BLAIR BUNGE: So just to begin, also if you see me looking down at my
notepad, I will be taking some notes, just to begin, kind of tell me about
your life before college: where did you grow up? I know you already
answered some of these questions already, but kind of just begin with
that.
DAVID VAN DER GRIFF: So, I was born and mostly raised in
Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is within a few hours of the University
of Alabama. So, first generation college student. My family did live in
Alabama for a brief, well, about a few years when I was in junior high
school, so I did live in Alabama so I am familiar with Alabama. For the
most part, I did graduate high school in Chattanooga, I went to a public
high school there, Chattanooga High. I graduated in 1984, and I
enrolled as a freshman at the University of Alabama in the fall of 1984.
Anything else you wanted? (Laughter)
BB: Did you have any siblings? Tell me about your family.
DV: Okay, so I have, well had, two older brothers, both are deceased. I
have a younger sister, who is five years younger than me. My parents
are both deceased as well.
BB: What was your relationship like with your parents?
DV: It was a pretty good relationship, my parents did divorce many
years after, well actually well into my adulthood. Growing up, it was a
fairly stable. They had their issues, obviously, which did culminate in a
divorce, but for the most part I would say fairly stable. But again, my
parents did not attend college, and none of my siblings did either.
BB: What was your relationship like with your siblings? Were y’all super
close?
DV: Um, not particularly. Yeah, I mean I was five years older than my
sister. I think they say you should have siblings within a few years of
each other to ensure they have stronger bonds. My middle brother,
well I was number three, so three boys and one girl. So, the second son,
we were within about three years of each other. And growing up we
were somewhat close, but as, especially after I left for college, we kinda
lost connection, I guess.
BB: So, do you keep in touch with your sister anymore?
DV: Yeah, I do.
BB: That’s good. Do you have any favorite memories from your
childhood?
DV: Watching Alabama football games, (laughter). I actually was much
closer to my female cousins than I was to my siblings.
BB: Was there any specific reason?
DV: I think, well also they were older, and they were essentially a
babysitter, so I think that probably. And I still, you know, well one
female cousin in particular I am still really close to and I still keep in
touch with, who lives back in Tennessee. And, so I think they protected
me a bit because being a gay child, well I obviously didn’t know what it
was as a child, but I knew there was a difference, and I do think that the
female cousins, and female relatives in particular were very protective
of me, so I do have fond memories. So I think that would be my favorite
childhood memory, spending time with my female cousins and
grandmother. And my mother, who I was very close to.
BB: Oh really? Y’all were super close?
DV: Oh yeah.
BB: You can tell me a little bit more about that, you wanna elaborate?
DV: Again, I think that my mother recognized early on that she had a
son that was different from her other sons, and she took strides to
protect, probably. My interests were not my brothers’ interest, I mean
they were typical boys, rough and tumble boys (laughter), and I was not
a rough and tumble boy. I think she recognized that. I had some more
interests to her, we liked art, we liked music, we liked to shop.
BB: Well that was special to be able to share that with her.
DV: Oh yeah, yeah.
BB: So how was it growing up in the south as a gay boy?
DV: Um... lonely. (Short pause) Anxious, or anxiety producing in terms
of not wanting to put yourself out there to be an object of ridicule. I
distinctly remember, this was probably when I was sixteen, finding
ways to walk home to avoid the boys that could pick on you. So, yeah,
those were the memories I have. Oh, and how to carry your books a
certain way. The school environment seems to be very clear to me
about how you have to navigate so that you don’t get called out. Not
that it works, I had incidents. I had an incident that prompted learning
to navigate a different way to get home. So, and what I remember
distinctly, I was eight years old, and we had relatives visiting from
Michigan. And one older, second cousin, he was playing with my
brothers, and they were, I don’t know, playing some war activity.
(laughter) I don’t know, playing war, and I didn’t want to go along with
it, and I distinctly remember him calling me a “queer”. At eight years
old. And, you can imagine being eight years old and being called a
queer, that was like “What the?” (Laughter)
BB: What does that even mean?
DV: Yeah, what does it even mean. And then I told my mother, and she,
just immediately called out the cousin. I mean she was like, “Don’t you
ever!”
BB: I love your mom! She sounds like a really sweet lady.
DV: Yeah! Oh, she was. She was amazing. So, yeah, those things stick
with you, and then as you get older. And then again, you know, so I’m
eight and get that leveled at me, and then at that time, you may
remem—well you were too young (laughter). So it’s the mid-70s, and so
television started to introduce gay characters. And I remember, again I
was probably 9, 10, watching a sitcom called Alice with my
grandmother, maternal grandmother, and they actually had a gay
character, and I was watching with my grandmother and I didn’t
understand and I was like, “What does gay mean?”, you know asking
my grandmother. And she was pretty forthright saying, “Well that’s
when a man loves another man.” Because it was a male character, it
was a gay male character, and I was like, “Oh, okay.” And then Soap, I
don’t know if you know the sitcom Soap, Billy Crystal, you know the
actor, Billy Crystal, I think got his start on that sitcom playing a gay
character. So there was some, you know, I guess from the mid-70s, up
into the, you know, as I was going to high school, there was some
inkling, some recognition in popular culture that there was a gay, I
guess a gay subculture. So then I was like okay, I started putting things
together, and then when I was like 13 or 14, I was like “Oh, well maybe
I might be...” (laughter). And then, of course, I think I was 15 when I was
kinda like “Yeah, I think I probably am,” but I knew it was not a safe
thing to admit to. So I went along trying to fit in as best I could by not
calling attention to myself in that regard. And I remember my mother,
when I was in high school, my mother being asked by friends “Does
David have a girlfriend?” and she was like “Oh no no, he wants to go to
college, he’s too busy studying,” (laughter).
BB: Always too busy studying, (laughter).
DV: Right exactly, you know. So I mean that was good, at the time I
think it was a good call, right? I mean she was able to be protective.
BB: Right, I love that word, I love that you used that word “protective”
for your female cousins and for your mom, I think that is super
important to um, that is a super important quality about them that I
would really like to elaborate on.
DV: Yeah, so, again, you know growing up being a gay child, a gay male
child in the south at that time period was definitely not, and probably
still isn’t, an easy thing. However, it was amazing in retrospect to me
that I had female protectors.
BB: Right, and I think that’s pretty unique, too. So talking about those
incidents that you mentioned earlier. Can you elaborate? Or give me a
little something, a little example.
DV: In terms of the harassment?
BB: Right.
DV: Um, well again, the particulars I guess, there was a couple of guys,
younger than me, maybe a year or two younger than me, that lived
close by. And I think they picked up that I wasn’t one of them, like
them. The immediate thing you do in certain, I guess, in those all male,
all male interactions in adolescence and everything is that you can, you
know, pick up on that and you can start picking on, and usually using
the terms “fag”, “faggot”.
BB: Name-calling.
DV: Yeah, name-calling. And then of course, right, if you don’t respond
to that then they, actually I don’t remember any physical altercation,
there may have been a shove or two, I don’t know, it's kind of a blur
now. I also remember in high school there was a classmate of mine who
was going into the military after graduation, and I don’t know at the
time I was probably mouthing off something about anti-US, with
Reagan and the military policy and so forth. I think he thought it was a
personal affront to him and masculinity in general, and I think he
might’ve used the term “faggot”, like ‘What are you talking about
faggot?’
BB: How do you think growing up in the south with these boys that
were super, I guess bullies, super big bullies, how did that shape you?
DV: Well, it may be part of the reason I don’t live in the south.
BB: Solid answer, that’s a good answer (laughter).
DV: It’s certainly... (pause). Yeah, I mean. It’s a part of the culture that I
don’t particularly, uh, and it seems to be more, I mean I guess in the
south, I’ve noticed it living in the West Coast, living in the Southeast
that clinging to a very strong, masculine or male identity is paramount. I
think its part, and there’s a theory I don’t know if you’ve heard, that the
reason female drag impersonation is so popular and big in the
Southeast is because the gender roles are so defined in that region
compared to other regions in the country. I think there is something to
that. Yeah, it definitely, having had that experience, was a very negative
experience that led me to choose not to live in the Southeast.
BB: Right.
DV: But the older I get, I’ve reconciled some of that, and it isn’t... in fact,
my husband and I are thinking of possibly buying a house in Natchez,
Mississippi (laughter).
BB: Oh my goodness! Mississippi?! (laughter) Would you have ever
thought you would be back?
DV: Well, I don’t know if, I mean, I don’t think it would be a full-time
thing, and it's still very much in conversation. We are very, especially
my husband, are very identified, southern identified. We met actually
my freshman year at The University of Alabama. He’s got three degrees
(laughter), and, um, he is very identified with southern culture. I don’t
think he’s ever quite acclimated to California (laughter). But anyway,
but again, yeah, I would say that’s the experience of growing up gay in
the south, the primary thing is that it did lead me to live in other parts
of the country.
BB: So, growing up were you the only queer kid? What was queerness
like in your community?
DV: Certainly was the only one, um. (pause). Definitely through
elementary school and junior high I would say, high school, um, yeah, I
don’t, and I learned of course years later that oh, I mean actually I just
connected on Facebook with a guy I graduated with who had come out
when he was about thirty. And then putting it all back together it was
like “ahh, yes I knew, I knew.” (laughter).
BB: The signs were there, (laughter).
DV: The signs were there, and there has been a couple of others over
the years as well. At the time you just didn’t really, at least from my
perspective, I was too busy covering, is that the term? Or just trying,
you know, not to call attention to myself per say.
BB: Laying low.
DV: Laying low (laughter).
BB: Actually, okay. So, since you grew up in the south, I kinda wanna
talk about religion and how that plays in your life, if it does at all, or if it
did growing up.
DV: Yeah, I mean of course I think for every southerner, particularly,
well actually I guess it doesn’t matter really what ethnicity you are, it’s
still gonna play a part because it’s so ingrained in the culture.
BB: Exactly.
DV: So growing up, my parents, they went, (laughter) well actually I
remember, so we were members, I guess, of a Southern Baptist church,
but I don’t recall my parents going to church with us very much. I
remember them sending us to church, you know Sunday school on
Sundays, when we were younger, younger than six for me. Well,
probably up until the time I was about 10 or 11. Then around 12, I
decided I didn’t wanna go anymore and my parents didn’t force the
issue, and they weren’t attending themselves. In fact, I know my
mother, the church wanted to baptize us when we were four, and she
steadfastly refused, she said “no I don’t want them to be baptized until
they can appreciate what it means.”
BB: Right, and actually want it for themselves.
DV: Very progressive, I think.
BB: Oh 100 percent.
DV: So then, from that point forward, it was really, yeah, religion,
church was not that much a part of my life. I do recall going, when I was
in high school, there was a group called, is it called Young Life?
BB: Yes!
DV: Are you familiar with that? Which I think is a Christian affiliated
organization. I do remember going to a summer camp when I was in
high school because there were friends, I mean my friend, well this is
probably an interesting tidbit for you: my closest friend in high school
turned out to be an African American lesbian.
BB: Love it (laughter).
DV: (laughter) Yeah, in retrospect, again, you know at the time, I didn’t
think anything about it, you know? She was just Felicia, she was my
friend. She was a year behind me in high school, and we just... she was
really involved with Young Life, so I thought ‘okay Felicia, yeah it’s okay
let’s do it, blah blah blah.’
BB: I’ll do it for you, (laughter).
DV: Well, it was, you’re right she was one of my few friends in high
school. Yeah, I wanna maintain my friendship. In fact, I remember she
went to Colorado, I think the summer between my junior and senior
year of high school, so she would’ve been between her sophomore and
junior year, and I was like “I miss her” (laughter) like “you abandoned
me for the summer”. Anyway, but years later, well not so many years
actually, she visited me when I was a sophomore, my sophomore year
at Alabama, and um, I think, she actually came on to an acquaintance of
mine who was a lesbian, and it was like “okay Felicia, what’s up?”
DV: Well, I think that we felt that there, I mean there was, we knew a
lot of people on campus, you know the band, the Million Dollar Band?
BB: Mhm.
DV: There were quite a number of people in the band who were also
LGBT, and so people I knew through there, and other folks who had
been coming to the University you know a year or two behind, there
was really a community, I mean right. There was, we knew one another,
and we were in the middle of the AIDS epidemic.
BB: Yes! I actually have a question, I have... go on, go on, yes, the AIDS
epidemic.
DV: So I mean, and the fall of my senior year of college was the national
March on Washington, it was the second one that occurred. There was
one back in ’79 but I was thirteen, couldn’t go to that, so I went to the
one in D.C. in ’87 and that even kind of reinforced that we needed to be
more active and engaged on issues that are affecting the community,
particularly the AIDS crisis, and at the time there was, I think it started
the year before, maybe a year before, the West Alabama AIDS
Organization. We decided to establish weekly meetings of the Gay
Student Union. Then we changed the name to I think Gay/Lesbian
Support Services. We did I guess the charter of whatever we had to do,
and we also consciously made the decision to start meeting on campus,
you know we have weekly meetings on campus. I think it was like
Tuesday or Thursday evening. Which we knew was kind of bold because
not a lot of people, we thought, would come, but people did. And we
held our meetings, and we had agendas, and we thought okay, should
we get involved with this fundraiser? I think the main reason— it
served a more social purpose than it did any political purpose. I, being
the President, was more politically oriented, so I certainly was more
involved with that. Also, other people were socially oriented and
organized events for social interaction, but the meetings themselves
were for social interaction. I don’t wanna brag or anything, but I think
that year my leadership, everything set the stage for where the
organization is now and all the different iterations. Now I guess there’s
others, there’s a Capstone Alliance for faculty and staff.
BB: Right, and honestly it has impacted the University a lot because
even one of my classmates in this class is starting her own gay and
lesbian, LGBTQ type group, and they started meeting, kind of like y’all
did, at the Ferg, they go to the Ferg. I’m actually a part of it, but I
haven’t made a meeting yet. Senior year, yay, gotta love it (laughter).
So back to the AIDS crisis, how was it like being queer during the AIDS
crisis, especially at college, on a college campus?
DV: Well, it was... (pause) I mean, of course, right, in terms of
harassment that could be leveled against you, you’re a carrier, you’re
diseased, blah blah blah. Yeah, there were elements, people were
scared, Rock Hudson died the fall of ’85 which was the first semester of
my sophomore year. That really, you know, kind of brought
consciousness about HIV and AIDS in America. Yeah, I mean we were
fighting against the stigma, right? Just cause you’re a gay man that you
had HIV or AIDS, which was not the case. I think we were, one of our
goals that year in particular was about educating, bringing education,
particularly among the gay men in the Tuscaloosa, well university
community. We did fundraisers for AIDS education. I remember
distinctly we got a guy from AID Atlanta, that was an AIDS service
organization in Atlanta at the time, he came over and did a safe sex,
safer sex workshop with a group of us boys. So I mean that was, so I
mean yeah, we were doing our best to educate, and of course we were
trying to fight stigma, I don’t particularly think, looking back on it, that
there was any, I guess, heightened hostility because of the AIDS crisis. I
don’t know maybe there was, maybe selective memory (laughter). It
certainly wasn’t, I guess it wasn’t helpful, but I think on the other hand
we managed to accomplish a lot in spite of any extra hostility or stigma.
Because there was always stigma and hostility because you were gay. I
mean I did know of other fellow students who did contract HIV during
their college years.
BB: Did that affect you in any way, knowing that it could...?
DV: Well, I mean I was lucky, I think I was extremely lucky that I got
education in time.
BB: Right. I kinda wanna know how you met your husband.
DV: Through the Gay Student Organization.
BB: I love it.
DV: He had been the President, I guess the year, he had just finished his
Master’s the May before I entered, so I entered in August, he had
finished his Master’s in May. I think he had been the President of the
Gay, GSU as it was known then, for that academic year. But he was still
in Tuscaloosa, still involved with the organization, so he was fielding
calls for the organization, and I called to inquire about what was going
on, about the meetings, blah blah blah. And so from there we met each
other and started dating (laughter).
BB: Aww, I love it. That’s actually really special that the GSU brought
y’all together.
DV: (laughter) That’s why it’s a special place in our hearts, and it's one
of the reasons that our largest charitable contribution every year is for
the Elliot Jackson Jones Memorial Scholarship because Elliott was
basically the driving force behind founding the organization, and we of
course met through the organization, so.
BB: Have you kept up with the movement at all at UA and what is going
on here?
DV: Um, a bit I mean, yeah, we came back for the thirtieth anniversary,
there was a weekend celebration of thirty years of the Gay Student,
what is called? Spectrum now, right?
BB: Yes, you can call it GSU though, I know what you mean.
DV: Yeah, well GSU and then it became the Gay/Lesbian, I think it was
in ’87 when we changed to Gay/Lesbian Support Services, and then
from there I don’t know (laughter). I know it’s Spectrum now.
BB: Yeah, it’s Spectrum now.
David: Okay, yeah, so I’m on their email and I get, I guess, updated
periodically. The Capstone Alliance, and of course the Capstone Alliance
administers the Elliot Jackson Jones scholarship. Now there’s a national
LGBT alumni association, and they started a scholarship fund called the
“1983 Fund” to endow a scholarship, so we were very supportive of
their efforts.
BB: Are you active now? Are you an activist now, do you still do things
over in California? Or are you just donating?
DV: Now I’m mostly a donor (laughter).
BB: Understandable, you did your time. (laughter)
DV: Yeah, yeah, I mean I was President of our LGBT film festival here in
Sacramento for eight years, and was on the board for, well probably
after I stepped down as President, for another five years. That’s kinda
the last, I guess, leadership activist thing I’ve done. Now its so much
easier to give money (laughter).
BB: Hey, money goes a long way!
DV: See that’s the thing, the trajectory of life. You don’t have any
money when you’re young so you can be more activists, then,
theoretically, you have more money when you’re old.
BB: Exactly.
DV: In terms of my husband, right, I mean we live as an openly gay
married couple. I mean, well, Sacramento isn’t San Francisco, but on
the other hand it’s not Tuscaloosa (laughter).
BB: Right, right. There’s a happy medium. What kind of battles do you
think that gay people still face today? I mean I know we have a long
way to go, I know gay marriage was a huge moment, but I still feel like
there’s a long way to go.
DV: Well, there’s definitely a long way to go, I mean you can still be
fired from your job in 30 plus states, I think it’s in over 30 states, that’s
a huge, huge issue. If we don’t have protection in employment, how do
we support ourselves? Employment, housing, public accommodations,
right, that is the, still on the agenda. We thought getting same sex
marriage rights, yeah, was very crucial. Huge, I’m not downplaying that,
but still, these other things are just as important. Not everybody wants
to get married, not everybody can get married right, that’s not the be
all end all. Everybody needs a job, everybody needs a place to live,
everybody needs to access services in the public.
BB: I agree, and there’s still places in Alabama that just won't marry
people in general to avoid marrying gay couples. That just blows my
mind.
DV: At the courthouse? They can... I don’t think they can... I can see a
church...
BB: Yes, yes! Like individual owned practices.
DV: Yeah, and you know I’m not so much about forcing a church to
marry a same sex couple, that just seems like a misplaced, to me
anyway, just misplaced. Also here in California, I think here in
Sacramento, there was a gay couple that was sending their kid, no it’s
somewhere here in California I don’t think it’s Sacramento, to this
private Christian academy, and they found out the parents were gay
and they kicked out the kid and it's you know like hey, what were you
thinking? (laughs) I mean this was me like why, why would you subject
yourself to that potential discrimination. I just don’t like it when it’s
those, I think we need to be fighting, but just make sure that the law is
clear that you can’t be discriminated against on your job, housing, like
businesses who are open to the public.
BB: Right, right.
DV: And in terms of these religious, you know, if they wanna have their
own school then okay. I don’t necessarily agree with them, but this is
America, it’s their right. I just don’t know why, you know, why you
would try to fight.
BB: There’s a fine line between it, it’s a hard juggle.
DV: Yeah, you know I guess I’m dating myself a bit too, you know it
seems that trans, everything trans is the thing, right? In terms of the
movement and so forth, and I’m like okay, yeah of course I don’t think
if you’re trans that you should be discriminated against, but it just really
isn’t my fight.
BB: Right, right.
DV: I mean I just, actually I had been a subscriber to The Advocate, do
you know that magazine?
BB: I don’t think so.
DV: Okay, it started off as a gay publication the year after I was born in
Los Angeles, so the mid/late 60s, and I recently got my renewal and I
said no, you know what, the last few issues every article had something
to do with trans and I’m just like okay, it’s interesting, but I’m just not
that interested (laughter).
BB: Right, right.
DV: I support, you know, but I feel like this has gotten away from why I
subscribed to this magazine. I’ve given up my subscription after 25
years (laughter). No, 35 years, almost 35 years. I subscribed when I was
a freshman in college.
BB: That’s such a sad loss! So, we are kinda running short on time right
now, I only have this booth until 7 unfortunately. What advice would
you give young activists now?
DV: Oh, um, hm, um, keep fighting. I think that’s the, I remember when
I was a young activist and I would get discouraged, I felt the world was
ending and nothing was gonna change. Keep fighting, you never know
how the actions you take today, how they’re gonna play out. And I
remember this advice given to me by a professor in college who is
deceased unfortunately, she was very emphatic about it. She said, you
know, you may feel some days that when you’re doing speakers’
bureaus, and you’re out talking to people, you’re advocating for
something, that it’s falling on deaf ears or met with a hostile reaction,
but you never know where that, how that’s gonna impact, where it’s
gonna go. And now I look back on it and it’s like, you know, the fact that
I participated in going into classes at the University and talking about
being an openly gay man, it probably helped give exposure, right? It
gave exposure so that those people in the class go oh, there’s a gay
person and he didn’t have horns or whatever. And they most likely
went on and had children, right? And they, you know, having children
they may have a child who's gay.
BB: Right.
DV: I always just, you know, the right-wing and the anti-gay, this that
and the other, you gotta be really careful cause you may have a child
(laughter).
BB: Right, it’s gonna bite you in the butt.
DV: So that’s probably the main advice I would give them, is to keep
fighting despite the odds. I think it’s also important to be sure you form
a close-knit community, that you have support around you. Surround
yourself with like-minded people. You know, don’t exclude people who
don’t share your point of view, ‘cause I think that’s the reason we have
the issues in the country now is that we’re so polarized. But on the
other hand, you gotta take care of yourself, and I look back on it and
boy did I have support. I mean it was, yeah, the professors I had in
college, the fact that I was dating someone who was openly gay, and
then friends that I had. Those are some of the most, and yeah, I still
have those friendships to this day. I don’t know about you, but I
absolutely loved college (laughter).
BB: Uh, it has its times (laughter).
DV: I wasn’t so crazy about law school, but I absolutely loved college
(laughter).
BB: Where did you go to law school by the way?
DV: I actually did my first year here out here in California at the
University of San Francisco, and then I moved back to the Southeast
and finished at Georgia State in Atlanta.
BB: Oh, I love Atlanta, my favorite city!
DV: And I took a year off between my first year and second year, well
also my oldest brother had died after my first year of law school, so I
came back to be closer to the family just to, yeah. Anyway.
[End Recording]