize they are standing on the shoulders of others who have died for them….” Before the interview concludes, referring to the new less-closeted world of her youth, she states, “I’m delighted to be alive in it, and to see how far things have come, especially in Charleston….”
14. Interview with James Moskow, February 10, 2023
- Date:
- 2/10/23
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. James Moskow (pronouns: He/Him/His) discusses growing up in Charleston, SC, his birth family, and his time in the foster care system. He talks about moving around as a small child before moving to Charleston, SC at five or six years old, and discusses his time in the foster care system from the age of eight to fourteen. During his time in foster care he lived with relatives, in group homes, and ultimately was adopted by a single gay father. James talks about his biological family, their religious beliefs as Pentecostals and being adopted by a Jewish father. He discusses LGBTQ life in Charleston, attending a Pride festival in Summerville, SC and his friendship with Charleston drag queen Melody Lucas. He discusses his time at West Ashley High School and meeting a clique of friends in high school that he remains close to. Moskow recalls moving to Alaska and living on the Kenai Peninsula before the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to move back to Charleston.
15. Interview with Joe Hall, February 15, 2019
- Date:
- 2/15/19
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Joe Hall (pronouns: He/Him/His), living in Washington, DC, after years of international work for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), discuses growing up gay in Greenville and Bennettsville, SC, overcoming alcoholism and leading an early AIDS service agency in Charleston, SC. With an accepting family, he embraced his sexuality; he describes gay life in Atlanta, after high school, describes a gay bar in Florence, SC, mentions living in New York, and Washington, DC before settling in Charleston where he got sober. He enrolled at a program at Fenwick Hall in 1983 and later at the Palmetto Center in Florence. He describes bars in Charleston and the founding of its gay Alcoholics Anonymous group. After being counselor in a treatment center, he became involved with the Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS) agency, founded in Columbia by Bill Edens. He details the organization’s evolution, mentions the earlier group Helping Hands, and names leaders and supporters in HIV education and response, while discussing issues facing those with HIV. He speaks of being “defiantly” gay, coming out on local TV, and the difficulty of separating the Lowcountry PALSS organization from its Columbia base, it becoming a separate entity (later renamed Lowcountry AIDS Services), and the impact it had on his friendship with Bill Edens and others. He recounts the growth of the organization, services provided, and challenges faced, catering to various constituencies, including elite gay white men and African American religious groups, among others, while emphasizing the major contributions of lesbians. He gives vignettes of certain actions, including a demonstration by ACTUP in Columbia, SC, coordinating with the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), protesting the policies of Governor Caroll Campbell, and the successful fundraising program Dining with Friends. He lists those who gave of their money, time, and services, and addresses the work’s impact on LGBTQ visibility as well as on his personal life. After working for another AIDS agency in another state, he travelled the world, eventually working for NDI in places such as Palestine, Azerbaijan, Sierra Leone, and Beirut, where he met his husband, André Saade. He and Hall moved to Washington, DC in 2012 and married. Saade became an American citizen in 2017 and Hall was working with an organization focused on international security when he died suddenly of an asthma attack during the COVID pandemic in 2020.
16. Interview with Terry Fox, February 4, 2020
- Date:
- 2/4/20
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Terry Fox (pronouns: He/Him/His) co-founder of the Charleston Arts Festival, long time board member of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, and involved with many arts projects and organizations, speaks of his life as a “fairly openly gay man” since arriving in Charleston, SC in 1968. He was born near Lenoir, NC, and raised in the town of Hudson and had a loving upbringing. Majoring in English at UNC-Chapel Hill, he began to participate in gay life; after an unhappy year at graduate school at USC in Columbia, he moved to Charleston, which, compared to today, was “shabbier, sexier, more romantic.” A white man, he taught in the all-Black W. Gresham Meggett middle school on James Island the last year of its existence. A party he held for some of his students got him evicted from his downtown apartment; he later taught at a middle school in Mt. Pleasant, SC and then at the county’s first alternative school, Freedom School, for students with drug issues. His interest in emotionally disabled children led him to the position of educational therapist at Southern Pines, a private psychiatric facility in Charleston, with later stints as director of student life at Johnson and Wales College and the Art Institute of Charleston, while also founding the Marble Arch, an artist co-op. In his narrative, he also discusses gay life in Charleston, mentions some bars, such as the Bat Room, Streetcar, the Orvin Court bar, the Garden and Gun Club, where he worked as a bartender, and Les Jardins. He gives brief portraits of Richard (Dick) Robison of the Garden and Gun Club, bar owner Bobby Tucker, and describes his friendship with his neighbor early transexual Dawn Langley Simmons (1922- 2000) who “charmed, puzzled [and] fascinated him”. Never having felt “marginalized or treated unfairly” for being openly gay, Fox also served on the local HIV/AIDS agency Lowcountry Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services, describing the fundraising projects Affair of the Heart and Dining with Friends. He goes into the history regarding the long running PechaKucha program he co-founded and manages and gives details, as well, of events and successes of the Charleston Arts Festival. A modern art collector, he gives his assessment of the Charleston art scene, and notes, with disappointment, how Charleston has become more crowded and less of a “pleasurable” place to live than it once was.
17. Interview with Wilhelmina Hein, September 24, 2019
- Date:
- 9/24/19
- Description:
- Oral history interview conducted by College of Charleston Libraries Special Collections and Archives as part of the ongoing efforts to preserve, elevate, and document the stories and history of the LGBTQ+ community in South Carolina. Jacoba Wilhelmina Anneke Hein, known as Wilhelmina, (pronouns: She/Her/Hers) discusses her life and experiences before and after sex reassignment surgery; she also reflects on her six years as a minister in Charleston, SC from her home in Almelo, the Netherlands. Born nearby in Enscede in 1947, she was raised in a very strict evangelical family, emigrating to Australia when she was ten. She kept her interest in men and in women’s clothes secret, instead following religious expectations of community by marrying and having a child. Only upon reading transsexual Jan Morris’s book, Conundrum, did Hein discover her true self. Divorce followed, and when her sex reassignment surgery in Australia stalled, Hein lived as a gay man before completing the reassignment program in New Zealand at age 47. Having served as a pastor in the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Australia, New Zealand and in Toledo, OH, Hein came to Charleston’s MCC in 2000. She found the weather “tropical” and her congregation, evangelical in spirit while cleaving to traditional liturgy, “almost schizophrenic.” She feels she made her congregation uneasy with her willingness to examine scripture and its context. Faced with church politics and vague allegations, she soon fell ill with diabetes and heart problems. When members of the congregation left the church soon after, they sought her leadership, and Open Door Christian Church was formed. Hein describes both congregations, their outreach and social justice efforts and her work as a minister and counselor in the greater community where she found acceptance. She notes that her Australian accent garnered more attention than her trans status. When her interest in Judaism lead to her attending Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim synagogue, studying Hebrew, and considering conversion, she informed her congregation that she planned to resign in six months. But the board immediately dismissed her, and although she wanted to remain in Charleston for conversion, developments in the Netherlands allowed her to retire there immediately. She left in 2006. Hein speaks of her work in Charleston, its racism, her development of a local LGBTQ radio show, and her happiness and satisfaction there. Identifying as a heterosexual woman of faith, conversant with LGBTQ and spiritual issues, she does not feel that there is a need any longer for separate LGBTQ religious spaces since “ultimately the issue is to live in broader society.”
18. Oral history with Rebecca D. Bryan
- Date:
- 2/3/1971
- Description:
- Rebecca Bryan discusses memories of her life in Charleston. She mentions a contest between the fire departments, the Womens Exchange on King Street, Dixie Antique Shop, transportation as a young girl, several significant earthquakes and hurricanes, the history of her house at 110 Broad Street, the Battery as a child, her childhood schooling, the Charleston Exposition of 1901, and a story about the Charleston Light Dragoons. Audio with transcript and tape log.
19. Oral history with Harold Stone Reeves
- Date:
- 3/24/1971
- Description:
- Harold Stone Reeves, a native Charlestonian and lifelong performer, discusses the many aspects of his life since his birth in 1892, including his longtime interest in Gullah, attending the University of South Carolina, his commission with the Charleston Light Dragoons during World War I, his involvement with the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals, and his role as the first manager of the of the Charleston Social Security Office. Audio with transcript and tape log.
20. Oral history with John Laurens
- Date:
- 10/13/1972
- Description:
- John Laurens graduated from the Citadel in 1910. During World War I Laurens was stationed with the Charleston Light Dragoons in El Paso, Texas and later in France. In the interview, Laurens enumerates his siblings and discusses various occurrences in his life and in Charleston including family vacations on the Southern Railroad, a bath house that was once located at the end of Tradd Street, the Charleston Exposition of 1901, a tornado that took off the steeple of St. Philips Church and a fire at the Anderson Lumber Company once located on Broad Street. Audio with transcript.
