Our history is woefully incomplete. It is time to tell the stories of those unsung heroes yet unknown. Click below to read more!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ann-maguire-circle-of-heroes-documentary-series-women
Watch the trailer!
A Four Part Series
Funding Proposal
Logline
This is the story of Ann Maguire, the greatest hero you have never heard of. But you have very likely been impacted by her work. And its time you knew Ann and the people she worked with, and the untold and astounding true story of how they altered the world forever: for LGBT and women’s rights, for Breast cancer survivors, for the homeless, and many, many others. Told in gripping detail by those who were there, it’s the story of people who saw what needed to be done, refused to be daunted by overwhelming odds, and did it.
This hidden story has never been more important than it is as this moment, when all of this civil rights work is under concerted attack, and the Supreme Court is about to take a turn to the Hard Right. It is urgent because some of those with stories to tell are in their 80”s. You don’t know these heroes, but its time you did. You can make an effective contribution to this fight, and claim a role in bringing our amazing hidden history to the world.
Synopsis
So Who Is Ann Maguire?
Ann is a campaigner for change who has been working for social justice and making people’s lives better for 50 years.
Ann’s work includes managing the successful campaign that resulted in the election of the first openly gay person, Elaine Noble to an American state legislature, in 1974, more than 3 years before Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of City Supervisors.
Ann was instrumental in building the political structure that moved the LGBT community into the mainstream political arena, building a power base that moved America lightyears in the direction of full recognition and rights for those marginalized people, gaining them a place in society that had been previously utterly unimaginable.
Outside of politics, in a very personal, meaningful and creative manner, she provided solace to LGBT people in unique and effective ways, beginning her long service as a peer counselor during the early days of the Homophile Community Health Center, where Gay mental health providers led by Dr. Richard Pillard, established a place at which homosexuality was not treated as a disease.
Ann hosted GayWay, a groundbreaking weekly call-in radio talk show for 7 years during the 1970’s and literally provided a unique voice in the darkness for an entire community.
She managed the nurturing lesbian bar and community space Somewhere, providing a home for countless women during an era where there were few options where they could find validation, comfort, and safety.
While working for the City of Boston, Ann devised the homeless census, now used in numerous urban centers to accurately assess the real size and make up of the homeless population at a given point in time. This provided advocates and government agencies with the data they needed to lobby for and deliver services. She served Ray Flynn as the mayor’s liaison to the Gay community, and made dynamic changes in service delivery in each office she occupied.
Along the way she managed the successful campaign of Tom Menino for Mayor of Boston, bringing him from last to first in a crowded field in four months, launching what was arguably the most successful mayoral tenure in the city of Boston, and perhaps the nation. Then she ran the Boston Health and Human Services Department, making all of its divisions more responsive to the City’s residents. Ann’s lifelong friendship with Tom Menino was built on trust and respect, and their mutual passionate dedication to making people’s lives better, which they did in many ways we will see.
Ann was a founder of the National and Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalitions, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to breast cancer research, a gripping and dramatic story, a life’s work in itself that anyone would be proud of. It is shocking that these organizations did not exist until the late 80’s when Ann and her circle got involved, but there was a gaping need, and they filled it.
The original documentary – Ann Maguire: An American Hero
The proposed series expands on the already-completed one hour documentary film, Ann Maguire: An American Hero. That film takes the viewer through a brief overview of Ann’s life in politics, highlighting contributions to the Gay Rights movement, the Breast Cancer Movement, and the groundbreaking work in city services, particularly around homelessness, using interviews with Ann and her colleagues, and still photography to illustrate the stories.
The New Series – Ann Maguire: A Circle of American Heroes
This series expands on the one hour documentary film, Ann Maguire: An American Hero. Each of the four segments has its unique focus, and stands on its own as a feature. Together they make a dynamic series. The theme that runs throughout is Ann’s commitment, unwavering determination, the remarkable success of these initiatives, and the power of small groups to do the greatest things.
The series is Ann telling the story of the circles of people who gathered together to make these amazing changes happen. Ann’s work has always been grounded in the concept of the great anthropologist, Margaret Meade, who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” This series will shed light on just how these small groups of people created monumental lasting change. It relays the history for those who were there; and for those who were not, it presents a blueprint for the social justice work their generations are now called upon to pursue.
Exploring the details and the rich context of the turbulent world in which this transformative work occurred, Ann introduces and honors the many unsung, unknown heroes who joined with her at all stages to make these monumental social changes happen. Offering her unique perspective as a leader, a collaborator and an observer through the decades of seismic change, Ann revisits these successful change movements with those who took the journey and elucidates how it all happened.
In the series, the story is divided into 4 stand-alone one hour segments, (working titles, subject to change) each focusing on an era of Ann’s extraordinary working life in depth:
- The 70’s: The Awakening: Staking our Claim to the Political Mainstream
The first episode tracks the rapid maturation of the Gay Rights movement after Stonewall as it found its voice and unique power in Boston, and then spread across the country. We follow each of the steps as this extraordinary power base is built and expanded.
We watch the exciting details as Ann manages the successful campaign of the first open LGBT candidate, Elaine Noble, for a seat in the Mass State Legislature, long before Harvey Milk was elected to the Board of San Francisco City Supervisors. In 1974, 3 years before Mr. Milk’s election, Ann navigated the rough water of Boston politics, where many of the Irish Democrats were unwelcoming to gay people, and diametrically opposed to the desegregation of the city schools, a policy many Gay people, including Elaine supported. In spite of powerful, fractious and even violent divisions, Ann crafted a campaign that earned Ms. Noble a seat from the diverse Fenway neighborhood, building the campaign on the needs of the neighborhood, not on gay rights issues. This established a beachhead in mainstream politics from which a full scale and evolving battle for rights was launched. Extant archival footage, video and interviews with surviving activists and writers will be featured to recreate this tumultuous time.
We see how certain specific resources, like GayWay and the Homophile Community Health Center made real and concrete, sometimes lifesaving changes in the lives of individual LGBT people in a very hostile and often dangerous culture. The episode touches on Ann’s early years, and experiences, some tragic, that formed her character, and provided her motivation.
Starting in small groups at the Charles Street Meeting House and other places around town, and working their way deep into the political system, precinct by precinct, the Bostonians were pioneering the highly effective technique of working from within the political system, as well as in the streets. They built and communicated through completely new mechanisms, including the ground breaking Gay Community News (GCN) which spread the word around the country through subscriptions, where the techniques were soon emulated. We get to hear from the activists who developed this model, as well as those who have written about it, and trace the profound effect it had on the evolving movement and its later success.
- Sisters and Somewhere: There is a Place for Us
In 1977 Ann temporarily chose a different focus for her work. When a group of people is oppressed, and persecuted the political route is one obvious way to improve their lives, but that can take time, and there are others. One is to make their experience better in the day to day, one person at a time, bringing hope, validation, comfort, and support to those who have been spurned by their families and society.
Briefly though Sisters, and then on a full scale basis through Somewhere, a bar and community space for women, Ann was able to do just that. For 8 years Ann created a place where lesbians and their friends could feel safe, express their sexual preference openly, meet other women, sometimes fall in love, hear music that sprang from their own community, celebrate the holidays together, raise funds for LGBT causes and develop strength and a sense of worth. Somewhere was a gathering place, a safe space, and an incubator for many women musicians honing their skills during the late 70’s. It was a place women came in droves before and after their holiday excursions to their families of origin, many of whom did not accept who they were or who they were with. It was a place for political fundraisers, consciousness raising, celebrations of political milestones and women’s sporting events. Somewhere filled a huge need for a place where women could both forge and live their identity. And they came by the thousands. There are numerous stories, told through multiple interviews, that will reveal the social, political, and personal meaning of this place to so many people in the context of a time when there were few legal protections for gay and lesbian people. The beauty of some of these stories is breathtaking, and told here for the first time by those who were there.
- Using the Establishment: Making Government work for Everyone
This episode reveals Ann’s work in City Services. She started this phase of her work as Mayor Ray Flynn’s liaison to the Gay Community. This job, in a tumultuous environment included building a working relationship between the Boston Police and the gay community, a relationship that had been fraught with distrust and outright hostility. It included chairing the AIDS taskforce in an era when there were scarce medical resources and tremendous chaos, fear, and death.
From there Ann moved to the Emergency Shelter Commission, where she initiated a census process for the homeless, which has become the standard across the country and beyond. This was a time when homelessness was rampant, and interest in it scant. From there she took the reins of Tom Menino’s mayoral campaign, maneuvering him through a crowded field to victory, in a rough and tumble campaign beginning a 20 year tenure of deep and lasting growth.
Then she took the lead in the Department of Health and Human Services, changing the way government responds to people’s individual and collective needs in health care, elder services, neighborhood needs and a host of other areas.
- The Breast Cancer Movement and Beyond: Hundreds of Millions of Dollars, Unimagined Awareness ,
Ann was a founder of the National and Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalitions. the organizations that led to the successful movement for hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for research, consistency and accountability in mammography, and the start of the Silent Spring Institute.
When Ann was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988, she was appalled at how little organized work was being done around breast cancer. Completely unwilling to leave this matter unaddressed, Ann set about finding people to work with. Dr. Susan Love, the surgeon, writer, researcher and activist had just written the Breast Book, and was creating alliances, and building a huge network of breast cancer advocates and researchers. Ann threw her energy, efforts, and political skill into this work that was underway. Using, among other things, some of the strategies devised during the AIDS crisis, and in her other successful political work, Ann and a group of strong determined women started powerful organizations to wrest hundreds of millions of dollars from congress, and to awaken the millions of people impacted by breast cancer to rise up and voice their outrage over government and medical institutional indifference.
Topic Summary
This story matters more now than ever: it is both timeless, and deeply relevant to the current political landscape. Additionally, the protagonists of the early LGBT rights movement are in their 70’s and 80’s.
The civil rights and cultural acceptance for LGBTQ’s, breast cancer survivors, and the homeless that the Circle of Heroes fought for are under concerted, immediate attack. New and veteran activists and social justice fighters have to organize and rally to defend those rights immediately. People from all walks of life, ethnic groups, and sexual orientation, as well as all women of all ages need this information as they take on this latest and powerful assault. The Supreme Court is about to take a sharp, hard turn to the Right, putting all minority and women’s rights in jeopardy. Here is a road map, a how to, a manual explaining how these rights were won. It is an untold story that is needed desperately now. Knowledge, as we all know, is power.
If there were no need for social justice work now, the film would still be deeply meaningful because of the untold history it reveals about people whose work and experience have not yet been adequately revealed to the world. It is still the case that history texts and oft told iconic legends do not come from the stories of activist women or gay men. We must tell our own stories, and everyone will be the richer for it. The story of Harvey Milk and the element of the Gay Movement that emerged in San Francisco has become somewhat well known. That is a great start, but it is woefully incomplete. It is equivalent to telling the story of George Washington and simply leaving out Jefferson, Hamilton and Adams. Our rich, deep, tumultuous, underground East Coast LGBT history, with its political savvy and bond between men and women needs to be told to complete the picture. The time to record these seniors is now.
Who I am I? Why Am I Telling this Story?
So, I am doing it. I am uniquely qualified to tell this story because I have lived it in a way that no one else has. I have known Ann since 1975. I watched her and her collaborators shape and direct the rise of the political structure from the Elaine Noble election on. I attended meetings at the Charles Street Meeting House, and the State House, at people’s residences, bars and bookstores and women’s restaurants. I went with Ann to numerous broadcasts of GayWay, meeting the guests and hearing the callers, some whispering behind their closed bedroom doors, some standing in phone booths, so they would not be overheard by the straight people in their lives. I watched Ann transition into city service and rise through the city hall hierarchy to a cabinet level post. As a participant and close observer of history, my experience has little equal. When combined with my experience bringing musical events and educational stories to video my particular qualifications have no parallel. I have a deep commitment to telling human stories from the perspective of the people themselves. My dissertation about women with successful jazz careers, told in their own voices, brought their tales to vivid life. I have an ability for creating an environment in which people feel comfortable and empowered to tell their stories in a relaxed and authentic way. This is clearly evidenced by the interviews in Ann Maguire: An American Hero.
Ann Maguire has a perspective on these events that simply no one else has. She has a knowledge of how actual political change happens, from having done it over and over again in world changing ways. Ann is completely committed to making the contributions of her collaborators known. There are whose accomplishments should be added to the annals of great works. Ann wants these great stories of heroism given wide exposure, and the protagonists recognized. And now is the crucial time, while many of the heroes are still here to speak of these things in their own words.
Artistic Approach
I have had since the beginning of this project, a clear vision of the style that best serves this story. There are so many awesome technical tools and cinematic innovations available to us. These are wonderful for so many applications, but in some cases, and this is one of them, the best thing for the story is to simply get out of its way.
Each of the people who are participating through interviews is a powerful storyteller in his or her own way. My role as the film maker, the facilitator and presenter, is to create safe, loving, supportive spaces for these amazing people to simply speak from their hearts, minds, memories and passions. It worked in the first film, and the approach will be enhanced by extant video, and photographic images from the period. The highest level of production values will be applied to keep the cleanest, clearest appearance, allowing the stories to emerge and connect with the viewers with the fewest of barriers.
Project Stage and Timeline
The project is underway. Additional interviews need to be filmed. Additional photos and video need to be acquired. Some interview footage is already completed.
Final writing of the 4 episodes, final research, the acquisition of extant video footage and photos, and filming additional interviews will take 6 months.
Final editing and post production will require 6 months, resulting in a release date in August of 2019.
Intended Audience
Our intended audience is multi-generational and cross cultural. The movie will be meaningful to those who lived through, and participated in the history here revealed. They deserve to see their collective past memorialized by those who can tell its story authentically. Subsequent generations who benefit from the huge social gains won by those who came before deserve to know their history as well, and they are hungry for it. Those coming of age now, armed and protected by anti-discrimination laws and the right to marry need to know how that came about for them.
This film is essential viewing for all who are looking to preserve the rights that have been earned through all the civil rights movements of the last half of the last century and those wishing to extend those rights. It is powerfully relevant to all who are looking to improve the lot of those in our midst who are still oppressed, and for all of those awakened by the Sanders movement and the actions and intended action of the current presidency and its far-right supporters. The work of social justice is far from over, indeed, the need has recently become more compelling. This film provides a roadmap for those interested in that work, who need that map more than ever before.
The world is always enriched by the telling of authentic history and the stories of authentic heroes. Here we see what human beings can do at their best, and how the next generation can do it too.
Distribution
This series is perfectly suited in both content and format to a PBS series broadcast or similar outlet.
Audience Engagement and Social Impact
This film will give those interested in social change work and political activism both inspiration and strategies to further that goal. It gives the unsung heroes of the LGBT, breast cancer, and other movements a chance to tell their stories to the world, and for the members of those groups to hear and see, finally, their stories on the screen.
Key Creative Personnel
Dr. Maggie Rizzi and Ann Maguire will produce, direct and write the film, conduct and film the interviews. Editorial assistance, musical composition, research and transcription will be hired as needed.
Fundraising Strategy
We expect to raise money from independent investors, big, small, and institutional, who see the value of the social change work done by Ann and her collaborators, and who wish to further this work by providing tools and inspiration to the next generation. We expect participation from those in the LGBT and other communities who wish to take a role in having their stories told to the world.
Funding to Date
Self-funded to date
Production Assistance Program Impact
The PAP will provide us with a repository for all funds raised, allow us to offer tax deductible contributions, help us reach a larger audience of potential interested donors, and connect us with like minded people looking to further women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, health care rights, social justice and truth in America and the world in this very dangerous time. Our goal is to bring these stories to the world because the people who have done this work deserve to have it known. Even more importantly, the members of the women’s community, the LGBT community, those working on healthcare issues and poverty related issues need role models and strategies and they need them now. The goals we have in creating and disseminating the film align with the goals of WMM. The PAP can help us reach a larger audience for these vital stories.
Budget
The budget required for us to complete the series ourselves with a superlative level of production value is approximately $700,000. We welcome the interest of co-producers at any stage to participate in the project, and bring it to a mass audience on a mainstream platform.
Work Sample
The series is an expansion of the hour long documentary film, “Ann Maguire: An American Hero,” which is offered as sample and proof of concept.