But de la Croix chose instead for the tour this Near North spot because it is where he claims Gerber and other society leaders were arrested by police. Crilly Court in the Old Town Triangle district, is a Chicago landmark. Henry Gerber was an army veteran turned postal worker in the early 1920s who founded the Society for Human Rights, the nation's first gay rights organization, and published its short-lived newsletter, "Friendship and Freedom," which de la Croix describes as the "first known homophile publication" in the United States. Then: Residential property Now: Fort Dearborn branch office, U.S. He spent years compiling and researching the stories found in this book, which traces LGBT men and women from the Native Americans who lived here before there was a "Chicago" up through the city's founding and explosive growth to Stonewall, the 1969 police raid on a New York City gay bar and subsequent demonstrations that is considered the spark of the modern gay rights movement.īut de la Croix tells the Windup's story to show how a bar raid could impact a life, as the names, addresses and occupations of those arrested were publicized. Men and women who lead double lives, lying to the world by day, then turning up their collars to hide their frightened faces as they dart down litter-strewn alleys into unmarked bars at night."ĭe la Croix, inducted in 2012 into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, started listening to these "Chicago Whispers" in 1997, six years after arriving here from Britain. These voices belong to lesbians and gay men locked in the closet of Chicago's past. "Stand on the corner long enough," he adds, "peel away those cries of the past like the layers of an onion, and underneath you'll hear the whispering of ghosts as they tell their untold stories.