Evander Smith was an openly gay

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

lawyer who gained national attention for his efforts to legally block San Francisco police from harassing attendees of a fund-raising ball held by the

Council on Religion and the Homosexual The Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH) was a San Francisco, California, United States–based organization founded in 1964 for the purpose of joining homosexual activists and religious leaders. Formation The CRH was formed in 1964 by Gl ...

, an early

homophile Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been '' sodomite'', '' Sapphic'', '' Uranian or Urning'', '' homop ...

organization, on January 1, 1965.

Police harassment at California Hall

On the eve of January 1, 1965, several homophile organizations in San Francisco, California - including the

, the Society for Individual Rights, the

Daughters of Bilitis The Daughters of Bilitis (), also called the DOB or the Daughters, was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the United States. The organization, formed in San Francisco in 1955, was initially conceived as a secret soc ...

, and the

Mattachine Society The Mattachine Society (), founded in 1950, was an early national gay rights organization in the United States, preceded by several covert and open organizations, such as Chicago's Society for Human Rights. Communist and labor activist Harry Ha ...

- held a fund-raising ball for their mutual benefit at the California Hall. Prior to the ball, several of the ministers from the Council on Religion and the Homosexual met with the San Francisco police, who tried to get them to cancel it. The clergy members declined to cancel the event, and the San Francisco police agreed not to interfere. However, on the evening of the ball, the police showed up in force and surrounded the California Hall and focused numerous kleig lights on the entrance to the hall. As each of the 600 plus persons entering the ball approached the entrance, the police took their photographs. A number of police vans were parked in plain view near the entrance to the ball. Evander Smith, a lawyer for the groups organizing the ball, and Herb Donaldson, another openly gay lawyer, tried to stop the police from conducting the fourth "inspection" of the evening; both were arrested, along with two heterosexual lawyers - Elliott Leighton and Nancy May - who were supporting the rights of the participants to gather at the ball. On January 2, 1965, ministers associated with the Council on Religion and the Homosexual held a news conference in protest of Smith, Donaldson, and the other two lawyers arrest as well as the police harassment that they ball attendees had been subjected to. Twenty-five of the most prominent lawyers in San Francisco joined the defense team for the four lawyers, and the judge directed the jury to find the four not-guilty before the defense had even had a chance to begin their argumentation when the case came to court. This event has been called the "San Francisco's Stonewall" by some historians; The participation of such prominent litigators in the defense of the Smith, Donaldson, and the other two lawyers marked a turning point in gay rights on the West Coast of the United States.

Anti-war efforts

Smith went on to protest the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

and was one of a group of signatories to a full page ad calling on the San Francisco City Council to pass a resolution calling for an end to the war.

Legacy

Season 2, episode 9 of the

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

“

Making Gay History ''Making Gay History'' is an oral history podcast on the subject of LGBT history, featuring trailblazers, activists, and allies. Most episodes draw on the three-decade-old audio archive of rare interviews conducted by the podcast's founder and h ...

” is about Smith and Herb Donaldson.

Police harassment at California Hall

Anti-war efforts

Legacy

References

Further reading