Clark Polak

Clark Philip Polak
Born (1937-10-15)October 15, 1937
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died 18 September 1980(1980-09-18) (aged 42)
Los Angeles, California
Nationality American
Known for Homophile activist
Editor of DRUM

Clark Philip Polak (15 October 1937–18 September 1980) was an American businessman, publisher, journalist, and LGBT activist.

Polak was from a Jewish middle-class family in Philadelphia.[1] He was the youngest son of Arthur Marcus Polak and Ann Polak.

After withdrawing from Pennsylvania State University, Polak became the owner of Frankford Personnel and Northeast Advertising Service.[1] He was an active and outspoken member of the gay community in Philadelphia,[1][2] and had a leading role in the Philadelphia-based homophile organization, the Janus Society.[3] In 1964, he created and edited DRUM magazine, a low-budget early gay-interest periodical.[2] Polak argued for the importance of gay sexual liberation, which had been avoided in the struggle for gay rights.[2][4] In 1967, after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on 18 counts of publishing and distributing obscene material, Polak ceased publication of DRUM and moved to Los Angeles,[3] where he became a real estate investor and art collector.[1] He also wrote a series of articles in the Los Angeles Free Press between January 1974 and January 1975.[5]

In 1980, Polak committed suicide in Los Angeles.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Stein, Marc (2003). "Polak, Clark". Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 388–389.
  2. 1 2 3 Loughery, John (1998). The Other Side of Silence: Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History. New York: Henry Holt and Company. pp. 282–284.
  3. 1 2 Streitmatter, Rodger (1995). Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston: Faber and Faber.
  4. ↑ Stein, Marc (2004). City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves: Lesbian and Gay Philadelphia, 1945-1972. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  5. ↑ Mulvey, Christopher; Simons, John, eds. (1990). New York: City as Text. Houndmills: The Macmillan Press Ltd. p. 88.
  6. ↑ Sears, James Thomas (2006). Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation. Routledge. p. 535.


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