In 1964, a Florida legislative committee led by Senator Charley Johns published Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida, also known as the Purple Pamphlet, as part of a witch hunt to seek out gays and bisexuals working in schools, universities, and government jobs, who they believed were determined to “subvert the American way of life by controlling academic institutions and by corrupting the nation’s moral fiber,” according to Carryin’ on in the Lesbian and Gay South. This mistreatment continued until the end of the 1960s, escalating to targeted murders, harassment, and public shaming via stories in local newspapers. This silent film shows a police raid on a Miami gay bar in 1957. Raids would shut down queer establishments on an almost nightly basis, but they kept popping right back up again. Of course, it didn’t happen right away, and the early gay nightlife scene of the 1930s was not long-lived. A place with its own chamber of commerce dedicated to the queer community since 1997, and where Art Smith hosted and officiated a mass gay wedding for more than two dozen couples this past February.
From then on, it would be a rollercoaster of ups and downs, filled with progress, failure, celebrations, and heartbreak in Miami LGBT history, leading to our current status as a gay mecca that attracts more than 1 million LGBT visitors a year. Miami has had a gay nightlife scene as early as the 1930s.
