Allen White was energy incarnate, relentless motion in the service of liberation. Allen White was single-handedly responsible for putting the faces, stories, and voices of gay people in virtually every aspect of the media. Beholden to no one, and motivated by conscience, he chose the causes he wished to promote, and with tenacity unparalleled by almost anyone he used his prodigious talent to advance justice and equality. He wasn't a reporter exactly, although he worked as one at times in his career. He was an advocacy journalist and activist driven by a keen awareness of the dynamics of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. He was also an enigma. I knew him for 20 years and worked as closely with him as only a handful did; he was the person I knew best about whom I knew the least – and in this remembrance I want to pay tribute to a person whose life was consumed by the pursuit of liberation. Conscious of his eccentricities, I hope he will be remembered principally for his accomplishments.
This is a personal recollection, more impressionistic than an a formal obituary might be, and permeated by my deep fondness for a man who was difficult to like at times, but whom I hold in deep admiration and affection. To know him was not necessarily to like him, but to work with him was certainly to be changed by him, and for the better.
I can't even recall how I or where I met him. He used to attend the Sunday night services at MCC-SF during my nearly 15-year tenure there. He always waited to talk to me after church, and was always working to promote some activity or event. He loved the liberation churches of San Francisco and their pastors (Glide Memorial United Methodist and Reverend Cecil Williams; Trinity Episcopal Church and Reverend Robert Cromey; Third Baptist Church and the Reverend Dr. Amos Brown; City of Refuge United Church of Christ and Reverend Dr. Yvette Flunder; and Bethany United Methodist Church when Reverend Dr. Karen Oliveto was pastor). There is no question that Williams was the one he admired the most, and who had the biggest impact on him.
Allen loved the byzantine world of San Francisco politics, and was especially appreciative of Willie Brown, although he admired all the mayors, and he was committed to all of the gay politicians, especially Tom Ammiano, Mark Leno, Bevan Dufty, and others. He loved the atmosphere of the gay Democratic clubs. My esteemed colleague Tommi Avicolli Mecca can testify to Allen's commitment to issues of economic justice. He embodied our history of achievement in this city and was often the single person behind any significant publicity received by anyone. He cared about the plight of union workers, of patients at Laguna Honda Hospital, and making sure that Japanese American students who were prevented from graduating from Lowell High School because they were incarcerated by the U.S. government during World War II eventually received their diplomas.
It was my privilege to work with him on a number of projects, especially in the 1990s: rallies in honor of Matthew Shepard; arranging for Dr. Amos Brown to celebrate Holy Communion at the MCC church when he was first appointed to the Board of Supervisors; the distribution of medical marijuana at MCC when the dispensaries were closed; organizing a crusade for pro-gay Christianity opposite a simultaneous Billy Graham crusade that received more attention than Graham's revival; honoring Methodist minister Jimmy Creech when he was disciplined by the United Methodist Church for performing gay weddings, to name just a few.
When then-President Bill Clinton visited San Francisco, MCC hosted a gay marriage celebration featured in the New York Times that got more coverage than the president's visit. He made sure that the Sunday night service at MCC and its gospel choir was televised into every living room in the Bay Area during that period. He was most proud of uniting religious, gay, and Armenian leaders to have the cross on top of Mount Davidson bathed in rainbow lights on Easter Eve, creating the largest piece of queer Christian art in the world. He saw it as a beacon of hope for a city that had lost so many to HIV/AIDS. And for Allen, who grew up in an evangelical Christian ethos, playing the organ in the denomination founded by one of his personal heroines, Aimee Semple McPherson, it was a vindication of the faith he felt was taken from him when he came out as a gay man.
Why I loved Allen White: when I was diagnosed with AIDS in 1995 I was deeply depressed; I handled it poorly, and I was convinced my life was over. Allen persisted in working with me until I regained a sense of urgency and personal motivation to rejoin the fight for liberation, for myself and others. He never judged, although he frequently cajoled. He helped me find a sense of purpose and coached me into some of my best and most satisfying work.
I make no excuse for his personal shortcomings. If you worked with him, you know what I mean. To say that he could be difficult doesn't even come close to how trying he could be. Sometimes he exhausted me. I had to learn to say no to him more often than to say yes. Even when he was irritating, he was often on what proved to be the right side of a conflict. I wouldn't trade having known him or having worked with him for anything. I think he deserves a monument – or at least a plaque on Castro Street.
Here is how I will remember him: wearing a slightly disheveled suit, a cell phone in one hand, a Carl's Jr. soda cup in the other, standing in the back of MCC watching the choir, the big smile on his face when they sang the Andrae Crouch gospel number "Bless the Lord, Oh My Soul."
That he died with no family to claim his body does not surprise me. But he is survived by an entire community that benefited from his talent, his passion, his creativity, his intelligence, his conscience, and his undaunted commitment to justice. I am proud to have known him and to have worked alongside him. I loved him even more closely than family.
Please join in a celebration of Allen White's life at MCC-SF, 150 Eureka Street, San Francisco on Thursday, July 30 at 6 p.m. The service will be led by Reverend Karen Oliveto, pastor of Glide Memorial Church and Reverend Jim Mitulski, pastor of New Spirit Community Church in Berkeley. For more information call Mitulski at (510) 849-8151 or email him at mailto:[email protected].