Paul Avery started his career in journalism in 1955 and was 23 years old when he became Bureau Chief for the Honolulu Advertiser. In 1959 he joined the San Francisco Chronicle[1] and worked there for seven years before moving with his family to Asia to cover the Vietnam War. When he returned to the Chronicle three years later he covered the Zodiac Killer[2] and was responsible for linking the Zodiac Killer to a Riverside murder, prompting a direct threat from the Zodiac Killer himself. Avery then turned his attention to covering the Patty Hearst kidnapping[3]. After Hearst’s conviction Avery quit the Chronicle to write a best selling book about the kidnapping. He joined the San Francisco Examiner[4] in the 1980s where he remained until his retirement in 1994.
Margaret “Margo” St. James was born on September 12, 1937 in Bellingham, Washington where she married her high school sweetheart, Don Sobjack, and had a son one month after her high school graduation. In 1958 she abandoned her family and moved to San Francisco to pursue a career as a realist artist. She became part of the North Beach Beat Movement[5].
In 1962 St. James was arrested and convicted for prostitution because a judge couldn’t believe that a woman who wasn’t a prostitute would know what term “trick” meant. With no prospects for a job as a convicted prostitute, St. James dabbled in prostitution. She took a college equivalency exam, enrolled in law school and, while she did not receive a degree, she was successful in appealing her conviction. She became one of the first women private investigators in California.
In 1973 St. James founded COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), an organization advocating the decriminalization of prostitution. COYOTE was successful in changing San Francisco’s policy that required sex workers to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases and held in quarantine if they tested positive. COYOTE also provided bail bonds funding, legal aid and clothes to wear in court. To finance COYOTE and its newspaper COYOTE Howls, in 1974 St. James organized a “Hookers Ball” at Glide Memorial Church[6]. There were about 200 attendees and afterwards, Methodist leadership called for the dismissal of everyone at Glide Memorial for permitting the Church to serve as a sanctuary for prostitutes. But nothing came of the threat because local celebrities like Herb Caen[7], Willie Brown[8] and Lawrence Ferlinghetti endorsed the event. In 1975 a second Hookers Ball was held at the Hyatt Recency and attended by Brown and other politicians as well as police officers and movie stars. In 1977 Police Chief Charles Gains was St. James’ date. In 1978 the Hookers Ball was held at the Cow Palace where there were an estimated 18,000 attendees. St. James arrived to the ball on an elephant. The last Hookers Ball was held the following year (and replaced with the Exotic-Erotic Ball until 2010) after-which St. James took her message to the national level when she ran for the Republican presidential ticket. Ronald Reagan would be elected in 1980, ushering in an era of anti-prostitution/pornography campaigns. Facing conservative backlash, St. James moved to the Netherlands in 1985, and later to the south of France. While in Europe she co-founded the International Committee for Prostitutes Rights. By 1992 she was in financial straights and her longtime friend Paul Avery, who was terminally ill at the time with emphysema, flew to France and asked St. James to marry him. They married on Valentine’s Day and returned to San Francisco the following year.
St. James was appointed to the San Francisco Task Force on Prostitution. In 1994 she cofounded the St. James Infirmary Clinic, a medical and social service organization serving sex workers in the Tenderloin. It was the first occupational health and safety clinic for sex workers in the nation. In 1996 she narrowly lost a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and, after losing, moved with Avery to a family cabin on Orcas Island, Washington.
Avery died in 2000 of pulmonary emphysema and St. James remained in Washington for the rest of her life. She died at an assisted living facility on January 11, 2021 at age 83 from Alzheimers.
[1] San Francisco Chronicle: story coming January 16th
[2] Zodiac Killer: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4076
[3] Patty Hearst: story coming February 4th
[4] San Francisco Examiner: story coming June 6th
[5] Beat Movement: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4625
[6] Glide Memorial Church: story coming September 22nd
[7] Herb Caen: story coming April 3rd
[8] Willie Brown: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4114
