Lavender Graduation

Tuesday night, I attended Lavender Graduation at Millsaps College.  You probably don't know that that is.  I didn't either until about three weeks ago.  I'll explain more about what it is later.

Once upon a time, I took an oath.  It went something like this "I swear, my life long to (among other things) defend the weak."  That sounds like overly-dramatic, false masculinity smoke and mirrors.  For me, it's not--at least, I try to make sure that it's not.  We're born into a world where there is an immoral imbalance of power.  An oath like this seeks to mend that by making the strong the vassal of the weak.  Not everybody takes it seriously, but I do.

I hesitate to call homosexuals "weak."  It might offend them.  It would offend me.  Individually, they are generally better educated, healthier, and wealthier than the rest of us.  The problem is that, as a group, they suffer from a political weakness because their numbers are fewer than other demographic groups.  That means they are politically vulnerable, and right now, there are people, particularly in the South, who are bullying gay people for their own political gain.  It's a sad fact that in our democracy, demagoguery can win elections.  Anyone who can convince two people that a third is their enemy is halfway to being king.  Mississippi doesn't lead the way in this, Florida does, but Mississippi is doing its best to catch up.  

When you look at what's been happening in the Florida legislature, Tennessee, Lousiana, Mississippi, and more, it's quite clear that there are people seeking to turn back whatever gains have been made in gay rights, just as they turned back whatever gains have been made in Women's reproductive rights, and they're using the same mechanisms to do it.  When you pair that with what's going on currently with the United Methodist Church, the sponsors of Millsaps Collge, it's not hard to get the feeling that homosexuality is under siege in this country.  

There are those who say the United Methodist Church is on the cusp of changing its policy and allowing the church to sanction gay marriages.  I don't know if that's true, but I do know there are thousands of people who are so worried that they might that they are leaving the United Methodist Church.  I know scores of people who are in gay marriages.  There's not one of them I could say to them, "I do not accept your bond."  The man sitting next to me, Tuesday, is married to a boy I knew from his days at Millsaps.  I would fight for them.  

There are a number of reasons why I would side with homosexuals in this political battle.  For one thing, they're often very good, if not the best, at things I consider very important.  That's not the real reason, though.  The real reason is that I find it immoral to hurt someone who hasn't hurt you, and it's doubly immoral to hurt an entire group of people who never hurt anybody.  I find it immoral to attack or to seek to contain people just because they are different, so this is where I draw my sword.  This is the weak I will defend.   I'm old.  If this is the hill I die on, I'm satisfied.

Lavender Graduation is a ceremony celebrated by over two hundred colleges and universities that acknowledge and celebrate LGBTQ Plus students.  It was created by a woman who wasn't allowed to attend the graduation of her own children because she was a lesbian married to another lesbian not quite thirty years ago.  Now that I've seen thirty years go by twice, I can tell you that 1995 was not very long ago.

When I attended Millsaps, there were very few openly gay students or faculty.  Last night, the event in the Christian Center event space was so full they had to call out for more chairs to hold everybody.  When I attended Millsaps, there were several people who were either closeted or "quietly open," which is a phrase I learned meant that they told a few people but didn't mention it very often.  There was one person who told me they were gay way back in 1985 but still have not told their parents.  I hope they'll read this.  

Before I attended Millsaps, there were at least two incidents where people called either my dad or Dr. Harmon with proof that a professor was gay in hopes that they would lose their job.  It happened once more while I attended Millsaps, and probably more than that because Dr. Harmon and my dad never really told me everything, just those things they thought might affect me because I knew the professor in question.  To my knowledge, no one was ever fired at Millsaps for being gay.  Daddy's response in situations like this was usually that his hands were tied because of tenure and "thank you for calling."  His thought was that engaging these people gave them the confrontation they wanted, so he kept it brief.   Mind you, this happened with straight professors too.  Jilted lovers or angry wives would call about Doctor So-and-So running around with a student.  In one case, he was openly cavorting with a lawyer downtown that I also cavorted with, and shouldn't we fire him for cheating on his wife.   He didn't get fired, either. 

There were three professors at Millsaps--I don't have permission to say their names.  I  feel pretty strongly that the individual chooses if they are out or not.  There were three professors who were very dear to me and very influential in my life and who spent most of their lives working at Millsaps and were never able to say publically what they were.  One of them pulled me aside one day,

"Boyd, you will hear things about me."

"I know."

"These things are true, but I need you to understand that I am very discrete and careful about these things."

"I know.  I need you to know something, man to man.  What you've told me changes nothing.  My feelings for you, my respect for you doesn't change.  Your life, outside of this room, is your life.  Not mine."

I don't know how many other students he told.  That was thirty-five years ago.  I don't know how many colleagues he told.  I do know that he died, not ever feeling comfortable saying who he loved, while I cavorted with every co-ed I could find without any repercussions.  While we both attended Millsaps, I was able to take whoever I wanted to formal dances, but he could not.  That's not fair.  That's not right.  He died, not ever knowing that would change.  I hope that there's some way he could look down from heaven and see Lavender Graduation and see that things have changed.

One of the most remarkable things the theater program at Millsaps ever produced was Sam Sparks.  As a student, he was the go-to kid.  The go-to kid is the one with the confidence and knowledge, and responsibility that you can go to with serious jobs.  One summer, Brent had to be away all summer, so he gave Sam and Erin keys to the theater.  Tens of thousands of dollars in lighting equipment, power tools like you wouldn't believe, dangerous ladders, and catwalks were all in the hands of these two young people with the keys to the kingdom.  It strained the relationship between Sam and Erin because it was so much responsibility and sometimes so much of a pain, but they made it through, and Wednesday Night, I had dinner with them both to celebrate Sam's first year as the Director of Theater at Millsaps College.

Besides being only one of two responsible kids in the whole department, Sam was also an incredible artist.  Very young, he returned as a guest artist to direct Equus.  If you know this play, it's a remarkably difficult hill to climb that requires so much out of the actors and the director, but he made it through, and it was beautiful.

Sam sent out a notice that Monty had asked him to deliver the address at Lavender Graduation.  Monty is our everything kid.  The everything kid is an awful lot like the go-to kid, except they're everywhere.  Everything I go to at Millsaps or at Galloway, Monty is there.  There may be clones of him.

I knew that Sam was interested in Millsaps Pride because we talked about it, and I was really interested in what was happening with Millsaps Pride, mainly because it didn't exist when I was a student. 

If you like to read, take the time to read Mississippi Sissy by Kevin Sessums and then read Diary of a Misfit by Casey Parks.  There's something like seventeen years between when Kevin was at Millsaps and when Casey was at Millsaps; while the school didn't change that much, the life of gay students was so very different that I doubt they would recognize one another.  Having known both of them as students, one older than I and one younger, that progression and the progression from when Casey was at Millsaps until today pleases me very much.

I had no conception of what a Lavender Graduation might be when I said, "I'm in."  They could have had strippers and snake handlers and dancing elephants, and I would still have sat there to take it all in.  I've seen dancing elephants before.  

It embarrasses me and always has, but I'm aware of what my name means to Millsaps.  I'm also aware that, if I had any other name, I've still devoted enough of my life to Millsaps that sometimes, just showing up matters, so that's what I did.  I showed up.  

I arrived early because I'm annoying like that.  One student was setting up.  He had a table with twenty rainbow pattern lanyard chords laid out.  I recognized immediately what this was.  Chords representing some aspect of the student's life are worn around the neck and shoulders during Commencement Ceremonies.  Sometimes, it's a fraternity; sometimes, it's a sport; in this case, at least twenty of the 2023 graduates would be wearing Millsaps Pride chords when they walked.  Monty, the everything kid, among them.  

I was far too early, so I went outside to wait.  I don't smoke anymore, but I still slip outside and sit on the stoop of a building to clear my mind.  Sometimes it's hard not to smoke when I do that.  The stoop of the Christian Center, if you're a certain kind of student from a certain period of time, is hallowed ground.  From there, I pulled out my little folding keyboard and wrote a short piece about my dad and Andy Griffith, and Atticus Finch.  I can't go to Millsaps without seeing the ghosts of my dad and Dr. Harmon, and Lance and Jack Woodward, and Lucy Millsaps and Rowan Taylor and Robert Wingate, and even Dick Wilson, even though he went to Ole Miss.  My brother is a ghost at Millsaps now.  One day I will be too.

After pressing "post" on my essay, I went back to the event space room and met Sam on the way.  Soon Shawn Barrick and Catherine Freis, Liz Egan and Anne MacMaster, showed, and I knew I was in the right place.  Our kids, the theater kids, were dramatically gathered at a table together laterally from us.  Theater kids are either always performing or always hiding--divided between actors and technicians.  Even at dinner, it's easy to tell which is which.  It's fun to watch them as a group.

Assistant Dean Ryan Upshaw spoke first.  Ryan invoked James Baldwin.  I honestly don't know how much the students know about Baldwin.  He's a name that's really from before my generation and far before theirs.  He was born in Harlem, both black and gay.  A rough hand to play in the twentieth century.  For a twenty-year-old Millsaps student, who was gay, of color or not, I think I would recommend Giovanni's Room by Baldwin.  They may not ever have to live through the struggles that Baldwin did--but I can't promise that.  One of the reasons I was there was that I can't promise things won't get bad again.  There are people who want very much for the life of homosexuals to go back to the way it was when I was a boy and before.  I specifically wanted to be there last night to say "NO" with my presence--and now, with my words. 

Sam's remarks were beautiful.  He's a fine writer.  Having been a student of Catherine and Anne and Brent, I don't know that he had much choice.  Every time I see Sam, I think, "he can do all the things Lance dreamed of but never could."  That's how much things have changed between when Lance taught at Millsaps and today when Sam teaches at Millsaps.  Lance did Equus; it shocked the world.  Sam did Equus; the world was more ready to receive it.  I think those bookends in time say a lot.  Sam spoke of many things, but he ended with the final speech of Angels in America Perestroika.  Although Angels in America is technically an "aids" play, it encompasses everything there is to know about being a gay man in America before the current century.  I'm hoping his speech will motivate at least one student to pick it up over the summer, either to read or watch the HBO production.

At the end of the ceremony, I turned to Sam and said, "You know... if you could cast it, there's nothing to hold us back from..."  

"It's SIX HOURS LONG," Sam said.  

"You can do it in parts, maybe a project over two semesters; not all the roles have to be students..." I said, and Sam, for a moment, starts thinking of people who could fill some roles who aren't students before he said again, 

"It's six hours."  Needless to say, I don't think we're gonna do Angels in America any time soon, as much as it would please some of us, but the point is, he could.  

Sam could do Boys in The Band.  He balked at doing Corpus Christi, but I think he could get away with it.  Lance put on Equus with a fair share of ferocity about what the world thought about it.  He did that play, but he couldn't have done any of those.  We talked about Boys in the Band.  Toward the end of his life, we talked about Love! Valor! Compassion!  In the days I knew Lance, we talked about maybe a thousand plays, most of which he had done at Millsaps.  That sounds like an exaggeration, but it's not.  He put on all those plays, but he never felt like he could put on these, even though he had high regard for them.   The point is Lance could be a bulldog for theatre, but for these plays, for these subjects, he believed he couldn't.  Sam can.  Sam can.  He can, and he would receive accolades from not only the students and his peers in theater but also from his colleagues at Millsaps and the administration.  Much has changed.

In 2023, with Ron Desantis passing bills that say "don't say gay," the Methodist church rending itself in half over whether to sanction gay marriage, and two remarkable pastors in Mississippi facing a church trial for marrying two of their students in love,  and suddenly the whole world really mad about transgenderism--twenty Millsaps students will walk at graduation with rainbow chords hanging on their shoulders.  

So, the question becomes: "Who's the old guy next to the theater professor?" and the answer is, "It's an old guy who believes more in your capacity for greatness than he believes in the people who would hold you back.  He's somebody who never thought in 2023 there would be people who wanted to hold you back, but there are.  He's somebody who doesn't know you but loves you enough to be counted with you." There's no color on the rainbow for old guys who just want the people he loves to be happy and complete and safe and able to reach the full limit of whatever gifts God gave them.

That's ok.  I'm still there.

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