Arthur Johnston and Albert "Bill" Williams, champions of equality for the LGBT community, were honored at the Jon-Henri Damski Awards ceremony held at the Gerber/Hart Library, 1127 W. Granville, on Nov. 1.
The award, known as the "Jon-Henri," is named after Damski, a Chicago journalist, activist and "queer thinker." Often referred to as the Studs Terkel of the gay community, Damski was a thoughtful writer and a voracious consumer of the art of conversation. Damski also wrote for Windy City Times, but ended his career at Outlines ( which later purchased Windy City Times and is now part of WCT ) and Nightlines, which later became Nightspots.
"Jon-Henri captured our lives. He talked to everyone. He had this genuine interest in people's personal stories. He gave a voice to hustlers and people in the community who weren't otherwise accepted," said Lori Cannon, a longtime friend and veteran AIDS community service provider.
As an activist, Damski worked side by side with other LGBT pioneers, such as Rick Garcia, Art Johnston and Laurie Dittman. Together they became known as the "Gang of Four," and their lobbying efforts led to the passage of the Chicago human-rights ordinance in 1989 and the hate-crimes ordinance in 1990.
"He was instrumental in working with equal rights organizations to make Chicago a city where gays and lesbians were no longer discriminated against in areas like housing, employment, public accommodations and things of this nature," Johnson said. "Lots of people were involved with that effort, but what many people don't know is that Jon-Henri was the supreme political strategist behind all of it.
"You see, this was a time when most of us in the gay community didn't know who our elected representatives were. And, of course, the city was just fine with us not being very interested in civil affairs. Jon-Henri, however, was someone in our community who had been to City Council meetings, who knew the history behind the Alderman we would later work with to pass civil rights legislation. Absent Jon-Henri, it wouldn't have taken two years to complete that work ( on passing civil-rights legislation ) that we did; it would have taken another three or four. The reason that today, in this city, that you cannot fire somebody for being gay or lesbian is because of people like Jon-Henri."
Damski passed away in 1997 after battling cancer. Yet, his memory is alive in the hearts of those who knew him and his sense of community spirit was in full celebration at the event.
"Beyond journalism, he was a master thinker," Williams added. "He knew us so well. He was writing before AIDS and he was writing when AIDS started. And, while he didn't write a lot about AIDS specifically, he was able to capture the tonethe devastationthat AIDS had taken on our community. And, on journalism, he wrote it all. He got in people's faces. He caused people to stop and read important information in bar rags that didn't always have a lot of important information. We learned from Jon-Henri."