Watch: Story of One of First Gay Men to Adopt in U.S.

NPR’s excellent StoryCorps program last week ran a segment on Bill Jones, one of the first single men—and gay men—to adopt a child in the U.S. There’s even more to know about this pioneering gay dad, however.

As the StoryCorp piece explains, California in the 1960s was having a hard time finding adoptive homes for children, especially older boys. Bill Jones decided to apply, thinking his experience as a schoolteacher would serve him well. The boy he ended up adopting had been born to a mother who was a heroin addict. The child was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and himself died of a heroin overdose at age 30. Jones says he has no regrets about the adoption, however.

The Bill Jones Project has posted a 42-minute documentary, A Family of My Own: The Bill Jones Story on YouTube. A short clip focusing on the adoption is below, but I encourage you make time to view the whole thing.

For even more on Jones’ life and his broader work in the LGBTQ community, go read “The Rainbow Connection,” a piece published in the alumni magazine of his alma mater, the College of the Pacific. Among his other accomplishments, Jones created a social club for lesbian, gay, and straight clientele, bought and renovated an apartment building as a living space for people of all orientations, became a deputy marriage commissioner and married same-sex couples during the brief window in 2004 after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed them to marry, and helped create the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center within the San Francisco Library and the similar Rainbow Community Center at the College of the Pacific.

I’ve long said that LGBTQ parents—as parents and as active members of the LGBTQ community—have a longer history than many (even ourselves) realize. Jones’ story is an important part of that.