Stormé DeLarverie

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Stormé DeLarverie (* circa December 24, 1920 in New Orleans - † May 24, 2014 in Brooklyn ) was an American artist and LGBT activist. According to her own statements, as well as numerous reports by eyewitnesses and assessments by historians, DeLarverie's arrest and her subsequent punch against a police officer were the trigger for the uprising in Stonewall . This event is considered to be instrumental in the worldwide lesbian and gay movementalthough the beginnings of the insurrection have never been fully clarified. Because of this alleged role and her activism, especially for her regular tours of Greenwich Village to protect the queer people there, especially the lesbian women, DeLarverie was referred to as " Rosa Parks of the US LGBT community" during her lifetime . Her appearances as drag king in a nationally known revue in the 1950s and 1960s were described as significant for the drag scene in the United States. Her androgynous style in personal life is believed to be one of the first signs of a growing popularity of gender neutral clothing in the United States.

Early years

Stormé DeLarverie was born in New Orleans in 1920 . Her African American mother worked as a domestic worker for a white man whom she later married. Because mixed marriages were illegal at the time, DeLarverie never received a birth certificate and therefore did not know her exact birthday, which she always celebrated on Christmas Eve instead . In her childhood, DeLarverie faced massive hostility from her peers of both white and African American origins. She had to wear a leg brace after a fight , and one day she suffered an injury to her other leg when she was hung from a fence post. Because of this, her father finally decided to send her to a private school outside of her residential area for a few years .

As a teenager, DeLarverie was a show jumper in the Ringling Brothers Circus , she quit this activity after falling from a horse, in which she sustained several broken bones. At the age of 18, DeLarverie sensed she was a lesbian and moved to Chicago fearing that she would be murdered in the south for her homosexuality. In her late teens she also began a career as Alt - Jazz -Interpretin, taking the stage name Stormy Dale accepted. Since 1939 DeLarverie was a member of various jazz and swing bands, with some of them she occasionally toured Europe. Apart from this activity earned DeLarverie own words their money in Chicago as a bodyguard in for Mafiosi . In 1944 DeLarverie met a dancer named Diana, with whom she was from now on in a relationship.

In 1946 DeLarverie visited her friends Danny Brown and Doc Brenner in Miami . They were members of the Drag - Revue Danny's Jewel Box and asked them for help in organizing their performance. DeLarverie finally offered himself as a drag- king for the two, although she was advised against it by friends. She initially only wanted to work for the two of them in drag for six months, but due to the popularity of her style, she decided to also appear in men's clothing at her jazz performances. This increased their popularity with the audience, which enabled their bands to perform at well-known venues such as Radio City Music Hall or Copacabana .

Jewel Box Revue

Stormé DeLarverie together with three drag queens from the Revue from the holdings of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
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(Please note copyrights )

From 1955 to 1969 DeLarverie toured the United States as a show master, musical director, occasional stage manager and sole drag king of the Jewel Box Revue , which developed from Danny's Jewel Box , which is equally popular with queer and heterosexual people . The Jewel Box Revue , which in addition to DeLarverie had 25 members, was the first American drag cabaret in which white and African-American drag artists performed together. Usually three to four performances of the group took place in one evening, preferably in well-known nightclubs and locations in New York City, but also in other large cities. A common venue was the Apollo Theater in Harlem ; the revue also appeared more often in the Radio City Music Hall and the Copacabana, to which DeLarverie was invited as the front woman of her bands. Non-white viewers were allowed in all of the revue's performances - a rarity during segregation in the United States.

During the performances, the audience was regularly asked to guess the only female artist in the ensemble, which DeLarverie's masculine appearance, for example tailored suits with bow ties and false mustaches, almost never succeeded in doing. At the end of every performance, DeLarverie finally revealed herself as a woman during the song A Surprise with a Song . Since then, practically only drag queen 's occurred to DeLarveries status of known drag king in the country's popular Revue and its subversive acclaimed performances drag scene developed in retrospect to a force as influential and historic turning point in the US. As a prominent face of the revue, DeLarverie also made the acquaintance of numerous well-known artists of the era with whom she befriended, for example Sammy Davis, Jr. and her personal role models Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday .

In 1969, after the death of her longtime partner, DeLarverie retired from the entertainment business and instead made a living as a bodyguard for wealthy families. That year she also got involved with the LGBT community for the first time by joining a queer rights organization and working as a bouncer and security guard for lesbian bars like Cubby Hole .

Influence on fashion

Thanks to her experience in the revue with costumes, acting, and appearances in male masks, DeLarverie was able to impersonate both men and women, as well as white and African American. Due to her fame in the New York LGBT scene, self-confident charisma that many women find attractive and androgynous demeanor, she probably inspired other lesbians in the city to wear men's clothes. According to her own statement, DeLarverie already wore men's clothes in her early years in New York, which then others did the same. In addition to friends and lovers who photographed them in three-piece suits and men's hats, DeLarverie was also photographed in masculine clothing by the well-known photographer Diane Arbus . Her style should have reached even more women through the pictures. One of those photographs titled Miss Stormé de Larverie, the Lady Who Appears to be a Gentleman, NYC . from 1961 shows DeLarverie in a suit, ankle boots and a cigarette in hand, sitting on a park bench. This photo was also shown in several Arbus retrospectives, including in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 2016. Amy Arbus , the daughter of the photo artist, described photography in an article in Time that same year as a friendly, gentle and simple exploration of an open, honest and easily dreamy soul. DeLarverie viewed Arbus in a fascinating way that was mutual. In later years, DeLarverie's way of dressing was cited as one of the first known examples of and influences on gender neutral fashion in the United States, long before unisex styles became mainstream .

Role in Stonewall

On the night of 28 June 1969 the police led Stonewall Inn in New York City in the 1960s in gay bars usually a raid by. Customers in women's clothing were led to the toilets by officers, and those with male physical features were finally arrested. That evening, however, a number of people resisted these "investigations", so the police decided to bring all male and female crossdressers to the station. While she was waiting for reinforcements to transport the arrested, a group of 100 to 150 people formed in front of the bar, consisting of onlookers and guests who were let out by the police. The mood within the growing group began to intensify when bar employees and customers were sometimes forcibly brought into the patrol cars; The first coins and bottles flew towards the patrol cars because the officers still in the bar were said to have hit guests and touched women immorally. The complete escalation allegedly occurred when a woman who was described by eyewitnesses as a crossdresser and typical New York butch was about to be taken to a police car. She disappeared into the crowd several times, but was eventually arrested again, verbally and physically resisting being arrested by at least four police officers. Finally, an officer is said to have injured her head with his baton because she complained about the tight handcuffs. She punched the policeman in the face with a bleeding laceration and urged bystanders to take action. When she was then to be taken to the police car, the crowd became furious and engaged in fights with the police, who withdrew from the scene after a few hours.

Banner at the Europride in Vienna 2019 (inscription everyone knows that the black lesbian Stormé was the trigger for Stonewall )

After another five days of renewed unrest, LGBT organizations and newspapers targeting homosexuals began to form in the United States in the months ahead. After a year, the first Gay Prides took place. These developments spread to other countries in the following years, which is why the events in Stonewall are considered a milestone in the national and international lesbian and gay movement . That is why the woman has been referred to as the " Rosa Parks of the US LGBT community".

Ultimately, it has not been clearly established whether and, if so, which woman exactly initiated the uprising. This is due to widely varying testimonies and press reports on the incident. Several people testified that the heated mood was escalated by a single woman who resisted her arrest. According to others, several butches were still fighting her arrest in the bar, one of whom was already bleeding when she was brought from the Stonewall Inn. According to eyewitness Craig Rodwell , a bookseller and an important figure in the LGBT movement, the woman's arrest was not the main reason for the escalation, but one of many simultaneous incidents that eventually turned the mood into mass anger.

However, several witnesses, historians, and writers such as Charles Kaiser in his book The Gay Metropolis on the history of the American LGBT movement claimed that this woman was DeLarverie. She herself mentioned this to friends, which Lisa Cannistraci, one of her closest confidants, confirmed to The New York Times after her death . Like the woman's identity, DeLarverie was actually one of several butches who fought against the police that night. In an interview with LGBT magazine Curve in 2008, DeLarverie first stated in a major publication that he was the so-called Stonewall Lesbian . A police officer took her for a man, called her a fagot and wounded her because she did not want to go to the police car . With their fist, those present mobilized and attacked the officers. She never committed herself to this role because it wasn't anyone's business. In 2010, DeLarverie told The New York Times that she had not been injured by the police, but shortly afterwards she claimed that an officer hit her on the head from behind with an object unknown to her, to which she responded with a punch. This discrepancy was most likely due to DeLarverie's dementia.

More activism

During the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, DeLarverie was asked at a restaurant by Patrick Merry, the volunteer organizer at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan , for a $ 5 donation to help severely ill AIDS patients who are likely to Wouldn't see the next festival again, were given presents for Christmas and gifts could be obtained for their relatives. DeLarverie then left the place, came back a few hours later with $ 2,000 and promised to bring more money the next day.

In the same decade, DeLarverie continued her work as a bouncer and security officer; next to the locality Ruby Fruit she was among other LGBT bars continue to Cubby Hole active . From 1985 the student Lisa Cannistraci worked there as a bartender; She acquired the bar in 1990 when it was about to close and reopened it a year later under the new name Henrietta Hudson . She also became a good friend of DeLarveries, who was employed by Henrietta Hudson until she was 85 . DeLarverie also maintained friendships with numerous LGBT people, often guests of the bars, some decades younger than her and referred to by her as "babies" or "children". Despite her withdrawal from the entertainment industry, DeLarverie still performed as a singer and show master at LGBT and benefit events, some of which she organized herself, for women and children who had been victims of domestic violence , among others . When asked why she still appeared for this group in her old age, she replied that after all, someone would have to take care of herself, as the child of an African-American mother growing up in the southern states in the early 20th century, would no longer be alive, if herself no one would have taken care of her back then. DeLarverie also hosted the popular annual The Gay Bar People's Ball , a nightly event that featured prominent figures from New York City's LGBT nightlife scene and received awards.

DeLarverie also spent years patrolling the streets of Manhattan, which is why she was known in the community as the protector of lesbians in Greenwich Village . During her tours she carried several firearms and a hidden razor with her and walked mostly through Seventh and Eighth Avenues in Lower Manhattan and the West Village . She guarded the neighborhoods and bars popular there in the LGBT community by looking for "ugliness", her name for physical or verbal attacks directed against queer people.

DeLarverie also campaigned in later years as a member of the Stonewall Veterans' Association for LGBT people, which mainly includes people who had personally witnessed the events in Stonewall. The main goals of the organization are to provide financial support to queer people in need, especially senior citizens, and to educate the public in the United States about historical and current LGBT issues. DeLarverie worked for the group as chairman of the security service, member of the governing body, ambassador and, from 1998 to 2000, vice-president.

Late years and death

Stormé DeLarverie at the age of 74 from the archives of The New York Times
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(Please note copyrights )

DeLarverie lived in New York's Chelsea Hotel for several decades . When she was threatened with eviction in 1999 because she could not pay the rising rent, she received financial support from Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders , SAGE for short , an organization for LGBT seniors, and a SAGE employee has since helped her because of her high rent Age even with everyday activities. Towards the end of the 2000s, DeLarverie was increasingly suffering from the consequences of her dementia , which is why neighbors as well as guests and employees of the East of Eighth restaurant, which is located directly next to the hotel, looked after her free of charge by helping her to eat, among other things. They also supported these people when they threatened to lose their place of residence again due to planned renovation work. Long-time tenants like DeLarverie were eventually allowed to stay at the hotel while the work was going on.

In March 2010, DeLarverie was found disoriented by a friend and neighbor after a fall in her hotel room. Because DeLarverie suffered from tremors and dehydration , she was admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital. Since DeLarverie had neither living relatives nor a life partner, the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged ( JASA for short ), a municipal care and assistance program for the elderly, was appointed by court order to be its legal representative. While DeLarverie was recovering, the hospital closed due to bankruptcy; DeLarverie was admitted to the Oxford Nursing Home in Brooklyn . A short time later, she was interviewed by a journalist from AfterEllen , who in her report was shocked about what she described as a run-down home that resembles an institution. During the conversation, DeLarverie believed he was still living at the Chelsea Hotel, but was still able to accurately relate memories of her early years, Stonewall, and loved ones. Several weeks before this interview, several people were worried about DeLarverie because, very unusual for them, she had not appeared at the city's Gay Pride. Because of this, a reporter for The New York Times wanted to find out about her condition. DeLarverie had forgotten both the gay pride date and her age and thought she'd been living in the nursing home for years. In the same publication, Lisa Cannistraci complained about the LGBT community that DeLarverie was indifferent to. This is also due to the young age of today's LGBT activists who did not know DeLarverie; there is hardly anyone left who knows her.

After DeLarverie's admission to the nursing home, her friends were troubled by the fact that she was not allowed to leave the nursing home even for short walks with company. Leah Ferster, a member of the JASA board, claimed that DeLarverie's state of health often does not allow it to be outside, but she would be happy to work with friends to come up with a plan to let DeLarverie go outside for a few hours a day; Also SAGE offered DeLarveries friends of similar calls. Lisa Cannistraci and Michele Zalopany (another friend of DeLarverie's) were frustrated by the allegedly inadequate communication between the two organizations.

One of DeLarverie's friends suggested having her taken to the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood , an assisted living facility for artists. He therefore asked the support of the influential politician Steve Rothman and Dennis McNerney, head of Bergen County , but this did not lead to anything. Lisa Cannistraci and Michele Zalopany finally turned to an editor of the New York LGBT magazine GO in late 2010 because she had worked for the House of Representatives Jerrold Nadler . Cannistraci and Zalopany wanted DeLarverie to move into the more modern Consumer Action Bed-Stuy Nursing Home with more employees and leisure activities for residents, where a long-time friend DeLarveries had already lived. Nadler referred the two to the lawyer Peter J. Strauss, with whose assistance they finally received the guardianship for DeLarverie and had them moved to the other home.

DeLarverie died while sleeping in her Brooklyn nursing home on May 24, 2014 of a heart attack . DeLarverie's memorial service and funeral took place five days later with great sympathy at the Greenwich Village Funeral Home.

Appreciations

In 1991 filmmaker Michelle Parkerson released her documentary Storme: Lady of the Jewel Box about DeLarverie's time in the Jewel Box Revue. A short documentary film called A Stormé Life was released in 2001. The feature film Stormé by the documentary filmmaker and photographer Sam Bassett was shown after its world premiere in New York in 2008 on July 11, 2010 at Webster Hall , a nightclub in the East Village .

On June 7, 2012, DeLarverie was recognized by the urban LGBT non-profit Brooklyn Pride, Inc for her lifelong activism in the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture building ; Storme: Lady of the Jewel Box was also performed there on the occasion . On April 24, 2014, DeLarverie was honored for her "fearlessness and bravery" along with Edith Windsor from the LGBT community center Brooklyn Community Pride Center . That same year, a few weeks before her death, she received official recognition of her services to the American LGBT community from Letitia James , the New York City Public Advocate .

In June 2019, DeLarverie was one of the first 50 people to be "pioneers, trailblazers and heroes" at the National LGBTQ, alongside her then colleagues Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, as well as other important LGBT activists such as James Baldwin , Vito Russo and Bayard Rustin Wall of Honor , a memorial wall in the Stonewall Inn. The wall was unveiled in the bar, the surrounding area of ​​which was declared a National Monument in 2016 , on the 50th anniversary of the uprising.

On October 22, 2020, the docudrama series Equal first aired on HBO Max , about the beginnings of the lesbian and gay movement in the United States. In it, DeLarverie is portrayed by actress Elizabeth Ludlow .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Jim Luce: Gay Community's Rosa Parks Faces Death, Impoverished and Alone. In: Huffpost . July 12, 2010, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  2. ^ A b c d e f William Yardley: Storme DeLarverie, Early Leader in the Gay Rights Movement, Dies at 93. In: The New York Times . May 29, 2014, accessed November 9, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Elyssa Goodman: Drag Herstory: A Drag King's Journey From Cabaret Legend to Iconic Activist. In: them. March 29, 2018, accessed November 9, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b Shereen Marisol Meraji, Gene Demby: They Do not Say Enough Our Names. In: National Public Radio . June 27, 2020, accessed December 10, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Grace: From the Archives: An interview with Lesbian Stonewall Veteran Stormé DeLarverie. In: AfterEllen . June 5, 2018, accessed November 9, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b Trish Bendix: Stormé DeLarverie passes away, the community loses a legend. In: AfterEllen. May 27, 2014, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  7. ↑ a b c d Krystal Grow: Long Live the Legacy of Storme DeLarverie. In: Vocativ. June 27, 2014, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Rachel Tashjian, Style A Brief History of Stormé DeLarverie, Stonewall's Suiting Icon. In: GQ - Gentlemen's Quarterly . June 27, 2019, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  9. ↑ David Carter: Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution . St. Martin's Press, Manhattan 2004, ISBN 0-312-20025-0 , p. 142.
    Donn Teal: The Gay Militans . St. Martin's Press, Manhattan 1971, ISBN 0-312-11279-3 , p. 2.
  10. ↑ David Carter: Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution . St. Martin's Press, Manhattan 2004, ISBN 0-312-20025-0 , pp. 147-148.
  11. ^ Martin Duberman : Stonewall . Penguin Books , New York City 1993, ISBN 0-452-27206-8 , p. 196.
  12. ↑ David Carter: Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution . St. Martin's Press, Manhattan 2004, ISBN 0-312-20025-0 , pp. 151-152.
    Lucian K. Truscott IV: The night they busted Stonewall. In: Salon.com . June 28, 2017, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Dudley Clendinen, Adam Nagourney: Out for Good . Simon & Schuster , New York City 1999, ISBN 978-0-684-81091-1 , p. 31.
    Dudly Clendinen, Adam Nagourney: Out for Good . Simon & Schuster, New York City 1999, ISBN 978-0-684-81091-1 , p. 40.
    Kathleen LaFrank: National Historic Landmark Nomination . National Park Service (1999), p. 20.
  14. ↑ David Carter: Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution . St. Martin's Press, Manhattan 2004, ISBN 0-312-20025-0 , pp. 152-153.
  15. ^ Martin Duberman: Stonewall . Penguin Books, New York City 1993, ISBN 0-452-27206-8 , p. 197.
  16. ^ Charles Kaiser: The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America . Grove Press, New York City 2007, ISBN 978-0-8021-4317-4 .
  17. ↑ a b c Manny Fernandez: A Stonewall Veteran, 89, Misses the Parade. In: The New York Times. June 27, 2010, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  18. ^ A b Robert West: Stormé DeLarverie: In a Storm of Indifference, She's Still a Jewel. In: Huffpost. March 26, 2013, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  19. ↑ a b c Erin M. Drinkwater: Remembering Storme DeLarverie. In: Go. June 14, 2014, accessed November 9, 2020 .
  20. ^ Kristi K: Something Like A Super Lesbian: Stormé DeLarverie (In Memoriam). In: The K Word. May 28, 2014, accessed November 10, 2020 . Lynn De La Cruz: Stonewall Veteran, Drag King Icon Stormé DeLarverie Dies At 93. In: The Advocate . May 27, 2014, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  21. ↑ Danielle Tcholakian: Hundreds Mourn Gay Rights Pioneer at Memorial. In: DNAinfo. May 30, 2014, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  22. ↑ Cal Goodin: The Unsung Heroines of Stonewall. In: National Parks Conservation Association. October 1, 2020, accessed on November 11, 2020 .
  23. ↑ Jim Luce: Film on the Life and Times of Stonewall Veteran Storme DeLarverie by Sam Bassett. In: Daily Kos. July 13, 2010, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  24. ↑ Harley Osgood: Stormé DeLarverie (1920-2014). In: Black Past. September 30, 2018, accessed November 10, 2020 .
  25. ↑ Timothy Rawles: National LGBTQ Wall of Honor to be unveiled at historic Stonewall Inn. In: SDLGBTN. June 19, 2019, accessed November 11, 2020 .
  26. ↑ Denise Petski: 'Equal': Samira Wiley, Anthony Rapp, Cheyenne Jackson Among Cast For HBO Max's LGBTQ + Docuseries. In: Deadline.com . August 25, 2020, accessed on November 25, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME DeLarverie, Stormé
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American artist and LGBT activist
DATE OF BIRTH December 24, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH New Orleans , Louisiana
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 2014
Place of death Brooklyn , New York