17 August 2010
by Jesse Monteagudo
Steven Wayne Foster is almost a Native Floridian.
Though he was born in Virginia in 1943, he moved with his family to
Miami a year later and grew up in Miami Shores. Foster studied at
Miami-Dade College and the University of Miami, where he received a
Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in History.
When Foster was 17 years old and in high school, he discovered gay
history. "I came across Sir Richard Francis Burton's translation of
the Arabian Nights from 1880, which included a very long article
about the history of homosexuality.
Years later, in D.C., I discovered a copy of 'GAY' on a newsstand, by
Jack Nichols," he commented, indicating that turned him on to an
article about the NY Mattachine Society, and "an awareness that
nobody was writing about gay history and that there was a need for
this. So I felt that if anybody was going to do it I should do it."
Now retired, Foster lives in an apartment in Coral Gables that he
first occupied in 1975, having witnessed over a half-century of South
Florida gay history and culture.
His scholarly journey began as student in the UM Library, where, he
says, "I took a notebook and a pen and went saw thousands of books
before me… starting with The History and Development of the Moral
Ideas by Edward Westermarck, which contained a long essay about gay
history. It formed the structure for all of my research after that."
Making exhaustive trips to the on-campus libraries, Foster estimates
he gathered notes from at least "5,000 books."
Though Foster says that he realized that he was gay when he was 13,
he did not 'come out' until he was 26, encountering other gays at the
popular corner of 21st Street and Collins Avenue, near the gay
beach. But he notes it was no easy going back then, "That was a time
when the Miami Beach police were real bastards and used the laws as
excuses to raid gay bars and make gay folks miserable in so many ways."
Gays did not immediately organize in Miami. In 1972, though, Foster,
along with Barry Spawn, Bob Barry, Bob Basker, and Frank Arango,
helped create 'Gay Activists Alliance of Miami.' Foster was the
treasurer. "They trusted me," he said. "I had to keep the money in my
own account. We did not have a corporation or anything."
One of Foster's achievements during his GAA-Miami days was the
creation of South Florida's first LGBT library. Foster approached
the Rev. Don Olson, pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church, and asked
him if he could use an empty room on the second floor of their
facility. He got the go ahead and added some shelves, his private
collection of books and publications, and opened the 'Center for
Dialog.' It was short lived, he said. "Rev. Olson said that he was
embarrassed because straight people might walk past the open door of
the library and see that it contained gay material- so he wanted me
to keep the door shut. I felt very insulted by that and I gathered
up all the material and took it home. So our first gay library
lasted maybe three weeks." About a year later before Mark Silber
founded the Stonewall Library.
GAA-Miami and Foster remained active, filing a class action suit
against Miami Beach in 1972, challenging its laws against
cross-dressing in public. In the same year, GAA-Miami members joined
other activists to protest both the Democratic and Republican
conventions which were being held on Miami Beach. Many gays gathered
in Flamingo Park, the protest site. The respected Dr. Franklin Kameny
of Washington, D.C. was amongst the protesters.
Unfortunately, GAA-Miami did not long survive the 1972
conventions. As Foster recalls, "that when the conventions went away
and the antiwar demonstrators went away the whole thing died down and
people lost interest." Foster himself lost interest and says he
resigned "over internal feuding." He indicated that even though there
was over 250 people on the GAA mailing list, that "by the end of
1973, GAA-Miami was history."
Foster tried to start a gay student group at UM, but says that was
also short-lived, at least in part to a case of agoraphobia
overcoming him. "It discouraged my ability to take part in Miami's
growing LGBT movement," adding it is no longer an issue in his life.
By withdrawing from political activism, Foster says he was able to
return to his "firstlove, gay history." He was becoming a major
contributor, authoring anthologies on Sir Francis Burton, and
assisting Jonathan Katz with his groundbreaking Gay American History.
Through the years, Foster helped many other gay scholars write their
books. Proudly, he notes that "my name is mentioned in at least
thirty books, usually in the form of footnotes saying, 'I wish to
thank Steven Foster for his help'".
Separately, Foster also contributed original essays and translations
to the pioneer gay journal Gay Sunshine. He has also contributed
articles on gay communities for the 1990 publication of The
Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and later for The Encyclopedia of
Homosexuality.
At the time, many of those articles were written by authors who chose
to use pseudonyms, to keep their names hidden," Foster notes, "Not
me. I used my real name."
Steven Wayne Foster's cross-section of writings includes a wealth of
gay legends, from Oscar Wilde to Charles Fourier. As he notes, they
are all in his own name, one that has stood the test of time, endured
the days of adversity, and still stands tall today.
--
Jesse Monteagudo is SFGN's Senior Feature Correspondent and a South
Florida resident since 1964. Jesse invites other veterans of South
Florida's LGBT community to share their experiences with
him. Contact him at jessemonteagudo@aol.com
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment