UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #945
YEADON, JAMES

Yeadon, James (1949- )
Undergraduate (1969-71), graduate student (1972-75), Madison City Council Alderperson (1976-79), the fourth openly gay elected official in the country.
						
Interviewed:	2009 (1 session)	
Length: 	95 minutes 
Interviewer: 	Questions from audience at talk on campus
Index by: 	Scott Seyforth
Series: 	Madison’s LGBT Community, 1960s-present

Abstract: In his April 2009 interview with a campus group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, James Yeadon discusses his early life, education and work with the city council of Madison, WI. He relates early indications that he was different from other children, his journey toward being one of the first openly gay politicians, and his involvement in the gay community in Madison.  He offers his perspectives both about politics and about gay life and decisions.  This interview was conducted for inclusion in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives Oral History Project. 

Keywords: University of Wisconsin—Madison; Gay Law Students Association; UW-Law School; Madison City Gay Rights Ordinance; Madison Equal Opportunities Commission; Carol Wuennenberg; Madison City Council; Reverend Wayne Dillabaugh; Harvey Milk; Reverend Richard Pritchard; Madison Alliance for Homosexual Equality; National Gay Thanksgiving Conference; Memorial Union Labor Organization; David Clarenbach

First Interview Session (April 5, 2009): Digital File

00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:03:23	[No question.] Yeadon began by acknowledging Joanne and Joe Elder in the audience and thanking them for their activism in the gay community in Madison. He described growing up in Ontonagon, MI. His family moved every three years when he was young, making it difficult to make friends. Living in Alberta, MI in the Upper Peninsula (which was lonely and depressing) he remembered feeling different, not fitting in, and thinking of committing suicide many times. He recounted reading the first reference to a homosexual he had heard in a James Bond books in the 1960s. He thought he would never be happy. When his family moved to Manitowoc, WI when he was in the 9th grade, he talked about how difficult it is to be alone in HS and feeling like he was the only gay person in Manitowoc. He graduated from High School in 1967. 

00:11:47	[No question.] Yeadon described “coming out the hard way.” When he wrote a letter to his first true friend (while he attended the Green Bay UW-Extension campus in Manitowoc) in 1969, describing his feelings for him, the friend shared the letter with a number of Yeadon’s friends, essentially outing him to his entire friendship circle. In 1969, he decided to transfer to UW-Madison, falling in love with the city of Madison. While he intended to major in architecture, he found with his transfer credits he could graduate in four years (expected in those years) in Hindi & Indian Studies.  Later, when Yeadon was in Law School, he met his boyfriend Randy while he was volunteering at the Blue Bus Clinic on State Street. Randy was in town visiting from Colorado. Randy returned to Colorado but they stayed in touch, and Yeadon later moved to Colorado to live with him. 

00:17:02 	[No question.]  Yeadon described helping form the Gay Law Students Association (GLSA). GLSA did a lot of groundwork to help create the Madison City Gay Rights Ordinance, passed in 1975 and faced significant opposition. Yeadon described working his way through Law School in the Rathskeller. Question: How did you decide to go to Law School? Answer: Yeadon talked about having no luck getting a job with his Indian Studies degree, so planning to go into the Peace Corps. This fell through for medical reasons, which was fortuitous since he would have been placed in Bangladesh during the war. After a year off from school, Yeadon realized that Law School gives people lots of opportunities, so he pursued that. After Law School Yeadon he moved to Colorado in 1975 to live with Randy, but found out that they could not live together, so moved back to Madison after 6 months. 

00:22:53 	[No question.] Yeadon discussed getting into politics. One of his Rathskeller friends was Carol Wuennenberg who was on the City Council at the time—he had moved into a house on E. Gilman Street (in the City Council District 8) that they owned.  When the 8th District alder retired and the seat opened up, Carol Wuennenberg talked Yeadon into applying, knowing he was gay. At the time, because of the new Gay Rights Ordinance, the city’s Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) wanted a gay person on the commission. Yeadon was appointed to it when he applied for the 8th District seat in October 1976. Yeadon described the long application and voting process, involving 13 candidates, and his being appointed as a compromise candidate. The process was even longer for Yeadon, as during that day he had been defending local activist Ben Masel against a Federal charge of assaulting a member of Congress for spitting in the face of 1976 Republican Presidential Candidate Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson. 

00:29:14	[No question.]  Yeadon discussed running for the City Council seat six months later in 1977 as an out gay man, with a February primary and an April election. Yeadon’s opponent after the primary was Rob Eska, who was a male cheerleader for the UW Cheerleading squad. Yeadon described people being suspicious of Eska’s sexuality, but knowing Yeadon’s sexuality. Yeadon recalled campaigning in all of the dorms, frats, sororities, and co-ops. He says he was most warmly received in the co-ops (he was living in Nottingham Co-op at the time). He remebered dinner at a frat house where a frat member said, “There’s a rumor going around that your gay.” Yeadon responded "Yeah, that's not the secret. The secret is that I'm a Packers fan.” Which got them laughing and broke the ice. Yeadon said his district was a particularly easy one, as the population changed over almost every year. Yeadon recalled having many straight people who worked on his campaign and how gratifying it was to have them, and what a learning process it was for them to campaign for a gay candidate. Yeadon described not having a gay agenda as a City Council, though he participated in the resistance to repeal the Gay Right ordinance lead by Reverend Dillabaugh. 

00:34:10	[No question.]  Yeadon describes Reverend Dillabaugh’s effort to repeal the Madison Gay Rights Ordinance. The City Council referred the petition to the EOC which recommended to keep the Ordinance, saying it was working fine. The night the City Council was slated to discuss the Ordinance Dillabaugh arrived with two armed bodyguards. The hearing lasted a couple hours, but before the Council could call for a roll call vote on the petition, Yeadon moved that the petition be “placed on file,” which means no action (though a roll call vote was called for at the next meeting). Yeadon also remembered a meeting arranged by another council member between him and Reverend Richard Pritchard, for whom he had more respect. He then described Dillabaugh’s trial for beating a child and subsequently leaving town. 

00:40:34	[No question.]  Because he was the first gay councilperson, Yeadon talked about getting mail from lonely, closeted gay people as well as death threats, which he kept in a file titled "Threats on life." Question: Were any identifiable? Answer: Yeadon said the identifiable ones were indirect; for example, the head of the CC Riders [Capital City Riders Motorcycle Club] sent Yeadon a postcard telling him he had donated blood in his name. He also remembered Harvey Milk’s murder as being “devastating.” He described the gay riots aimed at San Francisco’s police following Dan White’s acquittal and the San Francisco police counter-riots in the Castro several days after. Yeadon recalls getting permission to open the Madison City Council meeting following Milk’s assassination. He started the meeting saying, “Yesterday there were five openly gay elected officials in the country. Today there are four. And I don't know how many good mayors there were in the country, but today the world is one the less. Would people please bow your heads in a moment of silence for the people of the city of San Francisco.” 

00:47:03	[No question.]  Yeadon talked about his current situation, living with a straight man. He emphasized the importance of his friendships in Madison. He described being not very connected to gay politics currently. He then described current concerns he has in local politics, including how opponents of homosexuals were trying to “stack the [state] supreme court,” upcoming April elections, etc. 

00:56:55	[No question.]  Yeadon emphasized the need for young gay men to take care of their health, remarking about friends who had died from AIDS. He talked about the need to use condoms. Yeadon discussed working three-quarter time for the state as supervisor of the client rights office in the Division of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and practicing real-estate law from his East Side home. [Joe and Joanne Elder took some time to speak about gay activism]

01:03:55	Question: Did the lesbians and gay men have much interaction in the early years? Answer: Yeadon described being very good friends with Judy Greenspan, but talked about hostility between gays and lesbians. He said he really didn’t know much after his time on the city council. He just didn’t stay involved in the gay community. 

01:07:56	Question: Can you tell us about going to the first Madison Alliance for Homosexual Equality (MAHE) meeting? Answer: Yeadon said there were posters up around campus. The meeting was held in the basement of St. Francis House. He remembered walking around the block several times getting up the nerve to go in. The group then changed names several times, to Gay Liberation Front (GLF), etc. Question: Do you remember any of the early dances, or Ten Langdon Street? Answer: Yeadon recalled the 1971 National Gay Thanksgiving Conference in Memorial Union when over 200 people from gay liberation groups in more than a dozen states convened in Madison for workshops, films, and a Saturday night dance. He remembered the feeling of camaraderie, and being amazed at the sheer number of gay people in one place. Yeadon recalled Ten Langdon as a former frat house that the GLF was trying to make a Gay Center out of.

01:12:11	[No question.]  Yeadon recalled early gay bars in Madison, the Clinique and the Pirate Ship. The Gay Law Students Association used to meet at the Pirate Ship. Yeadon noted that the Pirate Ship as not having a cabaret license, and therefore not being allowed to have people dance. He remembered dancing with others there and getting told to stop dancing. He said the Back Door, across from the Stonehearth, had a tough crowd. Gays had to be careful entering and leaving the Back Door because of violence to gays from patrons of the Stonehearth. 

01:14:38	Question: Were you out when you worked at the Memorial Union? What was the climate like then? Answer: There was a lot of camaraderie. Yeadon recalled helping form MULO (Memorial Union Labor Organization) by recruiting people. Question: MULO tried to add sexual orientation to the Memorial Union anti-discrimination clause in the labor contract in 1973. What happened with that? Answer: Yeadon said the university fought “tooth and nail” against adding sexual orientation to the Memorial Union anti-discrimination clause in the labor contract. At this time there was a Residence Hall Labor Organization, and the Teaching Assistants Association. Yeadon remembered trying to start an all-campus Campus Labor Organization, but it did not go anywhere. Question: Any regrets? Answer: Yeadon said he regretted some things he didn’t do, but that he had had a good life. 

01:18:18	There is discussion with students in the audience about feelings of loneliness and life on campus today.

01:20:48	Question: Did your parents ever know you were gay? Answer: Yeadon said his father being a Marine Corps drill sergeant. Yeadon was the second of four brothers, all spaced four years apart. Yeadon waited to come out to his parents until after graduating from college, because he was afraid his parents would not let him hang out with his little brother. When he came out his father told him, “I always knew something was wrong with you. You had bad genes and they came from your mother’s side of the family.” Yeadon remembered bringing friends home to his parent’s house, and just not explaining the relationship to his parents. 

01:23:29	There is discussion with students in the audience about life in the dorms today.

01:29:22	[No question.]  Yeadon related having mixed feelings about the gay marriage debate – wanting those who wish to be married to be able to, but feeling that gays should make their own model. Yeadon described being lovers with David Clarenbach in the late 1970s. He could not say this publicly at the time, as David did not want to be public about being homosexual. He described Kay Clarenbach, David’s mother, as not being supportive of his and David’s relationship. David Clarenbach was one of the main people responsible for the passage of the 1982 state-wide gay rights law. Yeadon described how one of the important reasons the 1982 state-wide gay rights law was passed was that a religious coalition was formed that supported the passage of the law. 

01:36:00	End of First Interview Session

End of Interview #945