Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

Iconic activist Storme DeLaverie passes away
2014-05-27

This article shared 5060 times since Tue May 27, 2014
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


Iconic LGBT-rights activist Stormé DeLarverie passed away May 24, according to The Huffington Post. She was 93, according to a Bronx LGBTQ Center blog.

A 2010 Huffington Post item said that DeLaverie "probably threw the first punch in the Stonewall Riot that sparked gay rights." She was also part of the Jewel Box Revue—arguably the country's first gay community—which was a traveling troupe of impersonators that originally formed in 1939.

A statement from the Bronx LGBTQ Center read, in part, "Often referred to as the 'Rosa Parks' as the gay-rights movement, Stormé was a fierce woman who stood up for our community on countless occasions.

"Stormé was an amazing and warm individual who spent her life taking care of people. It didn't matter if they were lesbian, gay, straight, young, old, transgender, questioning, bisexual, Black, White, Latino—she treated everyone with the same warmth, compassion, kindness, conviction, courage, strength of spirit, and love. This led her to be dubbed the unofficial mother of our community, especially by those who knew her."

A celebration of her life will take place Thursday, May 29, at Greenwich Village Funeral Home.

blog.bronxlgbtqcenter.org/2014/05/in-remembrance-storme-delarverie.html .

Response from 'Stonewall' author, Concerning the death of Stormé DeLarverie and Stonewall

After spending a decade of exhaustive research into every aspect of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969, I never found any evidence to support the contention that Stormé DeLarverie was a participant in that event. A number of persons over the last 20 years, including Ms. DeLarverie, have tried to suggest that she was the lesbian whose heroic fight with the police outside the Stonewall Inn on the first night played a pivotal role—-and was perhaps the key flashpoint—-in setting off the Stonewall Riots, but she could not have been that woman.

To cite only a few of the problems with the thesis that Ms. DeLarverie could have been that lesbian, DeLarverie's story is one of escaping the police, not of being taken into custody by them (as happened with the lesbian who fought with them), and she has claimed that on that night she was outside the bar, "quiet, I didn't say a word to anybody, I was just trying to see what was happening," when a policeman, without provocation, hit her in the eye ("Stonewall 1969: A Symposium," June 20, 1997, New York City), whereas at least one reliable witness account and other evidence has the altercation with the woman starting inside the club. DeLarverie was also an African-American woman, and all the witnesses interviewed by the author describe the woman as Caucasian.

Finally, there has been much speculation over the decades about who this woman could have been who helped ignite the Stonewall Uprising. Stormé was well known in the local lesbian community at the time of the Uprising and has remained so ever since, and it is highly improbable that this woman who was seen by hundreds of people in public on the morning of June 28, 1969, could have been a person of note in the community, else she would have been identified at the time or shortly thereafter.

David Carter

Greenwich Village

New York City, New York

Author, Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution (St. Martin's Press, 2004)

Consultant, PBS American Experience film, Stonewall Uprising (2010)

Researcher for and coauthor of the proposal to add the site of the Stonewall Riots to the National Register of Historic Places (1999) and to have it declared a National Historic Landmark (2000).


This article shared 5060 times since Tue May 27, 2014
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

PASSAGES Dorothy Elizabeth McGroarty 2024-03-14
- Dorothy Elizabeth McGroarty, 82, of The Breakers at Edgewater Beach, and a former resident of Andersonville, passed away Feb. 16 surrounded by her loving family. Born in Dearborn, Michigan, Dorothy was raised on Chicago's South and ...


Gay News

PASSAGES Bryan Dean Wilson 2024-03-14
- Bryan Dean Wilson, 64, of Chicago, passed away March 11. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bryan graduated from Washington High school in Cedar Rapids before earning his B.S. in Biology from Mount Mercy University, also in ...


Gay News

PASSAGES: Former Chicago Commission on Human Relations chair Clarence Wood 2024-03-13
- LGBTQ ally and former Chicago Commission on Human Relations (CCHR) Chair and Commissioner Clarence N. Wood died March 5. He was 83. Wood was born April 14, 1940, in Alabama. While primarily raised in Alabama, Wood ...


Gay News

Longtime LGBTQ+-rights activist David Mixner dies at 77 2024-03-12
- On March 11, longtime LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS activist David Mixner—known for working on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign but then splitting from him over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT)—died at age 77, The Advocate reported. ...


Gay News

LGBTQ+ Victory Fund remembers co-founder David Mixner 2024-03-12
--From a press release - Today, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund President & CEO Mayor Annise Parker released the following statement on the passing of LGBTQ+ civil rights activist and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund co-founder David Mixner: "Today, we lost David Mixner, a founding ...


Gay News

PASSAGES Charles R. Tobin 2024-03-03
- Charles R. Tobin, 81, peacefully passed away on Dec. 23, 2023, in the company of his husband, after living with Lewey body dementia for several years. Charlie was born and raised in the Fernwood neighborhood on ...


Gay News

PASSAGES Trailblazing judge and attorney Patricia M. Logue passes away 2024-02-26
- The Honorable Patricia Logue ("Pat" to her friends, Trish" to her family) was a brilliant lawyer, a trailblazing jurist and a hero to the LGBTQ community. Pat's legacy includes numerous landmark cases she litigated over her ...


Gay News

Oklahoma non-binary student dies after being assaulted 2024-02-21
- Officials acknowledged there are unresolved questions about a 16-year-old non-binary Oklahoma student who died one day after a fight in a high school bathroom, NBC News noted. Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, ...


Gay News

GLAAD remembers Cecilia Gentili, transgender Latina, actress, activist, health care activist, journalist 2024-02-06
--From a press release - (New York, NY - February 6, 2024) GLAAD, the world's largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, is responding to the death of transgender actress and advocate Cecilia Gentili and elevating voices of transgender and political leaders honoring ...


Gay News

More information emerges about death on Atlantis gay cruise 2024-02-04
By Lu Calzada - Further details have emerged following the death of a Chicago man on a Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas Atlantis cruise targeted towards gay men. Following a Reddit post by the man's sister — which has ...


Gay News

PASSAGES Imperial Court's Scott Archer remembered as selfless, devoted 2024-02-04
By Alec Karam - As the old saying goes, we all have an angel on one shoulder, and a devil on the other. Well, Scott Archer was all angel, his best friend Herman Coen believes. "Everybody wanted to talk to Scott, because Scott was Scott," ...


Gay News

Broadway star Chita Rivera dies at 91 2024-01-30
- Chita Rivera—a Broadway legend with more than seven decades of credits—has died at age 91 after a short illness, People Magazine reported. "It is with immense personal sorrow that I announce the death of the beloved ...


Gay News

PASSSAGES Chef Michael Thomas Zito 2024-01-02
- Chef Michael Thomas Zito, 55, ("Chef Bear Italia" and "Big Chef") passed away December 12, 2023, unexpectedly at home in Chicago's Belmont Gardens neighborhood. Born in Kentucky to Pentecostal missionaries from New York, Mike began cooking ...


Gay News

Gay political trailblazer Ken Sherrill passes away at age 81 2023-12-30
- Kenneth Sherrill—a pioneering political scientist who was also the first out gay elected official in New York history—died in early December at age 81 from surgical complications, Gay City News reported. He is survived by his ...


Gay News

PASSAGES Paris Johnson 2023-12-29
- Paris Johnson, 29, of Chicago's West Loop neighborhood, passed away unexpectedly Nov. 28. He would have celebrated his 30th birthday Dec. 20. Born into a military family in Sacramento, California, Paris moved often in his youth, ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.