It began organically—in the wee hours of a June morning in 1969, in the Greenwich Village section of New York City—with several brave men and women who'd grown tired of the government-sponsored persecution of them because of who they were.
It was a revolution. At the Stonewall Inn, our brothers and sisters fought for their lives and their dignity while igniting a movement for LGBT rights. Today we are humbled by our roots, and honored to be part of this movement that has evolved over the past 40 years.
Police raids were common for gay bars in the 1960s, but this one was different. The Black drag queens that join the fray alongside white gay men and lesbians at New York's Stonewall Inn didn't realize that they were the flash point for a movement. They were too busy fighting back marauding police, undeniably fighting for their lives and for their dignity, to realize what they had started.
It was a revolution. The very idea—the audacity—that gay men, lesbians, transgender and bisexual people could assert their humanity in the public arena and demand equal rights and justice under the law was unheard of in an America that said we were a diseased class of less-than-humans. They argued we were hell-bound and so psychiatrically impaired that we needed shock treatment, castration or, quite possibly, annihilation.
I remember being in Sabbath school, in my church on a Saturday morning in 1970 when it was announced that there had been something called a "gay pride parade" in Hollywood. This first gay pride parade so incensed my Sabbath School teacher, she spit out the following words, "Look at them walking down the street just like they were real people!" The next year I was out of the church, out of the closet and present at the 2nd Annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade.
Sydney Brinkley writes in BlackLight about that heady time in the early '70s:
"The 1970's were exciting years for the Gay movement. In the decade following the 1969 Stonewall riot, Lesbians and Gay men were organizing in increasing numbers, demanding freedom and equal rights, culminating in the first National Gay March on Washington in October 1979. For much of that time the public face of the Gay movement was white."
We were like young lions who were infused with possibilities and ready to take on a world that told us our love "dare not speak its name" and that the closet should be forever our home and silence our deserved destiny. We began to see that this LGBT community touched all races, genders, ethnicities, class lines, income levels, religions and political affiliations.
Longtime activist Cary Alan Johnson speaks to the exhilarating energy of this time:
"In 1979, as a 19-year-old college student, I attended the first Black Gay Conference hosted by NCBG. It was an amazing experience, sitting in meetings and workshops with other Black LGBT talking about our lives and our priorities. The conference, which was even important because it was held at the Harambee House on the campus of Howard University, culminated in what was perhaps the first Black gay pride march, down Georgia Avenue, as we joined the hundreds of thousands who were participating in the National March on Washington. As a young man, just developing an identity in the midst of the shocking racism and homophobia of the period, the Conference and the March filled me with hope for my future."
This energy needed to be harnessed and organized for the good of all.
Rev. Darlene Garner of Metropolitan Community Church was there from the beginning. According to her recollection, she relates that ABilly S. Jones was reading an article in Ebony magazine that contained derogatory or dismissive statements about LGBT people. Jones responded to the article, which became a rallying cry towards creating an organization for Black LGBT people. He placed ads in papers in the Washington, D.C., area and people responded.
Garner describes how it was in the beginning: "ABilly was the brainchild. We worked cooperatively together on the first national conference. At that point in LGBT history, the needs and points of view of African Americans were not reflected in the agendas of other national organizations. We created the National Coalition of Black Gays and Lesbians ( NCBGL, originally NCBG ) , organizing several chapters and transforming those chapters into a national organization. We knew that we were making history. What we were doing had the capacity to change the face of history. Our youth and naiveté helped us do it with a boldness. If we had been seasoned activists, we might not have taken it on. We know that if it was not us, there might be no one. So we took it on."
Sidney Brinkley, writing for BlackLight, sets the stage with the following:
"NCBG's emergence on the scene as a voice for Black Gays was perfectly timed and in 1979, during events leading up to and following the March on Washington, they would get the opportunity to test their growing clout."
Gil Gerald became the first director, and in 1979 they arranged to have a historic meeting at the White House. Sidney Brinkley describes the scene, and how to Mr. Jones, that meeting 30 years ago stands out as a particularly proud moment:
"I wore a white suit to go to the White House and meet with the White folks! Perhaps this doesn't sound like much now, but to the founders, all of whom were in that room, it was a high point of our activism."
Gil Gerald left in 1986 and Renee McCoy became the director. Throughout the years of struggle, NCBGL was plagued by money problems, cash flow and staff burnout, and eventually had to close its doors ten years after it had begun. Nonetheless, they set the stage for a foundation of dedicated activism on a national scale and the bravery and ramifications of those actions cannot be underestimated.
Continuing the momentum of a movement, Phill Wilson took up the mantle in 1987.
Wilson and Ruth Waters decided that there was a need for another national Black LGBT organization. This was fitting since much of LGBT activism was becoming more west coast centered and, after all, the great state of California is named after a Black lesbian—Queen Califia.
I remember walking up the steps to the apartment of Phill Wilson in Silver Lake. It was the headquarters for this new organization called the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum. The Forum, as it was fondly called, had its first national conference in Los Angeles in 1988.
It was exciting. It was exhausting. In 1989, Phill had asked me to create a slide show for the second conference, also held in LA. I produced "We Have A Legacy," which chronicled a history of Black LGBT people. We realized that we couldn't be a national movement if we stayed in Los Angeles, so we went to Atlanta, Ga., for the third annual conference. Along the way, we were joined by luminaries like Angela Davis ( before she came out ) , Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Alice Walker, June Jordan, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, Iyanla Vanzant, Meshell Ndegeocello and many other bright lights and allies.
Alice Walker told us that it is "lethal to love a god who doesn't love you." We took that to heart.
Cornel West told us that the discrimination we faced was unearned, undeserved, unfair unfounded, unwarranted, unjust and uncalled for. We believed him.
Keith Boykin was the executive director from September 1995 to February 1998. Writing in The Gully, Boykin relates the following highlights of the Forum:
"In October 1995, the Forum organized an historic Black gay contingent in the Million Man March and the following year it led the media effort against anti-gay gospel recording artists Angie and Debbie Winans. At the 20th Anniversary March in 1983, Black gay activists had to lobby march organizers to allow Black lesbian author Audre Lorde to address the crowd. At the 30th Anniversary March in 1993, Phill Wilson of the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum spoke."
For 15 years, the forum held national conferences, hosted prominent and public intellectual speakers, put on workshops for self empowerment, and celebrated with awards and music to love ourselves. Money was a continuing struggle. It was hard to keep staff, including executive directors. Alvan Quamina was the last executive director. The forum had to close its doors in 2003.
The National Black Justice Coalition ( NBJC ) began in December 2003 when African-American activist Keith Boykin decided that there needed to be a countervailing voice to Black clergy who were uniting with the religious right to work against LGBT rights. The public voice of African Americans was being amplified nationally as being absolutely anti-gay. There needed to be a national organization that had as its core absolute equal rights and equal justice for same-gender loving people and transgender folk.
When things were heating up for a constitutional amendment prohibiting same sex marriage, many prominent Black clergy began meeting and organizing, flying to Washington D.C. to lobby the Congressional Black Caucus against any and all LGBT rights. Keith Boykin called together some activist friends and called a press conference stating we were here as open and proud Black LGBT people standing for our rights and standing against injustice. A reporter asked, "What is the name of your organization?" and Keith, thinking quickly on his feet said "the National Black Justice Coalition."
NBJC has been blessed with two dedicated, hard-working leaders: Our first CEO, H. Alexander Robinson, laid the foundation. Our new CEO, Sharon J. Lettman, has remarkable vision and will fight until the last drop of injustice is drained. NBJC will emphasize coalition as we go forward. That is the key word—forward. NBJC is at the beginning of a new era. We are reimagining our focus and mission. We know we are standing on the shoulders of the great ones that enables our vision to transcend the horizon.
Today, Sharon J. Lettman, the new executive director of NBJC, states, "For more than five years, NBJC has provided leadership at the intersection of mainstream civil rights groups and mainstream LGBT organizations, advocating for the unique challenges and needs of the African American LGBT community that are often relegated to the sidelines.
The need for NBJC's mission is stronger than ever in the greater movement for justice and equality for all. Without authentic, meaningful representation and active participation from the African American community, it is not possible to effectively position LGBT equality within the broader civil rights context that it deserves."
Join NBJC in the endeavor of equality for all. It is an honorable commission. We need your partnership. Stay tuned … the best is yet to come!
Many of the young lions are now older and grayer. Many of us still have the fire in the belly and work tirelessly to bring a little comfort to the broken hearted, the abandoned and the abused … through the laws we helped change, through the attitudes we helped transform, through the religions we claimed as affirming, and in the families we love. We're here, we're queer, and it's not a coincidence. Not a happenstance. It has been a protracted march towards justice. Many have fallen along the way. We remember them. We honor them. We have snatched our humanity out of the fires of human cruelty and continue. We continue. And in the long journey of continuing, we have managed to radically change the aria of human cruelty to soliloquies of human equality.
This article is a snapshot of the history of the movement and the momentum of African American LGBT people since 1969, and could not include all of the names or all of the events. For more information, please visit www.blacklightonline.com, www.thegully.com, www.nbjc.org and the Rainbow Project.
The title is a quote from the writings of James Baldwin.
Dr. Sylvia Rhue is the director of religious affairs for the National Black Justice Coalition.
