Oral History James Cooper

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[SB]: I am Sheldon Beach with the metropolitan libraries and today is May 14, 2019 and I am here with James Cooper. 

[JC]: Hello. 

[SB]: A few months ago, I came across an article that you had written about a pretty interesting   historical event in Oklahoma City. I think it’s something a lot of people don’t know about so I thought I’d see if I could get you to retell the story  

[JC]: So, I would ask you what you found to be the most particularly interesting part of that story and I will just pick up from there.  

[SB]: Well, I thought it was really interesting that basically as soon as Angles opened, they started being fined for things that were just arbitrary, things like somebody"s signature wasn’t legible, and to me it’s pretty obvious. That’s something that I have, a very legible signature, I don’t think that anybody is going to get by without a fine on something that I’ve signed. Things like that, it really amazes me that an authority figure would come in with the audacity to fine you for this. Basically, that’s blatantly harassment. 

[JC]: 1982 is the year I was born is the year angels opened and the reason why you find that so unreasonable, citing them for these signatures and stuff is because it reasonable. That was not the goal. The goal was harassment. In fact, Angle’s knew that prior to them even opening when they applied to have a, what they then called a country western bar cot-night joe they knew that they were going to have to cancel what they were wanting to do. They knew the lay of the land here and so they applied and cotton eyed Joe’s opened as Angle’s; it was a state-of-the-art club really designed after studio 54. So, you had these lighting systems and sound systems that were second to none. It was the coolest place to be whether you were gay straight bi-sexual, trans. It didn’t matter the beats were good. Hey, attracted acts from all over the country, unfortunately they also attracted police and at the time the police would go in and sight them for phantom ordinances, turning over the Pac-Man arcade machine checking to see if it had the right numbers. That always stands out to me, I don’t know why of every citation that one just always hits me. The Idea of turning over Mis. Pac-Man [laughing]. It went on for the first four months. Then one night the owner of angels like you read in the article, received a phone call from their manager telling him that he had to get up there, he got there just in time to see the police taking down the front door on angles. By this time the police are also started physically assaulting patrons of that establishment. This had been going on for months quite frankly it had been going on for years and this was the moment when several of the patrons decided to fight back and they sued, along with the owners. One police officer was named very specifically as consistently harassing the people who attended angles and who were on that area 39th and Penn. The police officer said yes, and the police chief said go do that. once you say that, you know you’re going to lose your lawsuit, once it’s clear that the city has copiability. The city recognized that and the settled that lawsuit for the dollar, more importantly the permanent injunction that the owners that of angles were able to get on that strap of land between Northwest 39th and Penn, right where that goodwill is right now, where the Braum’s is from 39th street  there at that intersection of Pennsylvania west to about Youngs. That is an area where the police can no longer come unless they are called upon by the people on 39th street for protection, you know to serve and protect this of course the duty of law enforcement not to harass, bully, intimidate, and brutalize the way that they had been back then. Also, in the area at the time, the reason why the LGBT community had opened not just angle but in the late 70’s circle club there is because it was an out of sight out of mind part of town, it was next to the highway. There was such a sense of shame associated with being lesbian, gay, or bisexual that it really had to be operated in the darkness, which only added level of shame that people felt. Now what’s fascinating to me about that area is because of that permanent injunction, that area is become known for not just angles and what was called circle club but now called trance. but now you have the Boom, you have The Copa, you have Phoenix, you have A Pot to Carry, you have this series of bars and clubs there that have all kinds of entertainment with drag queens, dance, the beat and these sorts of things that once more again attracts people town, quite frankly all across the world when LGBT pride happens in June. Now you have this opportunity to take what Scott Wilson fought for when they got that percent injunction. Now we can take that area that was once out of sight out of mind, now we can take that area and revitalize that area in the same way that the plaza, the Paseo, the Asian district, the way that old downtown brit is coming back to life and you can do street enhancements, landscaping, bike lanes, sidewalks, and crosswalks. We already started that work back in 2011 when we got the businesses together, not just the clubs and bars but different businesses that also call that area home. We said,” let’s create a district and honor this history and the people who fought back and persevered”. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the design of that area it ends up looking like as we revitalize all these inner parts of Oklahoma City. 

[SB] I like that you immediately go to your city council duties and start saying what need to get done, it’s great. As saying all these things I’m sitting here wondering, do you see a lot more people interested in the history of the area and how it got to be what it is? Because Oklahoma has never really been seen as a really progressive place and this is the 1980’s 35 to 36 years ago and these places are still there. Do you see people more interested in learning more? Do you think that that has been helpful in building up the area? 

[JC] Yes, I take seriously this word Renaissance, that civic leaders and community leaders are using right now, I’ve been researching the Italian Renaissance specifically, It’s a rebirth of knowledge. When I look at the period preceding the renaissance, I think of how many people from the time that the Holly Bible was written in 326 to Martin Luther’s protestant reclamation 1517. I look at people who didn’t have access to their own history they didn’t know the story of Gilgamesh both as a literal person who lived and the story The Epic of Gilgamesh. They didn’t know about our first attempts of storytelling, you know the cave drawings and the Blombos Caves, they didn’t know about the cave drawings in France 10,000 years ago.  They didn’t know about Homer’s epic of the Odyssey. There was so much that was kept from the people in that time period, feudalism right, that gradually very deliberately you start having more people have access to knowledge that has been kept from them, yeah that’s all that they are clamoring for. I think some of the coolest stories I’ve ever heard were Mary Shelly and her husband, you know…” oh what other books have been hidden, oh Socrates, oh Plato, and valleys…. What else is out there?” I think this city is going through a similar moment right now. When our city began by the river in 1889, already of course the Wichita, Kato, and the apache where here and when white settlement, European settlement joins them, and African Americans start arriving here as well after the Civil War. We already had an LGBT bar and restaurant right here in the heart of downtown and you had drag performers there, the police mostly left them alone. There were arrest because we already had on our law books that it was a crime for a person of the same sex be romantic with someone in that sort of relationship. Punishable with up to 10 years in prison by the way. So, you had that, but you had a bit of an openness then. In Bishop’s Tap Room that restaurant which was located right across from the street from the Screven, which is where we did the walk the night before my swearing in ceremony. 100 of us or so walked from right there across from the Screven where the Bishops would have been located, to city hall which is a straight west walk. You know Bishops operated all the way through the 1940’s and it’s really not till the 1950’s 1960’s, and the early 70’s that you get this push back, these people that has interpreted there Christian Bible in a way that says to them, ‘’this is a sin, we have to do everything to root it out”.  Part of that rooting out was to keep any of the history out of our schools, out of our public education. How you talk about Vergil and not talk about any same sex relationships. How do you talk about James Buchanan which I believe is our first gay president and the country knew it at the time, even Andrew Jackson had a nickname for him it was, “Aunt Nancy.” How have we gotten away for so long with not talking about lesbian, gay people or bi-sexual people and trans people, in our history books in fear that is going to turn our kids gay. Look, most of my friends are straight men, let me assure you that they are not turning gay because their friends with me, that isn’t happening, that’s not how it works. But this fear and paranoia that some people had in 50’s and 60’s of that’s in fact how it works is what has kept people away. So then now that we are going through this renaissance, now people are going,” wait a second, what happened on 39th street? How did our Vietnamese population arrive here in Oklahoma City? How did black folk go from deep deuce on 2nd street Northeast 23rd and M.L.K. all of that are the questions that are being asked which is exactly what happened in the renaissance 500 years ago. So, I do think that there is an interest. 

[SB] that’s really interesting that you say all that because that is something that we have actually been working on doing more in the library, especially in my department in special collections. Trying to focus more on getting the stories of people in Oklahoma City that have been under represented, the Hispanic culture, the people on the northeast side that’s predominately African American, the gay and lesbian community, we’re trying to get more stories because my boss and I were talking and he said, “ I would love for somebody to say this is what it was like to be gay during the land run.” There were gay people in the land run. But we don’t have any stories and if you get someone’s story now, somebody says “ I’m the first openly gay city councilperson in Oklahoma City”, you know if we have your story feature generations can listen to your story and say, “ this is what this person went through so I didn’t have to go through that. 

[JC] You know, some people really misunderstand this topic as identity politics, why does it matter is so and so is black, Hispanic, a woman, or LGBT? Well it matters in my instants, and each one of those categories can out the discussion about why. But in my instance, I am 1000 percent certain that in 1960’s Oklahoma city there is literally no way I would have even been able to knock on doors the way I did, and I knocked on 4,000 doors this campaign and I talked to 2,000 people. The Good people of word are in fact good people, they didn’t pay much attention to fact that I talk with a little bit of a lisp or a little bit of swish in my walk, which is just who I am. They cared about sidewalks, bike lines, public transportation, parks, schools, homelessness, mental health, and addiction. When I spoke to those concerns, they took a chance on me. But it matters that I won because I literally could not have been out there asking those questions in the first place. I promise you, there are so many stories that I have read were because one spoke a bit differently or one walked a bit differently, or loved a little differently the harassment in public, the violence, the intimidation. You could have been fired from your job here in Oklahoma, you can still be fired from your job here in Oklahoma unless you work somewhere that municipality’s protections have been passed. But at the state level we are one out of 26-27 states where you can be fired from your job just because of who you love, just because of the date you went on. But it was even worse back in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, the Oklahoman, the state newspaper would publish your home address if you were arrested for, again being LGBT in public, like if they saw you holding hands. The same year of the Stonewall riots, there was this guy Paul Thompson. He went into a beer bar, he goes and kisses three of his friends on the neck to say hello, their friends. Those friends walk out, and they are promptly arrested by the police, they’re in jail. What would normally have happened is people would just plead guilty to it, for what was called “lude and lascivious behavior”, which sounds like something someone from a rocky horror picture would say lude and lascivious. But they were arrested and normally what would happen is that The Oklahoman would publish your place of employment, the address, your home address under that title “Lude and Lascivious”. So, nobody was coming out of the closet. You’re not coming out of the closet, you come out of the closet that’s your job you’re getting fired and that’s kind of if you’re lucky because now your home address has also been published. What kind of fear and harassment are you now opening yourself up to? IF someone has that fear and paranoia and ignorance in their hearts. So, Paul Thompson did something that nobody had ever done, he sued, he actually said no I’m fighting this, I’m going back, and he stood up. The judge found that that language “lude and lascivious was too subjective and was unconstitutional. He won and he won the same year as the Stonewall riots that happened in New York City where LGBT people stood up and fought back against, a similar angle story but they had been living through for years in New York. Year after year after year of intimidation, brutality, and physical assault by the police. While Stone Wall went up so did too Paul Thompson here on an individual level, which I find kind of poetic considering our conservatism here, that it’s the individual who did it here, then it would be the collective here with angles. But the individual with Paul then became two with Mary Tyson who then joined forces with him, and they went to Dallas for a national gay and lesbian task force. The question for them was, “how do you create a community?” They learned two things, you needed a newsletter and you needed a community center, then you can actually create a space for LGBT people. I suspect that community newsletter component is similar to the recording you’re doing in this way, it’s about that knowledge being spread and people having an awareness of what’s going on presently and what’s gone on before them. 

[SB] A lot of the reason we do this is so that people can learn, the more stories you get the bigger picture you get. That’s why we do things like this, so that people can look at the whole story and see this is what things were like a year ago, 2 years ago,10 years ago, 50 years ago. I feel like to me it’s surprising that in the early 1980’s Oklahoma had places like Angles and had people that were willing to stand up and say,” you know this isn’t right”. Because to me growing up in Oklahoma especially I’m from rural Oklahoma, it’s been a little more so there, but it’s always seemed conservative enough that I haven’t heard of things like this sooner. Especially with the way things are today, things have changed it’s still not as progressive here like it is in other places. But Oklahoma City is a lot more progressive the it used to be. 

[JC] True, you know this actually speaks to a bigger problem not just with LGBT matters. But as a country we are sped up, we are in cars that go 65, 90, 100 mile an hour on an interstates, that zoom past our small towns, where once highways guided us through those small towns and on to main streets where we had time to shop, look, and think, time to have rest in parks to have reflection time. We have sped up since that 1950’s moment, everything is sped up. In so many ways television, interstates, internet, or our phones have primed us for quick consumption of the newer things. This idea that’s put in our heads that you have to have the new thing and new is all that matters, old is old and dusty. I actually think that that’s part of the existential fight, all across America we are going have to fight right now to move from this tendency for disposability, from fact food culture. That’s hard, you’re not just talking about the LGBT your talking about a cultural problem and because we don’t slow down then you can look at mental health concerns and you can look at all across the board the consequences of that obesity, you name it when you’re not walking but you’re driving everywhere. I believe you said you rode your bike today. So, did I. I think this is a problem and then when institutionally were simultaneously not doing what we can to preserve our history and store our stories plural. I think we are setting ourselves up for some bad stuff. We are reading Fahrenheit 451 in my middle school right now and the students gasp audibly when there in the scene where they are in the fire department pretty early on and the fireman pull out a book called the “Firemen of America” and it’s the constitution for intense and purposes. “First Firemen, Benjamin Franklin.” Any they all were like that’s not true. So, I said “why do the characters in this book think it’s true?”. Because they don’t read, “what are they doing?” they are watching TV, on all their walls. All the walls now in Fahrenheit are now televisions and no one reads, and everything has been cut down to 12 sentences. The classics, Gilgamesh and the Odyssey are now 12 lines. I think that’s what we are up against. What’s scary and simultaneously comforting to me is that Ray Bradbury caught on to this in 1953. We’re allowed to talk about books in the library still? 

[SB] We are 

[JC] OK 

[SB] I know a lot of people look at places like Oklahoma and see things are a little bit slower than they are on the east coast and west coast. Do you think we might have an advantage there? 

[JC] Yeah, you can think a bit more critically reflectively. I would remind everyone that it wasn’t as big of a event, what Paul Thompson did in 1959. His lawsuit paved the way for us not to be arrested as LGBT people for “lude and lascivious” behavior anymore. That is the same year as stone wall, there are still capital cities around this country that haven’t elected an LGBT person to be council. We elected on in a majority white word and I’m a person of color. I understand that there are definitely some conservative stronghold here in Oklahoma But I grew up in rule suburban Oklahoma and a lot of the people who I suspect folk on the coast would ride off, they really shouldn’t because there are people with whom I grew up with who would probably fight to the death to protect me and I’m convinced of it. My word with my volunteers working at my side as well as my campaign manager Erin Wilder. I’m not as convinced about this whole we are behind stuff, I do recognize that but I just see opportunity more than anything, and a different way for it then maybe they have done, we can also learn what didn’t work on those coast too, it’s not like things are just rosy in San Francisco in their LGBT community, that’s not true. Go ask them about the issues that they are facing, ask them about harassment and bullying. Same in Seattle, New York, Chicago. Rather than running away from our problems this time let’s just face them and if we have problems here let face them 

[SB] how do you feel like thing will progress, I know you can’t predict the future. But it’s been pretty recent that the city said that pride parade can’t have banners up, that’s a small thing but it’s also something that has changed recently  

[JC] I would point out that that was one specific major who said that and whoever the counsel people where that supported him and that and ever. I am not a fan of that moment of our history because it was right after I came out of the closet, I came out I was 19 it was 2001 right about a year or 2 later that’s when major Humphries did that. I would point out that during my walk with over 100 people the day before my swearing in there beside me stood a very tall major David Holt, and that’s where we progressed, I’m sure everyone saw who looked at the newspaper saw him shaking my hand and giving me a hug before I spoke to my vision for all of the city and all of the or too that had been barred from out past. Baring what the Paseo was designed to be, you know you walk out your front door and there is sidewalks, crosswalks, street lights, and the basic needs of the individual. If not, there are basic needs there, reliable public transportation connecting you to the part of town that does. So, I think we can learn from our past that’s how we were designed in the past, that was the design of the Paseo. All we have to do is bring that into the 21st century. I think what people sold us is progress in the 1950’s faster cars, highways, and interstates. They sold us a bill of goods and time to check the receipt and give it back, turns out we were kind of right 100 years ago. 

[SB] Well, James Cooper thanks a lot for taking the time to talk to me. 

[JC] Thank you so much I appreciate you.