there was a time in american history when people accused of being gay were literally purged from their jobs by government mandate. and it all happened during this period that i had never heard of called the lavendar scare. >> if you stood up and said that you were a homosexual, that was the equivalent of saying, i'm unamerican. >> tonight we meet americans whose patriotism was questioned because of what they did behind closed doors. >> we were taken to be interrogated because we were gay. >> and find families that are still reeling from a witch hunt our government never wanted us to know about. >> there's been a progression of it being illegal to be gay in the government. and it was my relative who led this whole thing . >> so we are in fresno, california, on my way to meet a woman who is part of a group that the united states government once considered one of the greatest security threats to our country. in the 1950s america was gripped by the red scare. >> even if there were only one communist in the state department that would still be one communist too many. >> soviet spies were feared to be black mailing government workers, and the feds were on the hunt for traitors. but the woman i'm meeting isn't a spy or a traitor. helen is a 94-year-old farmer. you are 94 years old and i am seeing you running all over that farm driving that big tractor. what is your secret? >> i drove tractors when i was in high school. i loved the farm. i was my mom's little boy girl. >> in the 1930s they had a word for little girls like helen -- tom boy. >> i wore shorts and you had to wear dresses then. that wasn't easy for me. i hated going shopping. >> as a young person do you think the thought ever occurred to you that you might be gay? >> gay? i don't know if we were talking about gay then. i don't remember the word. >> helen just knew she wanted to do what the boys did and once she got older she found her chance. >> there are hundreds of important army jobs which women can perform as effectively as men. >> in 1948 women became full members of the armed forces. >> oh, yes. it's your war, too, miss and mrs. america. >> what did the military mean to you as a young person? >> oh, god, i loved the military. it was always sort of a wish for me. the first airplane ride i had was going to the airforce base enlisting in the air force. we learned to march. i loved the marching. that was cool. precision marching and being all together. i loved the feeling. i loved being able to serve. >> starting in world war ii droves of young americans left family farms and small towns to serve on military bases. helen enlisted in 1952. is that you? >> yeah, it's me. there were airmen from all over the country from alabama and florida and california. >> the air force was an awakening for helen. at her base in new york city she discovered she had romantic feelings for women and she wasn't alone. did you have any girlfriends in the air force? >> well, i don't know, you know, certain ones of us were closer than others. i don't know if you would call them -- we were -- >> just girls you had fun with. >> right. >> but helen had little time for romance. it was the korean war. >> out numbered by overwhelming waves of communists the troops sought new positions in an effort to halt the red tide. >> in the air force i was a radio operator. we were tracking all of the airplanes in the area around new york. if there was an airplane off course, within five minutes, we had jets up there. >> what did it feel like to be part of the united states air force during that time? >> it felt important. it felt as though we were defending this country. >> but while helen searched the skies for foreign planes, our nation's leaders were on a hunt for a different kind of enemy. >> homosexuals, most of course are morally weak. the pervert is easy prey to the blackmailer. they're dangerous to this country. >> we had heard some news that in some of the other bases they were, you know, looking for homosexuals. >> when did you get the sense you were being followed? >> my friend and i went to get a sandwich and we stopped along the road and the air police came up behind us. and they asked us what we were doing there. >> back in the barracks helen was cornered. >> the officer came in and told us that we were arrested and the interrogation began. >> what were you being interrogated about? >> about being homosexual. you were asked questions that were embarrassing, you know, what did you think about your sister? what did you think about your mother? how do you answer a question like that? they told me that i was a threat to the united states of america. i was being questioned about my allegiance to my own country. >> helen says the officers threatened to expose her if she fought the accusation. so she just signed the papers they put in front of her. it was 1955, and her military career was over. >> i had two dishonorable discharges and left the base. i had no help, no money. >> when did you tell your family about what had happened to you? >> i never did. >> never? >> i couldn't talk to my mom. sorry. >> an estimated 100,000 soldiers had been discharged for homosexuality since world war ii. it is one of those shameful facts you won't find in older history books. but there's plenty of evidence that it really happened. i want to know why, so i'm meeting the author of "the deviants war: the homosexual versus the united states of america." what's this? washington's growing homosexual menace. that's wild that would be on a cover of a magazine or newspaper. >> right? >> look at these headlines, 400 perverts in u.s. jobs here named. so they named the perverts. >> absolutely. if you were caught, then very often the entire community would know that you were a sexual deviant. >> i'm hoping eric can shed light on what happened to helen, how a gay witch hunt became national policy. can you paint the picture of gay life in the '50s? what were same sex relationships even called? >> you have to remember very few people were talking about homosexuality to begin with. there wasn't even a queer, cohesive community at all. >> before the 1930s effeminate men were derided as sissies and mostly overlooked. >> put that in the trunk and don't wear them. >> a lot of people had two identities. it was perfectly normal to be married to a woman with kids but then also have sex with men. >> but times were changing. a sex crime wave in the '30s stoked fears about perverts with hidden lives. then in 1948 a sexologist named alfred kinzy released a best selling book that set those fears ablaze. >> the kinzy report was groundbreaking. he found that 37% of men had reached orgasm with another man. it was reel u tally the first t had quantitative proof that homosexuals were everywhere but it helped contribute to this paranoia of something is wrong with our country. >> these explosive findings told people the bed rock of american values was crumbling at a time when the soviet union was threatening to throw a literal bomb on our heads. why was the cold war a reason for such panic and paranoia? >> this was the atomic age after america detonated the very first atomic weapon and used it in world war ii. we thought we were invincible but then suddenly in 1949 it comes to light that the soviet union had detonated its own atomic weapon. and so there is a huge panic that we're no longer on top. and someone within our government likely allowed this to happen. >> amid the confusion and fear, politicians saw an opportunity. >> the people know the democratic party is the people's party and it always has been. >> the democrats had been in the presidency for almost 20 years. so the republicans were searching for ways to persuade the american public democrats were losing control of the country, they were immoral. on february 28th, 1950, the state department admits they had removed 91 homosexuals from federal employment. republicans leap on that. and they say wait a second. why were these sexual deviants hired in the first place? >> a story was spun. gay americans might leak secrets to soviet spies who threatened to out them. the nation was hungry to root out evil from within and just like that a public enemy had been found. ♪ (man) still asleep. 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>> right. it was very easy to make the comparison between the homosexual underground and the communist underground. >> as fear of subversives grew one senator stepped in to root them out. >> kenneth wary was a senator from nebraska, a long-time opponent of the democrats and the new deal. who leads a two-man investigation into these claims that there may actually be homosexuals throughout the federal government. he calls it a federal emergency. >> the first time i heard about my great, great uncle was my grandmother. she would talk about her uncle kenneth. she would talk about his larger than life persona. >> garrett is senator wherry's great, great nephew. as a child he knew nothing about her uncle's role in the lavendar scare only that he had been a powerful man on capitol hill. >> he has always been a revered person in my family. he was friends with nixon. he was friends with eisenhower. >> let every last one of us here and now rededicate ourselves to the cause of freedom. >> senator wherry went on a crusade against what he called moral perverts and pressured government agencies to follow his lead. >> wherry was on the appropriations committee. so what he was able to do is create this fear within all the bureaucracies that if there were homosexuals and they weren't doing enough to root them out, then they would lose their funding. and so administrators started implementing new systems to purge sexual deviants from the government. >> it was senator wherry who fostered the idea homosexuals were likely to be soviet spies and used his political power to kick-start the pervert purge. do you know how these investigations would be conducted? >> a lot of it was based on pure allegation. >> say charlie, got a minute? >> your co-worker would go to your boss and say, i heard my co-worker went to a gay bar. and so that other employee would be called in and told, we have information indicating you're a sexual deviant. you have two options. you can either resign quietly and no one will ever know or you'll have to be terminated and this will be on your record forever. >> wherry's hard line conservative values were shared by garret's own family. >> i grew up in an evangelical, christian upbringing. my dad was a pastor at the local church. i think it was a very strong source of pride in that side of the family being conservative, republican. >> but when garret took up figure skating as a boy people started to talk. >> at a very early age i knew i was gay and i knew that -- >> how old were you when you kind of felt? >> i mean, i think i always knew. when i would go to church retreats, like it would come up and i was just so scared of that vulnerability, that sense of being different. >> how did that make you feel as a child? >> a lot of shame. yeah. my greatest memories being on the ice are the times where i was alone in the rink. i could just put on music and not care what anyone thought. it was a place where i could be fully me. >> when garret started skating professionally his travels left him curious about his roots. >> i was in my mid 20s and the thought just came to me, i don't know that much about my uncle. i just did a google search and there was a paragraph that talked about kenneth wherry openly opposing homosexuality. >> so when you read that, tell me what went through your mind. >> it was a gut punch. >> garret joined me in washington, d.c. to take a first-hand look at his uncle's legacy. we are visiting a place that became a prime target in the government crackdown on gay employees. have you ever been here to lafitte park? >> i've never been, no. i know this is a place where gay skchlt and lesbians came and when wherry was doing his first investigation he enlisted the police squad to go all over the city and they found 3700 moral perverts as they called it that worked for the federal government. >> do you ever think, garret, if you had been alive at the same time you would have been one of the people your great, great uncle would have targeted for arrest or even worse? >> yeah. and that is painful. i also think if i lived in that time, would i have had the courage to come out? and i wrestle with that, too. >> in the decade following wherry's campaign an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 gay workers lost their jobs. no branch of government was safe not even the oval office. ♪ tv: mount everest, the tallest mountain on the face of the earth. keep dreaming. 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>> that's my mom and dad at some political function. you know, all the way with lbj. >> it was the early '60s. the purge of gays and lesbians had become so routine no one really questioned them anymore. beth and walt came of age then and lived like american royalty. so this is your 17th birthday party. >> birthday. >> in the white house. >> in the white house. >> that's pretty cool. >> yes, it is. that's me posing with friends and with the president. >> to beth jenkins with love, lyndon johnson. >> back then i could drive up to the white house unannounced, tell the guard i was there and wanted to see my dad. who's your dad? walt jenkins. go on through. >> how would you describe the work your dad did when you were little kids? >> well, he was the first assistant to congressman johnson, senator johnson, and then president johnson. they didn't have the title back then of chief of staff. >> right. >> he was the guy you had to get to to get to johnson always. he was his right-hand man. >> johnson took office on the heels of a tragedy. president kennedy had just been killed. walter jenkins helped support the transition. >> the night the johnsons moved into the white house my parents invited them over for dinner. >> so your dad didn't just work for president johnson. you all were really good friends. >> yes. >> my father's loyalty to lbj was 110%. >> outside work jenkins was the beloved patriarch of a big, all american family. what was the relationship between your parents like? >> it seemed normal to us. >> yeah. >> they seemed loving and kind to each other and -- >> had a lot of kids? very catholic. >> we always had dinner as a family at the table. >> go around the table. how was your day? how was your day. what happened with you today? >> other than the fact that dad was not always home for dinner. >> jenkins' role on johnson's staff meant he put in long hours. in october, 1964, just three weeks before the presidential election, beth found out that at night her dad did more than work. >> i was in my first year of college and that night the dean of women came to my room, which was weird. it was a big university. she said dad was arrested in the men's room of a ymca. >> jenkins was caught at a public restroom having sex with a man. with the election close at hand, the papers had a field day. >> politicians debate how much this may amplify goldwater's cry of moral decay. what weight voters may give this event. >> did you feel shocked that your father was arrested for homosexual sex? >> oh, yes. i never had an inkling of thought my dad might be homosexual >> i don't think i disbelieved it as much as was stunned by it. remember, i'm pretty naive. i thought, well he has six kids. >> once the story broke there was no question jenkins would have to resign. the blowback was so severe he had to be hospitalized. when he was in the hospital he was there for what, extreme fatigue? >> nervous breakdown. >> okay. >> is what they said. and i think that it was probably horribly hard for him. >> after his arrest and resignation he moved the family back to texas where he found work as a management consultant. so you never talked about sexual orientation at all. >> we never talked about it. >> it made him very, very uncomfortable. >> how did all of this affect your mom? >> her alcoholism deteriorated rapidly. after they moved back here. of course this must have aggravated it. no question. but she stood by him. they did love each other at one point. >> a unified america will find no limit to its achievements. >> president johnson continued on to victory without walter jenkins. the two never appeared in public together again. newly released audio reveals behind closed doors at the white house there was concern for a friend. that's a conversation that president johnson was having with the first lady about your father. >> okay. >> you've never heard this. >> no. i never have. >> no. >> can you hear me now? i would like to do two things about walter. when questioned, i'm going to say that this is incredible for a man that i've known all these years, a devout catholic, a happily married husband >> i wouldn't say anything. pause they will -- then you approve it. you can't do that to the presidency honey. >> if we don't express some support for him we will lose the entire love and devotion of all the people who have been with us. >> god. wow. >> imagine the courage for the first lady to stand up to the president, defending a man who had just been disgraced. >> the average farmer just can't understand that you're knowing it and approving it. >> it occurs to me how many talented servants like walter jenkins who might have helped shape our history were lost. >> my heart breaks for you, too. >> i know it, honey. >> and how many millions of dollars must have been wasted trying to keep them out. >> i pray for you along with walter. good-bye. >> good-bye >> i can't imagine what it must be like for you all hearing this. >> these things for the first time. >> yeah, about your dad. >> it just tears your heart out. >> you know what is also interesting is that neither the president or the first lady, they didn't condemn your father for what he had done. they were compassionate about it. the first lady kept her word and wrote a statement in "the washington post" wishing jenkins well. at a time when gay people were seen as depraved this small public gesture would resonate. soon, defiant voices would question why a person's sexuality posed a risk to their country. those voices would multiply. and ring out. maybelline new york's new express brow duo fuller-looking brows in just 2 steps step 1: define step 2: fill so easy new express brow duo maybelline new york up to one million dollars. that's how much university of phoenix is committing to create 400 scholarships this month alone. if you're committed to earning your degree, we're committed to making it accessible. because we believe everybody deserves a chance. and sometimes one chance is all it takes to change everything. see what scholarship opportunities you may qualify for at phoenix.edu better skin from your body wash? try olay body wash with skincare super ingredient collagen! olay body wash hydrates to improve skin 3x better, from dry and dull to firm and radiant. with olay body, i feel fearless in my skin. ♪ i see trees of green ♪ ♪ red roses too ♪ ♪ i see them bloom for me and you ♪ (music) ♪ so i think to myself ♪ ♪ oh what a wonderful world ♪ by the time president johnson's closest aide got caught with a man in the bathroom the lavendar scare had been going on for more than a decade. t the 1960s were in full swing. the sexual revolution had begun. was walter jenkins' resignation a turning point? >> it was on a degree you would have expected 15 years earlier. lbj still won in a massive landslide the way some media outlets put it america just shrugged its shoulders. they said, okay. let's move on. >> the public seemed less shocked by jenkins' sex life than the manner of his arrest. >> there were organizations leek the aclu saying why were these police officers spying in a public restroom? wait a second. are there police officers spying on me while i'm in the restroom? so it is not a coincidence only a few months later there was the very first protest picketing demonstration outside the white house in april of 1965. >> news cameras captured this groundbreaking event. a group of admitted homosexuals marching in broad daylight. their leader was a man named frank cameni a harvard trained astronomer. >> he would have been one of the founding fathers of the american manned space program but when the government found out that he was gay despite his ph.d, despite his government service, he was purged. but unlike so many thousands of federal employees and military service members, he was the first to fight back. >> he sought to change how america saw the gay community. they weren't perverts or traders. they were citizens. >> he coined the phrase gay is good. this was a year before the stonewall riots which we think of as the beginning of pride. and what is so remarkable is look what they're wearing. frank cameni said if you want to be employed you got to look employable so he instituted these dress codes pulling from the black freedom movement. >> this person is obviously very buttoned up. he looks like he could be a government worker. >> exactly. >> anywhere. you think it was a big risk for these people to be out there openly trying to demand rights for homosexuals? >> absolutely because remember the same time they are demonstrating photographers are also getting photos of their license plates, getting photos of who may have dropped them off. >> unbelievable. how long did the lavendar scare go on? >> arguably, it's continued until this very year. trans service members were not allowed to serve in the military under the trump administration. >> long after the tirades of mccarthy and wherry the bans on civil service would continue and openly gay service members couldn't serve until 2011 openly. >> we continue to grapple with the legacy of the lavendar scare. even in 2021. >> this is richie torres. in his childhood a black man elected to congress was a rare thing. a gay black man was unheard of. >> i was raised by a single mother who had to raise three children on minimum wage which in the 1990s was a mere $4.25 an hour. >> richie grew up in a housing project in the bronx, a dilapidated building across the street from a hundred million dollars golf course >> i know what it's like to grow up in poverty, to face housing insecurity and food insecurity. >> when did little richie start to think he might be gay? >> so as a kid, i was a fan of professional wrestling and i had a crush on the rock and at that point i realized i was gay. >> really? >> so there. yes. >> how old were you? >> i was in middle school >> i mean, we all had a crush on the rock. >> yeah. >> why did you feel you needed to repress it? >> i grew up in the rough and tumble of the bronx and lived in fear of violence and bullying. >> being gay, black, and latino made it hard for richie to find where he fit in. >> i mean, some people thought being gay was immoral, was an abomination, was a word you often heard. but what affected me most deeply was the lack of visibility. there was no one i could look to as a role model so i chose to remain in the closet. >> what was that like to hold that inside? >> it creates a crisis of self-doubt. i never went on dates. i never had moments of affection with a boyfriend. there were moments when i thought of taking my own life. >> richie threw himself into school work, but his fears followed him. depression derailed his college career. a desire to fight for fair housing gave him something to live for. in 2013, he decided to run for city council and face his fears head on. >> they were political consultants questioning running as an openly lgbtq candidate because the bronx never elected an lgbtq person before. >> richie's opponent was notorious for homophobic remarks. >> i said it before i'll say it again. this is new york city council, it is controlled by the gay community. >> richie's mind was made up. he would run as a gay man. >> how did that feel to come out to the world? >> i felt -- you can only live a lie for so long. in order to be fully human, in order to be fully self-actualized, you have to be honest about something as fundamental as your sexual identity. not only did i win but i won so decisively that i sent him into retirement. >> richie's community supported him for seven years in the city council. then in 2020 they sent him to congress. he is one of the first openly gay black representatives, the sort of role model he so deeply needed as a kid. >> none of us should be denied accommodations and services simply because of who we are and because of whom we love. we are equal by nature and we ought to be equal by law. >> living here in washington, d.c. what is it like to be in this city where there was literally a witch hunt for gay people for many, many years? >> i feel deeply the weight of history on my shoulders. we have a long distance to travel before fully overcoming the legacy of the lavendar scare. we have to understand where we've been and how far we've come. and we have to reckon with america's long and ugly history of persecuting the lgbt community. ♪ fresh flavors... classic dishes... ♪ and a new seat at the table. ♪ ♪ ♪ it's perfect, right, it's perfect. no, you know what, a few more. hey, hey, hey! check it out! we got to get these lights set up. dad! ♪ ♪ at lowe's, we put our decorations and gifts out earlier. yeah! so, you can make the most of the season. it's all at the one place that has everything you need. ♪ ♪ your mission: stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on... ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue. that's rinvoq relief. with ra, your overactive immune system attacks your joints. rinvoq regulates it to help stop the attack. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious infections and blood clots, sometimes fatal, have occurred... ...as have certain cancers, including lymphoma, and tears in the stomach or intestines, and changes in lab results. your doctor should monitor your bloodwork. tell your doctor about any infections... and if you are or may become pregnant while taking rinvoq. take on ra. talk to your rheumatologist about rinvoq relief. rinvoq. make it your mission. learn how abbvie could help you save on rinvoq. feel stuck with student loan debt? (phone chimes) ♪ ♪ ♪ i jump up on the stage ♪ move your student loan debt to sofi. earn a $500 bonus when you refi... and feel what it's like to get your money right. ♪ i do my money dance ♪ do you struggle with occasional nerve aches in your hands or feet? try nervivenerve relief from the world's #1 selling nerve care company. nervive contains alpha lipoic acid to relieve occasional nerve aches, weakness and discomfort. try nervivenerve relief. the downfall of walter jenkins in 1964 was the most widely reported scandal of the lavendar scare. >> you want a president who won't bother to find out if his closest advisers are security risks? >> in all the years since, the jenkins family never received any acknowledgment from washington until now. >> so beth and walt, i'd like to introduce you to someone. this is congressman ritchie torres. >> hi, ritchie. nice to meet you. >> it's a pleasure to meet you. >> so you live in a better time than my dad did, right? >> i know a better world than your father knew. i'm part of a long history, and many people had to suffer deeply and senselessly and i'm just grateful i can be who i am. i can be a member of congress because of the sacrifices made by people like your father. >> well, i think my dad would be extremely surprised and proud of what's going on right now. >> we've made progress but we also have a distance to travel. the mission is far from accomplished. we have to tell the story of the lbgtq community. people like frank cameni and walter jenkins should be household names. >> appreciate you saying so. >> it's been hard to find records of lavendar scare victims after their arrests. many like walter jenkins left town and started over in new careers. some took their lives, too ashamed to tell their families what had happened. >> watch your step. you'll love this. >> like this hidden forest. >> yeah. >> but a special few lived long enough to see justice done including helen. at 90 years old you decided to sue the united states air force. why? >> a friend of mine was in my office at one time and she was a veteran. we talked a minute. and i said, i got a bad discharge. she said, you got to do something about that. >> 64 years after her arrest, helen finally received an honorable discharge. it made waves in the air force. the smithsonian put her memoirs in the air and space museum. air force expelled lesbian in 1955. she fights back at 90. >> yeah. >> great headline. >> my daughter put this all together. >> your daughter. >> my daughter. >> helen changed course after the air force dismissed her. she moved out west, met a wonderful woman, and raised a family. practiced and then taught physical therapy. >> so this is a picture of physical therapy class that was given to me. >> thank you for sharing your knowledge and your friendship with us. all our love, the juniors. you were beloved >> i know. >> a beloved professor >> i know. >> yeah. >> that's incredible. seeing helen's entire life laid out in front of us, i finally grasp how it must have felt to have that gaping hole at its center. a secret shame she couldn't talk about. and you wrote this. >> yes. >> my discharge form stated that i was undesirable as though i didn't exist. the dog tag that i hold in this bronzed hand signifies that i in fact survived and did not die. >> the supreme court delivering an historic victory to the lgbtq community today in a 6-3 landmark ruling the nation's highest court now says that employers cannot fire their workers for being gay or transgender. >> in june, 2020, the supreme court ruled that gay and transgender workers are protected under the civil rights act, the clearest sign yet that the lavendar scare is over. but since then dozens of state bills were introduced that would restrict the freedoms of transgender americans. all these years since the 1950s, the core questions haven't changed. whose identity can we accept? whose humanity can we see? reason, or fun. daring, or thoughtful. sensitive, or strong. progress isn't either or progress is everything. why is la roche-posay recommended by over 90,000 dermatologists worldwide? because we bring you effective skincare that makes a difference. like la roche-posay double repair face moisturizer with dermatologist-recommended ingredients, including ceramide and niacinamide. double action helps repair skin's protective barrier after one hour and provide 48 hour hydration. so, no matter your skin type, even sensitive, you can have healthy-looking skin with la roche posay double repair face moisturizer. meet jeff. in his life, he's been to the bottom of the ocean. the tops of mountains. the er... twice. and all the places this guy runs off to. like jeff's, a life well lived should continue at home. home instead offers customized services from personal care to memory care, so older adults can stay home, stay safe, and stay happy. home instead. to us, it's personal. i was born in hawaii, but i'm not really from there. because we moved to maryland when i was a baby. that's where we got tobie. and then mark was born in california. so for me, home is wherever we go. come on rose. lowe's is honored to save military families 10% every day. the cold war incited mass firings of gay and lesbians in the name of national security. so i had to ask, did they make us safer? was there ever any evidence that there was some plot by homosexuals to betray the united states government? >> absolutely not. the government at no point during these investigations could point to an american who had betrayed his or her country simply because they were gay. >> how much of the lavendar scare do you think was just political? >> i think it was the perfect storm of the political storm with pure animus and disgust. i think the lavendar scare shows just how easy it is to find a scapegoat and say, this group is a threat to the american way of life. and now someone like me who is a gay white guy who has the ability to get married, now it's my turn to stand up for my queer asian brothers and sisters and for black trans women who otherwise wouldn't have their voices heard. >> the fbi destroyed most of its sex deviant files in the 1970s hundreds of pages on suspected gays and lesbians. many were civil servants or soldiers, patriots who fought for a country that didn't fight for them. there are a few memorials to people who live through the lavendar scare here in d.c., including frank cammeny, but they are i believe reminders to us to continue to try and educate ourselves and fight so that this doesn't ever happen again. it'll be up to new lgbtq voices to decide how this story is told. whether the lavendar scare makes the history books at all. >> and we are going to his hometown because i am trying to answer a question for myself. i'm putting together an audio story. i am tracing the life of senator wherry and i want to understand why he ultimately led this purge. >> it is a story of a relative garret never met who waged a war on people like him. and a battle going down the generations over who belongs in america. >> i want to see the full picture. i want to bring to light that this was a black stain on american history. i have an allegiance to my family in keeping some sort of legacy alive in my great, great uncle. and yet my lbgtq family, i owe it to them to talk about it. so let's take a step back and learn about this period in history called the lavendar scare. xxxx . >> hello. >> she had really had it with the royal family. >> excuse me. >> she was going to draw the line and move on. >> as a parent could i ask you to respect my children's space? >> she was this ball of fire which attracted publicity like nothing else. >> the clock was ticking out, and she was abouto

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