Chicago History Museum (CHM) and Gerber/Hart Library and Archives (Gerber/Hart) celebrated the centennial of Henry Gerber’s Society for Human Rights with an OUT at CHM event, 100 Years of LGBTQIA+ Rights: Henry Gerber and the Society for Human Rights, Dec. 10 at the CHM.
The conversation focused on Gerber’s life, early LGBTQ+ history in the U.S. and how Gerber’s Society for Human Rights has continued to be influential, as well as Chicago’s crucial place in queer/trans history. Ahead of the discussion, attendees were invited to take part in a guided tour of the Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art of the 1960s–70s exhibit led by docent volunteer Nancy Stone.
CHM Senior Public and Community Engagement Manager Greg Storms served as the event moderator. Panelists included Gerber/Hart Operations Director Erin Bell; Gerber/Hart Development Manager Michael Rashid; Legacy Project Co-Founder, author, LGBTQ+ historian and researcher Owen Keehnen; and longtime Chicago LGBTQ+ activist Gary Chichester.
Rashid mentioned that the Jim Elledge book An Angel in Sodom: Henry Gerber and the Birth of the Gay Rights Movement helped him understand Gerber immensely. He shared some spicy stories about Gerber and suggested Jonathan Bailey for a biopic about Gerber’s life. Rashid also spoke about Gerber’s discoveries in Berlin: the openness of its queer/trans community, and Magnus Hirschfeld’s Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee) and Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science).
Those experiences inspired Gerber to create the Society for Human Rights (which lasted less than a year) once he returned to Chicago in 1923. Rashid also noted that one of the other Society For Human Rights co-founders and president was a Black pastor named John T. Graves, which made it the first interracial LGBTQ+ organization in the U.S.
Bell said that Gerber had to use coded language in the Articles of Incorporation for the Society so people, wouldn’t know this was a queer rights organization. She talked about the organization’s Friendship and Freedom publication and how only two issues were published before the Society was raided and records confiscated, which resulted in the organization being shuttered and Gerber’s arrest.
Bell also noted that Hirschfeld visited Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair and was inspired by the openness that he saw in Tower Town and other neighborhoods; that in turn influenced his return to Berlin, where he founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee. Gerber later discovered the Committee and came back to Chicago, where he co-founded the Society For Human Rights.
Keehnen spoke more about how Gerber was influenced by Hirschfeld and his Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, the freedoms German citizens enjoyed during the Weimar Republic, as well as Paragraph 175, the legislation that criminalized LGBTQ+ people in Germany.
Chichester discussed his own experience as a young out gay man in the ‘60s and how he used to go to a coffee shop called The Hollywood on Diversey and Clark to meet other gay men. He said that eventually the bars became their town halls because they were the only places where queer people could meet each other in relative safety. He also recalled his involvement in the 1968 protests against the Vietnam War where he marched with Dick Gregory and others and was tear gassed. The boots Chichester wore that day are the ones on display in the Designing for Change.
Storms asked what each panelist thought the future of LGBTQ+ activism should be. Bell said access to usable and digestible information in a variety of formats is very important. Rashid noted being present in whatever way is most comfortable to that individual, which runs the gamut from direct actions to being an out and proud LGBTQ+ person in one’s everyday life. Keehnen said that it is now important to entrench as much of LGBTQ+ history as possible and come together as a queer/trans community due to the current political climate in the U.S.
Chichester spoke about Jim Flint’s brand of activism and the existence of events like OUT at the CHM to spread these messages. Storms said that the future means a shift in focus towards queer/trans youth and to listen to their needs.
Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) Public Service Administrator Outreach Coordinator Oscar Briseno also spoke at the event, highlighting a new hotline IDHR recently launched called Help Stop Hate.
