Donald Stewart Lucas was born in rural Colorado in 1926, but moved to San
Francisco in 1949, performing in local theater until the middle 1950s. There he
was introduced to the Mattachine Society and the idea of homosexual education
and activism. An acquaintance invited Lucas to a meeting of a San Francisco
chapter of the recently re-formed Mattachine Society in mid-1953. In November
1953, Lucas attended a Constitutional Convention of the Society in Los Angeles
and from that point in time became progressively more involved in the
organization. As the leadership of the Society migrated from southern to
northern California, Lucas assumed greater leadership responsibilities. In 1954,
Lucas was a representative of the San Francisco Area Council and in 1955 he
moved into the position of chair of the Society's Legal-Legislative Committee.
Beginning in 1955, he also worked with Hal Call on publishing the Mattachine
Review in the position of Business Manager. During that time, he kept the books
for the publishing company he founded with Hal Call, but spent most of his time
performing what he called "lay counseling" for the Society. This activity
included working with individuals who contacted the Society with a whole variety
of problems relating to employment, housing, civil rights, arrests, family,
gender identity, and psychology at a time when the San Francisco homophile
movement experienced a period of significant growth.
Lucas played an important role in helping to found the Council on Religion and the
Homosexual (CRH) in 1964. CRH was an outgrowth of several San Francisco-based homophile
organizations: the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis,
and the League for Civil Education, as well as the Glide Memorial Center. Since
the late 1950s, one goal of these organizations was to build alliances with
liberal, mostly Protestant, ministers with hopes that they would become allies
in the fight for homosexual civil rights.The organization of CRH dates to
June, 1964, when a two-day Consultation on The Church and the Homosexual was
held at the White Memorial Retreat Center in Mill Valley, California. The Consultation was
sponsored by the Glide Foundation, two other agencies of the Methodist Church,
and several homophile organizations. Lucas attended this Consulation and
addressed the group as a spokeperson for gay male concerns.
Lucas was also one of the organizers of the New Year's Day Mardi Gras Ball of
1965 that greatly increased the visibility of CRH. This Ball, held at California
Hall on Polk Street, was a fundraiser for CRH and was sponsored by the city's
homophile organizations. Although all the proper permits had been obtained, the
members of the San Francisco Police Department photographed and otherwise
harassed attendees; they also arrested several ministers, lawyers, and a
housewife for supposedly interfering with police work. The behavior of the
police backfired and, with the help of the CRH clergy, the event turned into an
extremely important public relations coup not only for CRH, but for San
Francisco homosexuals in general.
As Lucas's interest in social services and counseling increased in the middle
1960s, he was exposed not only to homosexuals in need, but to others (like
runaway youth, hustlers, drug addicts, the elderly, and transgender youth) in
the Tenderloin and South of Market area who were confronted with a variety of
problems. As part of the Johnson Administration's antipoverty programs,
the Economic Opportunity Council was formed in San Francisco to distribute
grants and establish neighborhood-based programs. In 1966, Central City
(comprised of the Tenderloin and South of Market) became one of the five "target
areas" within San Francisco. Lucas was hired as the administrative assistant and
then assistant director to the Central City Area Director, Calvin Colt. When
Colt transferred to the main EOC office in the fall of 1967, Lucas was promoted
to the position of Director of the Central City Multi-Service Center. He served
in that position until May, 1969.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Lucas continued
to work for communities in need by serving on the
boards of North of Market Senior Services and the Haight-Ashbury
Free Medical Clinic. However, after leaving the Central City Multi-Service Center, Lucas primarily
worked as a bookkeeper and private consultant until retirement. Lucas died in September,
2003, at the age of 77.
(Information for this biographical statement from the finding aid
to the Donald Stewart Lucas Papers, written by Martin Meeker, at the GLBT Historical
Society.)