Vanguard Revisited - GLBT Historical Society

“I saved some money so I quit my job and moved to California, thinking that this would be
the proverbial promised land…Jobs were scarce, almost nonexistent. Dope was so plentiful
it was frightening….In July of ’66 I was elected President of VANGUARD, an organization
started by and dedicated to helping the Tenderloin street people, many of whom were pushers
or users or both. I soon realized that the objectives of VANGUARD were much more
important than my Crystal and the small amount of money I was making pushing. Also, my
potential as a leader was being diminished by my being on a constant trip. I decided to come
down one weekend so that I could be more helpful to the Organization. Once I did come
down, I was better able to contend with any and all problems that arose in the Organization
and in thee area….In my own way I have proved to them that a ‘hopeless junkie’ can make
it, that there is a way out which is not so difficult as to be impossible.”
-Vanguard President Jean-Paul Marat, from “Drugs in the Tenderloin,” 1967 (Don Lucas
Papers, Courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society)
1:5 1967
1966
“Jesus talks about it, a seed is nothing until its broken, until it goes into the ground…There’s
something about being so broken…you can either become a monster or a hero …And these
days our wonderful corporate media tells us about the monsters, but I don’t think we record
the heroes at all. And if we did I think it would be unfashionable to mention that really broken
people are heroes. They were my heroes, they were my buddies, my boyfriends.”
-Vanguard member Joel Roberts (oral history with Joey Plaster, 2010)
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