June is Pride Month. WNIJ Yvonne Boose speaks with Andrew Mertzenich about his book “Forest City Yester-Queer - A Concise History of the Queer Community of Rockford, Illinois.” The conversation starts with Mertzenich explaining the inspiration behind writing the book.
AM:
It was the culmination of a lot of things that came together at the same time. So, I've been working with the Rockford Area Pride Committee. I founded it back in 2023 and there was an issue that came up at that in our 2024 parade regarding whether or not police should be allowed to take part in the parade, and what happened was, is there was a lot of discussion on it, and I realized that I didn't know the full history of police at Pride, and so what I did is, I did a lot of research, and I brought that research to the committee, and ultimately the committee decided to adopt a policy and standing on police at Pride, which is on the website now. And we've stuck by that for the last three years.
In doing that, I unearthed just a few nuggets of, like, oh, this is the local history, national history. We, you know, the queer community knows about Stonewall riots, they know about AIDS, they know a little bit about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," all of these things that at a national stage were affecting our local community, and so I started looking around into various sources, the local newspapers. I'm like, oh, we have our own local queer history, and nobody's written on it. It's kind of hidden.
YB:
Can you tell me about some of the stories in the book?
AM:
Sure. So, Albert Cashier is probably the most recognizable of our local queer icons, because they were right over in Belvedere, which is just next door to Rockford, and so Albert was — I have to give this — we don't know much about their life before the Civil War. They're, just, you know, they would have been quote unquote just another somebody had they not gone through what they did. Once we hit the Civil War, Albert enlisted as a man, and previous to that they were born female, but prior to that they had been living as a man. They've been working as a farm hand. They joined the Union Army at Camp Fuller in Rockford, and then even after the war they served a very honorable career, many battles. And then when they came back, they also lived as a man beyond even that.
YB:
Tell me more about the Rockton, Illinois one.
AM:
You would never expect that the town of Rockton would be the cradle of queer advocacy in any respect. It's a smaller town, it's rural. But what's really cool about Rockton is twofold. The first one was in 2007-2008 there was a movement to start the Gay Straight Alliance in Rockton, and that Gay Straight Alliance met huge resistance. They had public meetings of the board where they had to move into bigger venues. There were parents that were saying, we don't want this group. There was even a movement by the school board to start an alternative club that had gone defunct in order to say, well, we do have a group that advocates for gay people. They just advocate for everybody, even though it was them avoiding the issue. Can I share my absolute favorite story in the book?
YB:
Sure.
AM:
Okay, so back in the 1990s there was a group called LAGRASS, that's Lesbian and Gay Resources and Social Services. There's a beloved event here in Rockford called the Fourth of July parade. Okay, that is the big festival, and it's been going on for many, many years. What happened was this group of individuals did not feel that Rockford could support its own Pride parade, and this is 1992. They had just come back from the second March on Washington for queer rights at that time, LGBT rights and such, and so what they did is they said, well, we can't do our own parade, but let's get into the parades that are established, and so they said, we are going to go into the Fourth of July parade, and we are going to march out proud exactly who we are.
YB:
Now I see the book is coming out. Is there a particular date and how can people get the book?
AM:
So, it'll come out in a limited space on June 6, which is Rockford's Pride Parade. You can get it exclusively at Maze Books downtown on that day. After that, we're going to begin distribution, so a little bit later in the month, you'll find it a few local bookshops, the local museum, history museums, and such.
YB:
Now, is there anything else you would like to share with me today?
AM:
There are just these stories that are just so cool, and it just people are always like, well, where did we make a difference? No, we made a difference. So, I'm hoping it's inspiring.
YB:
It was so good to speak with you.
AM:
Indeed. Hope to see you sometime. Bye now.
