On a hot Saturday morning, about 20 men and two women gather at a small park at 23rd and P streets in Northwest Washington. They’re here, just as they are every week, for a “fun run” through an unshaded stretch of Rock Creek Park. Many are already sweating as they warm up, but the heat doesn’t stop them.
They’ve run through worse.
Timeline: DC Front Runners
For three decades, members of the DC Front Runners — the local outpost of a global running club for gay people and straight people who like gay people, according to longtime member J. Ford Huffman — have run through heat, humidity, rain and snow.
They’ve run through the devastation of HIV/AIDS.
And they’ve run through battles for equality from the military to marriage.
On Saturday, they’ll celebrate the club’s founding with a gala event. DCFR — one of dozens of chapters created worldwide since 1974 — was founded in the summer of 1981 after a couple of local runners began cold-calling numbers they’d culled from a 5K race roster during a gay pride weekend.
“A lot of people weren’t ‘out’ at the time, and they were freaked out” when they got the call, recalls member Marcel Acosta.
The club’s creation was “a new, dangerous thing to be doing,” says Brian Beary, the club’s archivist. “People could lose their jobs for being gay, and not just the military guys — everyone was at risk.”
As a result, last names were never printed in the club’s newsletter, and some runners ducked out of the usual photo ops after races.
But for many, DCFR became a refuge of sorts, a healthy alternative to other social options for gays in Washington. “People saw it as a safe place,” Beary says. “A place beyond the bars.”
But within the first year, the DCFR safety net suddenly grew slack.
In 1981, cases of a bewildering new disease began emerging in Los Angeles and other cities. By 1982, it had a name — acquired immune deficiency syndrome. AIDS.
Because of its initial prevalence among gay men, AIDS was called “gay-related immune deficiency” and “gay cancer” by some.
“People were afraid,” says Acosta, who was a member of the Chicago Front Runners before moving to Washington in 2001. “Members were dying, and no one knew why. You’d be running next to these strong runners week after week. Then they’d waste away, and then they’d die.”
About 15 DCFR members have died because of AIDS, Beary says.
Members organized “pledge runs” to raise funds for local charities and health organizations, crafted an AIDS quilt panel in 1987, and planted a memorial grove of trees in Rock Creek Park.
“It’s shocking that this was only 20, 25 years ago,” Beary says. “It’s hard to imagine how frightening it must have been.”
Despite the anxiety, the group never stopped running.
An attitude of “friendly competition,” Huffman says, extended into training runs, which have always been open to anyone who wants to join — man or woman, gay or straight, runner or walker.
“I started as a walker,” Huffman says. “When I joined 17 years ago, I’d never run before in my life.” Huffman was dedicated, even volunteering as the club’s walking coordinator. But the running itch got the best of him.
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