Pride Month 2020 a look into our past: riots, intersectionality, and their relevance today.

Pride Month 2020
a look into our past: riots, intersectionality, and their relevance today.

Table of Contents
-   History
     - Civil rights movement
     - Stonewall
-   Intersectionality
-   Relevance today
-   Media
-   How you can help

Civil Rights Movement
Due to the erasure of Black and queer contributions to history, many important
figures in the civil rights movement are often forgotten. However, through
activism and art, among other things, many members of the LGBTQ+ community
were at the forefront of the civil rights movement. In the 1990s, historians began
to look deeper into the origins of the Civil Rights Movement, but there was still a
lack of research into the intersectionality of sexuality and race at the time, which
has continued until the early 21st century. Still, the freedoms that many
Americans experience today can be attributed to the work of many incredible
queer people of color.

Bayard Rustin
In 1941, Bayard Rustin organized, along with Philip
Randolph, the March on Washington to demand
equal employment opportunities for black workers.
He also coordinated a school boycott in New York
City to protest against educational segregation.

Rustin was arrested in California for having sex with
a man and incarcerated for 60 days. Just this year,
the California Governor pardoned his arrest. His
boyfriend, Walter Naegle, convinced him to finally
involve himself in the gay rights movement in the
1980s.

Pauli Murray
Pauli Murray coined the term “Jane Crow” to draw
attention to the discrimination that black women
faced. As a lawyer, they challenged the
constitutionality of segregation in States’ Laws on
Race and Color, on which the NAACP drew heavily
in Brown v. Board of Education.

Murray had many relationships with women and
dressed in masculine clothes. Certain scholars argue
that Murray was a transgender man, as they
shortened their name from Pauline to Pauli and
pursued hormone treatments.

Lorraine Hansberry
A successful writer, Lorraine Hansberry highlighted
racial segregation and the African-American
experience in her works, the most famous of which
was A Raisin in the Sun. She worked for the black
newspaper Freedom alongside Paul Robeson and
W. E. B. Du Bois.

Hansberry wrote of her attraction to women in her
journals and published letters in the lesbian
publication The Ladder under her initials LHN, but
she did not publicly come out. Before her death,
she finally made a group of gay friends.

James Baldwin
James Baldwin was a prominent writer and activist.
The New York Times, Harper’s, and other well-known
publications published his articles on the civil rights
movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. He was
associated with the Congress of Racial Equality and
made an appearance at the March on Washington.

Baldwin frequently featured gay and bisexual
characters in his works and openly discussed
homophobia in essays and interviews. He was
uninvited to making a speech at the end of the March
on Washington because of his homosexuality.

Audre Lorde
Born in 1934 in New York City to West Indian
immigrant parents, Audre Lorde is a self-described
“black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” who is known
for writing from the particulars of her identity.

Lorde dedicated her life and career to confronting the
injustices of racism, sexism, and homophobia in the
United States. She has also written many books such
as Sister Outsider and Your Silence Will Not Protect
You. She eventually died of breast cancer in 1992.
Lorde’s contributions to feminist theory, race studies,
and queer theory still impact social justice today.

Stonewall
Pride as we know it today–a celebration of queer
liberation–began on the one year anniversary of the
Stonewall riots, when protesters marched in New
York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

The Stonewall Inn was a gathering spot for queer New
Yorkers, who faced governmental persecution. On
June 28th, 1969, the police barricaded the club,
forced trans women to reveal their sex, and arrested
patrons. A crowd gathered outside, and when police
officers hit and kicked the customers, violence broke
out. The crowd threw bricks and rocks at the police,
forcing them to retreat.

Stonewall was a major catalyst for the movement for
LGBT+ acceptance in the United States.

Marsha P. Johnson
The “P.” in Johnson’s name stood for “pay it no mind.”
However, this was not just a creative decision, but also
what she would tell people who tried to shut her down.

Johnson was a black transgender activist (she used female
pronouns along with the words “queen” and “drag
queen”) who played a vital role in the stonewall riots. She
was frequently homeless and had to work as a prostitute.
She was one of the most prominent leaders of the
Stonewall riot, smashing a police car. Some claimed that
she threw a brick at the police. Her leadership paved the
way for future queer movements.

Storme DeLarverie
Born in Louisiana to a black mother and a white father,
Storme DeLarverie was a gay rights activist known as
the “Rosa Parks of the gay community.” She worked as
a drag king and a bouncer for lesbian bars.

When the police arrested her at Stonewall, she
complained that her handcuffs were too tight. Instead
of loosening them, a police officer hit her on the head
with a baton. She fought with the police while bleeding
from her head, before screaming at the crowd, “Why
don’t you do something?” These words ignited the
uprising.

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a transgender activist
and an advocate for women of color. She was born
in Chicago, where she faced criticism and violent
attacks after coming out as a teenager. She relied
on the black market for her hormone treatments.

At the Stonewall uprising, a police officer hit her
over the head and arrested her. Following, a
corrections officer broke her jaw in prison. Later,
she moved to California to support transgender
women undergoing incarceration, addiction, or
homelessness.

The Importance of Intersectionality
Single faceted representation, or representation of a minority group without complete
consideration of its diversity, is an issue on which we have recently made great progress.
However, intersectional progress has not been as equally successful, because it throws
another variable into the equation of the ongoing fight to make single-faceted progress.
Intersectional representation requires attention towards a variety of issues, whereas single-
faceted representation allows energy to be focused on one front. However, in order to
create lasting change, it is imperative that we begin to recognize our intersectionality and
acknowledge the complexity of identity, instead of reducing it to something single-faceted.
A lack of intersectional representation contributes to inaccurate perceptions of a minority
group’s history and unnecessary divisions among minority groups. For example, the erasure
of LGBTQ+ individuals from black history contributes to homophobia in the black
community and the erasure of blacks from LGBTQ+ history contributes to racism in that
community.

Relevance Today
As Black Lives Matter protests have increased in frequency and intensity in 2020, it has
become even more important to recall our history. The Black Lives Matter movement,
among numerous other things, aims to combat police brutality and to ensure that black
voices are not silenced (and that includes ALL black voices). During this fight for greater
societal change, we must acknowledge both the historical intersectionality of minority
communities and the past failures to uplift other minority communities. Specifically,
members of the LGBTQ+ community must recognize and actively combat racism in their
community and black people must acknowledge and combat homophobia in theirs. There
is no distinct black history and LGBTQ+ history; their progress and their failure have gone
hand in hand. Stonewall, a riot against police brutality, was led by black women and
energized the movement that has given the LGBT+ community the acceptance that it sees
today. We must collectively support the BLM movement, in honor of our past.

Films and TV Shows to Watch...
Pose - a TV series about black and Latino LGBT+
culture in late 20th century New York.

Moonlight - an Academy Award winning film about a
young black boy living in Miami coming to terms
with his sexuality.

The Color Purple - a film documenting the life of a
queer black girl in Georgia and her struggles with
domestic abuse and poverty.

RuPaul’s Drag Race - a reality TV series about
RuPaul, a famous drag queen, as he mentors and
judges contestants in his drag race.

Musicians and Artists to Listen to...
Janelle Monae (R&B singer)

Frank Ocean (R&B/pop singer)

Tyler the Creator (rapper)

Lil Nas X (country/trap artist)

Kehlani (R&B singer)

Todrick Hall (pop singer)

Young M.A (rapper)

Books to Read...
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin            The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann
                                            Chin
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre
Lorde                                    No Ashes in the Fire by Darnell L. Moore
Real Life by Brandon Taylor                 The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie
Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Black On Both Sides: A Racial History of
Mandate for Radical Movements by           Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton
Charlene Carruthers
                                           The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black
                                           The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Queer Studies by E. Patrick Johnson
                                           Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez
Purnell

Ways to help and get involved?
Organizations for Queer POC
 - Center for Black Equity https://centerforblackequity.org
 - GLAAD https://www.glaad.org
 - GLSEN
   https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved
   =2ahUKEwjx49CwjuTpAhVPnOAKHd99DWEQ-
   TAoADAgegQIChAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.glsen.org%2F&usg=AOvV
   aw1KJ99_Z5ZPBLTaY0lauX1x
 - National Center for Transgender Equality https://transequality.org
 - Trans Women of Color Collective https://www.twocc.us/