Reverend Robert Spike was a significant and well-known campaigner in the 60s US Civil Rights Movement who was close to Martin Luther King, President Johnson, and many other historical figures. In 1966 he was threatened with being outed in an attempt to thwart his activism regarding black voting rights.

Two weeks after telling his opponents that he was willing to make that sacrifice – no small thing when it was still illegal, pre-Stonewall, and he had a family – he was found brutally murdered.

There was an immediate campaign to smear him saying he had been killed by a male sexual partner.

The threat of scandal was enough to keep the church and his supporters from pursuing a meaningful investigation into his death. He was effectively erased from the historical record.

His son, the journalist Paul Spike, now 78, wrote Photographs of My Father in 1973 about his father’s life and death. He has set up a fund to get a documentary or film made about his father with the longer term purpose of fighting queer erasure.

The event will be a Handsome party with house legend Terry Farley preceded by a Q&A with Paul.

Stand On The Word will be a great night for a good cause. Educational for those interested and a wonderful party later.