Out Of The Past: 32 Killed In Horrific Firebombing of Gay Bar (1973) | gayagenda.com

projectqueer:

October is Gay History Month. All throughout the month we’ll revisit stories that shed light on lesser-known moments in LGBT history.

June 24, 1973 marked a lively summer day at The Upstairs Lounge, a second-floor gay bar in New Orleans’ Gay Triangle. The Lounge had just hosted its regular services for the gay-friendly Metropolitan Community Church, after which the bar held a free buffet for 125 people. By that evening, about 60 patrons were in the bar enjoyed David Gary’s piano playing and discussing the bar’s upcoming MCC fundraiser for Crippled Children’s Hospital.

At 7:56pm bartender Buddy Rasmussen heard the downstairs buzzer and asked Luther Boggs to go check the door. Normally cabbies would ring the buzzer to tell people that they had arrived to pick people up, but when Boggs went to answer the door, he found no cab driver. Instead he found the flames of a Molotov cocktail engulfing the wooden staircase and climbing towards the bar.

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