It’s happening this weekend in D.C.
In December 2003, a handful of leaders from the GLBT African-American community banded together to challenge support from African American religious and civil rights leaders for Republican-led efforts to amend the Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. Instead, this new group began raising money to place ads promoting marriage equality in the African American media.
Today, nearly two years later, the National Black Justice Coalition stands as the only national organization dedicated primarily to equality for gay African Americans.
D.C.’s Metro Weekly interviewed two of the D.C.-based group’s board members, H. Alexander Robinson, NBJC executive director and CEO, and Donna Payne, NBJC vice president. They talked about a number of issues: linking with mainstream black groups like the Congressional Black Caucus (whose 35th conference coincides with the NBJC conference this year), racism and inclusion in the LGBT community, the controversy involving the comments of Reverend Willie Wilson, pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church about black gays and human rights, and Louis Farrakhan and his Millions More March on October 15 (commemorating his Million Man March 10 years ago). What wasn’t said in the media was that the latter two issues–Wilson’s remarks and Farrakhan’s march–were related.
MW: Looking ahead to Oct. 15 and the Millions More Movement (MMM) 10-year commemoration of the Million Man March, how are things looking today? Your dialogue with Minister Louis Farrakhan, organizer of the event, seems to evolve weekly. Meanwhile, the wound caused by homophobic comments from the Rev. Willie Wilson, national executive director of the MMM commemoration, has yet to heal. All that seems certain is that NBJC has reserved Freedom Plaza to coincide with MMM events on National Mall.
PAYNE: One thing is for sure: We’re having a rally. We’re looking at it as a celebration no matter what. The celebration is that we are family — that is the theme. The whole message we’re trying to send is that whether or not we’re down there on the Mall, your whole family is here. We may be at Freedom Plaza, but we are part of your family. Perhaps we haven’t been invited to eat the barbeque, but we’re going to have potato salad. [Laughs.]
ROBINSON: There are some black gay and lesbian folks who are saying, ”Why are you begging these people to be a part of their thing? If they made it clear that they don’t want you, then you should just go away.”
My thing about that is, I’m not going to go away because we’ve always been there, and we’re going to continue to be there. We used to be there in silence, but we’re not going to suffer in silence anymore. If this is a movement about lifting up black Americans, then it’s a movement about me, and I’m going to insist on being there. Certainly, if there are openly gay and lesbian speakers on the platform, the mood will be a lot more affirming.
[Louis Farrakhan] is a master communicator. He has continued to communicate that [the MMM] is inclusive. By all reports, he has done that when he knows we’re in the room, and [when we are] not. That said, we’re not on the [MMM] executive committee. We’ve asked to address the executive committee. He did not say no to that, but he never said yes. And we don’t have a speaker on the platform yet. There is still an opportunity for his actions to match his rhetoric. But so far, the rhetoric has been at least better than it’s been [in the past]. It hasn’t been all the way there, but it’s certainly been better than some of the homophobic rhetoric we’ve heard from his associates in the past.
MW: Speaking of homophobic rhetoric, what role has Rev. Wilson played in steeling the resolve of the African-American GLBT community in regard to the MMM commemoration?
ROBINSON: I think we were there before Wilson. [His comments] certainly provided a lot more energy to the effort. People who might not have been paying attention to what we were saying about organizing, suddenly started paying attention because there was controversy. I certainly see it as being a catalyst for increased activity, but we would’ve been organizing anyway. It was always the intent to have some sort of pre-event gathering.
We’ve said that we want all of our lesbian and gay friends to come out and support us. This is being led by black gay and lesbian folks, but we want all our allies to come out and show their support. I don’t think we necessarily would’ve expanded in that way had it not been for the incident with Rev. Wilson.
PAYNE: [Wilson] abandoned his true self. He abandoned who he really was. The minister who we had known was very understanding and very caring. We don’t know what happened to him. We worry about him.
We understand our culture of how ministers have treated GLBT people in the church. What they have said is, ”We love you. God loves you. But God don’t like this.”
What we’re saying is, ”No, we’re accepted and loved no matter what.” That’s the disconnect. In our culture, there has been this unsaid part, that you don’t talk about what you do — ”your biz-ness,” so to speak. You come to church and you’re part of the community, but don’t talk about sex. We’re saying that all of this is us. They don’t want to get that. But it’s out. We’re telling them that last piece needs to be public.
