(New York, NY) - With June designated Pride month - celebrations and commemorations this year taking on additional significance - GBMNews.com asks several Black gay men about the meaning for and effect of the Stonewall Riots on the Black gay community 40 years later.


 

The Riots for many Black gay men, which took place in front of the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, in Greenwich Village in New York City on Jun 28, 1969; was a seminal occurrence in the larger social fabric. It enabled benefits, opened doors and identified safe spaces for Black gay men to express of their sexuality, emerge from the shadows of anonymity, and as an action, cascaded down through the years into tangible activism.

And, while many in the Black gay community recognize that the enduring legacy of the Stonewall Riots provides the impetus for defining the direction

and future of the Black gay community as a body and as a movement, they lament the absence of a viable central Black gay organization to coordinate, be a channel of resources, and talent in the community.

In 1969, as an 11-years-old boy living in Toledo, OH, Kevin McGruder, former executive director of Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD) recalls hearing a television announcer mention the "gay liberation front." At the time he did not know what it meant, but as he grew into adulthood and became aware of the Stonewall protests, he was struck by how the numbers of Blacks and Latinos who were involved in that protest were overlooked as the White establishment subsumed it and made it their own. But, being able to be open about his sexuality and to work in and for the Black gay community were benefits, McGruder says, of the effects of the Riots, which was seen as ripples sweeping across the country. It's important, he cautions, as people get caught up in the symbolisms, to remember that some of the strategies used by the gay activists were borrowed from the civil rights movement and that, as is often forgotten, Black gay men and women were also active in the Black liberation movements in spite of some its homophobic and sexist slants.

The gay community had up until the Riots suffered indignities, persecution and injustices from the very people and institutions that were supposed to provide them with protection and ensure their safety as promised under the U.S. Constitution, says GMAD's current executive director Tokes Osubu.  "In standing up that evening to fight back, the gay community sent a very strong signal to the world that it had had enough, that it would no longer sit down and cower in silence and shame while abuses and injustices were rained upon it. They signaled what has since become known as the beginnings of the modern gay rights movement. The Riots are analogous to childbirth, after conception and the pain of pregnancy. The baby had been born! On that historic evening, the fire which had been slowly burning finally turned into a conflagration," he says. This decisive action, coming out of years of frustration, marked a turning point in the gay community's reaction to persecution. "The Riots signified what we can do together when we stand up for ourselves, it sent a signal that the 'woe is me' period that had marked our lives was over, that the gay community was not a group of rubber-spined people, who at the first sign of trouble, went into hiding with their heels in tow," says Osubu. The author of Dancing with the Devil (Chuma Spirit Books, Feb 2009), Taylor Siluwe, says that the Stonewall Riots was deeply inspirational especially for those gay men during that period in history when it was illegal for two men to dance together, let alone have sex, and who stood up to the authorities - to the police who harassed and oppressed them; it took a phenomenal amount of courage. "As a black gay man I still see opposition to LGBT equality even 40 years later. But I also see fear of the paralyzing sort that grips some Black same gender loving people which causes them to not stand up and be counted. "It's no one's business how I get down" is a common, sad, tiresome excuse for complete inaction and cowardice," Siluwe says.

But, being open, honest and OUT with those immediately around, he adds, is a beginning from which to expand the circle of contacts for quite activism and to joining local gay organizations which could set an example for other same gender loving people to step out of the shadows and up to the plate.

"Because until we all come out into the light, we won't be a political force worth mentioning or worrying about," says Siluwe. And, it is the emergence into the light of self awareness that gay clubs in America owe their existence to the day men and women decided they were not going to be harassed and arrested for being who they are. "We've seen that the actions of the Stonewall Riots have galvanized people into action, actions that have made it possible for me to be able to claim my partner on my health insurance at work," says Anare Holmes, an Atlanta, GA-based journalist and producer of PrideTV.com. But, as Osubu says, the Black gay community is yet to carve out its own identity as a body of people and as a movement, "Part of the challenge rests in how our identity has been to a large degree defined by the heterosexual community. In their mind we are just gay people or gay first, when the truth is our gay identity is often our secondary identity. By this measure, it means that to effectively carve out for ourselves an enduring legacy and identity, we have to do so within the parameters of first, the wider black community and second, the other-than-black community. Our ability in making a name for ourselves has been influenced by the fact that the 'gay-related' hot topics of the day are often determined and pushed by the white gay community. These issues tend not to rank high on our priority list and as such, we find ourselves swept along by the wave of 'passion' and media frenzy that accompanies them."

And, for many Black gay men moving forward with a much better defined and awareness of self, there is optimism about those who are taking activism to another level says Holmes, "I know first hand about the organizing Black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students from Morehouse College, Spellman College, Howard University, Morgan State University, and Florida A&M University are doing to create groups and associations that affirm their existence." The Black gay community is in the middle of a renaissance, with the work taking place to transform Black Gay Pride celebrations into agents of social change and with Black LGBT writers and artists creating music, films, TV series, and literature, which reflect the Black gay experience to navigating life and love, he says, "We are in a very good place, primed to meet the challenges that confront us."