Polak, Clark

NAME: Clark Polak

Biography:

---

POLAK, Clark POLAK, Clark (b. 15 October 1937; d. 18 September 1980), activist. One of the most important homophile activists of the 1960s, Clark Phillip Polak was the president of the Philadelphia-based Janus Society (1963–1969); the founder, publisher, and editor of Drum magazine (1964–1969); and the leader of the Homosexual Law Reform Society (1965–1969).

In retrospect, most of the pre-Stonewall gay publications were relatively assimilationist and tame. But drum was racy, raunchy - and brilliant.

drum (subtitled "sex in perspective") began as the newsletter of Philadelphia's Janus Society. Clark Polak, a brash homophile leader in the mid-Sixties, appropriated editorship of the newsletter, and told Streitmatter he "began drum Magazine as a consistently articulate, well-edited, amusing and informative publication. I envisioned a sort of sophisticated, but down-to-earth, magazine for people who dug gay life and drum's view of the world." (Or, as John Loughery wrote in The Other Side of Silence, "drum's philosophy was plain enough: it was time to raise a little hell.") In addition, Polak was the first gay editor to hire a professional clipping service to obtain gay-related articles from around the country. Veteran gay journalist Jack Nichols additionally told me that "drum published nudes - frontal nudes - first, in any gay publication in America." But even Ladder editor Barbara Gittings reflected on drum's positive impact with me, noting that despite showing abundant male flesh, drum and similar magazines that followed "were a way of getting [movement activity] information to people who wouldn't bother to read it otherwise." drum even boasted the first gay comic strip (the risqué "Harry Chess: The Man from A.U.N.T.I.E."). Polak's formula proved enormously successful; by 1966, drum's 10,000 circulation surpassed that of all the then-extant homophile publications combined.

However, that formula also left Polak vulnerable to police and legal intervention when the Buffalo, New York Postmaster seized drum's March 1966 issue. While ultimately distributed, Polak later proved less fortunate. drum abruptly ceased publication by May 1969, as Polak awaited a federal grand jury indictment for mailing allegedly obscene material. He evaded a prison sentence only by agreeing to cease publishing drum and to leave Philadelphia.

Yet drum's movement contributions could not be denied, nor could its founder's aspirations be denigrated. New York pre-Stonewall activist Dick Leitsch recalled for me a heated discussion among movement leaders in the Sixties regarding "which one of them is the Martin Luther King of the gay movement. … And they went on and on, just yelling and screaming …. And so, Clark Polak just sat in a corner and I said, 'Hey, Clark, don't you want to be Martin Luther King too?' He said, 'No, I just want to be Hugh Hefner.'" Polak never quite reached that level of sophistication with drum, but not for lack of trying.

Picture: (Insert picture if available)

Date of Birth: 10/15/1937

Date of Death (delete if non-applicable): 9/18/1980

Age at Death (delete if non-applicable): 43

Employment:

Social/Political Groups he attends/attended:

Bars/Clubs he attends/attended:

His friends include: (type your name here, or names of others)

Testimonials to him (add a space before a new testimonial):