Long, Jim (James Augustus III)

Biography

James Augustus Long III trained originally to become a teacher, but while working as a student teacher in a school for emotionally disturbed children in Dade County, FL, in 1970, he was outed and fired. He moved to California that same year, but his record followed him, and he was unable to find work as a teacher. From 1971 to 1975, he worked for Union Bank, but was denied promotion because of his sexual orientation. In 1975, he was hired by the Los Angeles Gay (later Gay and Lesbian) Community Services Center, where he worked as a counselor and as director of the Educational Outreach Program. He left the Center in approximately 1981, to work as a consultant, counselor, and child care worker at a collective in Echo Park/Silverlake. In 1981 and 1982, he also served as alternate coordinator of the California State Department of Mental Health's Gay/Lesbian Work Group.