The Society of Fools: Harry Hay & the Mattachine Society, America's First Gay Rights Group (1950) | LGBTQ+ History Sleep Story

Drift off to sleep learning about the Mattachine Society, the first lasting gay rights organization in the United States, and Harry Hay, the man who called it into being in a Silver Lake living room.Born April 7, 1912, in Worthing, England, and raised in Los Angeles, Harry Hay learned to organize in the theater, the labor movement, and the Communist Party, which would have expelled him had it known he was gay. In 1948 he drafted "The Call" after a half-joking idea for "Bachelors for Wallace," and on November 11, 1950, five men, Hay, his partner Rudi Gernreich, Bob Hull, Chuck Rowland, and Dale Jennings, held the first meeting of what they first called the Society of Fools. Renamed the Mattachine Society after the masked medieval French dancers who could mock the powerful with impunity, it was built in secret cells with a hidden leadership called the Fifth Order. In 1952 co-founder Dale Jennings was arrested by an undercover vice officer in Westlake Park; instead of pleading guilty he went to trial, admitted he was homosexual, denied the charge, and the jury deadlocked, the first known victory of an organized gay rights group in an American courtroom. Membership surged, ONE Magazine launched in January 1953, and then the McCarthy-era panic over Communist founders forced Hay and the original leadership out at the 1953 conventions. Hay met his life partner John Burnside, the kaleidoscope inventor, in 1963; they were "loving companions" for 39 years and co-founded the Radical Faeries in 1979. Hay died October 24, 2002, aged 90. The Mattachine Steps in Silver Lake were dedicated in 2012.This episode is told twice, first at a natural pace, then again slowly with long pauses to guide you into sleep. Imagery includes a hillside above the Silver Lake reservoir, a circle of chairs in a curtained living room, a mimeograph turning at midnight, and a fire on an Arizona mountain.🌙 Perfect for: sleep stories, LGBTQ+ history, gay rights movement, 1950s history, homophile movement, bedtime meditation, queer history podcast💜 If Restful Rainbow helps you sleep, subscribe, and tell us in the comments: who first told you that you were part of a people?💜 Support the show: https://restful-rainbow.captivate.fm/supportRelated episodes:Frank Kameny: The Astronomer Who Reached for Justice (066)Quiet Courage: The Birth of the Daughters of Bilitis (068)José Sarria's Quiet Courage in a World of Shadows (053)The Stonewall Uprising: A Gentle Wave of Change (058)"A call to me more important than life." Harry Hay, on founding the Mattachine Society#MattachineSociety #HarryHay #LGBTQHistory #SleepStory #QueerHistory #GayHistory #BedtimeStory #SleepMeditation #GayRights #HomophileMovement #DaleJennings #RudiGernreich #RadicalFaeries #SilverLake #LosAngeles #1950s #ONEMagazine #LGBTQPodcast #RestfulRainbow #PrideHistory