Tinderbox: A Dramatization

The Un Told Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation

Gay life in early 1970s America was unimaginably different. Facing the threat of arrest by police, firing by employers, and forced "interventions" by doctors and religious leaders, most homosexuals lived in a closet governed by the fear of exposure. At night, they sought love and companionship in underground societies, away and unseen. The raucous port city of New Orleans offered one such hidden community, and a thriving one at that. The evening of June 24, 1973, promised to be fun for the closeted, blue-collar men–many of them veterans–who thought of the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar that sometimes doubled as a church, as a home away from home. That Sunday night offered two hours of bottomless beer for a dollar, a piano sing-along, and a special charity event, all drawing a larger-than-usual crowd. The merriment came to a halt when an arsonist emptied a can of accelerant that ignited an inferno. The doorway to the bar flew open to reveal a surging wall of fire that incinerated thirty-two people in what was the largest mass murder of homosexuals in U.S. history until 2016. The aftermath was no less traumatic. Families were ashamed to claim loved ones, the Catholic Church refused proper burial rites, and police never questioned the primary suspect–all reflecting the toxic prejudice of a nation.