Legendary Milwaukee Gay Rights Pioneer Eldon Murray Passes Into History
Memorial Services For Veteran LGBT Civil Rights Leader Set For March 31
Milwaukee - Eldon Murray passed away on Monday, March 5, four days after he turned 77, and following a brief illness. Murray had suffered a major heart attack in early February and had been hospitalized at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center until his passing. Murray had been pro-active in all post-coronary treatment decisions. He elected to discontinue aggressive treatment, including kidney dialysis, on March 4, and continued to receive palliative care until his death around 3 AM the next morning.
  Memorial services for Murray will be held Saturday, March 31 at 1:30 PM at the Washington Park Senior Center, 4420 W. Vliet Street in Milwaukee.
 Murray has left an enduring legacy that affects us all. Every movement needs innovators, people with the courage and determination to be a driving force.  Eldon Murray filled that role. He founded or helped to establish LGBT services and projects that were either the first of their kind or that existed in only a few other places.  He did so at a time where only a small minority of the LGBT community was open and out.
  Eldon’s influence extended well beyond Milwaukee, and Wisconsin. He was one of only 31 LGBT activists inducted in 1998 into the National Gay and Lesbian Hall fame as a “pioneer of the movement” by the One Institute and International Gay and Lesbian Archives.  It was a well deserved honor.
  He began his journey in the 1950’s with the Korean War.  While many others received deferments due to their sexual orientation, Eldon willingly went into combat.  He said that he felt an obligation to defend what rights gays did have and the potential to achieve more.
  Upon his return, Eldon rejected the “homophile” groups like Mattachine society where people used secret names to hide their identity.  In 1968, a year before the Stonewall riots, Eldon joined with Aryln Hess and others to co-found Wisconsin’s first LGBT organization, GPU, the Gay People’s Union.
  He was one of the few people, anywhere to publicly advocate for LGBT rights.  He often said that as a stockbroker, he was one of the few people who could be public without risking his livelihood. “My clients don’t care if I’m gay,”  he would say, “just as long as I make them money!”
  Eldon did more than speak up.  For the next four decades he created opportunities to meet community needs often coming up with projects and services that were the first of their kind anywhere in the country.
  He founded the first LGBT community center in the country, the GPU Center and the first LGBT hotline.  
  Recognizing that gay men would not seek testing and treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases in places where they would have to be open about their sexuality and their partners, Eldon was the driving force behind the GPU Men’s Health Clinic, the first gay health clinic anywhere.    
  In the 1970’s “homosexuals” were not seen or even mentioned on the airwaves.  To help remedy that situation, Eldon helped to establish what was the second gay radio show in existence.  The half-hour program first aired in February, 1971 and on subsequent Sunday evenings on a commercial radio Milwaukee WZMF. Murray’s GPU collaborated with the mainstream media on at least other two occasions, working with the Milwaukee Journal in February 1972 on its six-part series, “The Gay Revolution,” and with WTMJ-TV in September 1973 on a five-part series titled “Some Call Them Gay.”
  Today there are scores of LGBT newspapers, websites and slick magazines.   But in the 1970’s only two LGBT newspapers had a national circulation, The Advocate and GPU News, founded in October 1971 and published for the next decade by Eldon Murray.
  Providing encouragement, information and lively discussions on issues facing the LGBT community Eldon’s magazine was a lifeline for thousands of gay, lesbian and transgendered people, throughout America. 
  When the AIDS crisis hit hard in the 1980’s, Eldon was there again.  He assisted with the effort to raise the initial funds for the Milwaukee AIDS Project, MAP.  Now called ARCW, the organization was an essential component in Milwaukee’s response to AIDS.  
  While all of these things would represent a lifetime of accomplishment for most of us, Eldon Murray was not done.  In 1994 he founded the Milwaukee chapter of Senior Action in a Gay Environment, SAGE. 
  Eldon became an ardent advocate for LGBT seniors many of whom were alone, isolated and still closeted.  His work earned him yet another honor when he was inducted into the Milwaukee Senior Hall of Fame.  Eldon was the first openly LGBT individual ever accorded such an honor anywhere.
  His work on behalf of SAGE resulted in one of the first government grants ever to be awarded to an LGBT Senior group.  His work also garnered a major private foundation grant to give SAGE its own staff and office.
  At the time of his hall of fame honor, Murray summarized the progress Milwaukee had made over the three decades since he helped begin the fight for full equality. "We’ve come a long way in Milwaukee since I became active here in 1969," he told Wisconsin InStep reporter Jamakaya. "We have good rapport with our elected officials who work with us. We now have a domestic partners registry. We have a police department that actually recruits gay and lesbian people for the police force. We have a strong PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) group. Our PrideFest is now on the Summerfest grounds. We’ve got a very strong AIDS project. There are a lot of things that Milwaukee can be very proud of."
  Murray was also profiled in the 2000 National Gay And Lesbian Task Force policy paper Outing Age: Public Policy Issues Affecting Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual And Transgender Elders. The NGLTF profile noted that “Murray was also the first openly gay person to be appointed to the advisory board of the Milwaukee Commission on Aging. In 1999 he arranged to bring the ‘Elders’ exhibit from New York to Milwaukee for Older Americans Month. It was displayed at the LGBT Community Center, the Department on Aging and the Washington Park Senior Center, where it raised consciousness about older LGBT people.”
  A fairly well-publicized rift between Eldon and the SAGE/Milwaukee Board of Directors in December of 2003 caused Murray to move away from the organization. At that time Eldon had said that he would never give anything to SAGE again, according to current SAGE Executive Director Bill Serpe.
  However, Serpe told Quest that Murray was always willing to meet with him after Serpe became the Executive Director in 2004 to talk about his vision and dreams for the organization. “There were many times when I had questions that only he could answer and he was always there for me and would share the information that I needed to keep SAGE/Milwaukee moving in the direction that it needed to go,” Serpe said.
  “We all know that Eldon worked diligently on anything that he got involved with,” Serpe continued. “For SAGE that meant a lot more than most people could ever imagine. He secured a grant with the Department on Aging to hire a part-time Social worker which is one of a very few government grants in the entire country that goes to an LGBT organization.  That yearly grant to SAGE is now in its 6th year of providing psychotherapy services to LGBT elderly.”
  Serpe told Quest how hard Murray worked to establish his position. “He (Eldon) also worked with the Helen Bader Foundation Inc. to establish the need for SAGE to hire a full time Executive Director. When all was said and done the Foundation gave SAGE a three year grant for nearly $150,000. This is an unheard of amount for a small, relatively new nonprofit,” Serpe said. “But Eldon kept pursuing the Foundation and convinced them that this would be in the best interests of the entire community. Last year the Helen Bader Foundation Inc. gave SAGE another fifty thousand dollars over two more years.”
  “More than anyone, I know how hard Eldon must have worked,” Serpe added. “I am regularly at meetings at the Department on Aging or at the Helen Bader Foundation where I realize that it is because of Eldon’s vision and perseverance that I am there and that the senior Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community has a voice in the mainstream community.  And I think of him regularly when I am at those meetings and functions and thank him for having the courage to do what needed to be done.”
  Beyond the list of projects and services Eldon had a public hand in, there are dozens of other aspects of gay life he played a private role in.  He provided advice, counsel and moral support to numerous gay and lesbian leaders in Milwaukee and elsewhere influencing myriad organizations, causes and projects. 
  That influence will extend beyond Eldon’s life. Earlier this year, he consigned his estate to the Eldon Murray Foundation.  The foundation, which will be managed by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, will provide grants to LGBT causes and projects.  A self-perpetuating Board of four individuals appointed by Eldon will distribute the grants.
  Murray was born in Vincennes, Indiana in 1930, and is survived by a brother and by nephews and nieces, but not by a life partner.  He was too busy working on our behalf to enjoy the benefits he sought for the rest of us.  But in a very real sense, the LGBT community is his partner.  It survives Eldon Murray stronger, more vital and richer than it otherwise would have been.
  Murray’s death was the third of a major Milwaukee gay activist in just over a month. Tom Boll, another Milwaukee AIDS Project co-founder, died January 27 at 59, followed four days later by 66-year-old Wisconsin Light co-founder and editor Terry Boughner (story).
  Memorials to Eldon’s rich life should be sent to the Eldon Murray Foundation c/o the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, 1020 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, WI 53202.
  Quest news editor Mike Fitzpatrick also contributed to this article.