John C. Graves Fund Still Supporting the Community Years After His Passing

http://www.southfloridagaynews.com/news/local-news/5860-john-c-graves-fund-still-supporting-the-community-years-after-his-passing.html

John C. Graves died on October 13, 2003. He was a 65-year old gay man who came out, as he died, ahead of his time. Born and raised in New York City, Graves earned his doctorate at Princeton and taught philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1964 to 1974.

According to biographers (including himself), Graves came out of the closet in 1972, three years after the Stonewall Riots, when most men of his age still felt too unsafe to share such information outside of small circles of friends. He became an activist and went on to help found the Gay Academic Union of New England and the Boston Center for Lesbians and Gay Men.

At around this same time, Graves inherited a sizeable fortune, which allowed him to leave education and pursue his career as a psychotherapist, practicing at the Homophile Community Health Service in Boston.

In 1990, Graves and his partner, Raymond Trevino, took up winter residence in Fort Lauderdale reserving Provincetown for summers. In South Florida he found many more organizations to support with his time and money. An avid reader with a self-published autobiography, Many Roads Traveled, Graves engaged early and long with the Stonewall Library and Archives and the Sunshine Cathedral among others.

“John wanted us to dispense his wealth to gay and lesbian organizations in South Florida where it could be most useful in championing the cause of gay equality,” said Wilton Manors Attorney Dean Trantalis, one of the trustees for the fund. “We’ve taken our lead from his own patterns of giving while he was alive and we’re sure he would be happy with our choices.”