CASDLA_000037_T2_A_PRSV

Interview with Bernie Michels, part 3, 1992

 

1992-06-24

 

Interviewer: Nobiletti, Frank

(Sound file begins at around 11 seconds.) The interview is described by The California Audiovisual Preservation Project as follows: "Bernie Michels is one of The Center's founders. With Jess Jessop, he called the very first meetings of the Planning Committee in 1972, and later became Executive Director of the committee. About 1967, Bernie slowly began exploring his sexual orientation, coming out fully when he started attending early meetings of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in Los Angeles. Participating in the GLF was both exhilarating and scary especially when demonstrating against the L.A. Police and marching in the first Pride parade in 1970. Bernie moved to San Diego in 1971 to attend San Diego State University, where he was the first openly LGBT student in the School of Social Work. He also presented the city's first LGBT studies course in 1974 at SDSU: "Myths and Realities Concerning Gay People."

Frank Nobiletti; Bernie Michels; Oral histories; Patricia "Pat" Cluchey; Thom Carey

 

 

Copyright is owned by Lambda Archives of San Diego (LASD)

 

 

English

 

Audiotape

00:39:42 minutes

Yes

CASDLA_000037_T1_A_PRSV; CASDLA_000037_T1_B_PRSV; CASDLA_000037_T2_B_PRSV

This is a summary, not a transcript:
00:11 Audio begins picking back up from part 2 of the interview.
00:31 Talks about not functioning collectively.
00:51 Talks about issues around power.
01:48 Talks about a man named Eric Eliason.
02:37 Talks about an individual named Patricia Cluchey becoming the co-director.
03:33 Talks about relationship with Cluchey. Cluchey was the leader of Monday Night Lesbians.
05:15 Talks about Cluchey resigning from the position.
06:42 Talks about major projects of the organization.
07:45 Talks about when he started working on his project for his Master's program.
10:03 Nobiletti asks about the raw data from Michels' research project.
12:20 Nobiletti asks about what was good and bad when doing the project.
14:31 Talks about the African-American gay community.
16:48 Talks about being in an interracial relationship.
17:56 Talks about how Thom Carey got along with certain people. Carey was his partner of ten years.
18:52 Talks about how hard Carey worked.
12:29 Talks about Carey being still in the closet when he met him.
20:10 Talks about the relationship between being gay or lesbian and the military.
21:01 Talks about Carey's being in the Navy.
21:35 Talks about Carey's background when he was growing up.
24:19 Talks about the gay studies course he taught.
28:16 Talks about the controversy over the marketing of the course that Michels taught.
29:15 Talks about how he tried to make the course appealing to different groups of people.
29:51 Talks about how conducted field trips for the course to different locations like Metropolitan Community Church and some of the bars.
31:23 Talks about what he did to get the class to participate.
32:48 Talks about the course being the first gay course in San Diego.
33:37 Talks about how the gay community felt about the course.
34:26 Doorbell rings.
35:30 Talks about when the Gay Center first opened and his role at the time.
36:04 Talks about his and Carey's spearheading the legal work to get the tax-exempt status.
36:40 Talks about the lawyer who helped them get a liquor license.
37:01 Audio gets lower.
37:49 Can no longer decipher the talking on the audio.
39:31 Audio ends abruptly

 

Audio

WAV

1.32 GB