The show captured a four-decade historical movement-for gay and lesbian, same gender loving, women and San Francisco Bay Area people of color histories. As I walked through the exhibit, it surprised me that it had not gotten more media recognition. The exhibit had been up almost four weeks, and I had read little about it outside of the library.

I spoke to the curator, photographer and archivist Lenn Keller about her and her exhibit. She had come to the Bay Area in 1975. She found a gay community that was a microcosm of the larger society-racist, classist and sexist. The white gay men community just partied. 

Women fought for their rights. According to Keller, the white gay male community was never interested in the liberation and struggle for everyone. She believes that the early gay liberation movement reflected white male privilege. The movement was just for white gay men; women and people of color pushed for inclusion.

Even the "post-Harvey Milk," San Francisco's Castro District was hostile to African American men and women.

"Back then, the Gay Parade (later titled Gay Pride)," said Keller, "was just about white gay men. Women of color protested at the parade for not being included."

Fierce Sistahs! exhibits that struggle by women of color and their ensuing struggles. It exhibits an important and dynamic period in the Bay Area history.

Since 1975, Keller has participated in countless protests and events; she documented them with photographs. She collected and saved the memorabilia, flyers, postcards, tee-shirts, publications and buttons, etc. Keller pulled some from storage to create Fierce Sistahs! 

The exhibition groups the collection by decades. Keller believes the '70s and '80s were more visibly political than the following decades. Back then, she says, "more women of color were out in the streets protesting."

Like every exhibit I've seen at the library, Fierce Sistahs! is very well-presented. Writing as curator, I was impressed by the amount of material Keller displayed. It's a great exhibit. So why hasn't Fierce Sistahs! gotten more attention in the white gay media?

The Bay Area Reporter buried its listing in its events calendar. The exhibit must not have interested their readership enough for the curator to be interviewed. I would not expect Gloss Magazine to cover the exhibit. That magazine, with its focus on hunky gay men partying and vacationing, could be a return to the self-indulgent early gay men movement.

Regular same-gender-loving African American men and women have limited presence in its covers. Ironically, one of the few "African American images" in the April 09, 2010 Gloss is Shirley Q. Liquor, a white male performer in demeaning blackface who mocks poor, uneducated African American women from the South.

Does Fierce Sistahs! recall a history that the Bay Area's white gay community would rather forget or ignore? After all, it is a history where white gay men were the oppressors. If white gay men ignore (forget or justify) their oppressing others, could the larger society similarly ignore (forget or justify) oppressing them?

As is often said, those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it. Ironically, through a monthly event called "Black Out," a group of Black men are currently protesting for inclusion in the Castro. In a promotional video, one young Black man argued that the Castro used to be diverse. He wanted to bring that diversity back. Perhaps that's an example of not knowing one's history while history repeats itself.

Fierce Sistahs! will be at the San Francisco Main Public Library's Hormel Center until June 30, 2010.

These activists and artists pushed the envelope of Bay Area activism and culture by boldly bringing forth their unique cultural expressions and political perspectives. They challenged the "counterculture" as the left was then called, to be more radical and inclusive.

The Bay Area at that time was becoming an epicenter of LGBT liberation and was being rapidly and radically transformed by the mass influx and increased visibility of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people who flocked here as to a haven.

I was one of a handful (less than 50) of black lesbians who were "out" in the lesbian feminist community. The lesbians of color I met had courageous spirits, and devoted most of their time and energy to the progressive transformation of society, because being an activist was then a major aspect of our lesbian identities. 

We formed and participated in collectives of all kinds (living, natural foods, arts, political…); we built and maintained resources for ourselves and others (women's health clinics, rape crisis, girl's camps and schools, women's and LGBT centers, newspapers, bookstores, bars, cafes etc.).

The 80's brought a larger influx and increased visibility of lesbians of color, and while new support systems were being created, many we had built during the 70's began to erode due to the political/economic climate of the Reagan years.

The last two decades have brought continuing influxes of lesbians of color of increasing diversity to the area. But due to a number of factors including; the backlash against feminism, the repression of the "Bush years," assimilation, etc., the demise of lesbian resources and institutions (bookstores, women's centers, cafes, bars, etc.) continued. 

Some would argue that the current lack of cohesion in the "women's" i.e. lesbian community is a result of those factors and has stymied the transmission of lesbian feminist legacies and values to subsequent generations.

This exhibition consists of photographs and memorabilia primarily from my personal archives that began when I arrived here in 1975. It is one perspective, and a slice of a larger collaborative archival project in the works.

My hope is that viewing these images and documents, you will leave with new questions and perspectives, and feel enriched and inspired as we move forward into this unprecedented new era.