Queer history tends to be heavy on New York and San Francisco. Whether we're talking about the Stonewall Riots or the Compton Cafeteria Riots, our history is too often focused on coastal urban centers.
But, of course, that doesn't mean queers in other parts of the United States didn't exist or don't have a history worth telling. Nor does it mean that these men and women didn't resist. An act of resistance doesn't have to be a riot. Sometimes, our modern biases get in the way and we don't see the acts of resistance that are not loud and/or violent. To understand queer resistance outside of the context of the urban gay and lesbian movements, these biases must be shed.
In the American South in the 1960s, simply existing as gay was often an act of resistance against homophobic society. The South may not have had an equivalent of Greenwich Village or the Castro, but gays found a way to live, have sex, and form relationships. Forming queer social networks in rural areas, meeting at highly secretive gay bars, developing a subculture in extremely homophobic Southern urban centers--these were all acts of resistance. But in this diary, I'd like to talk about something a little different. I'd like to discuss "Emma Jones" and her role in bringing Southern queers together in the 1960s and 1970s. Follow me below the fold.
The year was 1965. The city was Pensacola, Florida, the westernmost urban center in the Florida panhandle. It was (and is) very much a Southern city. It was conservative, virulently homophobic, and downright dangerous for queers to live in. But, as many of you (and certainly I) can understand, we can't choose where we're from. And so, like most urban centers, Pensacola was home to a sizable gay underground.
But life was difficult. Between the local toughs who liked to rough up queers to the police who harassed gays themselves, Pensacola was not an ideal place for a nascent gay community. And it was even worse for gay men who happened to have a taste for physique magazines. Local postal authorities kept single men under constant surveillance, often opening their mail. The names and addresses of gay men were added to a list that was shared with the intelligence officers at the Pensacola military base and the police department.
It was in this homophobic, almost Orwellian environment that "Emma Jones" was born. In 1965, several Pensacola gay men met in a house. There, they discussed their plans to thwart the surveillance machinery of the postal authorities and police. It was a simple, yet ingenious, idea. They would send a female ally to the post office, who would open a mailbox under the fake name of "Emma Jones." Everything considered "suspect" by the post office--ranging from physique magazines to John Rechy's City of Night--would be mailed to "Emma Jones." A female name was chosen because the men thought, correctly, that it would not be suspicious if a woman was receiving these materials in the mail. Once every month, the men would meet and circulate the materials that arrived in the mailbox.
The plan succeeded without a hitch. Months went by with not so much as a raised eyebrow from the postal authorities.
But, in 1966, the men who created "Emma Jones" soon developed bigger ideas. They decided that what the Pensacola gays really needed was a beach party on the Fourth of July. To avoid detection, they made "Emma Jones" the hostess. Twenty-five invitations were sent out in her name. Fifty people showed up on the beach.
It became an annual tradition. The parties grew larger and larger each year. The second beach party boasted two hundred men and women. By 1968, queers from other Southern urban centers--from Mobile to Tallahassee--showed up, and the party swelled to over four hundred.
By this time, the Pensacola police were beginning to notice. But the party had taken on a life of its own. Organizers convinced the police that they would keep to themselves, out of the public eye, and local hotels and other businesses benefited from gay money. The party escaped police suppression. The next summer, word spread all over the South that a drag revue would be held, and party attendance increased exponentially. From New Orleans to Atlanta, "Emma Jones" was the talk of the South.
And the party was something to behold. From musicals to a Mr. Gay U.S.A. contest, attendees had the time of their lives. One man recalls:
We were on the beach from four till seven, a mass of gay humanity. Then from seven to nine, you and your boyfriend went back to your room, and you did whatever, and you were ready at nine.
But the party was significant for another reason. In a time when racism had enveloped the South--and the gay community was certainly no exception--the "Emma Jones" party was very interracial. An African-American participant observed:
Black, white, Hispanic, we were there--in drag or not, whatever your preference--having a great time.
"Emma Jones" hosted what became the largest gay gathering in the history of the South. The event took a turn for the worst when the Mafia and local politicians tried to get involved, but by that time, gays had forged a Southern community, in addition to displaying their economic power. The effects on Pensacola, the Florida Panhandle, and the greater South, were innumerable. "Emma Jones" changed many queer lives in the South in the 1960s and 1970s. She deserves a place in our history right alongside Stonewall and Harvey Milk.
To conclude, I'd like to make a book recommendation or two. I got most of the information above from John Loughery's incredible synthesis of American gay male life in the twentieth century, The Other Side of Silence: Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History. But if you want to read more about queer life in the South, please check out John Howard's Men Like That: A Southern Queer History. It's my favorite gay history book, and I can't recommend it enough.