Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub Was Founded by a Woman Whose Brother Died from AIDS

The name refers to his heartbeat.

Jermaine Towns, left, and Brandon Shuford wait down the street from Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, after the worst mass shooting in US history.Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Photo

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Pulse, the Orlando gay club that is now the site of the worst mass shooting in US history, is a cornerstone of the city’s LGBT community. A gunman opened fire at the club around 2  a.m. Sunday morning, killing 50 people and injuring 53 others, as the crowded bar celebrated a Latin-themed night of music and dancing. June is celebrated as Pride Month around the country. Revelers at the Pulse initially thought the gunfire was part of the music.

According to USA Today, the Pulse nightclub was co-founded by Barbara Poma with her friend Ron Legler in 2004. Poma’s brother, John, died from AIDS in 1991. “Being raised in a strict Italian family, being gay was frowned upon. However, when John came out to his family and friends, the family dynamic transitioned from a culture of strict tradition to one of acceptance and love,” the club’s website says of Poma’s brother. “It was important to create an atmosphere that embraced the gay lifestyle with décor that would make John proud. Most importantly, [we] coined the name Pulse for John’s heartbeat—as a club that is John’s inspiration, where he is kept alive in the eyes of his friends and family.”

Equality Florida, an LGBT advocacy group, released a statement on Sunday morning, reacting in horror to the massacre, and pledging to “stand in solidarity” with the victims’ families:

We have received a steady stream of emails and messages from those seeking to help or to make sense of the senseless. We make no assumptions on motive. We will await the details in tears of sadness and anger. We stand in solidarity and keep our thoughts on all whose lives have been lost or altered forever in this tragedy.

Lines began to form Sunday morning to donate blood to help treat victims of the massacre. But gay men who might want to help their friends are put in a peculiar position. Last December, the Food and Drug Administration lifted a lifetime ban for gay men on giving blood—but only if the donor hasn’t had sex for 12 months.

Perhaps the most prominent previous attack on a gay club, sometimes called “the deadliest attack on LGBT people in US history,” occurred in 1973, when 32 people were murdered at a gay bar in New Orleans.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate