I have to admit I had never heard of the massacre at the Upstairs Lounge before reading
Chris Clarks' post today. But
there's a reason for that.
The UpStairs Lounge arson was the deadliest fire in New Orleans
history and the largest massacre of gay people ever in the U.S. Yet it
didn’t make much of an impact news-wise. The few respectable news
organizations that deigned to cover the tragedy made little of the fact
that the majority of the victims had been gay, while talk-radio hosts
tended to take a jocular or sneering tone: What do we bury them in? Fruit jars, sniggered one, on the air, only a day after the massacre.
Other, smaller disasters resulted in City Hall press conferences or
statements of condolence from the governor, but no civil
authorities publicly spoke out about the fire, other than to mumble
about needed improvements to the city’s fire code.
Continuing this pattern of neglect, the New Orleans police
department appeared lackluster about the investigation (the officers
involved denied it). The detectives wouldn’t even acknowledge that it
was an arson case, saying the cause of the fire was of “undetermined
origin.” No one was ever charged with the crime, although an itinerant
troublemaker with known mental problems, Rogder Dale Nunez,
is said to have claimed responsibility multiple times. Nunez, a
sometime visitor to the UpStairs Lounge, committed suicide in 1974.
Watch the trailer for Royd Anderson’s new documentary about the UpStairs Lounge:
Clarke writes:
It was a horrible murderous act, with 32 people dead, and Terry’s
post is really hard to read. Not only for the description of the
suffering (with a grotesque photo of the body of Metropolitan Community
Church pastor Bill Larson, be warned) but also for the description of
the reaction of locals after the event.
Tough reading, but do it anyway if you can. The victims at the
UpStairs Lounge have been all but forgotten. They fucking well deserve
better, and so do we.
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