National LGBTQ Wall of Honor

The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor is an American memorial wall dedicated to LGBTQ “pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes”.[1] Unveiled at the Stonewall Inn in June 2019, as part of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the installation is located within the Stonewall National Monument (in Greenwich Village, New York City), the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history in the United States.[2][3]

The first fifty names were announced in June 2019,[4] and were installed June 27, 2019, as part of Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 events,[5] held throughout June which is Pride month in New York City.[6][7] Each year five additional names will be added to the inaugural fifty.[1]

Nominations

In February 2019, the National LGBTQ Task Force, in conjunction with the Imperial Court System, announced their plans for the Wall of Honor.[8] The monument committee accepted nominations to honor “the lives of LGBTQ trailblazers, pioneers and s/heroes who have passed,” and have had a positive impact on LGBTQ civil rights.[5]

The nominations are administered by a Board of Governors, consisting of eighteen LGBTQ leaders including transgender activist Marsha Botzer,[9] Black LGBTQ activist Mandy Carter, LGBTQ youth advocate Wilson Cruz, LGBTQ human rights activist Stuart Milk, and founder of the Metropolitan Community Church Troy Perry.[5]

Honorees

The first fifty honorees were announced in June 2019:[4][lower-alpha 1][10] In June 2020, the first additional five were announced: Lorena Borjas, Larry Kramer, Phyllis Lyon, Sean Sasser, and Aimee Stephens.[11]

A

B

C

  • Michael Callen was a gay singer, songwriter, composer, author, and influential early AIDS activist.

D

E

F

  • Leslie Feinberg was a butch transgender lesbian, author, communist organizer, and early transgender activist, whose writings have been foundational in the field of gender studies, as well as setting the standard for much of the terminology around gender identity.

G

H

J

K

L

Audre Lorde (left) with writers Meridel Le Sueur (middle) and Adrienne Rich (right) at a writing workshop in Austin, Texas, 1980

M

  • Jeanne Sobelson Manford was a LGBTQ ally, schoolteacher and activist. After her gay son Morty was beaten by police, she publicly supported him and marched in the 1972 NYC Pride March with a sign of support for him. The idea was formed into the support group, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), for which she was awarded the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal.
  • Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin was a lesbian feminist and gay-rights activist who, along with her wife Phyllis Ann Lyon, founded the Daughters of Bilitis (D.O.B.) in 1955. D.O.B. was the first social and political organization for lesbians in the U.S. and the couple acted as president and editor of the organization's magazine, The Ladder. The couple joined the National Organization for Women (NOW) together, the first openly lesbian couple to do so. They were the first couple married in the historic San Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings. As these weddings were ruled legally invalid, they were the first couple married again in June 2008, after the California Supreme Court's decision In re Marriage Cases.
  • Technical Sergeant Leonard Philip Matlovich was a Vietnam War veteran, race relations instructor, and Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient who was the first gay service member to purposely out himself to fight the ban on gays in the military, laying the groundwork for the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. His story went nationwide making him one of the most famous gay men in the 1970s, and the first openly gay person to appear on the cover of a U.S. newsmagazine, a first for the young gay movement.
  • Harvey Milk was an activist and the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, where he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was the most pro-LGBT politician in the United States at the time. Milk and SF Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in city hall, leading to the White Night riots. Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in the city and a martyr in the gay community.[note 1] In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States". He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
  • Jeffrey Montgomery was an American LGBT activist and public relations executive. In 1984, his partner, Michael, was shot to death outside a Detroit gay bar, prompting Montgomery to engage in LGBT advocacy. He started work on LGBT anti-violence issues upon learning that the police were not spending many resources on solving the murder, calling it "just another gay killing". In 1991 Montgomery became the founding executive director of the Triangle Foundation, and served until September 2007. Initially engaging in victim advocacy around LGBT violence, and to improve handling of LGBT related cases, the foundation’s work expanded to LGBT civil rights and advocacy, with projects for anti-violence, media activism, and legislative education on LGBT civil rights. He became nationally known for his work and served at numerous organizations.

P

  • Pat Parker was a Black lesbian feminist poet and activist.[18][19] Her poetry addressed her tough childhood growing up in poverty, dealing with sexual assault, and the murder of a sister, along with many issues facing lesbians and Black women in contemporary culture.[20] After two divorces she came out as a lesbian, “embracing her sexuality” she was liberated and “knew no limits when it came to expressing the innermost parts of herself”.[20] Parker participated in political activism and had early involvement with the Black Panther Party, Black Women's Revolutionary Council and formed the Women's Press Collective.[21] She participated in many forms of activism especially regarding gay and lesbian communities, domestic violence, and rights of people of color.[22] After she became too ill to perform, other poets and musicians continued to perform her work at music and arts festivals, "Movement in Black" being particularly popular.

R

Bayard Rustin, organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at a news briefing in Washington, D.C., on August 27, 1963
  • Chuck Renslow was an openly gay photographer, activist and businessperson, known for pioneering modern homoerotic photography, and establishing landmarks of gay male culture, including significant contributions to the leather subculture. His accomplishments included opening the Gold Coast bar in 1958. It was the world's first gay leather bar, and hosted a leather contest that grew into the International Mr. Leather competition. His lover of 43 years was Dom Orejudos, aka the artist "Etienne" and “Stephen”. Renslow also formed the Leather Archives and Museum with Tony DeBlase in Chicago in 1991.[23][24]
  • Adrienne Rich was a lesbian feminist poet and essayist, called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse." Rich criticized rigid forms of feminist identities, and valorized what she coined the "lesbian continuum"; a female continuum of solidarity and creativity which has impacted and filled women's lives. She famously declined the National Medal of Arts, protesting then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s attempt to end the National Endowment for the Arts.
  • Sylvia Rivera variously self-identified as a gay transvestite, drag queen, and in gender fluid terms. Active in the fight for gay liberation, Rivera was among the earliest transgender rights activists, pushing for inclusion of protections for trans people in legislation at a time when other gay activists said these provisions would doom gay rights bills to failure. Rivera brought a background in Latina civil rights and Anti-war activism to groups like the Gay Liberation Front NYC, of which she was a member of the drag queen caucus. Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group dedicated to helping homeless young gay kids, street kids, drag queens, and trans women.
  • Craig Rodwell was a gay activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in November 1967, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors, and as the prime mover for the creation of New York City Pride. Rodwell is considered by some to be quite possibly the leading gay rights activist in the early homophile movement of the 1960s.
  • Eric Rofes was a gay activist, educator, and author. He was a director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in the 1980s. In 1989, he became executive director of the Shanti Project, a nonprofit AIDS service organization. He was a professor of Education at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, and served on the board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He wrote or edited twelve books. One of his last projects was co-creating "Gay Men's Health Leadership Academies" to combat what he saw as a "pathology-focused understanding of gay men" in safe-sex education.
  • Vito Russo was a gay LGBT activist, film historian and author best known for The Celluloid Closet (1981, revised edition 1987), described in The New York Times as "an essential reference book" on homosexuality in the US film industry.[25] It was later turned into a documentary film. In 1985 he co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a watchdog organization that strives to end anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and advocates for LGBTQ inclusion in popular media.
  • Bayard Rustin was a gay, African-American leader, who played a key role in the movements for civil rights in the 1940s through the 1980s. He co-organized the 1941 March on Washington Movement to end racial discrimination in housing and employment, and was active as a socialist and in the early movements for gay rights. He later organized the Freedom Riders in the American south and was instrumental in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference alongside Martin Luther King Jr., teaching King about nonviolent direct action. Rustin organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was a turning point in the movement for civil and economic rights for Black Americans, and an inspiration to those working for social justice, worldwide. Due to the homophobia directed at him, he usually had to organize behind the scenes, uplifting civil-rights leaders who were not openly gay. In the 1980s, he was able to become a more public advocate on behalf of gay causes. In November 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which Rustin's partner, Walter Naegle, accepted on his behalf.

S

U

  • Virginia Uribe was a bisexual educator, counselor and LGBTQ youth education outreach advocate. She was best known for founding Project 10, an educational support and drop-out prevention program for LGBTQ youth. She founded Project 10 in 1984 to help schools curtail harassment of, and reduce the dropout rate of, LGBTQ students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

V

  • Bruce Raymond Voeller was a gay biologist and researcher, primarily in the field of AIDS, and gay rights activist. In 1973 he co-founded the National Gay Task Force. In 1977, the now renamed National LGBTQ Task Force held the first-ever meeting at the White House with President Jimmy Carter marking the first time openly gay and lesbian leaders were welcomed there, and the first official discussion of gay and lesbian rights in the White House. Within the first few years of the AIDS pandemic he coined the term acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) which we use to this day.

W

  • Patricia Nell Warren aka Patricia Kilina, a pen name, was a lesbian novelist, poet, editor and journalist. Her second novel, The Front Runner (1974), was the first work of contemporary gay fiction to make the New York Times Best Seller list. Her third novel, The Fancy Dancer (1976) was the first bestseller to portray a gay priest and to explore gay life in a small town.
  • Janet Weinberg was a lesbian advocate for people with disabilities, and a fund-raiser and executive for social service organizations including Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), Educational Alliance, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center.[29] She became disabled herself in the 1980s due to an illness, and from then required a wheelchair.[30]
  • Edith "Edie" Windsor was a lesbian LGBT rights activist and a technology manager at IBM. She was the lead plaintiff in the 2013 Supreme Court of the United States case United States v. Windsor, which overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, a landmark legal victory for Same-sex marriage in the United States. The Obama Administration and federal agencies extended rights, privileges and benefits to married same-sex couples because of the decision.
  • Soni Wolf was a self-described dyke, motorcycle enthusiast, former U.S. Air Force Vietnam-era veteran, and “tenacious” queer activist.[31] She co-founded the Dykes on Bikes (DOB) at the 1976 San Francisco Pride parade and rode with them each year until her death in 2018.[31] The group was a highly visible symbol of empowerment and LGBT pride.[31] DOB did “philanthropic work for LGBT causes and organizations around the world”.[31] Wolf continued to nurture DOB chapters worldwide and fought for their right to use the reclaimed term dyke;[31] the DOB won a lawsuit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office so they could trademark their name.[32]

Z

  • Pedro Zamora was an openly gay Cuban-American AIDS educator and television personality who appeared on MTV's reality television series The Real World: San Francisco as one of the first openly gay men and person with AIDS to be portrayed in popular media. He brought international attention to HIV/AIDS and gave one of the first views into the daily lives of gay men. His interactions with his housemates exposed the homophobia and prejudices faced by people with AIDS. Zamora's romantic relationship with Sean Sasser was nominated by MTV viewers for the "Favorite Love Story" award.[33] The broadcast of their commitment ceremony, in which they exchanged vows, was the first such same-sex ceremony in television history, and is considered a landmark in the history of the medium.[34][35]

Sources

  1. Eric Rofes was omitted from the initial list but is listed on the Task Force’s website.
  1. Milk was described as a martyr by news outlets as early as 1979, by biographer Randy Shilts in 1982, and University of San Francisco professor Peter Novak in 2003. United Press International [October 15, 1979]; printed in the Edmonton Journal, p. B10; Skelton, Nancy; Stein, Mark [October 22, 1985]. S.F. Assassin Dan White Kills Himself, Los Angeles Times, Retrieved on February 3, 2012.; Shilts, p. 348; Nolte, Carl [November 26, 2003]. "City Hall Slayings: 25 Years Later", The San Francisco Chronicle, p. A-1.
  • Shilts, Randy. The mayor of Castro Street : the life & times of Harvey Milk (First ed.). New York. ISBN 0312523300. OCLC 7948538.

References

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  2. "Stonewall 50". San Francisco Bay Times. 2019-04-03. Retrieved 2019-05-25.
  3. "Groups seek names for Stonewall 50 honor wall". The Bay Area Reporter / B.A.R. Inc. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  4. SDGLN, Timothy Rawles-Community Editor for (2019-06-19). "National LGBTQ Wall of Honor to be unveiled at historic Stonewall Inn". San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  5. SDGLN, Timothy Rawles-Community Editor for (2019-02-21). "National LGBTQ Wall of Honor to be established inside Stonewall Inn". San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  6. Leonhardt, Andrea (2019-04-30). "Whoopi Goldberg, Cyndi Lauper, Chaka Khan to Kick off WorldPride..." BK Reader. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  7. May 21, Jon Barrett Special to Newsday Updated; Am, 2019 6:00. "What to see and do in NYC for World Pride". Newsday. Retrieved 2019-05-24.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. "Groups seek names for Stonewall 50 honor wall". The Bay Area Reporter / B.A.R. Inc. Retrieved 2019-05-25.
  9. Editor (2018-11-12). "Trans Awareness Week: Marsha Botzer Discusses the Past and Present of Gender Activism". South Seattle Emerald. Retrieved 2019-05-24.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  10. Massey, Sarah (June 20, 2019). "National LGBTQ Wall of Honor Unveiled at Historic Stonewall Inn". National LGBTQ Task Force. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  11. "New honorees named for Nat'l LGBTQ Wall of Honor at Stonewall Inn". Windy City Times. Retrieved 2020-07-01.
  12. "Paula Ettelbrick obituary | LGBT rights | The Guardian". amp.theguardian.com. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  13. Woolston, Brendon Lies and Landon (LJ). "In Love That Never Dies: Remembering the Legacy of Diana Hemingway". southfloridagaynews.com. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  14. "Wayne Hussey | Back Inside". Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  15. "Bent Alaska". bentalaska.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  16. "Imperial Court of All Alaska - Special Awards and Recognitions". www.impcourtak.org. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  17. Specter, Michael (May 13, 2002), "Larry Kramer, the man who warned America about AIDS, can't stop fighting hard-and loudly", The New Yorker, p. 56
  18. Bereano, Nancy K. Publisher's note, Movement in Black, 1989, Crossing Press, ISBN 0-89594-113-9
  19. Pat Parker. Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale Group, 2008 (http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC). Entry Updated July 25, 2000 . Fee. Accessed December 27, 2008.
  20. "Rebel Girls from Bay Area History: Pat Parker, Lesbian Feminist Poet and Activist". KQED. 2018-04-30. Retrieved 2019-06-23.
  21. "Pat Parker, Black lesbian poet and activist well worth knowing", Peterson Toscano, March 7, 2015.
  22. Pat Parker Biography, Voices from the Gaps.
  23. "About the LA&M - Leather Archives & Museum". Leatherarchives.org. Retrieved 2019-12-16.
  24. Ridinger, Robert (2005). "Founding of the Leather Archives & Museum". LGBT History, 1988-1992 [serial online]. LGBT Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost: 33–36.
  25. Holden, Stephen (November 9, 1990), "Vito Russo, 44; A Historian of Film and a Gay Advocate", The New York Times, retrieved 2007-10-30
  26. Duke, Alan; Carter, Chelsea, J. (August 8, 2013). "Sean Sasser, whose ceremony with partner on 'Real World' was TV first, dies". CNN. Retrieved November 28, 1964.
  27. Ortiz, Aimee (2020-05-12). "Aimee Stephens, Plaintiff in Transgender Case, Dies at 59". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
  28. "Supreme Court Delivers Major Victory To LGBTQ Employees". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
  29. MannyCantorNYC (2018-09-05). "Educational Alliance mourns the death of Janet Weinberg". Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  30. Sandomir, Richard (2018-09-14). "Janet Weinberg, 63, Dies; Advocate for Gay Causes and the Disabled". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
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  34. Duke, Alan; Carter, Chelsea, J. (August 8, 2013). "Sean Sasser, whose ceremony with partner on 'Real World' was TV first, dies". CNN.
  35. Oldenburg, Ann (August 8, 2013). "'Real World' star Sean Sasser dies at 44". USA Today.

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