Blackberri

Blackberri is an American singer-songwriter and community activist. His music focuses on various social issues including civil rights, LGBT rights, sexism, and pollution.[1]

Life

Charles Timothy Ashmore was born in Buffalo, New York and raised in Baltimore. He was discharged from the United States Navy in 1966 for being gay. On his discharge, Blackerri stated that "I was placed under investigation because one of my shipmates turned me in. they put a tail on me, and when they thought they had enough evidence, they arrested me, went through my personal belongings and found incriminating letters and other things."[2] His discharge left him stranded in New York City where he washed dishes and turned to drugs. Blackberri reportedly got high once with Timothy Leary.[1] He later studied voice at University of Arizona and began singing in a local blues band.[1] In Tucson, he started a rock band called Gunther Quint. The first song he wrote was called "Frenchie." It was about a boy he had a one-night stand with before he was kicked out. The other bandmates were straight but supported and defended Blackberri. While living in a feminist collective, he adopted the name Blackberri and later changed his name legally.[2]

Blackberri later went solo and performed in coffee houses original queer related songs. He moved to San Francisco in 1974 and joined the band Breeze. Blackberri turned to busking to earn money. He began dating Reiner, a blues guitar player from the East Coast. In 1981, he released Blackberri and Friends: Finally on his own music label, Bea B. Queen. He began to regularly perform at Pride parades and LGBT music festivals. During the AIDS epidemic, Blackberri shifted his focus from music to community support.[2] He has worked for causes impacting the LGBT and African American communities including anti-eviction charities, HIV education, and Black Lives Matter. The first National Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference's theme song was "When Will The Ignorance End." In 2002, received a Lifetime Achievement AIDS Hero Award at the San Francisco Candlelight Vigil.[2]

In 2019, Blackberri's song, "Eat the Rich" was included in Patrick Haggerty's Lavender Country.[3]

gollark: The migration to systemd as its init system started in August 2012, and it became the default on new installations in October 2012. It replaced the SysV-style init system, used since the distribution inception. On 24 February 2020, Aaron Griffin announced that due to his limited involvement with the project, he would, after a voting period, transfer control of the project to Levente Polyak. This change also led to a new 2-year term period being added to the Project Leader position. The end of i686 support was announced in January 2017, with the February 2017 ISO being the last one including i686 and making the architecture unsupported in November 2017. Since then, the community derivative Arch Linux 32 can be used for i686 hardware.
gollark: Vinet led Arch Linux until 1 October 2007, when he stepped down due to lack of time, transferring control of the project to Aaron Griffin.
gollark: Originally only for 32-bit x86 CPUs, the first x86_64 installation ISO was released in April 2006.
gollark: Inspired by CRUX, another minimalist distribution, Judd Vinet started the Arch Linux project in March 2002. The name was chosen because Vinet liked the word's meaning of "the principal," as in "arch-enemy".
gollark: Arch Linux has comprehensive documentation, which consists of a community wiki known as the ArchWiki.

References
  1. Trott, Walt (1984-08-16). "Blackberri still sings for causes". The Capital Times. p. 44. Retrieved 2019-09-26 – via newspapers.com.
  2. Bullock, Darryl W. (2017-11-21). David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music. Abrams. ISBN 9781468316254.
  3. Gormley, Shannon (2019-01-23). "More Than 40 Years After Recording the "First Gay Country Album," Lavender Country is Releasing a Follow-Up". Willamette Week. Retrieved 2019-09-26.
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