On the Rocks, with a twist

CROWDED HOUSE Party goers pack Montrose Harbor.

Photo: Lora Branch

Every Pride Sunday, techno music blasts out of loudspeakers, drag performers strut their stuff, politicians beam their megawatt smiles, volunteers pass out safer-sex info, and thousands celebrate. Yet these festivities take place not just in Boystown but at the decades-old—yet largely off-the-radar—Rocks Party, which annually attracts around 15,000 mostly black LGBT Chicagoans to Montrose Harbor in Uptown.

While accounts of its early years vary, local African-American activist Vernita Gray recalls its mid-’70s origins. “It began as the women’s party,” she says, “because our feeling was the boys just want to run half-naked down the street and do their thing. We wanted to go to the park and put on our boom boxes and barbecue and hang out with our family, friends and children.” The first events took place at the Belmont Rocks (hence the name), a stone’s throw from Halsted Street but worlds away from the Chicago Pride Parade. Back then, women arrived at dawn with tents, grills and coolers, and camped out for the better part of the day. When DJs and live music were added, a new LGBT tradition was born—all by word of mouth.

“We don’t do things the same way the white community does,” says Renee Ogletree, a former Rocks Party volunteer. “The Rocks is very loosely organized. A lot of it is being in the know. Every year what happened was more and more people began to realize this is where all the black people are.”

By the late ’80s, legendary house-music producer Frankie Knuckles had become involved, and the event had grown too big to remain unnoticed. “The police were shutting it down because [organizers] weren’t going through the formal process of getting the permit from the Park District,” says Bob Yeaworth, a club promoter for the black LGBT community. “[Attorney and community activist] Sam Davis Jr., he was my lover at the time, really formalized it, marketed it, pulled together the tents and DJs and turned it into a big event.” After Davis died in 1993, Yeaworth, with the help of Ogletree, current organizer Michael O’Connor and others, spent the rest of the decade securing DJs and live entertainment.

In the early 2000s, the party went through another shift: its relocation to Montrose Harbor. “I think it became a case of the rich people with the boats not wanting to have their spaces blocked off,” Ogletree says. “We literally closed the parking lot. It would be packed by 7am.”

At Montrose Harbor, the event still attracts hard-core devotees who show up at dawn and bypass the Pride Parade completely. Now a more comprehensive fest, the Rocks features drag performances, local comics, meet- and-greets with politicians, a youth contingent that storms the party after the parade ends and a large presence by the Chicago Department of Public Health, which offers HIV and syphilis testing and hepatitis vaccinations. “The heart of the event, as far as I’m concerned, is the access to the wellness and care services,” says Ariq Cobbler, current Rocks Party president. “It’s the one time we’re able to reach men who have sex with men.” Simone Koehlinger, director of the city’s Office of LGBT Health, agrees: “The whole idea is to make this an easy way for men and women to get their regular HIV test on the spot,” she says. “It’s free, and you get results in 30 minutes.”

The Rocks has seen its troubles over the years, such as infighting among its many organizers. “Everybody wants to claim they started the Rocks, they own the Rocks, they control the Rocks,” says Ogletree, who stopped volunteering about nine years ago. The event has also experienced tensions with the Chicago Police Department. “We really organized it so that police wouldn’t have a presence,” Ogletree says. “We had to convince the Police Department that we got this. We don’t need you riding through on your motorcycles; we don’t need you checking people’s coolers. That was the biggest battle. It was prejudice at its worst.”

With an expected attendance this year of around 20,000, the Rocks continues to rival its larger, more recognized counterpart a few blocks away. “It’s a great way for a lot of folks to celebrate Pride Month and to celebrate being LGBT or allies,” Koehlinger says of the Rocks. “They run into a lot of old friends and lovers, colleagues. It’s a way that folks celebrate their identities and who they are.”

The Rocks Party happens on Pride Sunday, June 28, at Montrose Harbor near Cricket Hill and the lake.

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