Chuck Rowland
June is #PrideMonth. All month long we're celebrating Pride with our friends. This page is not just an ally, we are an accomplice. For Pride Month this year we're focusing less on "love who you want" and more on "queer and trans people are in danger." In the spirit of that vibe, we're choosing to highlight activists and events where the struggle for basic human and civil rights wasn't all rainbows (see what we did there) and sunshine.
Chuck Rowland (1917-1990) knew that he was homosexual by the time he was ten years old. He felt from a young age that there should be a gay rights movement just like there were civil rights movements for other identity groups.
After the U.S. entered World War II, Rowland was drafted into the Army and served until 1946, though remaining stateside. After the war, Rowland became an organizer, first with the American Veterans Committee and then, briefly, with the Communist Party. In 1950, he formed the Mattachine Society with a small group of homosexual men including his then-boyfriend Bob Hull and Harry Hay (also profiled during SoL Pride Month). The society attempted to stay small and diffuse at first, out of fear of McCarthy era anti-Communist politics, but it had grown to over 2000 members by 1953.
During the 1950s, the society fractured along political lines, with some members wanting it to be less "activist" and more mainstream, while others desired a more active role in advocacy for gay rights. Speaking on behalf of the "activist" contingent, Rowland said, "The time will come when we will march arm in arm, ten abreast down Hollywood Boulevard proclaiming our pride in our homosexuality.” Many members found that idea shocking. The founding members were eventually ousted from the Mattachine Society for this philosophical difference in the future of the gay movement.
Because of his Communist leanings, Rowland found it hard to make a living. He ultimately became a high school teacher and earned a masters degree in theater from the University of Minnesota in 1968. He spent the 1970s and 1980s devoted to theater, founding the Celebration Theatre in Los Angeles in 1982 dedicated to the production of gay and lesbian plays. Every year the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award honors a groundbreaking LGBTQ playwright whose body of work has entertained, inspired, and empowered the community.
Rowland died in Duluth, Minnesota, on December 20, 1990 before he could see his dream of a gay rights movement rooted in pride and openness fully realized. He is considered an inspiration by many who advocate on behalf of civil rights for the LGBTQ+ community. ahttps://veteranstories.kennesaw.edu/exhibits/show/choosing_words_wisely/item/19
https://www.tangentgroup.org/chuck-rowland-profile/