On Sept. 27, 1958, 26-year-old visiting tour guide Fernando Rios was enjoying the New Orleans nightlife at Cafe Lafitte in Exile, a gay bar on Bourbon Street. There, he met Tulane University student John Farrell. The two hit it off and left the bar together. Little to Rios’s knowledge, Farrell was leading him to a deadly trap. 

Farrell brought Rios to the dim-lit Pere Antoine Alley near Jackson Square. Two of Farrell’s fraternity brothers waited, one on Royal Street and one on Charles Street. The three Tulane students violently beat Rios and robbed him, leaving him unconscious and bleeding. Rios was found at dawn and died in the hospital hours later, according to Clayton Delery-Edwards. 

Under the defense that Rios made inappropriate advances, the three students were acquitted. 

Tulane’s Queer Student Alliance invited author Delery-Edwards, author of “Out for Queer Blood,” to speak about Rios’s story in February. According to Delery-Edwards, this presentation was Tulane’s first official gesture of acknowledgement of this event.

The book recounts Rios’s story, the racist and homophobic portrayal of Rios in the media and trial and the societal bigotry of the era. 

“A lot of what I’m doing in the book is trying to establish what life was like for gay people in New Orleans in the 1950s,” Delery-Edwards said. “As the decade went on, the city became increasingly hostile toward LGBT people. When the hostility was reaching its high, that happened to be the moment when Fernando Rios was killed. So, he became the face of what the city was trying to eliminate.”

Delery-Edwards said gay people were often perceived as mentally ill and inherently criminal, especially in the media. 

“Fernando Rios had the bad luck to be both Mexican and gay at a time when both Mexican [people] and [gay people] were under fire,” Delery-Edwards said. 

During the time of Rios’s murder, anti-gay legislation was frequent under the administration of Mayor deLesseps Story “Chep” Morrison of New Orleans.

“The stated goal was to make life so hostile for homosexuals,” Delery-Edwards said. “They wanted to make life so hostile that it would drive them out of the city, and it didn’t work. But, it took the form of creating laws.”

Newspapers often referred to Rios as “the Mexican” instead of his real name, according to Delery-Edwards. He cited one example in which an article wrote, “the Mexican made an improper advance.”

Delery-Edwards said the prejudice Rios faced in the 1950s is not unlike modern bigotry. He referenced the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and legislation like the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, a law that restricts discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in classroom settings. However, he said that LGBTQ+ representation has improved. 

“In the 1950s, almost all the news coverage you would read about LGBT people was extremely negative,” Delery-Edwards said. “Almost anything out of a politician’s mouth would be extremely negative. Today, there’s a wider range of points of view.”

Delery-Edwards said that for his book, he spoke to Farrell’s son, Sean Farrell. Sean Farrell was unaware of the story of Rios.

“He was trying very hard to put this horrible incident into the context of his father’s life, which otherwise seems so normal,” Delery-Edwards said. “It was an effort for him and it was very emotionally taxing to have a conversation with me.”

After the event, attendees held a vigil to honor Rios.

“It was so moving in part because it was so unexpected and healing for me, because it was a very painful experience writing that book,” Delery-Edwards said. “It was healing for me and I think it would have been healing for anyone.”

“It was incredibly moving,” he said, “because Tulane played a very active role in the story. To my knowledge, the event really has never been acknowledged on the Tulane campus before.”