This story contains descriptions of gun violence.
The Backstreet Cafe shooting happened 25 years ago today.
The Backstreet Cafe was a small gay bar on Salem Avenue in Roanoke. It was a place where people went to get a beer, shoot some pool, and get to relax and be themselves for a few hours. Backstreet was a gay bar for 35 years. On September 22, 2000, a man with a handgun killed Danny Overstreet and injured six people.
Joel Tucker was one of those who was shot.
"We hid behind the booth," Tucker says. "I said, 'uh oh something's not right.' I reached behind me and had blood all over my hand, and I thought, 'uh oh.' I could feel the stringing. I went into shock, I think. I had the bullet in my back. Ended up in the hospital.
"That's when I was younger and so paranoid about everything," Tucker says. "I got shot on a Friday night, was in the hospital Saturday, got out Sunday, and I went to work on Monday with that bullet in my back. These days, I mean, I could care less what they think of me. I really rely on my friends a lot because we all need each other. I thank God up above that I'm not dead, because I could very well be, or in a wheelchair. So I guess I was blessed in that respect."
At the time, Charlotte Houchins was pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church. She says she received a phone call about the shooting, but had to go to Floyd due to a family member's death. Then her phone rang again.
"I got a phone call saying you've got to come back to Roanoke right now," Houchins says. "There's people in the street, you've got to come back and take care of this. The street was full of people. People had a need to be together. The community after the shooting, everybody thought it would pull into its circle and hide, but that didn't happen. That's when things really started coming out and coming together. I think it's important people remember what a trauma it was. but I hope they remember how it got us up and on our feet. How it got us out and involved."
At the time of the shooting, Deanna Marcin was living a much different life, as a father in suburban Roanoke. When she transitioned to a new identity in the following years, the Backstreet welcomed her with open arms. She became its bar manager for the next decade.
"So when I decided to be myself, Deanna, well, I've never explored that community or things like that," Marcin says. "Well, where are safe places in Roanoke for me to go? The Park is the big dance club, and the Backstreet is the homey jukebox thing. Which I fell into more. Almost six years later, after the shooting, I wound up working at the bar that I went to. Safe place! I had to make it safe. I don't want nobody to be scared, like I was scared. Like I'm scared now. I'm just so disappointed. Yet, here we go again. Are we going back to 2000? Is that what's going to happen? Are more LGBT going to be shot?"
Katie Stueckle was a toddler when the shooting happened. She didn't become aware of it until much later, when she moved to Roanoke to attend Hollins University. Stueckle joined the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project, and led walking tours and bar crawls that explored the long history of the city's queer culture.
"There's a woman who I've talked to at Macado's multiple times," Stueckle says. "As soon as she hears that I'm involved in gay activism, gay community work in Roanoke, the first thing she leads with is, 'I was there at Backstreet that night.' And, we got to Macado's in July this month for the bar crawl. She was there at the bar. I talked to her for a little bit, offered to buy her a drink, she refused, she always does. She's seen this tour happen for years.
"This year on the tour, she said, 'I will come with you and I will talk about it.' We gathered on the street outside, and the framing she gave us is, 'Because of what happened that night, you guys are able to do stuff like gay bar crawls now, in bars that aren't even designated gay spaces.' She made it so clear that she as someone who was there saw the direct link between what she went through and what the community went through, to what we are now able to do.
"The shooting at Backstreet is now pivotal in the way the Roanoke LGBTQ+ community functions," Stueckle says. "The Backstreet did bring people together. It changed the way gay people move through Roanoke. It made them incredibly determined. The way that Backstreet made the community come together strengthened Roanoke's LGBTQ community for decades to come."
The Backstreet Café shooting took place 25 years ago today.
