History

History comes to life in Congressional Cemetery.  The creak and clang of the wrought iron gate signal your arrival into the early decade of our national heritage.   Surrounding you are the men and women who shaped the new capital and gave substance to the new national – congress member and trade-workers, diplomats and domestic workers, explorers and architects, soldiers and musicians.

Congressional Cemetery, currently led by gay President Paul K. Williams, is believed to be the world’s only cemetery with a LGBT Section.  Although earlier LGBT burials are located in historic Congressional Cemetery, the LGBT corner began in 1988 with Leonard Matlovich.  In the 1980s and 1900s, when the AIDS crisis gripped the LGBT Community, HCC was one of the few cemeteries in the nation that would inter AIDS victims.  The cemetery’s policy of encouraging interesting, unique, and poignant headstones and inscriptions has led to efforts to educate future LGBT individuals of the struggles their forbears experiences.  The Congressional Cemetery is an active cemetery with many members of the LGBT community currently buying plots, and is the future site of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit LGBT Veterans Memorial.

Here are some of the many LGBT individuals remembered in this cemetery:

1. Cliff Anchor (1936-2000)

Born in Waterloo, England, Anchor immigrated to Canada at age 17 and changed his name to Michael Erickson.  He became a U.S. citizen in 1966.  In the early 1960s, Anchor moved to San Francisco to work in radio and began KRJB-FM radio in Monte Rio, CA, the first station in the country to air the National Gay Network News.  Anchor joined the California National Guard in 1973, reaching the rank of Lt. Colonel.  In 1979, he met his friend Leonard Matlovich and moved to Guerneville, CA.  Anchor joined the California National Guard in 1973, reaching the rank of Lt. Colonel.  In 1979, he met his friend Leonard Matlovich and moved to Guerneville, California.  Anchor came out and reclaimed his birth name in 1988.  He was an advocated for gay rights within the U.S. Military, worked with AVER and San Francisco’s gay Alexander Hamilton American Legion Post 448, and was featured in the books One Million Strong and Conduct Unbecoming.  While a memorial bench is placed in the Congressional Cemetery, it is not believed that Anchor’s remains are interred here.

2. Peter Doyle (1843-1907)

Peter Doyle, a veteran of the Confederate Army, is believed by historians to have been the greatest love of gay American poet Walt Whitman.  Doyle and Whitman met in Washington, D.C. on the horse-drawn streetcar for which Doyle was the conductor.  Doyle later recalled, “we were familiar at once – I put my hand on his knee – we understood.  He did not get out at the end of the trip – in fact he went all the way back with me.”

Doyle and Whitman exchanged several letters and postcards.  In his notebooks, Whitman referred to Doyle using the code “16.4” a reference to the numerical order of Doyle’s initials.  Whitman wrote in one letter to him, “I will imagine you with your arm around my neck saying Good night, Walte – & me – Good night, Pete.”

3. Ken Dresser (1938-1995)

Ken Dresser was considered by many to be one of the best large-scale graphic designers in the world.  He was best known for his work with Disney, including Spectromagic, the Main Street Electric Parade, and Epcot’s Electric Water Pageant.  Dresser also worked with Dennis Despie as part of the company Select Productions, which was involved with such events as presidential inaugurations and Super Bowl half-time shows.  Dresser event wrote an an episode of “Homocide” in 1973.

4. Charles Fowler (1931-1995)

Charles Fowler was an arts educator, writer, and director of National Cultural Resources.  He was a guest professor at several American universities and consistently urged teachers to experience their work with students as creative encounters: alive, inventive, and filled with mutual discovery.  Fowler served as editor of the Music Educators Journal from 1964 to 1971.  He donated his papers to the University of Maryland, stating “I was not satisfied as a teacher with merely passing on the culture.  I wanted a role in creating it.  The classroom is not just a place for learning about yesterday, but a laboratory for inventing tomorrow.”

5. John Frey (1929-1997) & Peter Morris (1929-2010)

John Frey and Peter Morris met at the piano bar/restaurant called the Chicken Hut on H Street near Lafayette Park, the then-most popular establishment for gay males, while students at Catholic University.  Frey was a Fulbright Scholar, a professor of Romance Languages at George Washington University, and author of books on Victor Hugo and Emile Zola.  Morris was an expert French cook and on the Board of Directors of the gay Catholic organization Dignity, for which he coauthored a community cookbook.  They utilized their monument for frequent picnics, and encouraged others to do so after their death.

6. Barbara Gittings (1932-2008) and Kay Tobin Lahusen (1930-)

Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen were partners in life and activism for 46 years.  Gittings was known as the mother of the modern gay rights movement for her tireless work that included founding the New York chapter of the Daughers of Bilitis, the first US lesbian rights organization, in 2958, editing its pioneering magazine, The Ladder, between 1963 and 1966, leading the first gay caucus of a national professional organization, the American Library Association, and creating the first widely distributed bibliography of gay-positive books, and helping convince the American Pschiatric Association that homosexuality was not a mental illness.  Together they participated in several of the earliest gay rights demonstrations, and were especially close to Frank Kameny as evidenced by inclusion of his famous slogan “Gay is Good” on their memorial bench.  Lahusen was the first out photojournalist, documenting many of those historic events, cofounded New York’s Gay Activist Alliance, wrote for a number of gay periodicals, and authored 1972’s The Gay Crusaders, the first book profiling movement leaders.

7. Henry A. Gordon (1947-1993)

Henry Gordon held a degree in sociology from The George Washington University, a master’s degree in sociology from the University of North Carolina, and a doctorate in the same discipline from the University of Maryland.  He worked for Radio Free Europe, spending a year as a public opinion researcher in Munich, for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1978 -1983 and for the U.S. Department of Education beginning in 1984 as a statistician in the department’s National Center for Education Statistics, where he worked with information regarding the Office of Civil Rights.  Gordon was a member of both the American Sociological Association and the Association of Applied Sociology.

8. Dandridge Featherston Hering (1924-2012)

Dandridge Featherston Hering graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1947 and subsequently served 20 years in the US Army.  He, along with his partner of 43 years, Joel Leenaars (1935-), was a member of one of San Francisco’s earliest gay rights groups, the Society for Individual Rights.  Hering and Leenaars were founding members of the earliest known gay boat club, San Francisco’s Barbary Coast Boating Club, and Hering was also a member of Service Academy Gay & Lesbian Alumni, and Knights Out, the association of gay West Point Graduates.

9. Franklin E. Kameny (1925-2011)

Franklin Kameny was known as the father of the modern gay rights movement.  Friend and fellow activist Kay Lahusen (#6) once said, “We all did a lot, but all roads led to Frank.  He was behind everything.”  in 1957, after his sexuality was discovered, Kameny was fired from his job at a US Army Map Service astronomer.  He became the first known gay person to legally fight his dismissal by the federal government when he appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to review his case.  Kameny was a cofounder of the Mattachine Society of Washington, the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club.  He led the first gay rights protests at the White House, Pentagon, State Department, Civil Service Commission, and Independence Hall, was the first openly gay congressional candidate, was involved in the declassification of homosexuality as a mental illness, and was involved in Leonard Matlovich’s case against the military ban on gay service members.  He often said he most wanted to be remembers for coining the then-unprecedented slogan “Gay is Good” in 1968; something many other gays then either did not believe themselves or were unwilling to publicly declare.

10. Leonard Matlovich (1943-1988) 

Leonard Matlovich was an Air Force Vietnam War veteran, and recipient of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.  In 1975, the Technical Sergeant purposely outed himself to challenge the military’s banon gay service.  He became the first named gay person on the cover of a mainstream magazine, and the first living gay subject of a made-for-TV movie.  Though his lawsuit failed to end the ban, the court ordered his reinstatement in 1980 after the Air Force refused to explain why he should not be retained under a then-possible exception policy.  Knowing they would create another reason to discharge him, and having become a movement leader against Anita Bryant and others, he accepted a settlement instead.  In addition to beginning a national discussion on gay rights, his case resulted in a new Pentagon policy that those kicked out simply for being gay should receive an Honorable discharge, and inspired subsequent lawsuits and countless people to come out.  Before his death in 1988, he attempted to create a memorial to Harvey Milk in Historic Congressional Cemetery, forced Northwest Airlines to reverse its ban on passengers with AIDS, and was arrested in front of San Francisco’s Federal Building and the White House protesting the Reagan Administration’s response to AIDS.  He designed his gravestone as a memorial to all gay veterans, and its internationally known epitaph was repeatedly quoted in the long battle to end the ban.  His presence here led directly to others choosing Historic Congressional Cemetery, and his gravesite has been the site of numerous events in addition to ban protests including Veterans Day observances, the DC Front Runners Annual Pride Run, and the marriage of Gay Iraq veteran Stephen Snyder-Hill infamously “‘booed’ during a 2011 Republican presidential primary debate, and his partner Josh.

11. William Boyce Mueller (1942-1993)

William Boyce Mueller was a grandson of Boy Scouts of America founder William D. Boyce.  The Boy Scouts were infamous for their ban on gay scouts and leaders.  Mueller was involved in the 1991 founding of the Forgotten Scouts, the first lobby organization dedicated to ending the ban.  He said, “I don’t think my grandfather would have wanted me excluded from Scouting just because of my sexual orientation.  My grandfather would not have tolerated discrimination.  He founded the Boy Scouts for all boys, not just for some.  I realized that if people like me don’t take a stand, the world isn’t going to change.

12. Frank O’Reilly (1921-2001)

Frank O’Reilly was a World War II Veteran who held a Ph.D. in International Relations.  O’Reilly wrote as a music critic for The Washington Times, contributed to Musical America magazine and American Record Guide, and was a founder of the Charles Ives Centennial Festival and the American Chopin Foundation, the sponsor of an annual Chopin piano competition.    He once said, “During my eventfull lifeetime the only honest and truthful ending of the Pledge of Allegiance was “with Liberty and Justice for SOME.”

13. Thomas “Gator” Swann (1958-)

Thomas “Gator” Swann is a Marine Corps veteran who has worked for civil rights and political causes since 1972.  He is legally blind, due to AIDS, fought against the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy and works for AIDS awareness.  Swann won a discrimination lawsuit against the US Navy that now protects gay civilian employees of the military and helped create the first memorial dedicated to LGBT veterans, located in Desert Memorial Park near Palm Springs, California.  On the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau Nazi Concentration camp, he organized a wreath laying ceremony at Congressional Cemetery involving the military unit that liberated Dachau.  His nickname is based on his love for the University of Florida Gators.  A Roman Catholic, he was blessed by Pope John Paul II.  Swann is still living and is an LGBT Activist.

14. Emanuel “Butch” Ziegler (1951-2009)

Emanuel “Butch” Ziegler (1951-2009) worked as an elementary school teacher in Bel Air, MD for 12 years before joining his friend John Heikel as a co-owner of a teleprompting company, Capitol Prompting Service.  Thanks to Ziegler’s work ethic and ability to put clients at ease, he became of the most popular prompters in the nation.  The company has served Heads of State, major coproprations, and others in the Washington, DC metro area for over 30 years.