Subject: FYI: Jim Fouratt's speech at the MMOW rally 04/30/00..
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 14:21:47 EDT

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