Gay Pride and community awareness events continue this week as the month of June winds down.
While yours truly passed on the big NYC Pride march on Sunday (weather, lethargy and the lack of a float to ride on were contributing factors), I did attend a reception in town on Saturday for the LGBT Resource Center at my alma mater. The center is just 5 years old (while the university dates back to 1871, you do the math), so needless to say when I was there, things were entirely different. Entirely different. University staff, faculty and alums were in attendance to learn more about the center, as well as a a new program in LGBT studies that will start in the fall. We also heard from a Black lesbian alumnus from the class of 1974 who along with two other students, started the first ever gay student group there back in the early 70’s. It was an inspiring story.
More history will be shared on Tuesday as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture hosts the second of two programs co-sponsored by the Center’s Black Gay and Lesbian Archive. Black LGBT/SGL Publishers Speak Out will focus on cultural publications produced by non-heterosexual people of African descent in the United States. A distinguished panel will discuss the complicated history of the Black LGBT/SGL press, and the challenges independent and self-publishing pose historically and currently. Panelists include Lisa C. Moore (RedBone Press), Charlene Cothran (Venus Magazine), Colin Robinson (Other Countries), and others. Steven G. Fullwood, project director for the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive, will moderate the panel.
Meanwhile, Wednesday night in Brooklyn, the public is invited to come talk face to face with sex party promoters and adult entertainment producers about raw sex, and its influence on a Black gay community already hard hit by HIV/AIDS. The forum is in direct response to recent cases involving a Harlem sex party and a Chicago-based Internet porn site both of which have caused quite a stir. The forum may allow folks to have a meeting of the minds. (Click on the image for more information.)
Then Friday I leave work for good.