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“Some churches wouldn’t hold funerals for people. He could have made a statement of condolences. “The mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana didn’t acknowledge it,” Camina says. To this day, the Up Stairs fire is the most deadly fire in New Orleans history.” Victims, survivors ignored It did get front page coverage, but it soon started to fade into the newspaper and then it disappeared. “Some people were embarrassed because the prime suspect was a member of our community,” Camina says. This was 1973.” (In January 1973, being gay had just been declassified as a mental health disorder.) “It wasn’t long afterward that an indifference appeared in the gay community. It didn’t spawn a revolution,” Camina says. “From talking with survivors and members of the New Orleans’ gay community, I got the impression that people were embarrassed and ashamed. Photo: “Upstairs Inferno.” Why the story has been unknown At the time, it was the largest mass murder of gay people in the United States. This photo shows the Up Stairs Lounge engulfed in fire on June 24, 1973. history.)ġ year later, Pulse nightclub survivor wants to change hearts, minds I didn’t know, and that it wasn’t part of our gay history.” (This communication took place four years before the Pulse nightclub shooting on June 12, 2016, which became the largest mass murder of LGBTQ people in U.S. “After my first film, ‘Raid of the Rainbow Lounge,’ came out in 2012, someone reached out to me and said, Have you ever heard of the Up Stairs fire? He said it was the largest gay massacre in U.S. In an interview with Q Voice News, Camina, 45, talks about learning about the Up Stairs Lounge fire, bringing dignity and honor to the survivors and victims, and why New Orleans’ officials and religious community leaders turned their backs on the survivors and victims’ families. The Up Stairs Lounge blaze remains the deadliest fire in New Orleans history. Four more people died in the days that followed the fire. When the inferno was extinguished 17 minutes later, firefighters found the bodies of 28 people who had burned to death in the arson attack 15 people also were injured. Photo: “Upstairs Inferno.” 28 people burned to death In this early 1970s photo, a crowd of people enjoy time at the Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans’ French Quarter.