June 24 is 44th Anniversary of Tragic UpStairs Lounge Massacre

The recent memorialization of the tragic shooting at Orlando Pulse Nightclub brought our community to share the value of every LGBTQ life. But more than 40 years ago, another mass attack on our community didn't elicit nearly as much sympathy: the 1973 UpStairs Lounge arson attack that killed 32 people.

It took place on June 24, 1973, at a gay bar at 141 Chartres Street in New Orleans French Quarter. It was the final day of Pride weekend, and members of the Metropolitan Community Church were holding services inside the club's second floor.

At about 8 p.m., a buzzer from downstairs sounded. Bartender Buddy Rasmussen opened it to discover the front staircase engulfed in flames. He led 20 patrons out the back exit to the roof. But others were accidentally locked inside the second-floor club. One man managed to squeeze through the barred windows, only to fall to his death on fire. The MCC Pastor Rev. Bill Larson got stuck in a window and burned to death while people in the street watched it happen, powerless to help.

But instead of sympathy, the gay community got jokes about the "weenie roast" and ashes being buried "in the fruit jar." The local papers compared it to "Hitler's incinerators" and "Dante's Inferno."

The official investigation didn't yield any convictions, but it has long been suspected that gay man Rodger Dale Nunez, a local hustler and troublemaker, had set the fire after being ejected from the bar earlier in the evening after fighting with a customer, and telling patrons, "I'm gonna burn y'all out." Police dismissed the reports and Nunez committed suicide a year later, in November 1974.

Coverage of the fire minimized the impact on the LGBT community; government officials likewise ignored the high death toll, with neither the mayor nor governor making any statement. And when Rev. William P. Richardson of St. George's Episcopal Church held a small prayer service for the victims, he received more than 100 complaints from parishioners. Some families didn't even step forward to claim the bodies of their deceased.

So this year, as you celebrate Pride, take a moment to remember the UpStairs Lounge massacre, and turn your pain into positive action.