Carter Nash is one of the authors of the new book by and about American Quaker elders, Passing The Torch:

I’m a 65-year-old gay man of African descent. I was born in Huntington, West Virginia at a time when Jim Crow laws were still in effect. The hospital I was born in was segregated and my mother being very fair skinned was placed in the white maternity ward. When I was born, mom was moved to the colored ward.. . .

I wasn’t born into a Quaker family (officially) but into an African Methodist Episcopal one. I was christened at St James A.M.E. in Ashland.

My father being in the Navy we moved around quite a bit. Neither of my parents were big church going people. . . .

As a seeker I visited different places of worship, many not Christian. After a while I felt that I wasn’t finding what I needed. Also, I still fully believed in the American two-party political system.

I was at the time a rarity, a black Republican in Philadelphia. I had joined the GOP because while they only had two at large seats on city council, those two council members were greatly under-appreciated in what they could do. They were still on city council and they could deliver services.

I was quickly asked to be the Republican committeeman for my district. This allowed me to call either of the two GOP city council members and say who was to get things done.

For instance, I was working at a public school and there was an abandoned car on the sidewalk outside the school yard. The principal tried calling for a couple of weeks to have it removed with no luck. I finally told him I would take care of it. I made a call in front of him that morning and it was gone that afternoon.

The school was a special school that was almost completely federally funded. At the end of the year I received a letter letting me know not to return the following year as a result of system-wide layoffs. I had been bumped out of my job. I made a couple of calls (including to a US Senator’s office) trying to get my job restored. I was told that I shouldn’t worry, all would be alright, and it was. An additional position was created at the school for me.

I volunteered on the campaign for governor of Richard Thornburgh. There were two reasons I supported Thornburgh: there were things I knew about his opponent, the former Philadelphia District Attorney, and Thornburgh had the support of Elsie Hillman, the Republican National Committeewoman from Pennsylvania.

While working on the campaign my grandmother died. I was crushed. I was living in Philadelphia, she was in Kentucky and I didn’t have the money to get myself and my mom (who was in a wheelchair because of MS) there. At about midnight I was in tears and called Elsie Hillman at her house in Pittsburgh and somehow when I left my house that morning to go to work I found $1000 in my door. The Republican Party of those days no longer seems to be. There was a time when the Republicans were really caring and respectable. My great grandmother was a Republican. . . .

Later I moved to York, Pennsylvania and operated an “escort service”. This was for the most part a gay prostitution ring. This was before HIV/AIDS. It was also at a time when many gay men were afraid of being outed even more than they are now. I got into this business because a friend said he needed someone to answer his phone when he out on calls (yes it was long before cell phones), I wasn’t working, and it sounded interesting to say the least.

He had ads in some gay papers and magazines to find clients. After a while a couple of his friends were involved in going out on calls. We took Master Card, VISA and American Express. There was one older man who worked for us who was married and had two sons in high school, he had a good professional career and his wife knew he liked men. He found this a good way to hook up. He used the company car to go on calls and he refused to keep his portion of the fees (he’d give it to me). One of the best stories is about the time a priest called in with a bad credit card, that was the only bad card anyone ever tried using.

I can say that one of the best things that happened was when some jealousy arose between a couple of guys causing the police to get involved and shut us down. This was good because HIV/AIDS was just starting, and I was looking for a good way to get out of the business. It could have been a good deal more financially rewarding but that wasn’t the purpose.

When the police came, I took all the responsibility and charges as I couldn’t see others having their lives ruined. The police couldn’t get my records as they were kept on in digital form on a cassette tape (in those days people didn’t have home computers for the most part, the one I had required a TV, a cassette player and the unit that connected the two).

The district justice I appeared before the evening of my arrest was interesting in that he gave me instructions on how to operate the business within the law!!! I ended up getting 30 days and a $500 fine. While I was waiting for the final disposition of my case, I committed credit card fraud to survive, I did a year in state prison for that.

When it was time to be paroled from state prison, I needed to put in my parole plan (papers saying where I was going to live and work). Mine said that I was going to stay at a roach hotel in Carlisle along with a letter from the state unemployment office saying they would help me locate work. When the plan came back approved the state parole officer in the prison said he had never seen such a weak plan be approved. I still knew people on Governor Thornburgh’s staff, and we’d stayed in contact while I locked up, I don’t know if that helped or not.

I had a bit of trouble getting a job when I arrived in Carlisle, until one day I went to put in an application and started off by saying to the boss, named Bob, If my having just gotten out of state prison is going to keep you from hiring me tell me now and I’ll just go away.

But Bob told me to sit down. About a week later I got a call saying when I was to start. It was almost a year later when I learned my being so up front was what got me the job.

Bob was one of the best bosses/people I have ever known. It was little things that made him great. I was working in a restaurant that he had just opened (he made his real money at his body shop). I was the only African American working there. Almost all the customers were white.

Once a dance floor was put in for use on the weekends more African Americans came. When Bob overheard a waitress comment “the place is getting dark” she was let go on the spot. Bob and his wife didn’t care that I was black or gay, they were just good people. The only time I’ve been drunk in the last 44 years was the night I learned Bob had died. . . .

How did Carter Nash get from a state prison to Quakerism (and live to tell about it)? The answers are in these pages.

And don’t forget our Book Launch Party on Saturday Nov. 23, at Providence Friends Meeting, 105 N. Providence Rd. in Media PA, noon to 3PM. Free, with food, readings, authors to mingle with, and music from and about our generation.

You’re invited; more details here.

A previous Author’s post, “Pray for Segregation!” is here.