Like most mainstream narratives, the ordinary stories and lives of LGBT Americans are more often than not told and depicted through the lens of racism. February is Black History Month, celebrated annually since 1926.
A little-explored aspect of black history is the presence of gay and lesbian African-Americans. For example, George Washington Carver has a story right out of high school history books. Born into slavery, Carver went on to graduate from high school, earn a master’s degree, and revive sustainable farming in the South. He invented peanut butter. Unfortunately, most history books continue to forget that Carver was gay.
Nonviolent activist Bayard Rustin organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The History of Black Economic Empowerment is this year’s Black History Month theme. Before the 1963 march, Rustin championed the Freedom Rides, in which blacks and whites rode buses into the South to test and challenge the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to desegregate public transportation.
Rustin also happened to be gay. In his later years, he spoke openly about LGBT rights. Rustin died in 1987, the dream of equality not yet fulfilled, but inching closer.
In 2003, at just 15, Sakia Gunn was murdered in Newark, New Jersey. She was killed after denouncing sexual advances and telling the perpetrators that she and her friends were lesbians. She was African-American, and a girl who dressed like a boy. While over 2,500 people attended her funeral, the larger public response to this hate crime did not compare with the public outcry and subsequent actions following the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Shepard was murdered in rural Wyoming because of his sexual orientation. I’m left to conclude that race — Matthew being white and Sakia being black — had everything to do with the differences in public response to these two hate crimes.
Bessie Smith. Audre Lorde. James Baldwin. Virginia Loving. Alexander Goodrum. June Jordan. Alvin Ailey. These are just a few of the black LGBTA individuals who have contributed writings, music and have achieved civil rights that had previously only been dreams. Confronting discrimination on two fronts — race and sexual orientation — these leaders faced daunting, sometimes fatal, challenges in their paths toward freedom and acceptance.
When we fail to talk about and recognize our whole community, be it black, African-American, LGBTA, or all of the above, we surrender the narrative to someone else. We will never transform and overcome hate and discrimination when we force individuals and entire communities to pick one identity — the most important one, of course — and shove the rest to the side.
In honor of Black History Month 2010, I challenge readers to consider our whole community, whomever that includes, discover who has been forgotten or not recognized, and then take action to remember and talk about them.
We face challenges today, and it is useful to recall how our forebears overcame theirs, when there were no models. They had to break new paths. So can we.
Seth Kirby of Olympia is a proud member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community. He is a member of The Olympian’s Diversity Panel and can be reached at sethkirby@gmail.com.
