I was bullied pretty badly especially in middle school. High school was not as bad as middle school, but I was not a macho kid at all. And the kids saw me as different from a very, very early age.
Cleve JonesI am not proud to be gay any more than I am proud to be right handed or to breathe oxygen.
Cleve JonesEven in my town, even in San Francisco, thousands of gay men were arrested usually using entrapment techniques every single year for sexual behavior between consenting adults. That continued well into the 1970s until it was finally decriminalized in 1976, I believe.
Cleve JonesThere was no way to have a decent life and to be gay. So I was terrified that I was going to be caught, and I had already experienced quite a bit of bullying. And, you know, I just thought that only misery lay ahead, and that if I - when I got caught that would be the solution. I wish I could say that was a thing of the past. But, you know, it's not.
Cleve JonesSince the industrial revolution, cities, and especially the inner cities, were the places for the newly arrived. Voluntary immigrants seeking economic betterment, refugees, the bohemians, the artists - all of those people were crammed into densely populated neighborhoods and tenements. And as people climbed up the economic ladder they moved out, which really accelerated with the "white flight" phenomenon in the '60s and '70s.
Cleve Jones