The theme of this year’s Pride March sponsored by the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center in my little corner of New York state is Looking Backward, Marching Forward.
Fifty years ago, the New York Police Department attempted to raid the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, a safe haven for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer patrons. But the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 saw a change in the course of history when those New Yorkers fought back and started the multi-day uprising that we now know as the Stonewall Riots, led by transgender and lesbian activists of color, including Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Stormé Delarverie. This moment marked the start of our modern LGBTQ rights movement. We are proud to announce that this Pride, the Center will be looking back on this history, and marching forward in the footsteps of our elders.
Hard to believe it has been 50 years since Stonewall. We’ve come a long way since then, but we still have a struggle ahead, given a rising tide of hate targeting the LBGTQ+ communities here in the U.S. We need solidarity, organizing, and action more than ever. While we march, and celebrate, we can never forget we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.
This year’s events are special for me. I’m going to be one of the parade marshals today, along with Rae Leiner, executive director of the Newburgh LGBTQ+ Center. Extra special, because Sylvia Rivera and Stormé Delarverie are part of my own personal journey.
Last year candidate Antonio Delgado marched, along with his wife Lacey.
This year, he's our congressman, after defeating right-wing Republican John Faso! Here’s hoping our purple #NY19 district gets bluer each election cycle.
Looking back, I’d like to remember a time when we had a real president, who celebrated Stonewall.
President Obama designates first national LGBT monument at the site of Stonewall
"I’m designating the Stonewall National Monument as the newest addition to America’s national parks system. Stonewall will be our first national monument to tell the story of the struggle for LGBT rights. I believe our national parks should reflect the full story of our country – the richness and diversity and uniquely American spirit that has always defined us. That we are stronger together. That out of many, we are one." - President Barack Obama
In good company: The local significance of Obama’s inaugural quote: “Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall”
Until yesterday, no place in New York City has ever been mentioned in a presidential inaugural speech. Not Ellis Island, not the Statue of Liberty, not Wall Street, not the World Trade Center, none of our fortresses or other towering landmarks. In fact, New York as a city has actually been name-checked only once. (See below.) But no individual place has ever been mentioned in what are considered to be the most memorable set of presidential speeches. That is, until yesterday, when President Barack Obama referenced the name of a West Village gay bar — Stonewall Inn.
“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”
“Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall” represent flashpoints of various American social movements. With his mention of Stonewall — representing the Stonewall riots and subsequent street gatherings of June-July 1969, considered the birthplace of the gay-rights movement — the president has elevated the struggles of gay Americans to those of the women’s movement (the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848) and the African-American civil rights movement of the 1960s (the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965).
The rhetorical flourish of alliteration unites these movements by the places in which they occurred. Stonewall thus becomes shorthand for the gay rights movement. But as it is the actual name of a bar —still very much in operation, right off Christopher Park — Stonewall Inn now holds another very special place in history.
Thank you President Barack Obama.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, the New York Public Library has mounted an exhibition, curated by my friend, Jason Baumann Montilla.
Get a look at The New York Public Library's new exhibition Love & Resistance: Stonewall 50, which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Curator Jason Baumann shares a behind the scenes look at the exhibition and puts the legendary moment in context as a turning point in the movement for LGBTQ rights. The Stonewall Riots were a flash point in LGBTQ history. After the riots that took place at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, the LGBTQ civil rights movement went from handfuls of pioneering activists to a national movement mobilizing thousands.This season, The New York Public Library is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Through a major exhibition, a series of programs, book recommendations, and more, we invite you to learn more about the emergence of the modern LGBTQ movement, as well as culture, issues, and activism today
All of this history is very personal for me.
Around 10 years ago, here on Daily Kos, I told my story, in the midst of one of the intra-community pie fights that take place on this blog. Rather than attempt to rewrite it, I’m posting this segment here (and leaving out the mess).
How I Became a Rainbow Person
(some of you reading here for the first time may not know my history. Those who do, feel free to skip this section)
When I was a young girl in my parents home when my father was in the theater, I was surrounded by people of all colors, religions, atheists, leftists, and those who at that time called themselves homosexuals. My parents friends were actors, singers, poets, playwrights, activists, socialists and communists. My blood family was multi-racial. My extended family included every ethnicity, and gender orientation. This was my enculturation.
Imagine my surprise when I had to face the harsh reality of life in America. A world filled with hate, only alleviated in oases of sanity, that were few and far between. Those safe-spaces were provided by family friends and fictive kin, who were united by love and respect, and who fought fiercely against inequity. They were my teachers. All of them were "different" or "othered" by the larger society in some way. That "othering" took different forms, but the end result was the same. I don’t care what "ism" you want to tack on it.
As I grew older, old enough to fight back I joined many movements – not one. How could I pick and choose? So I stretched myself across issues and color lines, across languages and genders. Ban the Bomb, the NAACP, SDS, CORE, SNCC, The Third World Women’s Alliance, the Young Lords Party, Third World Gay Revolution, ACT-UP, The American Indian Movement, I Wor Kuen...they were all connected in my head, like threads on a loom; and I come from a family of weavers.
As I grew into young adulthood, my journey through life brought me partners and significant others, of all colors and ethnicities, some straight and a few were bi-sexual. I was planning to do a diary, but never posted it, about Stormé DeLarverie, known to many as a Stonewall Veteran, but when I saw her first she was the only woman in the Jewel Box Revue. A black lesbian filmmaker associate of mine did a documentary about her life (I had a crush on Stormé as a young college student). I didn’t publish that diary. Maybe one day when things cool off around here I will.
Thinking back on that crush, I realize that it opened my heart in later years to transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, another Stonewall Vet, who was a comrade of the Young Lords Party. Knowing Sylvia and being there during the early days of the formation of Third World Gay Liberation broadened my perspective.
“After Gay Liberation Front folded and the more reformist Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) became New York's primary gay rights group, Sylvia Rivera worked hard within their ranks in 1971 to promote a citywide gay rights, anti-discrimination ordinance. But for all of her work, when it came time to make deals, GAA dropped the portions in the civil rights bill that dealt with transvestitism and drag—it just wasn't possible to pass it with such "extreme" elements included. As it turned out, it wasn't possible to pass the bill anyway until 1986. But not only was the language of the bill changed, GAA—which was becoming increasingly more conservative, several of its founders and officers had plans to run for public office—even changed its political agenda to exclude issues of transvestitism and drag. It was also not unusual for Sylvia to be urged to "front" possibly dangerous demonstrations, but when the press showed up, she would be pushed aside by the more middle-class, "straight-appearing" leadership. In 1995, Rivera was still hurt: "When things started getting more mainstream, it was like, 'We don't need you no more'". But, she added, "Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned".”
Sylvia’s dreams have not yet come to fruition either. Support the Sylvia Rivera Law Project named in her honor.
From the Young Lords Women’s Caucus we were able to support the formation of a Gay and Lesbian caucus in a militant primarily Puerto Rican organization. From there I was able to support my lesbian sisters in the Black Panther Party. Life was not all revolution, though it may have seemed that way at the time. My cousin was one of the bouncers at the Bon Soir in Greenwich Village, where the lines between straight and gay young black latino youths melted to the sounds of Latin boogaloo and salsa. Other nights were spent at clubs like the Hilltop, no men allowed.
Then came a change; a change that would affect us all. First called GRID, then it was AIDS. I attended the first major meeting of feminists in NY who were attempting to cope with gay men dropping like flies. It was contentious. Quiet as it’s kept back in the day there was little contact between the gay male and lesbian community. They were separate and unequal. AIDS was the clarion call to step up to the plate and forged bonds that weren’t really there before in most cases. A few feminist separatists refused to join. Anything with a penis was anathema to them, and they declined to answer the call. But the majority understood their shared oppression and marched to ACT-UP, marched arm and arm in Pride, and went on to do battle against a system that wanted to see gay men dead. Go back and read the history.
Maxine Wolfe in the history of ACT-UP, tells the story well, in documenting her own journey.
“Joan [Nestle] just came across it the other day –
to Womannews, which was the newspaper that was happening at the time – saying, why should we do anything about AIDS? Gay men, we have nothing to do with gay men, and who cares what they do, and it’s their problem, and whatever. And, why should we waste our energy taking care of men. And, I remember that Joan and I wrote a letter back saying, how many Nicaraguans do you know? Because everybody was doing work on Nicaragua, it didn’t seem to matter that they didn’t know any Nicaraguans.”
But that wasn’t the only problem. ACT-UP's women’s caucus had to address the exclusion of women with AIDS from the medical equation and also pointed out the role of racism within the gay community which was excluding the concerns of people of color with AIDS – which included not only gay men of color with AIDS, but also men and women who were IDU’s. This spoke to issues of social class as well. The struggle continued.
We faced similar problems in Harlem. The doors to black churches were slammed shut in our faces. We didn’t leave. We organized, using the networks inside the churches of gay choir directors and organists and the mothers of sons who were infected. Mother Hale, a life long Baptist, spoke out to help the children, and to pushback against stigma. We didn’t throw our hands up and walk away, nor did we attack the churches for their fear. There was fear everywhere. We educated, and we persisted. And we won the first battle. Attacking folks is not a good strategy to organize. Persuading and educating is.
As a result of this activism, I made a major change in my life, went back to grad school to become a medical anthropologist, with a focus on HIV/AIDS, and joined the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists (SOLGA — now the Association for Queer Anthropology (AQA).
With other friends and activists, straight and LBGTQ, I continued to organize. Because we knew how to organize we had a long term strategy.
Have we broken down all those walls completely? No. Has there been strong enough support for people of color with AIDS? No.
So the struggle continues. End of my personal/political story.
I spent quite a few years in Washington, D.C., which had an active and open gay and lesbian scene and black arts and poetry movement. Poet and filmmaker Michelle Parkerson, a D.C. native, was one of the central figures there.
For more than three decades, Michelle Parkerson has been at the center of African American lesbian and gay activism, black women making films, lesbians making films, poets performing, performance artists entertaining and challenging, preserving and promoting the lives of primary voices in her and our experience. Recently she herself has appeared as one of those primary voices in a film not of her making, Tiona McClodden’s Black.Womyn.: Conversations with Lesbians of African Descent (2008). As she says of film and video, she puts a face on things. In the late1970s, she explored the vibrant club scene in DC and began building a network of connections. This was a time of incredible artistic and political ferment in Washington’s African American gay and lesbian circles. Artists, musicians, poets, dramatists, and writers were creating a new black gay renaissance in the city that flourished in places like dc space and the ENIKAlley Coffeehouse.
In short order, she had connected with E. Ethelbert Miller, Director of Howard University’s Afro-American Resource Center and soon she was presenting and performing her own poetry. She published in the brand new gay periodical,BlackLight, and in the early feminist newspaper, off our backs. Through her growing network of connections she met Essex Hemphill and other members of Station to Station, a gay male performance group that included Gideon Ferebee, Greg Ford, Garth Tate, Christopher Prince, Larry Duckette and others whose names became well-known in the 1980s. Michelle appeared with Essex Hemphill and Wayson Jones in many performance pieces of the 1980s, including Murder on Glass and Voicescapes: an urbanmouthpiece. In 1983, she published Waiting Rooms, her first book of poetry and short fiction (Common Ground Press). As late as 1997, she partnered with poet Gideon Ferebee in Behind Our Masks at the first Mid-Atlantic GLBT Writers Conference in Washington.
…
Through the 1980s, Michelle’s career in film-making took off with three important documentaries giving visibility and voice to major figures such as idiosyncratic jazz stylist Betty Carter (But Then, She’s Betty Carter, 1980), Washington’s Sweet Honey in the Rock (Gotta Make This Journey: Sweet Honey in the Rock, 1983), and her exploration of the life and career of an early drag king (Stormé: The Lady of the Jewel Box, 1987). Nearly a decade later her film biography of poet Audre Lorde (A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde, 1995), co-directed with Ada Gay Griffin, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Storme: The Lady of the Jewel Box. A film by Michelle Parkerson
“It ain’t easy…being green” is the favorite expression of Storme DeLarverie, a woman whose life flouted prescriptions of gender and race. During the 1950’s and 60’s she toured the black theater circuit as a mistress of ceremonies and the sole male impersonator of the legendary Jewel Box Revue, America’s first integrated female impersonation show and forerunner of La Cage aux Folles. The multiracial revue was a favorite act of the Black theater circuit and attracted mixed mainstream audiences from the 1940s through the 1960s, a time marked by the violence of segregation. Parkerson finds Storme in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, now working as a bodyguard at a women’s bar and still singing in her deep silky voice with an “all girl” band. Through archival clips from the past, STORME looks back on the grandeur of the Jewel Box Revue and its celebration of pure entertainment in the face of homophobia and segregation. Storme herself emerges as a remarkable woman, who came up during hard times but always “kept a touch of class.”
My life in D.C. included at one point having several drag queens as roommates. So a few years later, when I was back in New York City as a member of the Young Lords Party, I was comfortable with a young drag queen who showed up to one of our demonstrations.
Here’s how Sylvia described it.
Later on, when the Young Lords [revolutionary Puerto Rican youth group] came about in New York City, I was already in GLF [Gay Liberation Front]. There was a mass demonstration that started in East Harlem in the fall of 1970. The protest was against police repression and we decided to join the demonstration with our STAR banner. That was one of first times the [Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries] STAR banner was shown in public, where STAR was present as a group. I ended up meeting some of the Young Lords that day. I became one of them. Any time they needed any help, I was always there for the Young Lords. It was just the respect they gave us as human beings. They gave us a lot of respect. It was a fabulous feeling for me to be myself-being part of the Young Lords as a drag queen-and my organization [STAR] being part of the Young Lords.
Though not what we called a “full Lord,” which required a full time commitment, Sylvia was what we called a “community worker.” She was around often enough to attend community political education sessions, but was dedicated to the things she was involved in downtown. She took me with her to a few meetings, though as things intensified for us (police repression), and after I left the Young Lords to join the Panthers, I never saw her again. It was years later that I realized that the icon of transgender history was the young 18- or 19-year-old drag queen Sylvia I had known. At that time, the term “transgender” was not yet part of our political vocabulary.
How Sylvia Rivera Created the Blueprint for Transgender Organizing