Malachi Truman Harris
[1]
Malachi Truman Harris (who typically went by "Truman") was a "poet, writer, playwright, actor, anarchist, activist, and gentleman of wit and compassion," according to his obituary in the August 9, 2013 issue of the Colorado Springs Gazette. [2] He was one of the co-founders of the Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs and the Lambda Services Bureau.
Harris' Life and Work
Harris was born in Port Arthur, Texas. His family was fundamentalist. [1:2]
In the late 50's, he moved to Denver to study drama at Denver University. He quit school and moved to New York in 1965 where he worked with the touring company of the Fantasticks.
UCCS and Camp Primer
Harris moved to Colorado Springs in 1966 when the company fell through, and it was there that he would manage the Cragmor Campus Bookstore at UCCS until 1972. [1:3]
During his time as the bookstore manager at UCCS, Truman co-edited and wrote a political and literary journal called "The Camp Primer," named after an effeminate Captain Camp, whose image was often featured in the journal. Several conservative professors wanted to ban the journal due to its politics.
In response to the calls for a ban, attempts to "rub out" the journal's existence, the journal took on the following motto:
"To those who want to rub us out...go a little lower and faster please." [3]
For as long as I can remember, I've been angry that people weren't being given a fair shake because I wasn't actively gay when I was in high school or college. I buried myself in the theater, immersed in education and drama so to speak. Sleeping three, four, five hours a night.
Harris realized he was gay soon after joining the military.
I just looked in the mirror one day-in Denver-and I said, 'You're gay. And you're not going to get anything in the way of a personal experience that is joyous and intimate unless you do something about it. So why don't you do something about it?' And I went out and did something about it.
Malachi Truman Harris and Donaciano Martinez
Harris met Donaciano Martinez in 1965. According to Donaciano, Truman was reading an excerpt from a Shakespeare play loudly, gesticulating wildly.
All I thought was "Who is this guy? He's so flamboyant."...I didn't know how to deal with someone like Truman.
Through a connection of a mutual friend named Connie, the two got to know each other more.
He had a really broad perspective...and he'd come through the McCarthy era, the 50s, refusing to sign the loyalty oaths. He had a job where he just refused to sign it. And that's what you were asked to do in the 1950s if you had a job, was to sign a statement that you're not a communist. And he refused to sign it. That was the kind of defiance he had.
He was the feature editor for the campus tabloid publication Montage in 1974. Don Collier was also part of the staff. Both of them would later go on to write for Out Front.
[1:5]
In 1972, Harris directed Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" for Canterbury West, Ltd., a venue located at Bijou and Cascade Avenue, above the restaurant "Five Hoods." [3:1]
In 1979, Harris managed Las Vegas Cinema, an X-rated theater.
"Im an admitted gay 24 hours a day, and it's one of the few places I can work. Overall, I enjoy it. They don't care what Ido in bed as long as I do my job and that's very rare at this time in this city."
Activism and the Gay Liberation Front
In the late 60s and early 70s, I think Boulder-because of the University-and Colorado Springs—just because of the people who were here-were much more attuned radically, while Denver was much more asleep. I don't know anymore about Boulder, but Denver seems to be more awake than it's ever been in its past. But still not awake radically, in the sense that Boulder and Colorado Springs were in the early 70s. Awake more in a liberal sense, more in the sense of working through the system... more on an NGTF level. And Denver to me has never had the radicalism, say, of Boulder or Colorado Springs.
Malachi Truman Harris co-founded the Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs and the Lambda Services Bureau.[4][5] In his work with the Lambda Services Bureau, he and Dorothy Bell sued the IRS and won back the organization's 501(c)3 status.
Anti-Assimilationism and the NGTF
And that attitude of superiority-they don't deal with street gays. They don't deal with the street reality. I don't think they're a group which brings into their reality the co-struggle of blacks, of women in general, of poor people, of elderly, of children, of the yellow people or the red people-the third world struggle to find some kind of humanity and equality on this planet.
Later Life
Harris passed away on July 27, 2013 at age 78 from COPD. His memorial service was held at Poor Richards. [2:1]
"Fuck this! I do not wish to kiss my HET master's ass! I want to be OFF his ass and be rid forever of him and his oppressions constantly heaped upon me. I Will NOT be defined by him." - Malachi Truman Harris
Published Works
- Poem: Good Gay Slaves published in OUT FRONT
- Poem: To Him I Love published in OUT FRONT
- Poem: City Failure published in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
- To be King of Israel: Jonathan and David (play excerpt) published in Colors of Courage - Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Life in Colorado Springs.
- Other Works Archived with OAC
Questions and Continued Research
-
- I believe so.
-
- Yes! In Out Front. Now linked on page.
-
- It seems so, given that they both were involved in the gay liberation front movement in Colorado Springs. Still researching.
-
- Done, thanks to John O'Brien!
References
Quotes to add
It was into "74 or '75. But a lot of those people have long since moved or gone into other things. There's a reaction here which throws gays into a much earlier period-more self-imposed now, the hiding, living the schizophrenia-straight by day, gay by night. They're within the system again believing the myths. They don't even have a comprehension of being oppressed.
Morris, John A. “Colorado.” Gaysweek 3, no. 109 (1979): 16-. Archives of Sexuality and Gender. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/XYGRRH706001510/AHSI?sid=bookmark-AHSI&pg=16&xid=8a44ed86. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
“Malachi Truman Harris Obituary (2013) - Colorado Springs, CO - The Gazette.” Legacy.Com, https://obits.gazette.com/us/obituaries/gazette/name/malachi-truman-harris-obituary?id=17995447. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026. ↩︎ ↩︎
“Former Bookstore Manager Directs Play.” Insight [UCCS], 20 Mar. 1972, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=INS19720320-01.2.12. ↩︎ ↩︎
Focus on the Fabulous : Colorado GLBT Voices. With Internet Archive, Boulder, Colo. : Johnson Books, 2007. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/focusonfabulousc0000unse. ↩︎
Harris, Truman, and Dorothy Bell. “OUT FRONT INTERVIEWS LAMBDA.” Interview by Don Collier. 1 Oct. 1977, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=OTF19771001-01.2.12. ↩︎
Harris, Malachi Truman. “Reader Weary of NGTF Practices.” OUT FRONT, Volume III, Number 14, 5 Jan. 1979, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, p. 9, https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=OTF19790105-01.2.10. ↩︎