James Green oral history interview 1, 2015 September 29
Description
In this first of two interviews, psychotherapist James Green, who settled in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1988, discusses his life, his work, and his activities with various LGBT organizations in Charlotte. As a boy, Mr. Green was one of seven children within a Native Ojibwe and Catholic family in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He describes how at the age of thirteen he became aware of his same sex attraction but remained closeted due to the stigma of gay identity in the 1960s. However, in 1969 Mr. Green was greatly inspired by the Stonewall uprising and subsequently became involved in activism as a college student attending the University of California at Berkeley. He details how he co-founded the Pacific Center for Human Growth, an LGBT community center in Berkley. Mr. Green traces his path from college student to novitiate, and eventually to counseling and psychotherapy work, a path that brought him to the Southeastern United States. He relates how he was attracted to Charlotte as a mid-size city with a developing LGBT community. Mr. Green describes how he became involved in local LGBT organizations Acceptance and the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard of Charlotte, and how he explored gay communities in the Dilworth and Plaza Midwood neighborhoods. By the 1990s, Mr. Green was engaged in his pastoral psychotherapy work, counseling gay men, Native Americans, and AIDS sufferers. He discusses his faith as a connection between Ojibwe tradition and Catholic spirituality, and he also explains how his unique intersectionality as a gay, spiritual man with experience in counseling made him better adept to support AIDS sufferers. During the interview Mr. Green also discusses his admiration for Father Gene McCreesh and his work at St. Peter's Catholic Church in Charlotte.
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