Barbara “Bobbie” Reaux (Richmond Lesbian Feminists – RLF)
Interview by Rose Norman on December 7, 2015
Barbara “Bobbie” Reaux was an active member of Richmond Lesbian Feminists for much of her adult life. Her story of growing up in Richmond, Virginia as a Black child in the time of segregation, then coming out lesbian at age 25, and then joining a majority white, political and social organization in the 1970s gives us a fascinating glimpse of her courage and life struggles. Bobbie was adopted, and she begins her story with her search for her natal mother.
“I was born in Richmond, Virginia, December 14, 1947. I was raised with the family that I thought was my parents, although I didn’t really think my mother was my mother. When I did the math as I got a little older, I realized she was too old to be my mom. She was already in her 50s. My adoptive father passed when I was about nine years old.”
Finding My Birth Parents
BR: My adoptive mother [Beulah Harris Flournoy] passed when I was 30. Turns out that my cousin Ree’s [Maresia Harris] dad was my adoptive mother’s brother. I really thought, since she was closer in age to me, that Ree was my real mother. You know, back in 1947, it was a sin and a shame to have a child when you weren’t married. After Ree went into a nursing home in 1996, I was cleaning out her apartment, because I knew she wasn’t coming back to it, and I found my adoption papers and my birth certificate. I was really hurt that her name wasn’t in the space that said “Mother” because she was really like a mother to me, more than the person who was supposed to be my mother.
That upset me; and then I got upset thinking my mother gave me away because she didn’t want me. I was boohooing about that all by myself, and I went down to a friend’s house. A woman I was dating at the time lived down the street, and I talked to her about it. I went back home; and my ex [Joyce] was helping me move stuff out of Ree’s house; and I was crying. Ree had already told Joyce years ago, but she didn’t want Joyce to tell me because she thought I might be mad and be hurt. All the people that I’ve dated and been in a relationship were like family, and they all helped me with, Ree. She loved them, and they loved her. Ree and I never did discuss it. She was in the nursing home, and I simply said that I had found out, and that it was okay, and that I still loved her, nothing’s going to change. That was the extent of that conversation.
After Ree died, I called Valerie, a friend from college. (I went to Virginia State for a while in 1966, majoring in physical education.) Valerie was from Alabama, and my birth mother was from Alabama.
Biographical Note
Barbara “Bobbie” Reaux was born and raised in Richmond, VA, the only child of what she later learned were adoptive parents, Beulah Harris Flournoy and Washington Cary Flournoy, both native Virginians. She attended all Black schools, graduating from high school in 1966, before Richmond schools were integrated. She married Roosevelt Reaux, Jr., and had a son, Jason Alexis Reaux. After only two years of marriage, her husband was killed by a hit and run driver. With a boyfriend, she had a daughter, Desiree Maresia Reaux (died aged 28), by whom she has three grandsons. Bobbie Reaux came out as a lesbian after her second child was born.
I asked her to find me an Alabama phone book. I was going to call every Esau. My last name would have been Esau, but they changed it to Flournoy. Before I could do that, she said she would ask my aunt, who might know my birth father, who lived in Tidewater, VA, in the Hamptons. About ten minutes later, Valerie called me back and said, “You aren’t going to believe this, Fearless!” They used to call me Fearless Fly because I wore these big, gigantic yellow sunglasses (like fly eyes) so they could see me in the stands at the football games, where they were cheerleaders. (They still call me Fearless). “Don’t you know, my aunt knows your mama and your daddy. You’ve got sisters and brothers down here that are your daddy’s children.” So, I called her aunt and told her who I was. Her aunt knew my mother and my father, and I gave her my phone number and asked her to call my mother to ask if she wanted to know me.
“I’ve found out I’m adopted and I’m about to call my mother. But I don’t know what to say to her.”
It wasn’t five minutes before the phone rang with my friend Valerie calling back. We talked, and I went down there, and met my sisters and brothers on my father’s side, who lived in Hampton, VA. Then I finally got the nerve to call my mother. I was at the office, and my boss saw I was crying. She asked what was wrong, and I told her: “I’ve found out I’m adopted and I’m about to call my mother. But I don’t know what to say to her.” A couple of times I picked up the phone, put it down, picked it up, put it down.
The first time I called, nobody answered and the answering machine came on and said “Praise the Lord!” So, I got worried they would be really religious. And how I was I going to tell them I was gay? A friend said not to tell them, but I said, “No, I’ve got to get this over with. I did without them for 48 years. They’ve got to know now, because I don’t want to get in good with them, and then all of a sudden they don’t want to be bothered.”
I had a picture of the woman I was dating. I only date butch women. I don’t date femme women. I sent her that, and she said “Oh, he is handsome.” And I said, “Yeah, but it’s kind of not a ‘he.’ ” She got quiet, and said, “Oh.” We went on with that conversation. She used to write me letters about how she’s sorry she wasn’t going to see me in heaven, because I’m going to hell because I’m a lesbian. “Did you tell Aunt Shirley (who was her sister and who had a lesbian daughter) that I’m gay?” I asked. She said, “No, she’s got one over there she’s praying for, too.” That was the end of it after that. I think my sister told her to leave me alone. I’m the oldest of all the children of my dad and my mom: I’ll be 68 years old on Monday.
I got to spend nine years with my mother. I met her in 1996. I went up there to Maryland, and my brother came from Georgia. My sister Donna and brother Daryl also live in Maryland. The only brother who didn’t come was in prison in Colorado. He’s out now, and I’ve met him now. We’re all tight now. I think that I and my brother from Colorado are the tightest. My youngest brother, Daryl, is a little standoffish; but I don’t think that has to do with me. That’s just his way.
“They look out for me, and I look out for them. It was like we had never been separated. I was raised an only child, so you know that I’m loving all these sisters and brothers.”
They all came to my house for Thanksgiving and they brought their girlfriends. We had a good time. They look out for me, and I look out for them. It was like we had never been separated. I was raised an only child, so you know that I’m loving all these sisters and brothers.
[I learned that] my mother was sixteen when she had me, living in Richmond, in the West End. I was a sick little baby. She couldn’t work and take care of me, and her cousin where she was staying was partially blind. She couldn’t take of me. So she put me in foster care, the Friends Association for Children.
I went into foster care there when I was a month old, and that’s when the Flournoys got me. I’ve seen pictures of me with them when I was a baby. I went to dancing school, all the little girlie stuff. They didn’t [officially] adopt me until I was somewhere between five and seven years old. All the stories I’ve heard, the people that they said were kin to me in real life really were kin to me. I haven’t found out the connection between the Flournoys and my mother. I don’t know how they picked my mom to get me, unless my mom knew them. I didn’t get that part of the story.
They said, “Don’t let them know you’re gay!” And I said, “Nope! That’s the first thing coming out of the box! If they don’t want to be bothered, I’ll go back to living my life the way it was.”
My friends wondered what I would do if they didn’t want to know me. I just said that I’d done without them for 48 years, I could do without them some more. Then they said, “Don’t let them know you’re gay!” And I said, “Nope! That’s the first thing coming out of the box! If they don’t want to be bothered, I’ll go back to living my life the way it was.” I’d take my girlfriend up there. We’d stay at a hotel – but I’d take her to visit my mom and sisters.
Growing Up in the Segregated South
BR: I went to all-Black schools. We were segregated then. I enjoyed school. I had a good time at school. When did I really come out? I knew I was probably gay between the ages of 11 and 13; but I didn’t come out until I was 25. I did have boyfriends. I got married and had a son. I had been married about two years when my husband was killed in a hit and run accident in Cumberland County, where he was from. After that, I decided I wanted to have another child. I had a boyfriend, so I stopped taking birth control. I had a daughter. Two kids were all I wanted. I always said that kids that weren’t through here before thirty weren’t coming.
Have you ever heard of the Hippodrome Theatre? Theatres were segregated, too. We had the Walker and the Booker on Broad St. and the Hippodrome on 2nd St. Primarily, that’s where Black people went to the movies. Later we went to segregated theatres and had to sit in the balcony, but I don’t remember that. By the 60s, they were trying to desegregate everything. My school, Maggie L. Walker High School,* after I graduated, was desegregated. They bused students from certain parts of the city to John Marshall, which was an all-white school. I didn’t go through any of the desegregation. My schools were all-Black from kindergarten through graduation in June 1966.
Coming Out
BR: My kids grew up with me being gay. I broke up with my boyfriend when I was about three months pregnant. We got back together when I was about eight months pregnant. So he was around for the birth, and we got back together for a while, but that didn’t work out. That’s when I came out.
I had a long-term relationship [with a woman] that didn’t work out. I was free for a while, and then went in and out of relationships. My first relationship was with a woman who was an alcoholic. I think that was an issue that we didn’t work out, plus she cheated on me.
Lesbian Organizations
BR: Then I met some people who were in a group called Richmond Lesbian Feminists (RLF). A friend talked me into joining that group, because they liked to do stuff that I liked to do, like camping. We would go on little trips, have little get-togethers at each other’s houses. We would talk about safe sex and birth control. We would go to DC to the gay and lesbian marches. We worked on the Roe v Wade stuff, the women’s rights movement. Then we got together, and I forget who actually formed this group [RLF], but I think it was Beth Marschak [her bio says she “helped to start” it in 1975].
Then I’d try to get Black people to come to this stuff [that RLF was doing], and sometimes they’d come, but they didn’t have a good time. So, they decided to start their own group, and that’s how Richmond Womyn of Color got started with Terri Pendleton. They did some of the same things Richmond Lesbian Feminists did, dances and forums on various issues. I’ve forgotten most of that. They didn’t go camping. A lot of people wanted me to leave Richmond Lesbian Feminists and join their group, which I didn’t do, and that upset some people, but I didn’t care. I stayed with the group I wanted to be in. I thought it was weird. You’re already lesbian, so you’re already a [minority] group. Why split it into Black and white? Why not just leave it like it was? That bothered me a lot, but I got over it.
Maybe ten years ago, they started a group for older lesbians, SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), and I went to some of that. Once again, there were very few Black people there. I got off my soapbox and did what I wanted to do. I didn’t try to change groups. I didn’t get upset because they got upset with me.
Gay Social Life
BR: We’d go to the [gay] clubs. There was Babe’s and Alexander’s and Scandals. They had a bunch of clubs [in Richmond] in the 1970s and ‘80s, and they’ve all closed down now except for Babe’s. Now that we’re older (I’ll be 68 this month), a lot of my friends don’t want to go to the clubs. They say there are too many young people there. The reason for going to the clubs is to meet people, hang out, and have a good time. I’m not going to be sitting at home knitting, and not go out because it’s dark. I’m a party person. I like to party, I love to go to parties, and I used to have parties. I lived my life the way I wanted to live it. I was never in the closet. Once I knew I was gay, I came all the way out. My coworkers knew I was out. My friends and neighbors knew I was out, and I didn’t lose any friends [over it].
BR: My friends say I don’t live in the same world they live in. I didn’t experience it, but maybe it’s because I didn’t care. The people I hung around with didn’t feel that way. It might have been true, but I didn’t pay it any mind. I wasn’t raised that way. I wasn’t raised to know the difference between Black and white. I lived in an all-Black neighborhood. I was raised in Jackson Ward. I lived a block from 2nd St., where they had the 2nd St. Festival. There was a lot of flak because people wanted to call it the “Two Street” Festival. To me, it’s just a name. We all knew what it was. People find something to pick about, and I never understood why. It’s the same festival. It’s awesome. They’d close off the street for about three or four blocks. They’d have old-timey cars, food trucks, music, gospel, rock and roll. After a while, big-name bands came in, and it would last three days. Now it may be down to one or two days. I haven’t been in a couple of years. I used to take my white friends. The 2nd St. Festival still goes on. It’s not a gay thing, but a Jackson Ward thing.
There is a dance that has been going on since the 1970s or ‘80s. It was Richmond Lesbian Feminists that gave the dance every year, it was in Bon-Air, a white area, although I’m sure it’s integrated by now. It was a beautiful dance that you could get dressed up for. A lot of the Black people who came said they didn’t enjoy the dance because they didn’t play any Black music. We started asking people to request songs in advance, and the DJ would play them. I haven’t been for a lot of years, especially since I moved up here.
Career Path
BR: I recently lost two jobs to lay-offs. One of the jobs I had for 18 years. It took a whole year to find another job; and then in less than two years, I got laid off from that one. These were computer operator jobs. Then, I lost my house.
That’s how I got to Maryland. I came to live with my sister. I went from busing tables when my kids were little, to being a shampoo girl at the beauty salon in Tarhammers department store, where they had sit-ins. These places had a tearoom and the Richmond Room, where they didn’t want Black people. I don’t remember much about it, but I remember the heehaw about it going on. After a while, they integrated, no big issue.
I asked my boss at the beauty parlor if I went to beauty school, would she give me a job. She said yes, so I went to beauty school. I did Black and white hair. After that, I went to Cloverleaf, also part of Tarhammer’s, and after that, to a private shop called Raoul’s, which was an all-white shop, and I brought my customers with me.
After that, I had problems with my back and with arthritis. I had a ruptured disc. I’d have to lie on the floor between customers because I couldn’t sit. Then I had an operation, and I also had carpal tunnel in my hands. In the beauty industry, you have to buy your own insurance, and [it was expensive because] I had two kids. Another reason I didn’t go back to beauty work is that I’d had several surgeries: hysterectomy, gall bladder, knee replacement, and recently, brain surgery for a benign tumor on my brain. And I’m still hanging.
So, I went back to school and got an associate’s degree in computer operation. I got a job that had good insurance. That lasted 18 years. It was a worker’s comp insurance company that printed checks for people out of work, and we had loads and loads of checks. In the end, they moved that job to Ohio, and lots of us got laid off.
The first thing I remember is a white guy saying that we were coming into a new millennium, and we were going to get rid of the old, and bring in the new. I thought then, “This job is going.”
I remember they had a meeting about how they were going to change things. The first thing I remember is a white guy saying that we were coming into a new millennium, and we were going to get rid of the old, and bring in the new. I thought then, “This job is going.” There were plenty of hints like that, and from my boss, to find another job. Then I went as a contractor to a place called Supply Defense Center in Richmond, a place located on a military base that required a security clearance. Four of us contractors trained the people there [who were] doing top secret stuff how to do the stuff we did.
Then, they switched from contractor to government jobs. When those jobs came open, two of us applied for the new jobs: me and a white guy. We both got a letter saying we weren’t qualified because we didn’t have enough experience. But it wasn’t a nice place to work. It wasn’t a happy place for me. I hated that job. That other job that lasted 18 years was more like a family, and it was a lot of people, 100, 200 [of us], and we all stuck together.
By this time, I’m up in my 60s. I looked for a job and couldn’t find one. I had bought myself a townhouse for my 50th birthday, but I just couldn’t make it. So, my sister invited me to come up here, to live with her, and to look for a job here. It’s been three years since I lost my last job. I came to Maryland in 2012, so I’ve been in Maryland three years. I kind of looked for a job, but at this age (and I’ve been working since age 15), I’m tired. I’ve got my husband’s social security, which is about $800 [a month], and I couldn’t make it on that. I tried to wait until I got my whole check, which would have been an extra $90, but I couldn’t wait that long. I just got an apartment of my own, a studio apartment in a senior setting.
Gay Culture in Maryland
BR: I don’t like it here in Maryland. They’re just not friendly. The gay people are standoffish if you’re not in a couple. I guess they think if somebody single comes in, you want their girlfriend. That bothers me. It bothers me that there are no gay clubs near where I live. I have to go all the way to D.C. In Richmond, I could get to a club in 10 to 15 minutes. So, I’m just sitting around my apartment being bored.
I just don’t like it here. I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’ve got a nice apartment. The neighbors are nice.
My next-door neighbor, who is 72, falls a lot. She won’t go to the doctor or let me take her to the doctor. She’s barely as big as a bird, doesn’t seem to be eating. I’m to the point where I think I should call her children, because I don’t think they know this. Then I think, maybe I shouldn’t get in this woman’s business. But she knows I’m gay, and she’s okay with it. She didn’t tell anybody else. My family knows. They’re okay with it.
I dated a woman up here awhile, and that was a disaster. Now I just watch tv, read, and hang out by myself or go to my family’s house.
Being Gay and Going to Church
BR: I was raised Methodist, christened when I was three, but I haven’t been baptized yet. After I came out, I realized that regular churches were not the churches for me. I get tired of hearing that I’m going to hell because I’m gay.
About that time, MCC started (Metropolitan Community Church), and that’s the church I went to all the time [in Richmond]. There’s not one here in Maryland. I have to go all the way to D.C., which is okay, except sometimes, I can’t afford the gas, now that I’m down from $45,000 a year to about $15,000 with my social security. I was going to join that church [in D.C.]. It’s a lovely church, the pastor is lovely, the choir is great, the people in the church are nice. But something bothered me. They told me that if you join that church you have to join a ministry. I never heard of that before. That should be on you. You can’t tell me what I have to do because I join your church. I filled out the papers, but I never went back because about that time I found out I had the brain tumor.
I did find out about an MCC in Fairfax, VA. You know, there are MCCs all over the world and in most states. I tried to get to that church, and I was right there; but I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find any bumper stickers on cars or things hanging in cars that I would recognize, like the rainbow symbol. So now I’ve got to find a church that’s pro-gay. It doesn’t have to be all gay. But I want to be comfortable there.
Family Members
[At the end of the interview, the interviewer, RN, asked Barbara “Bobbie” Reaux for family names and relationships to explain the details of the family stories. These are listed here for convenience. Some of the narrative has been moved to the first part of this interview in the paragraph, “Finding My Birth Family.”]The people Barbara “Bobbie” Reaux knew as family until age 48
- Adoptive mother, Beulah Harris Flournoy, raised in Waynesboro, VA, died when Bobbie was 30 years old.
- Adoptive father, Washington Cary Flournoy, raised near Farmville, VA, died when Bobbie was 9 years old.
- Cousin, Maresia (Ree) Harris, Beulah Flournoy’s niece, and whom Bobbie had believed to be her “real” mother.
- Husband, Roosevelt, Jr., father of her son Jason Alexis Reaux, killed by a hit and run driver.
- Son, Jason Alexis Reaux, still living (age 47 in 2015), no children.
- Daughter, Desiree Maresia Reaux, had three sons (one of whom now has a daughter), and she died at age 28.
Birth family
Birth mother: Helen Barbara Esau, born in Alabama and living in Waldorf, MD, when Barbara “Bobbie” Reaux found her. Helen Esau married three times, and she had five more children. Chick Borden and Jerome Biddle were two of her husbands.
Birth father: James Bartholomew Jones, Sr., raised in Hampton, VA, somewhere near Farmville.
Barbara Reaux says of her father, “He married in September 1947, and I was born in December [1947]. He was a very good man. But his mother didn’t like my mother. I never heard the whole story about that. He was dead by the time I found his family. They lived in Tidewater. He had had three children with his wife. One of his sons got killed, but I don’t know that story.”
*Maggie Lena Walker was an entrepreneur, the first Black woman in the United States to own a bank. She also started a newspaper and a department store in Richmond. Her home there is now a historic landmark, as is the Hippodrome Theater and the whole Jackson Ward district, once known as the “Harlem of the South.” See Ellen Perlman, “Escapes: Tracing Black History in Richmond’s Jackson Ward Neighborhood,” Washington Post, Feb 4, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/escapes-tracing-black-history-in-richmonds-jackson-ward-neighborhood/2012/01/27/gIQAwanMkQ_story.html
Rose Norman conducted the interview and prepared this excerpt.
This interview has been edited for archiving by the interviewer and interviewee, close to the time of the interview. More recently, it has been edited and updated for posting on this website. Original interviews are archived at the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.