CFA Assistant Director’s Stonewall 50 Project Receives the 2021 Boston Preservation Alliance Award
As a board member of The History Project, the only organization focused on documenting and preserving the history of New England’s LGBTQ communities, Mark Krone, assistant director of graduate affairs at BU’s College of Fine Arts, has made it his mission to share LGBTQ history with the citizens of Boston.
In 2019, The History Project developed a hybrid physical and digital installation, spearheaded by Krone, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Considered one of the first times LGBTQ members fought back against the police, the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Greenwich Village in New York City set the foundation for LGBTQ rights.
This year, the Boston Preservation Alliance recognized The History Project’s efforts, awarding the Stonewall 50 Project with their 2021 award.
CFA recently caught up with Krone to learn more about the Stonewall Uprising, the creative process of the Stonewall 50 Project, and what it means for Krone to be a part of the LGBTQ community.
Q&A with Mark Krone
CFA: What are some of your responsibilities as assistant director of graduate affairs at BU’s College of Fine Arts?
Mark Krone: I have been at CFA since 1997, so yes, it’s been a long time. I do a lot of the writing for grad admissions, taking a lot of great articles written by CFA or BU Today and turning them into a CRM communication.
I write the emails that we send out to our potential applicants, applicants, and accepted applicants, and I produce the newsletter for graduate students. We highlight events and talk to students about mental health resources. I also include some things that they may not know, like how close the Charles River Esplanade is for walks and how they can take walking tours of the Freedom Trail.
I also do basic administration of our various software programs, and I’m in charge of visas for our international grad students.
Congratulations on your project, Stonewall 50, receiving the Boston Preservation Alliance’s 2021 Award! This installation was created in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Can you tell us more about that moment in history?
Let me take you back, even before the Stonewall Uprising. To be a gay person or any member of the LGBTQ community was to essentially live an underground life. You had one life at work and one life outside of work. If you were married, sometimes you had two different private lives. You were part of this subculture that was not on TV, not in the newspaper, not in the movies. You could be arrested in almost every state just for being gay.
On June 28, 1969, a few minutes after midnight in Greenwich Village in New York City, people were at a bar called the Stonewall Inn. The police would come in and raid it and say, “we’ve got two women or two men dancing, and that’s illegal in New York.” And what happened was they were given regular payoffs. It was a mafia-owned bar, but another precinct decided to come in and hassle them, hoping to get payoffs as well. They were getting tired of it, and they fought back. This was one of the first times people who identified as LGBTQ fought back against the police.
The people who led the violence were young runaways in many ways. The people who are often forgotten in the so-called LGBTQ movement up until a couple of years ago were the very people who started the movement: poor people, people of color, transgender people. They were being hassled by the cops all the time. Some of them were homeless, so what did they really have to lose? They’re not going to lose their job on Wall Street. They don’t have one.
The newspapers covered the Stonewall Uprising, but it was not covered widely. The big change happened the following year when the Christopher Street Liberation took place to commemorate Stonewall. And then it became this thing – rallying day – and then that spread to other cities. Boston was aware of Stonewall, but they had a teach-in the first year, not a march. Boston then had a commemoration march two years after Stonewall.
Walk us through the process of the Stonewall 50 Project from start to finish.
A few of us on the board of The History Project went to meetings with the Boston Pride Committee on the upcoming Stonewall anniversary. People were complaining, “young people these days they’re always on their phones.” I thought, why don’t we use phones as our allies. We could hang up posters around the city with a link on them for passersby to learn more. The poster would say, “History Was Made in This Building.” We really wanted it to be educational and a little splashy because of the 50th anniversary.
We chose the buildings by asking our community. We got a mailing list from Boston Pride and our mailing list, and we sent out a survey to 1,100 people in the Boston area, asking them if they could choose what 15-20 places are most important to them in Boston for LGBTQ history. We got over 100 responses.
To our surprise, the number one place they voted on was not a gay bar or a place where they met a significant other. It was the Boston Public Library. That’s because that was the scene of a scandal in the late 70s where men were arrested for improper behavior in the men’s room of the library. This was started by a district attorney who said he cleaned up that library to get re-elected. The problem is that many of the men who were arrested were just looking for a book. One man said he was arrested walking outside of the library. They needed arrestees because that would show that there is a problem.
A legal group supporting the LGBTQ community, Gay & Lesbians Advocates & Defenders, started because of this incident. Men who were arrested didn’t know who to call to defend them. A lawyer named John Ward (LAW’76), who is a BU graduate from the School of Law, founded this group and told the arrestees to call him.
Anyhow, most of the places [selected] were incredibly excited about it. There were gay bars that then became straight bars. They knew the history; they knew this used to be a gay bar.
Where did the inspiration for the artwork come from? What were the reactions you were hoping people in Boston would experience from seeing the installation and reading the narratives found online?
When you look at the poster, it’s a group of people marching with their arms on each other’s shoulders. That concept of being in solidarity is so important for a minority group and the LGBTQ group because it wasn’t just that you were in a smaller group. It was that you were supposed to be ashamed of it. This is the whole reason why it’s called Pride. It’s like I don’t want to be ashamed of it, so how do I express that? I’m proud of it! The photo featured on the poster was taken in 1977 by Don Hanover at the Gay Pride March in Boston, and the poster was designed by a wonderful designer in Boston who is gay and did it for free.
Was there a particular story that really compelled you?
The very first Boston Pride March, two years after Stonewall, started at a gay bar in Boston. They went to the episcopal church on Boston Common and protested the lack of support that churches gave LGBTQ people. And then they went to the statehouse because they said if we’re paying taxes, we ought to have the same rights as anyone else.
It was a march that was very small. Nurses were participating in the march who were wearing their scrubs but had bags over their heads because they knew that they would be fired if seen. We are people who take care of you, but we cannot even show our faces.
Another story that really compelled me was the story of Anita Bryant, a singer, and anti-gay-rights activist. In 1978, she led a campaign in Miami-Dade and Broward counties to get teachers fired who were believed to be homosexual. She said they are recruiters for our children, and they spend time trying to talk our children into becoming gay. It made national news. It was now okay to fire gay people in Florida and people were really running scared. They were moving out of the state and going elsewhere. The organizers put it back on the ballot the next year and it won. She lost that one.
I’ve interviewed over 100 people for The History Project, and so many of them who identify as LGBTQ told me they came out because of Anita Bryant. I couldn’t believe that you could get fired in this country just for being gay.
What does the LGBTQ community and its history mean to you?
It means to be yourself. It means authenticity. When I was younger, I thought it had to do a lot with who I was attracted to. Sure, it’s part of it, but it’s really about identity. It’s about being your true self and being surrounded by a group of people who are being their true selves. That’s the only way to live. Living your life for yourself, not for others.
Are there plans to extend this installation or is there a new, similar project on the horizon?
The posters were on display to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising from June 2019 through June 2020, but technically it’s up to the location. I believe there’s one place that still has the poster up.
I would love to keep adding to it. We did actually add music to one of the sites, a disco nightclub called the 1270. In the online map, you can click and actually listen to the same music an LGBTQ person would’ve been listening to at that club in the 70s.
I’d love to do more of that. More sensory stuff where you could get more and more of the atmosphere.
Are there opportunities for CFA students to volunteer with The History Project organization?
We’d love for CFA students to volunteer! However, we’re still under a COVID protocol in our office. We have a wonderful office with archives. It’s fun to be there. We just aren’t welcoming back people in yet.
I would recommend to students to go to the History Project website, look at the map, and look at the other online exhibits. I’d also encourage them to ask if there’s a historical archive for LGBTQ people when they visit their hometowns. Ask if they have a historical archive for whatever group you’re a member of. Your group should be documented. You are here. Your people were here. Don’t think it’s going to be written about unless you write about it.
Before we let you go, what do you love most about BU and the CFA community?
The College of Fine Arts is a college where students love what they’re doing. And I love that about it. When you’re feeling down and overworked, go to a concert, go to an exhibit, go to a play because you will be blown away by how good it is. The students here are good, and they know what they’re doing. My favorite thing about CFA are the students.