Before Harvey Milk There Was Elaine Noble

When I was in school, in history class, we learned the stories about who built this country; sadly, most of those people were mostly old white men. There were a few mentions of important female figures, and even fewer mentions of people of color who figured prominently in the story. It was white men. If you wanted to know what women contributed, or what people of color had done, well, there were other books for that; not textbooks, though.

And, of course, there was never a mention of what gay folks had done; male or female, or of any color at all. So, I would look for those stories, and revel in them, and, silently perhaps, thank them for what they’d done to move us, the LGBT community and the country, along. But even now, I come across a new name, another one of those Gay Pioneers, and while I am pleased to learn their stories, I am also disheartened that their stories aren’t being shared more readily.

That’s the case of Elaine Noble.

Before Harvey Milk, there was Elaine Noble, the first openly LGBT candidate ever elected to a state legislature in the United States.  Noble won a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives way back in 1974, where she served two terms.

Back in those dark ages, the campaign was, as Noble called it, “very ugly.” She faced constant hostility for being gay, and even received death threat; her car was vandalized, her campaign office windows shattered and her supporters were often victims of serious harassment and intimidation.  It got so dangerous, dangerous for her to campaign, that she was allowed the use of state troopers as protection on the campaign trail.

It was Ann Lewis—Barney Frank’s sister—who pushed Noble to run for office when the two women worked together to form the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus. Noble didn’t believe an out lesbian could win, but Lewis disagreed and the campaign was born; and won. Elaine Noble never gave up and won the election with 59% of the vote.

Still, even after that landslide victory, it wasn’t easy for Elaine Noble. Once in office, the harassment didn’t end. Someone left human feces on her desk and she endured obscene profanity from her elected colleagues.  An elderly man once approached her outside the state Capitol and spit on her.

But it wasn’t just the anti-LGBT crowd that harassed and taunted and spit on Elaine Noble. It was also the folks that were opposed to desegregating the public schools.  At the height of the controversy in the Boston public school system, Noble pushed for desegregation legislation. Elaine Noble, and her campaign staff, even waited at the school pick-up and drop-off locations in her district to make sure the law was being enforced.

Elaine Noble was the only white Boston-area Delegate to ride the bus with the school children, and this angered not only conservative Democrats, but also some in the LGBT community.  A reporter from the only LGBT newspaper told her that “you should stick to your own kind or we’re going to get someone else to represent us,” to which she responded, “Well, I believe … I am sticking with my own kind.”

Human kind.

Elaine Noble. Female. Gay. Part of our history, all of our history, which I never knew about.

via Gay Politics