Activist Jo Chadwick, The Rev. Chuck Lewis, Last Dance Writer/Director Jallen Rix. Both Jo and Chuck are in the film. The film is Dr. Rix’s project.

A documentary with the working title, The Last Dance Raid: The Event That Changed Gay History, is in process of being produced. As a fundraiser for the project, the producers gave a sneak preview of some of the rough footage recently at the GLBT Historical Society. The Last Dance Raid has brought together an accomplished production team and a distinguished group of advisors and consultants. Producer Susan Stryker, past executive director of GLBTHS, won an Emmy Award for her previous film, Screaming Queens, and is an internationally recognized expert on San Francisco’s LGBT history. Executive Producer Chris Sinton, a former senior director at Cisco Systems, pioneer of web-based philanthropy, and board chair of New Leaf Services, is making his debut as a media activist with this film. Documentary director Jallen Rix has previous experience in music and music video production, and is also a syndicated columnist. He received his doctorate from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

Cinematographer Scott Saraceno has shot commercials for Verizon Wireless, Leroy Neiman, and other high-end clients. Sound Engineer Michael Rodriguez was Grammy-nominated in 1998 for his work at Meac Studios, co-founded with rock music icon Boz Scaggs.

“Documenting our history is very important,” Sinton told Bay Times. “We need to remember where we’ve come from in order to continue our march towards equal rights.” He said he was struck by the fact that “our” “history” is the PRESENT for many places in this country today and many places throughout the world.  “Documenting this queer civil rights action is important not only to remember where WE have come from, but as importantly, as a beacon and an example of how to engage peacefully and with allies to advance the struggle for queer civil rights.” He added, “We live in a somewhat privileged ‘bubble’ here in SF.”
“Many people now think the raid at California Hall, which is today the California Culinary Institute, was the incident that shifted the gay civil rights movement onto the radar screen of the progressive political establishment of San Francisco,” Stryker said. “That was the first time that a lot of straight people realized the kinds of social harassment and police intimidation that gay people routinely had to experience.” She said as a result of outing this police violence against queer people, the gay civil rights agenda became part of reformation politics, “and queers and their supporters have never looked back ever since.” She said currently the production team is at a very critical point, as the film has been shot and is getting some editing, but they need to hire a professional editor, which would require raising approximately $10,000 over the next several months.

Rix told Bay Times of his inspiration six years ago to create the documentary, when a professor at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality spoke about the infamous raid and how straight ministers in the ‘60s got together with LGBT people to fight homophobia. Rix said with a grin, “Some people have said this raid was an even better story than Stonewall; but I didn’t say that.” He added, “But we really want everyone to find out about this great piece of history.”  

Rix showed some highlights from the film. It began on the first day of 1965, when a festive Mardi Gras costume ball was about to begin in the City at a rented venue on Polk Street called California Hall. The high-profile fundraising gala was to be a sort of coming out party for the city’s underground gay culture, with hopes, for the first time in history, to publicly reveal itself in a thoroughly respectable yet visibly queer and overtly political fashion. The party was a traditional gay drag ball—but with an important difference. Progressive Christian ministers involved in the civil rights movement had been part of the organizing committee, along with activists from several fledgling “homophile” organizations (as these pioneering gay rights groups then called themselves). Men in clerical collars were mingling with men in evening gowns to show the world that a new day was dawning in the struggle for social justice and human equality.

To ensure the Ball’s success, the organizers had acquired all the necessary permits ahead of time, hired their own security guards, and had even taken the extraordinary precaution of meeting in advance with the SF Police Department, which had a long history of harassing the gay community. The police promised not to interfere with what was, in fact, a legal, private event held on private property. But that promise was quickly broken. As eyewitnesses on the film described the incident, no sooner did the party begin, than paddy wagons sealed off the streets around California Hall. SFPD officers armed with cameras and spotlights, as well as guns and batons, formed an intimidating gauntlet through which every partygoer had to pass, to be filmed and photographed upon arrival. The cops then entered the building without cause and without warrants. Lawyers representing the organizers protested, and they too were immediately arrested. The pregnant wife of an activist minister protested the arrest of the lawyers, and she was promptly taken away in handcuffs. Random partygoers were hauled off to jail for the “crime” of dancing with a member of the same sex. The cops thought this was just business as usual - just another routine raid to keep the gay community in the closet and under their thumb. But this time the police were wrong.

The film is intended to be a rich and compelling video documentary, using first-person narrative, critical research, archival footage, engaging music, and dramatic representations. In addition to archival images and audio that capture the incident and help recreate its context, we see and hear the story unfold through eyewitness accounts. Long-time lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon tell how the Mardi Gras Ball grew out of gay drag ball and house party traditions, and also share their memories of taking tickets at the door when the police burst in. Herb Donaldson, now a respected federal judge, thought his legal career was over when he was arrested for obstructing a police officer in the line of duty when he merely asked the police to show their warrants. Jon Borset recounts losing his job when news of his arrest was published in the newspaper. Other interviewees include attendees Nancy May, Clark Taylor, and Fred Alvarez, who vividly describe what it was like to be inside California Hall during the raid. Organizers Chuck Lewis and Ted McIllvenna, both Methodist ministers, give blow-by-blow behind-the-scenes insights into what they hoped to accomplish that night, and why it was so important. Their colleague from Glide Memorial Methodist Church, the Rev. Cecil Williams, tells how the liberal political establishment saw first-hand, for the first time, the kind of discrimination the gay community routinely faced, and as a result embraced gay rights as part of their cause.

When Williams and other ministers held a widely reported press conference the next morning to angrily denounce the police, the gay rights movement was said to have turned a decisive corner.  

The viewer of the film will come to understand the larger history of faith-based efforts to promote a truly just and tolerant society in the nation. The costume ball was a fundraiser for the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, the world’s first ecumenical organization devoted to promoting gay civil rights issues in American culture, and in the life of the protestant churches - the very issues now threatening to tear apart the Anglican Communion. We also see how this event helped change the relationship between the queer community and the city’s political leaders. The globally significant leadership of San Franciscans of all sexual orientations, on cutting-edge social justice issues related to sexual identity, can be traced directly back to what happened at California Hall in 1965.

Rix said there is still a lot of fine-tuning to be done on the film - editing the story, creating a music score, doing color correction, tracking down archival footage, and more. This work requires an enormous amount of money. Producers are applying for a grants and looking into possibilities on cable and public television. Sinton told Bay Times that subsequent to the Society’s fundraising event, they have received another $1,200 in contributions, bringing the total community support to $4,850. The Last Dance Raid is a fiscal project of the GLBT Historical Society, so by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Society (a registered 501c3), Bay Times readers can help bring this landmark historic civil rights action to light. Checks should be made payable to the GLBT Historical Society and noted: Last Dance Raid on the check. Mail to: Chris Sinton, 20 Santa Rita Ave., SF, CA 94116. Rix concluded, “It is our community that is going to make this film possible.”