Donald Bell and Jack Rothmund

00:07 Alright. Hello. My name is Jack rothmund. I am 22 Cinema 23 in a few weeks. Today's date is Saturday, October 19th, 2019 recording in Chicago, Illinois. I am interviewing Don Bell who I consider to be a friend colleague and mentor.

00:27 Good morning.

00:29 My name is Donald M Bell. I'm 70 years old today's date is Saturday, October 19th, 2019. We're at the cultural center the former main library of the city of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.

00:49 And my partner is Jackson Rothman a name that I really loved and he and I are intergenerational friends in the lgbtq plus community.

01:06 Awesome wife want to start saying thank you Don for for joining me today. I'm super excited to do this little interview in conversation. As you kind of said we're here as intergenerational Pairs and I think there's a lot of exciting learning that can be done between and a generational pairs. One thing that I always like to get started with when I getting to know people as if you can describe your your life in 5 words

01:38 Full blast challenging eventful passionate if you want to expand a little bit on I'm blessed. I really like that word. Well, I am blessed lucky to have been raised in a way to lead lead my life and deal with the challenges of my life from the point of expressing gratitude my life. Like everyone else's life has had its ups and it's down but it hasn't taken away my positive perception of life and my appreciation for the privileged that I enjoy in life.

02:20 So tell me a little bit about your experience growing up in Chicago, cuz we shared just before we can start this interview that you were born and raised here in the city. That's right. That's right. I was born here in Chicago, which is the significant experience Chicago being the largest of American cities born in the age of the United States. So has no Colonial Roots like New York or LA and that made it a

02:50 A special kind of thing Chicago is is a very large city and it has three distinct cultural regions and it makes a difference if one were born and raised on the South Side the west side or the North side. I am a southsider. All right and a lifelong White Sox fan. Okay, and that is a distinct Chicago. All right. What was what was you describe your family dynamic as growing up in the city. We started off my nuclear family how we started off in the city and

03:30 Later, when I was about 10 years old, we migrated to the south suburbs, but the general five family Dynamic was this my maternal grandfather was the family patriarch and the extended family gathered around him on a weekly basis. So I got you know, my extended family very well very early and when we lost him when I was 15 years old the family Dynamic was never the same, but I am proud to be what I consider.

04:10 Being very special as an African American man. I'm proud of being a descendant of terrific fathers and that's something that I hope that I've passed on to my children, but my grandfather was was magical. He was wonderful. He was my hero and my father was the strongest man that I have ever known and the best vantage point I've ever had and life has been from his shoulders and they passed those things on to me. So my children my two sons were a major part of my life experience and I'm proud to report that both of them appear to be a fantastic father. So that's a very powerful thing, especially since African American men are generally demonized and criticized unfairly on their performance is father's definitely

05:08 I love to hear a little bit more about these kind of weekly family gatherings are talking about with with your grandfather. A lot of it was was typical typical stuff. We are having a church Heritage in Chicago. My maternal Heritage is from Pilgrim Baptist Church, which is known internationally is the home of gospel music and my mother grew up there under Thomas a Dorsey who wrote the hymn that's seen Universal around the world precious Lord, and that was our tradition. And then on my paternal side, there was another Mainline African-American church called Progressive Baptist Church, which sits by the by Sox Park and today is probably best known as the church home of the academy winning actress Jennifer Hudson.

06:08 So to Old Line professions and after church, we would all get together at my grandfather's we have family dinner and there would be Gatherings of three or four generations of us at one time. So that was wonderful in my early years and unfortunately, it's something that that passed away as I said what my grandfather passed away and now at this point in life how we drift apart so much that we've even had family members pass away without direct connection. So that disintegration of a family identity is very sad to me.

06:50 You know you talked about about your two sons.

06:54 How would you describe kind of your connection to tip them now? And then their children? Well, my two sons first of all.

07:05 Are adopted but we are still biological family. They are the biological children of my first cousin and she and her young partner. We're both too young and emotionally unequipped to raise them. So they went under the care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which very early we had decided that the children would be a relocated to the state of Texas and separated and when I was informed that my mom and I were on a conversation with my aunt we were informed of that and I just found that just Unthinkable unlivable that and that we should lose members of our family. So I had to space of about 5 minutes to make a lifetime decision wild. I will take them and committed to adopt them and even though generally there were restrictions.

08:05 Discouraging adoption by gay people are there so many African-American children available that DCFS was was delighted that someone in the family in the biological family with professional education in that sort of thing would be willing to take the children. So they are the children of my heart even though they are not the children of my body and I raised them with the value. That biology is Destiny, even though I did not sire them. I did parent them. I did Father them.

08:46 A beautiful those like the death of Eric. What were they right there? Thank you. Hun is awesome.

08:52 I guess I'm curious too kind of, you know, one of the one of those distinctions between the two of us is that we are going to share that being apart of the LGBT community. Is that something that you felt kind of impacted you growing up in your kind of family Dynamic? Well in the time that I was born and raised I did not come to a realization of being gay until my my ladder adolescents I Griffith time when they were just when homosexuality was just not a part of the public conversation and they literally were no signs. There were no parades. No rainbow Flags. No sga's nothing. And what happened is that many people who grew up like I did.

09:46 We knew that there was something different. We know we're different in a way, but we couldn't describe and we didn't know what to to ascribe it to so I grew up in a very heteronormative environment in a very heteronormative way. I dated I had I had girlfriends. In fact by the time I came to realization of my sexual orientation. I was engaged to be married and I remember that

10:24 A friend that I died very much in high school and very strong feelings about him. And I I really didn't know whether I wanted to be with him or to be him. I just didn't know exactly what those those feelings meant and and later on when when I went to college my sophomore year. I went back to school as an orientation leader and met my new resident advisor and had what I described as a Disney moment and fell in love at first sight then you know, there were birds chirping and using floating in that sort of thing as if it come out of a Disney film, but then I knew what it was.

11:15 And coming from a very realistic a very survivalist environment, which the African American Experience is you cope with whatever your life situations are. So I knew automatically that that meant that I was gay and I went back to my room and I had what we call a little come-to-jesus session with God, you know, they were there with tears there were prayers there was meditation as conversation and I literally asked God isn't being black enough. Do I have to be gay to and in that moment? I did what would become a lifetime habit which is using one issue of marginalization to inform another. I knew that as an African American man, despite what Society

12:15 Sad about it. I would have to be proud of who I was be proud of my racial identity and to know that that I was okay with that and that realization in the time also inform me about being gay. I knew that I had to be all right with it. It wasn't optional. It wasn't something that I decided but it was what I was and I had to find a way to be proud of that and to accept it and to be honest with myself and everybody else around it. So why those two experiences have have sustained me since then? Definitely? How would you describe your

13:01 Do you need experience of being African-American and a part of the LGBT community? Well, I described it as living life at the intersection and throughout my life. I have been challenged by my race by my sexual orientation and gender identity by my class identity to the life that I lived was a middle-class life for African-Americans, but that's different than the general society and I was blessed to grow up in a suburb in in one of the rare suburbs. That was all African American and you know, we were nuclear families. We were the children of civil service workers postal workers teachers my dad work for the transit authority and Toto.

14:01 We're good middle-class positions and and that was a blessing.

14:07 But still class was an issue when I went to University that in itself was it was a blessing having the chance to go to a major residential University was a very rare thing for African-Americans at the time and I had that experience in that blessing and so I had to to adapt to all of these things and to realize that that that I was lucky that I was blessed that I had privilege that that most African-Americans did not have and that didn't make me better what it made me was obligated to be committed to my communities to give back what I could

14:59 And thinking about that that kind of Consciousness and and commitment growing over time. I think you know what when I think about my position as as a younger LGBT person, you know, I I I

15:12 So much of kind of be the history. I learn feels just like that at history and his is not something that I've experienced firsthand. But as somebody who has lived a lot of that history that I'm kind of referring to even if just brought I'd love to hear your kind of your your perspective on on seeing those big moments in history happened in real-time. Sure. Well, as you know, when people generally speak of the Civil Right age of the LGBT community were talking and basically about a 50 year. The dates back to Stone and yes, I personally live through every one of those events that are associated with that. Of time. I participated in Pride marches when they were marches when they were expressions of Civil Disobedience when there was tremendous risk for not only for our

16:12 Bodies, but for our professional lives and things like that, they were they were real risk and I participated with the person's of my generation and building what are now brick-and-mortar institutions in the lgbtq + Community whether we're talking about things like the Center on Halsted Howard Brown health or even the AIDS Foundation of Chicago getaway talking about passing hats Gathering coins committing personal time to meet the needs of community that were not met in the general community. And what I feel in terms of our intergenerational relationships is this we have long held at of value of the lgbtq + Community is one of being a community of choice or family of choice because most of us come from families and communities of origin that have

17:12 Set the time to the World on our own and I feel that if we truly Embrace that then just as I taught my children that biology is not Destiny. I think that we have to embrace that thought within our lgbtq + community that biology is not Destiny. We are related We are family we our community and so we have the same concerns for passing Legacy from the older community that I represent to the younger community that that you represent. Of course many of us, you know have the perception of boy must be so much easier today, you know, they've got all of these emblems all of these symbols all of these structures that support them, you know, they have legal standing, you know, homosexuality was against the law in my lifetime until Illinois.

18:12 Became the first state in the Union to decriminalize it in 1960. And now we've gone away from that and we have marriage and we have a people who are lucky enough to live in certain parts of the country like Illinois where we have full civil rights, and and that's wonderful, but we wouldn't want any less for you than that and

18:37 Our hope is am I hope it is at we pass along these things because we wouldn't want to see you have any less and we want to see you have more and and if there is a lack of awareness and younger people of of where these benefits come from the way these things happen, then it's our responsibility to share them to embrace the younger community and I think that people will respond positively to that. I think that younger people will respond to that. I just think it's important as an older person not to portray the image that being a younger person means being a lesser person.

19:28 But I mean first I just want to say thank you for for the work that you've put in for furthering, you know access and and rights and privileges for people with lgbtq + Community. I know that you know a little gay kids of my generation iron are very much indebted to to the movers and shakers of your of your generation. So thank you for that work and I'd be really curious to know your your insights from having been kind of on those frontlines having been a part of this this movement from its some of its earliest days like what kind of insights do you think the younger modern kind of arm of the LGBT movement could benefit from I think it's important for all of us no matter where we fall in the generations to in fact

20:23 Embrace our history and to find out our history to learn things because no generation stands alone. Every generation stands on the shoulders of its predecessors whether they are acknowledged or not. And it's important that that young people know about things like the gross indecency laws that came out of Victorian England and how they manifested themselves here in the United States. It's important that they know of of how LGBT people like Alan Turing made tremendous strides save not only our community but the entire world and yet no one can speak of their sexual orientation and one hand touring for instance, you know provided the basis for what would become the computer and help save the Western World from the Nazism in the

21:23 Fascism of the second world war and yet was penalized and chemically castrated because it was gay and we need to know that and to honor that and that will will strengthen us all and

21:38 But they're they're also interpersonal and developmental things that we can benefit from if we can talk about them. I as a as an older gay man.

21:50 Have some regret and some trepidation about the fact that we as gay men are not as intimate with each other as we could be because there's a confusion between a genuine intimacy and and sexual interaction and because opportunities for hooking up and relating it was so limited and so congested all the time and being as we gathered and bars which were our only stay safe space. A lot of intimacy was left and what I see in men of my generation

22:30 Is that they're feeling that that their lives are over and they're they're living in isolation again, because they don't feel that they can relate to one another because they can't be in their 60s 70s and 80s what they were in their 20s and 30s and and that's not true. And if there were one thing that I wish I could pass along to the younger generation it would be you know, let's not focus so much on objectification with nuts Focus so much on hookups. Let's not focus so much on how many sexual encounters we have but let's focus on how many General genuine relationships we have how much we can count on one another how much we can support one another so that we don't go through periods of isolation.

23:25 Absolutely.

23:29 What do you think was distinct about?

23:33 The kind of like LGBT experience and maybe even the African American Experience in Chicago. Specifically. I think that our experience can't be separated from the general history of anything whether we talked to him at the country, but were talking about Chicago as I said, the reason why Chicago was a unique experience is that

23:58 It was the the major city the largest city born in the era of the United States. It was born and during the Industrial Revolution. It was born after we acquired the Louisiana Purchase and double the size of the country. This place has always been a working place. This is a worker bee place and it's time every industry and every means of transportation that existed every commercial Advance. It's been made in the United States has been centered here and we were settled not by

24:41 Long progressions of individuals migrating here. We was schedule. We were settled in clumps and ethnicities and that's why we Remain the most ethnically and racially in class stratified metropolitan area on the planet, you know, so growing up here was a different experience that's reflected in in and how we relate to one another so

25:12 Do you do you have kind of a distinct memory of of your first coming out experience?

25:20 If you're comfortable sharing the wealth that the first experience was having that that experience of of recognition, I think one has to come out to oneself for and

25:35 All I know is that and this is why I went back and spent that that time by myself dealing with this is that whatever I am. I don't want to be unhappy with it. I don't want to spend my life not thinking that my life has no value and not wanting to end my life. So I had to go back and battle with that. So coming out to myself was was really important now I was lucky.

26:10 I never had to have a formal coming out to my parents. My parents were terrific people who always.

26:26 Who always believe that that you accept people in in in the breadth of experience that they are and when it came to being parents they always stop parenting as a Divine stewardship in a one doesn't own one's children or whatever but you not only accept but you rejoice in what God has given you and and that's the way it is. So they did not see having a gay child as as failure. And at the time I came into the recognition of my sexual orientation, you know, one of the prevailing thought was that mothers made their son's gay, you know, and both my parents rejected that idea and I know you are what you are you have to live that on early. And so that was a blessing not to have to do that the first

27:26 Time that I made love though to another man was was

27:33 Wonderful, and I was very excited about it was terrific. We spent the whole afternoon together I was

27:43 I think I was about 25 years old and we had this occasion was just the two of us and it with me and it was ours and everything and it was passionate. It was warm and lovely and delightful and it just felt right, but after was over.

28:05 I broke down and sort of became hysterical because what had always been a value to me with something that I thought was lost for as long as I remembered. I've always wanted to be a dad especially following that I wanted to be a dad more than I wanted to be. Somebody's husband somebody's father and all and in that moment. I slipped back into this heteronormative idea that if I truly was a gay man, then I could never be a father and and I was upset and I was crying and I was inconsolable and and I've always regretted that because

28:49 You know the other man who was involved with was getting out jantoven beautiful and sensitive it on it. But all of this stuff came raining down on a Red Lobster been so confused. And so, you know, and we never really got together again, and we never talked it out night. I regret that and I will always regret that.

29:13 You know, obviously you came to find that those that being a parent and in being apart of the LGBT community aren't you know aren't necessarily distinct just right things that it's right where there any unique challenges or experiences that you had at being a gay parent that was so rare that people didn't understand what it was and I take my boys with me all the time and I'm taking them to advance like taking them to Market Days and had other community members say

29:52 What are they they are children and then automatic assumption that that I'm a married man on the download or whatever and and not a real understanding at the time of the legitimacy that that gay men also had what's called an age of generativity where they want to parent where they want to pass on Legacy that sort of thing. We didn't understand that and I know that's hard to imagine in today's world where the cover of every LGBT magazine, you know has a married couple usually two white gay men with their two children one white and one

30:47 A person of color one just ambiguous enough, but that was not considered normal at the time. But I was raising my children in that wasn't that long ago. My boys are 37 and 38 years old. So I'm talking about when they were two and three and right. So what is one of your funniest memories as a gay man?

31:15 Funniest memories. Oh my gosh. Well, I tell you what, I love and what I think is really gone now is I love camp and Camp was was humor that existing amongst gay people gay men in particular about just how the world was worried. It was like our secret language our secret communication and we find all kinds of just humorous things that we could just bust up over the the most incredible stuff and there doesn't appear to be that sort of thing anymore. And there's probably a lot of reasons for it may be in a because we don't need to be as insular is a community as we once were

32:06 And it still shocks me. When what I do, you know gay people say I don't want to lose in the gayborhood. I know what I want and still get service thing from that. But another part of it was course living through the the height of the HIV AIDS epidemic when the Arts and Cultural communities of the Country Inn of the world were devastated by this lost a lot of of that talent that creativity that humor was lost and

32:48 It just never got to be as funny again as it used to be so so I but I do miss that cuz they're used to be just really hysterical stuff. If you could go back in time and talk to the younger Don kind of think of whatever younger done is what age but is there any kind of advice or something you want to tell yourself?

33:14 Yes, I would tell me to to just be calm and take it a day at a time.

33:26 A. In life at a time. I am entering or I have recently entered a significant stage in life is are coming to the Elder community and we are generally described as the first out aging group of seniors and that's very heavy but there's also a serious responsibility with that that's very much tied to being a baby boomer Baby Boomers have changed the general generation experience of every phase that they've gone through and we will do that for aging to saging will not be my grandpa Sage but

34:15 But they will be a significant part of it that it's particularly lgbtq plus and not heteronormative. And so that's both exciting and frightening but I intend to live until I die. Literally I personally don't intend for my legacy to be my butt print on the sofa in the TV viewing room. So even though I'm held together by chewing gum and baling wire, I'm going to drag this old carcass around until it absolutely start stopped. So what what is what is that kind of like living until that that last day look like what what kind of things are you looking forward to accomplishing, you know?

35:06 I intend to to redefine what aging is, you know, I am turning 65 both the Census Bureau and demography has announced that people of my generation. If you live to be 65 and you have an extended longevity over the that that you had at Birth so we were born expecting to live to be about seventy six or so. And then when they told us we had another 25 to 30 years if I hold my God, we're going to be a hundred. Well, the thing is is you can't sit and rock for that additional thirty years. You've got to do something and so

35:57 I'm trying to do to fill up my life at those things. And and the good thing is at it gives me a second run at some things as a person has a second lived in in the intersection of of race and sexual orientation in class. And that's what things there were things that I was specifically not allowed to do, you know, even though I went to University, you know, I was told that there were things I could not do because of my race. I could not pledge a fraternity. I could not engage in My Chosen field of study and an entering class of 400. There was me and two women and the three of us were driven out of that and that's all that is stayed with me my whole life. I could not be what I wanted to be. Well maybe at this stage of life.

36:57 If I can't be that particular thing I can still be something I can still make a difference because I'm still alive. I'm so that's what I mean about living until I die. Absolutely.

37:09 What kind of you know, you're doing a lot of work with us at the AIDS Foundation for our fur out aging kind of project? What's most exciting about you kind of being at the Forefront of this aging of man? What's exciting for me is that it gives my life value. I can't tell you how I appreciate working with younger people who appreciate my ability who look past.

37:42 You know this bald head and has gray hair these blind eyes and his Cane and give me feedback that tells me that what I think what I say on how I do it has value in today's world and that is worth living for that means that means everything to me and I got a chance to meet. You know, younger people like you I will I will tell you

38:15 Back when we had the the mini Institute for internos excited about that, but one of the things that really made that day for me was the fact that after was over you and I sat and talked for about 45 minutes and

38:34 The

38:36 Fact that you wanted to spend that time with me the fact that that we engaged in in this very challenging conversation was so important to me. I you know.

38:57 You think me a while ago for the contributions of My Generation Well, I thank you for literally giving value to my life and for making me want to to continue, you know, it it it means the world to me you and the relationship that we have and we don't have we have had a lot of time together. The time has been very limited. But but you got it and and you make it worth it, you know, and I thank you for that. I thank you. Yeah, it's I mean there's you know that thinks I I think back to that that conversation as well and think about the all of the value that can be gathered from from those tough conversation between people who have you know, different perspectives and different experiences on on some of the same things and until you know from that conversation to this conversation. Thank you for

39:57 Sharing your experience your wisdom your Insight and inferred kind of sharing the the advice that people like me can kind of carry the torch in and work alongside and and Beyond, you know, so thank you. We're all in this together. We we are a family a community of choice and

40:22 You and and I in the relationship that we've been able to formulate is emblematic of that. That's that's how it can be and how I think it should be definitely agree 100% I think we're I think we're about up for time. Thank you. Again. So much for my pleasure. I really appreciate this.