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before its development, giving Taylor firsthand experience with the land and its foodways.
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The family also summered at Hilton Head, S.C. Taylor speaks of a happy outdoor childhood, with some African American friends in the segregated South and little awareness of gay life or issues. His father was a scientist with the Manhattan Project who moved the family to Orangeburg, S.C.
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Interview with John Martin Taylor, August 17, 2018ĭate: Description: John Martin Taylor (pronouns: He/His/Him) born in Baton Rouge, LA in 1949, discusses his youth, university years, his travels, various careers in art and the culinary world, his family, friends, lovers and his husband. He finds the community much more fragmented, assimilated and divided by class than what he experienced, yet ends on a positive note of his personal philosophy to "celebrate life." Speaking on the current state of affairs, he says he is happy that HIV has become a manageable disease but is alarmed that people are still becoming infected, and regrets the fact that many younger than he are ignorant of this and other parts of LGBTQ history. John's Caf?, a gay friendly restaurant on John's Island (later The Fat Hen), Gray realized his work with HIV and advocacy "had become everything I was." This took a toll on his life and his relationships, which therapy helped resolve.
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As he closed his retail store and concentrated on baking, and his business partner started St. He traces the creation of Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS), and his growing involvement, noting how he learned to become an advocate "and that I do have a voice." He became trained in HIV testing and counseling, became the head of the volunteer program of PALSS, later Lowcountry AIDS Services, creating the nutritional program and a food bank.
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Distressed by the death of so many "boys" from AIDS, Gray helped found Helping Hands, a grass roots organization of volunteers who banded together to help people with AIDS, a disease that provoked such fear that he had to paper his store windows to shield those attending a fund-raiser there. Being an openly gay merchant started rumors and brought many to his shop including two gay youths seeking positive role models ? Joel Derfner, who later wrote books on LGBTQ topics and "Baby" Thomas Myers whose father founded We Are Family, an organization for LGBTQ youth. He lived a completely out life in Charleston where he found people open, friendly and non-judgmental, recalls eccentric friends like Witsell Neyle and Mary Alston Ruff, mentions how African Americans attended the women's bar D?j? Vu, and contrasts the small town atmosphere and the beginning of the food and restaurant scene to later changes. Moving to Charleston in 1984, Gray eventually established Cacao, a chocolate shop on King Street. He speaks of the parties he threw, the relationships he had, and the start of the AIDS crisis. His friends included a gay speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, and the White House Executive Chef Walter Scheib. He led a "charmed life" at this prestigious hotel where US Presidents came and the Iranian hostages were housed after their 1981 release. He trained from 1977-1979 and then worked there for five years. Having grown up in Virginia, attending gay bars in Roanoke in an era when there were still raids, he became a renown chocolatier at the Greenbrier Hotel. Date: Description: Mark Gray (pronouns: He/His), white chocolatier and AIDS activist, in this third of three interviews (with transcripts of earlier ones available in the repository), discusses the changes in his life as he moved from West Virginia to Charleston, SC, where, in a "turning point," he worked on the "front line" of AIDS activism.