Keith St Clare, a gay man who edited and published Vanguard, an early LGBTQ magazine that was based in San Francisco, died March 25 at an assisted living facility in Richmond, Texas. He was 79.
Mr. St Clare had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for the last few years, his sister, son, and friends told the Bay Area Reporter.
It was in mid-1960s San Francisco that Mr. St Clare made his mark when he took over Vanguard magazine. Initially published by the Vanguard organization in 1965, the magazine became a separate entity that Mr. St Clare began running in 1966 for the next 12 years, his friend Adrian Ravarour, Ph.D., said in a phone interview.
“He kept the legacy alive,” said Ravarour, a gay man who was also involved with the Vanguard organization, which helped youth – LGBTQ and straight – in the Tenderloin. The group held dances for youth.
“I taught civil rights principles and gay history,” he added.
Ravarour said that Mr. St Clare “was all about furthering people’s rights. He felt a lot of people were oppressed and that people had a right to be themselves.”
August Bernadicou, a gay man who’s executive director of the LGBTQ History Project, was friends and colleagues with Mr. St Clare.
“He was gay liberation pre-gay liberation,” Bernadicou said in a phone interview. “In 1967, Vanguard magazine was one of the most radical magazines.”
He said the publication covered the transgender community, drug dealers, and others.
“It had an interview with a Tenderloin drag queen and all these people who were marginalized,” Bernadicou recalled.
Bernadicou interviewed Mr. St Clare for his history site.
One thing both Bernadicou and Ravarour said was that Mr. St Clare often spoke in poetry.
The Vanguard organization was affiliated with Glide Memorial Church. The Reverend Larry Mamiya was the church’s official adviser to Vanguard and he wrote about the organization in his “Memoir of my Intern Year,” which is part of the CRH Mamiya Exhibit available at lgbtqreligiousarchives.org.
Vanguard, 1965-1967, as he noted, was about social justice trying to end discrimination and gain acceptance of LGBT people. Mamiya was very supportive, having created the Vanguard weekend dances that added societal dimensions to Vanguard (that were later carried into the 1967 Gay and Lesbian Center). After Glide began to sponsor Vanguard in June 1966, the late Reverend Cecil Williams, Glide's ministers, and Vanguard members JP Marat, Keith St Clare, Dixie Russo, Joel Roberts, and many others were staunch activists who gave their gifts hoping to change attitudes, gain equality and empower LGBT people. Unfortunately, the Vanguard organization ceased operation in 1967. But Mr. St Clare continued to publish Vanguard magazine as an activist and moral crusade for LGBT rights.
In July 2023, Mr. St Clare wrote an open letter about his involvement with both the organization and magazine to correct what Ravarour said was an erroneous article in the British queer publication Attitude mistakenly stating that Mr. St Clare and Ravarour were among the poor street youth members of Vanguard. In his letter, Mr. St Clare stated when he arrived in San Francisco in 1966 he spent three or four months in North Beach, where he became a friend of gay activist performer José Julio Sarria, a Latino veteran and drag queen who founded the Imperial Council, a philanthropic organization.
Mr. St Clare joined the Vanguard organization in October 1966, he wrote, and within a week became what he called the “high scribbler” of the third issue of the magazine. He met the late gay Reverend Ray Broshears, who joined Vanguard in 1967, “and we connected to his street ministry for a few months,” Mr. St Clare wrote. But the Vanguard organization dissolved in mid-1967 and funds intended for it were redirected to a different service agency. In order to save the magazine, Mr. St Clare wrote that he privatized it “as a media outlet for social change.”
Ravarour said that at a time when LGBTQ people had few rights, Mr. St Clare published his address in Vanguard magazine.
Mr. St Clare was also involved with the South of Market Community Center and the Black Box Theater, he noted in his letter.
Foster parent
In addition to Vanguard magazine, Mr. St Clare later went on to operate a foster home for youth in San Francisco. His younger sister, Laurelee Roark, 73, said he was the first gay man to operate such a facility, which he ran starting in the 1980s for many years. Mr. St Clare wrote that he raised 300 foster kids over the years.
“He took kids who were throwaways, runaways, and made that into his career,” she said.
Mr. St Clare also took in LGBTQ youth who were having other issues. One of those, Phyllis Fisher, recalled that she was having problems at home when she went to live at Mr. St Clare’s house.
“I was the only female,” Fisher, a lesbian, said in a phone interview from Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her wife, Vandylin. “He took me in when nobody else would.”
Fisher, 59, recalled Mr. St Clare as a serious man who wanted the foster youth in his care to be accountable.
“I didn’t have a drug problem. I never missed school. I had a job,” Fisher said.
Fisher, a veteran, went on to serve in three U.S. wars during her military career. After her discharge, she drove to see Mr. St Clare, who told her about his biological son.
“He put his heart into the community,” she said of his years as a foster parent. “I just had problems at home. It didn’t stop me from moving forward with my life.”
Michael Miller is Mr. St Clare’s son. Miller, who was adopted at birth, discovered their connection in 2017 after New Jersey, where he lived at the time, opened up adoption records and he got his original birth certificate. The two first met in 2019 when Mr. St Clare attended Miller’s wedding to his wife, Crystal, Miller said in a phone interview.
“Keith kind of believed in his own reality and was against convention,” Miller said, adding that of his time as a foster parent, “there were a lot of doubters that a gay man could do that. He certainly didn’t believe in convention.”
Miller, 56, and his wife live in South Carolina with their 6-year-old daughter, Isabella. Mr. St Clare was able to meet his granddaughter twice when she was younger and they lived in New Jersey, Miller said.
Also in the 1980s, Mr. St Clare worked for the American Red Cross in Berkeley, Roark said, adding that she believes he made a film of all the people he helped during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Roark said Mr. St Clare produced a television show, “Young Ideas,” that was worked on by students. There are hundreds of tapes at Mr. St Clare’s home, she said, which she plans to donate to the UCLA film department archive.
Early life
Mr. St Clare was born Keith Oliver Roark to O. Burt Roark and Edith Oliver Roark on June 24, 1945 in San Antonio, Texas. Roark told the B.A.R. that her brother endured a lot during his childhood.
“He changed his name in California,” said Roark, a straight ally. “His father and mother didn’t ‘get him’ at all. He grew up a young gay man in San Antonio and was bullied for ‘being different.’ He was thin, neat, dramatic.”
Mr. St Clare went into the U.S. Air Force underage at 17, Miller said, adding Mr. St Clare’s parents signed off on it. He was honorably discharged.
Miller said that after Mr. St Clare began having health issues, he would fly to Texas to help care for him. Roark said she didn’t realize how much Mr. St Clare had deteriorated in his final years. In the end, his family was with him in Texas.
“The Saturday and Sunday before he was very upbeat and chatty,” Miller said. “Monday, he was a little aggravated.”
By Tuesday, March 25, facility staff had called the family to tell him “it was time,” Miller said.
“I really expected Keith to live to 85, but that’s not the way it turned out,” he added.
In addition to Roark and Miller and his family, Mr. St Clare is survived by a sister, Melanie Sills, as well as many friends.
Roark said that her brother lived an eventful and productive life.
That Mr. St Clare was a citizen “like everybody else – that was his whole thing,” Roark said. “It was so beautiful that he had that.”