From: JimFour@aol.com Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 14:21:47 EDT Subject: FYI: Jim Fouratt's speech at the MMOW rally 04/30/00.. Here is a copy of the speech I gave at the MMOW rally on Sunday, April 30th 2000. I thought you might enjoy reading it as it actually attempts to tell the truth about how our movement was born and what actually happened from my being a participant at Stonewall that historical night. Jim JIM FOURATT MMOW SPEECH 04/30/00 First let me thank you all for coming out to stand up for our collective civil rights and the equal treatment of lesbians and gays under the federal and state law. Look around you and see what a success this the Fourth National March on Washington is. I want to take you back for a moment to 1969. The end of a decade of radical change, beginning with the black civil rights movement led by MARTIN LUTHER KING and BYARD RUSKIN an African-American gay man. I remember JAMES BALDWIN, a black sissy, being strong and speaking racial truth about America. I remember Berkley and the battle for free speech. I remember a generation of young people torn apart by a war in Vietnam that made no sense. I hop e you all know that today, April 30th we also commemorate the end of that war and the end of United States involvement in the internal affairs of Vietnam. I remember fighting in the streets of Newark, Detroit, Los Angeles and Chicago as members of the Black Panther Party were being murdered by government agents. I remember hippies preaching love over hate and redefining gender with a very sexy androgyny. I remember Woman's Liberation with lesbians Kate Millett and Ivy Bettini challenging women to reclaim their power. I thank Feminism for giving me consciousness raising as a tool to self-understanding and acceptance. I remember Caesar Chavez and the farmworkers. I remember SDS member Carl Whitman writing the Gay Manifesto in 1964. This social ferment was the caldron of humanity brewing that set the stage for that night in June on Christopher Street in 1969. NYC police began an all too familiar ritual called raid-the-illegal-bar, rattle-the-queens and shake-down-the- organized crime owners. Nothing was really new about the sass the queens gave the cops or the tough talk cop response until that moment when a gender variant lesbian, we called her a passing women than, slipped out of her handcuffs and the door of police car she had been placed in. She, quite spontaneously, I imagine, to prove her female masculinity, hurled her body against that car and sparked a response that forever changed the way lesbians and gay men any where in the world would see themselves from that moment on. That spark set free at last the insatiable lust for freedom that still brings us here in this the fourth national March on Washington. It was the spark that ignited all the new organizations from the first Gay Liberation Fronts to today's nationwide network of local and national organizations that allows each and every one of us to participate in being visible and proud of who we are and how we love. YES, LOVE not just sex, but LOVE …a shared human emotion. I am here to tell you that individuals who reflected the true diversity of who we actually are birthed this beginning of our liberation movement. Look around you: we were and are multi-racial. We were and are black, brown, white, red and yellow, a true rainbow of humanity. We were and are women and men, old, young, rich, poor and everything in between. Some of us look like the people next door in whatever neighborhood you live in. Some of us never passed for anything but the gender variant people we are: the sissies, butches, queens, pansies, muscle boys and the fluff girls. We are the teachers, solders, parents, laborers, priests, housewives, computer nerds, jocks, teenagers and new technology cybernauts. I remember the African American lesbian poet Pat Parker and the Asian gay activist Kioshi Kimumoura. I remember original GLFers Ron Ballard and Marsha P. Johnson, two black gay men. I remember from the second night of the Stonewall riots "Trans-gender Warrior" Leslie Feinberg. Our movement was birthed by people who did not, for the most part, look or act like the way Hollywood and Madison Avenue has always and continues to images us. Look around you. We were and are a diverse group of people who share in common the desire to love fully and sexually our partners. If I were to teach you one lesson from the legacy of those heady days it is to not let anyone else define for you, who you are or what our movement is. Join me in continuing to build a world free of hate and bias where all of us human folk can live freely together. Take the memory and the empowerment of this day and go home and be active in your local community in fighting for the liberation for all of us. 31 years ago it was unimaginable what our collective coming out would accomplished, Remember: we are not simply a market niche or just a donor statistic in some organization's computer database. Challenge yourself by asking the three questions the father of North American Gay Liberation, Harry Hay, gave to me and I give to you: Ask yourself: Who am I? Where do I come from and what do I want. I challenge you to honor your history and all who have come before you including all those AIDS has and continues to take by committing yourself today to building a world that truly reflects our diversity. Don't only be self-serving…. Go Home and fight for nothing less than equality for all. The freedom to love, free of fear, self-loathing and violence. COME OUT every day of your life in all your affairs. Go home become actively involved in your local community and make a safe environment free from hate all across America. Yes, right now look around you … carry this day forever with you…. We are not alone…and remember your vote counts! © Jim Fouratt 04/30/00 Washington D.C. I now have the pleasure of introducing to you an African American Gay man who proves that you can be out and proud and participate at the highest level of government, a Harvard Law school graduate who served for two years at the White House as a Special Assistant to President Clinton, the former Executive Director of the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum and now a teacher and full time writer: KEITH BOYKIN