In the early 1980s, Harriet Hancock was a law school student and a widow with three children. Her middle child, Greg, had come out to her as gay, and she instantly accepted and supported him. But she learned that his friends who were gay had not received the same kind of acceptance as she had given her son.
Driven by compassion, she started the Columbia chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), co-founded Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS), and established the first LGBTQ+ resource and community center in the southeast, The Harriet Hancock Center.
On March 23, 2024, Harriet and her daughter Jennifer Tague shared their journey with StoryCorps, a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people. This excerpt was selected and produced by Linda Nunez.
TRANSCRIPT:
Tague: So, Mom, I want to start off with, we're in South Carolina, and this is where you were born and raised, but you're also known as the “Mother of Pride” or “Mama Harriet.” Can you give us a little background as to how you got that name?
Hancock: The way I got involved to being an advocate for (the) LGBT community was, my son is gay. He came out when he was 19 or 20, and this would have been in the year about 1980. And unlike many experiences that gay people have, when they're coming out to their parents or friends, you know, they don't meet with much friendliness and a lot of misunderstanding, and sometimes they become outcasts from their own family. Well, I didn't feel that way. I came to understand from some of Greg's friends that they were having a difficult time with their families. They wanted to know from me, “How did you come to accept Greg, and what can I do to get my parents to accept me? How can I approach that?” So, they were looking to me for some answers…and I really didn't have any.
Tague: But you found the answers listening to Public Radio when you heard--
Hancock: Amy Ashworth, who was in New York, and she belonged to a group called Parents of Gays. Later, they changed it to Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. So, I got involved in that.
Tague: And you started the first chapter in South Carolina or in the Southern states.
Hancock: I just felt that there was a need to try to help educate parents who were struggling with this. They had nowhere to turn. You know, your church was not accepting, and they called you a sinner. Under the law, you were a criminal. And, at that time, before 1973, you were considered mentally disabled. You were considered a mental case. So where did they have to go? You know, who were they going to help? In 1985, I started law school, and that same month I started law school, we established Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services. I served as president at one point, and…I was trying to go to law school and be president of PALS. That was something else.
Tague: I noticed that there is an LGBTQ center here in South Carolina, and it's named after you, Mama: The Harriet Hancock Center.
Hancock: We are a home for anyone who needs our assistance. We are a resource agency and a social agency where, you know, they have a book club, I think they have movie nights. They have different. You know—
Tague: They have Youth OUTLOUD--
Hancock: --social events, and, of course, we take care of our youth. From time to time, we have a seniors group. Whatever group that wants to come in that is related to our mission, then they can come and have their meetings there. The first Sunday of every month, we have a potluck, and it's just open doors for anybody that wants to come. You don't have to be gay. You just want to come meet some members of the community. You're welcome to come. And I love those potlucks because it's when everybody gets together, and it's like old home week. You see some of the pioneers, and we just all have a good time, and we're proud of what we have done, because we feel like we have helped so many people. And we're actually told that we have, you know, people to even talk about…they thought that their life was over...and wanted it to be over, until they came to the community center, met one of our volunteers, and changed their mind completely, because they found a home.
