A few events worth celebrating and/or remembering…
AUGUST 27, 1782
John Laurens dies at the age of 28. He was an American soldier and statesman from South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War, best known for his criticism of slavery and efforts to help recruit slaves to fight for their freedom as U.S. soldiers. Though he was married, letters between Laurens and Alexander Hamilton indicate that the two men had an affair. From a young age, Laurens apparently exhibited a lack of interest in women. Laurens’ biographer Gregory D. Massey states that he “reserved his primary emotional commitments for other men.” Though he eventually married, it was a union born out of regret. While in London for his studies, Laurens impregnated Martha Manning and married her to preserve the legitimacy of their child. Laurens wrote to this uncle, “Pity has obliged me to marry.” Hamilton had “at the very least” an “adolescent crush” on Laurens. Chernow also states that “Hamilton did not form friendships easily and never again revealed his interior life to another man as he had to Laurens. […] After the death of John Laurens, Hamilton shut off some compartment of his emotions and never reopened it.”
AUGUST 27, 1873
Dancer and actress Maud Allan was born in Toronto, Ontario. From the 1920s on, Allan taught dance and lived with her secretary and lover, Verna Aldrich.
AUGUST 27, 1890
Artist Man Ray is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
AUGUST 27, 1950
BBC airs the first live TV from continental Europe.AUGUST 27, 1951
California Supreme Court ruled that the mere congregation of homosexuals at the Black Cat Bar was not sufficient grounds for suspending the bar’s liquor license. The Black Cat Bar or Black Cat Café was a bar in San Francisco, California that had originally opened in 1906 and closed in 1921. The Black Cat re-opened in 1933 and operated for another 30 years. During its second run of operation, it was a hangout for Beats and bohemians but over time began attracting more and more of a gay clientele. The Black Cat closed down for good in February of 1964. The site is now the location of Bocadillos, a tapas-style restaurant. On December 15, 2007, a plaque commemorating the Black Cat and its place in San Francisco history was placed at the site.AUGUST 27, 1952
Roman Holiday premieres in the United States.AUGUST 27, 1956
Socialite Gloria Vanderbilt weds "12 Angry Men" director Sidney Lumet.
AUGUST 27, 1958
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof premieres in the United States.August 27, 1961
Fashion designer and filmmaker Tom Ford is born in Austin, Texas.
AUGUST 27, 1964
Mary Poppins premieres in Los Angeles, California.AUGUST 27, 1966
Law student and future politician Joe Biden weds fellow Syracuse University classmate and future teacher Neilia Hunter.
AUGUST 27, 1967
Beatles manager Brian Epstein dies of a drug overdose. Although John Lennon often made sarcastic comments about Epstein’s homosexuality to friends and to Epstein personally, no one outside the group’s inner circle was allowed to comment. Male homosexual activity was illegal in England and Wales until September 1967 when it was decriminalized; however, this was one month after Eptein’s death.
AUGUST 27, 1969
Erica Mann dies in Zurich. She was a German actress and writer and the eldest daughter of the novelist Thomas Mann and his wife Katia. In 1924, Erika Mann moved to Berlin where she lived a bohemian lifestyle and became a critic of National Socialism. She acted in, and wrote for, an anti-Nazi cabaret in Berlin. After Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann moved to Switzerland. She married gay poet W. H. Auden (February 21, 1907 – September 29,1973). The marriage was arranged in 1935 by Christopher Isherwood to help Mann get a British passport to flee Nazi Germany. Mann remained active in liberal causes and continued to attack Nazism in her writings, most notably with her 1938 book School for Barbarians which was a critique of the Nazi education system. Erika was in a relationship with actress Pamela Wedekind. She would later have relationships with actress Therese Giehse, author and photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach and dancer Betty Knox with whom she served as a war correspondent during World War II.AUGUST 27, 1992
Colorado Republican senate candidate Terry Considine refers to AIDS as a self-inflicted injury during a town meeting and equates AIDS with gun violence and drug abuse.AUGUST 27, 1992
In New York City the local 6th police precinct defeated the New York Matts in a softball game. Matts was short for Mattachines, a gay organization. It attracted approximately 1,000 spectators and raised $1,000 for mentally disabled children. Geraldo Rivera was the first base umpire.AUGUST 27, 1998
At the 16th Annual Gay and Lesbian Medical Association Symposium in Chicago, attorney Aaron Greenberg argues that if the gay gene is isolated, parents should have the right to abort a gay fetus or have its genetic makeup altered.AUGUST 27, 2000
After a four-year absence, the Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade is held in Japan. Beginning in 1996 as the First Les-Bi-Gay Pride March Sapporo, for the next two years it was the Sexual Minority Pride March, and from 1999 became the Rainbow March. It has become an annual public event of Sapporo and the longest, continuously run LGBT parade in Japan. The 1999 Rainbow Parade was also the first pride parade in Japan to feature floats. Called the Tokyo Lesbian & Gay Parade (TLGP), the event took place in 2000 in the form of a march around the Shibuya district. The Parade went on, taking place in late summer of the two subsequent years, 2001 and 2002, now attracting crowds of over 3,000.
AUGUST 27, 2005
Sen. John McCain announces that although he is opposed a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, he supports a state version in his home state of Arizona.AUGUST 27, 2008
Activit Del Martin dies in San Francisco, survived by her wife Phyllis Lyon. Together since 1952, they cofounded Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the first social and political organization in the United States, in 1955.
As an old man, I lived through some of these events. I experienced similar things in my early life. It is important to remember that we triumphed. This will support people to an extent when the political pendulum swings back pushed by MAGA for example.