I'm Eric Marcus and this is the Making Gay History Podcast.

This week I want you to meet Wendell Sayers. You won't read about Wendell in any of the history books.

Try an online search and all you're going to find is the day he was born and the day he died.

You won't even find his name in my book

because he asked me not to use it.

He worried that word might get back to his family

that he was gay, so I called him Paul Phillips,

and I didn't say where he lived.

The World Wendell grew up in was stacked against him from the day he was born in

1904.

He was black, adopted, gay, small town Western Kansas.

But he found a way out and against all odds he built a life.

He had a career and he even found his way in the 1950s to a local chapter of the

Madishing Society. That was one of the first gay rights organizations which was founded in 1950.

So here's the scene. I'm in Denver on a bleak winter's day in a solidly middle class neighborhood of identical houses next door to the old

Stapleton Airport, which was still open back then.

So I parked my car in front of a well-maintained ranch.

Wendell greets me at the door.

He's dressed in pressed gray slacks, crisp white shirt, gray pattern tie, spit shine black shoes.

He's a solid handsome man. He could be 70. He's really 84. After a quick tour of his tidy

living room, Wendell pours us each a glass of water and we sit down at his dining

room table. I clip the mic to his tie and I set my tape recorder to record.

...