for miss professor only
Election night 2008 was a night that tore me inhalf. It was the night that the Barack Obama waselected. 148 years after the end of slavery and 48years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act,an African American was elected president.
Many of us never thought that this was possibleuntil the moment that it happened. And in manyways, it was the climax of the black civil rightsmovement in the United States. I was in Californiathat night which was ground zero at the time foranother movement, the marriage equalitymovement.
Gay marriage was on the ballot in the form ofProposition Eight. And as the election returnsstarted to come in, it became clear that the rightfor same sex couples to marry, which had recentlybeen granted by the California courts, was goingto be taken away.
So on the same night that Barack Obama won hishistoric presidency, the lesbian and gaycommunity suffered one of our most painfuldefeats. And then it got even worse. Pretty muchimmediately, African Americans started to beblamed for the passage of Proposition Eight.
This was largely due to an incorrect poll that saidthat blacks had voted for the measure bysomething like 70%. This turned out not to be truebut this idea of pervasive black homophobia setin and was grabbed on by the media.
I couldn't tear myself away from the coverage. Ilistened to some gay commentators say that theAfrican American community was notoriouslyhomophobic and now that civil rights had beenachieved for us, we wanted to take away otherpeople's rights. There were even reports of racistepithets being thrown at some of the participantsof the gay rights rallies that took place after theelection.
And on the other side, some African Americansdismissed or ignored homophobia that wasindeed real in our community. And othersresented this comparison between gay rights andcivil rights.
And once again, the sinking feeling that twominority groups of which I'm both a part of werecompeting with each other instead of supportingeach other overwhelmed and frankly pissed meoff.
Now I'm a documentary filmmaker so after goingthrough my pissed off stage and yelling at thetelevision and radio, my next instinct was to makea movie. And what guided me in making this filmwas, how was this happening? How was it that thegay rights movement was being pitted against thecivil rights movement?
And this wasn't just an abstract question. I'm abeneficiary of both movements so this wasactually personal. But then something elsehappened after that election in 2008. The marchtowards gay equality accelerated at a pace thatsurprised and shocked everyone and is stillreshaping our laws, and our policies, ourinstitution, and our entire country.
And so it started to become increasingly clear tome that this pitting of the two movements againsteach other actually didn't make sense. And thatthey were, in fact, much, much moreinterconnected.
And that, in fact, some of the way that the gayrights movement has been able to make suchincredible gains so quickly is that it used some ofthe same tactics and strategies that were first laiddown by the civil rights movement.
Let's just look at a few of these strategies. First off,it's really interesting to see, to actually visuallysee, how quick the gay rights movement hasmade its gains if you look at a few of the majorevents on a timeline of both freedom movements.
Now, there are tons of milestones in the civilrights movement. But the first one that we'regoing to start with is the 1955 Montgomery busboycott. This was a protest campaign againstMontgomery Alabama's segregation on theirpublic transit system and it began when a womannamed Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to awhite person.
The campaign lasted a year and it galvanized thecivil rights movement like nothing had before it.And I call this strategy the "I'm Tired of Your Footon My Neck" strategy. So gays and lesbians havebeen in society since societies began. But up untilthe mid 20th century, homosexual acts were stillillegal in most states.
So just 14 years after the Montgomery busboycott, a group of LGBT folks took that samestrategy. It's known as Stonewall in 1969 and it'swhere a group of LGBT patrons fought backagainst police beatings at a Greenwich Village barthat sparked three days of rioting.
Incidentally, black and Latino LGBT folks were atthe forefront of this rebellion and it's a reallyinteresting example of the intersection of ourstruggles against racism, homophobia, genderidentity, and police brutality.
After Stonewall happened, gay liberation groupssprang up all over the country and the moderngay rights movement as we know it took off. Sothat next moment to look at on the timeline is the1963 March on Washington.
This was a seminal event in the civil rightsmovement and it's where African Americanscalled for both civil and economic justice. And it's,of course, where Martin Luther King delivered hisfamous "I Have a Dream" speech. But what'sactually less known is that this march wasorganized by a man named Bayard Rustin.
Bayard was an out gay man and he's consideredone of the most brilliant strategists of the civilrights movement. He, later in his life, became afierce advocate of LGBT rights as well and his lifeis testament to the intersection of the struggles.
The March on Washington is one of the highpoints of the movements and it's where there wasa fervent belief that African Americans too couldbe a part of American democracy. I call thisstrategy the "We are Visible and Many in Number"strategy.
Some early gay activists were actually directlyinspired by the march and some had taken part.Gay pioneer Jack Nichols said, "We marched withMartin Luther King, seven of us from theMattachine Society," which was an early gay rightsorganization. "And from that moment on, we haveour own dream about a gay rights march ofsimilar proportions."
Several years later, a series of marches took place,each one gaining the momentum of the gayfreedom struggle. The first one was in 1979 andthe second one took place in 1987.
The third one was held in 1993. Almost a millionpeople showed up. And people were so energizedand excited by what had taken place they wentback to their own communities and started theirown political and social organizations furtherincreasing the visibility of the movement.
The day of that march, October 11th, was thendeclared National Coming Out Day and is stillcelebrated all over the world. These marches setthe groundwork for the historic changes that wesee happening today in the United States.
And lastly, the "Loving" strategy. The namespeaks for itself. In 1967 the Supreme Court ruledin Virginia v. Loving and invalidated all laws thatprohibited interracial marriage. This is consideredone of the Supreme Court's landmark civil rightscases.
In 1996, President Clinton signed the Defense ofMarriage Act, or known as DOMA, and that madethe federal government only have to recognizemarriages between a man and a woman.
In United States v. Windsor, a 79-year-old lesbiannamed Edith Windsor sued the federalgovernment when she was forced to pay estatetaxes on her deceased wife's property, somethingthat heterosexual couples don't have to do. Andas the case wound its way through the lowercourts, the Loving case was repeatedly cited asprecedent.
When it got to the Supreme Court in 2013, theSupreme Court agreed and DOMA was thrownout. It was incredible. But the gay marriagemovement has been making gains for years now.
To date, 17 states have passed laws allowingmarriage equality. It's become the de facto battlefor gay equality. And it seems like daily lawsprohibiting it are being challenged in the courts,even in places like Texas and Utah, which no onesaw coming.
So a lot has changed since that night in 2008when I felt torn in half. I did go on to make thatfilm. It's a documentary film. And it's called TheNew Black. And it looks at how the AfricanAmerican community is grappling with the gayrights issue in light of the gay marriage movementand this fight over the meaning of civil rights.
And I wanted to capture some of this incrediblechange that was happening. And as luck orpolitics would have it, another marriage battlestarted gearing up. This time in Maryland whereAfrican Americans make up 30% of the electorate.
So this tension between gay rights and civil rightsstarted to bubble up once again and I was luckyenough to capture how some people were makingthe connection between the movements thistime.
This is a clip of Karess Taylor-Hughes andSamantha Masters, two characters in the film, asthey hit the streets of Baltimore and try toconvince potential voters.
That's what's up, man. This is a righteous manover here.
OK, are you registered to vote?
Nah.
OK.
How old are you?
21.
21.
OK, you've gotta get registered to vote. We gottaget you registered to vote.
Right.
I ain't voting on that gay shit, though.
OK, why? What's up?
I ain't with that.
That's not cool.
What made you be gay?
All right, that's what up.
Right, so what made you be straight?
What made you be gay?
What made you be straight?
Same thing that made you be straight.
What?
Same thing.
You can't answer that question without--
[LAUGHTER]
I used to not have the same rights as you, but Iknow that because a black man like yourselfstood up for a woman like me, I know that I've gotthe same opportunities. So you as a black manhave the opportunity to stand up for somebodyelse. Whether your gay or not, these are yourbrothers and sisters out here, and they need youto represent.
Who are you to tell somebody who they can'thave sex with, who they can't be with? They ain'tgot that power.
Right.
Nobody has that power to say you can't marrythat young lady. Who has that power? Nobody.
But you know what? Our state has put the powerin your hands and so what we need you to do is gofor it. You've got to vote Six.
I've got you.
Vote for Six.
And do y'all need community service hours?
Yeah.
You do? All right, you can always volunteer with usand get community service hours. Do y'all want todo that?
I will.
We feed you. Bring you pizza.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you. What's amazing to me about that clipthat we just captured as we were filming is itreally shows how Karess understands the historyof the civil rights movement but she's notrestricted by it.
She doesn't just limit it to black people. She seesit as a blueprint for expanding rights to gays andlesbians. Maybe because she's younger, she's like,25. She's able to do this a little bit more easily.
But the fact is that Maryland voters did pass thatmarriage equality amendment. And in fact, it wasthe first time that marriage equality was directlyvoted on and passed by the voters. AfricanAmericans supported it at a higher level than hadever been recorded. It was a complete turnaroundfrom that night in 2008 when Proposition Eightwas passed.
It was and feels monumental, like we in the LGBTcommunity have gone from being a pathologized,and reviled, and criminalized group to being seenas part of the great human quest for dignity andequality.
We've gone from having to hide our sexuality inorder to maintain our jobs and our families toliterally getting a place at the table with thepresident and a shout out at his secondinauguration.
I just want to read what he said at thatinauguration. "We the people declare today thatthe most evident of truths, that all of us arecreated equal. It is the star that guides us still justas it guided our forebears through Seneca Fallsand Selma and Stonewall."
Now we know that everything is not perfect,especially when you look at what's happeningwith the LGBT rights issue internationally. But itsays something about how far we've come whenour president puts the gay freedom struggle in thecontext of the other great freedom struggles ofour time, the women's rights movement and thecivil rights movement.
His statement demonstrates not only theinterconnectedness of those movements but howeach one borrowed and was inspired by the other.So just as Martin Luther King learned from andborrowed from Gandhi's tactics of civildisobedience and nonviolence which became abedrock of the civil rights movement, the gayrights movement saw what worked in the civilrights movement.
And they use some of those same strategies andtactics to make gains at an even quicker pace.Maybe one more other reason for the relativequick progress of the gay rights movement,whereas a lot of us continue to still live in raciallysegregated spaces, LGBT folks, we areeverywhere.
We are in urban communities and ruralcommunities, communities of color, immigrantcommunities, churches, and mosques, andsynagogues. We are your mothers, and brothers,and sisters, and sons.
And when someone that you love or a familymember comes out, it may be easier to supporttheir quest for equality. And in fact, the gay rightsmovement asks us to support justice and equalityfrom a space of love.
That maybe the biggest, greatest gift that themovement has given us. It calls on us to accessthat which is most universal and most intimate, alove of our brother, and our sister, and ourneighbor.
I just want to end with a quote by one of ourgreatest freedom fighters who is no longer withus, Nelson Mandela from South Africa. NelsonMandela led South Africa after the dark and brutaldays of apartheid.
And out of the ashes of that legalized racialdiscrimination, he led a South Africa to becomethe first country in the world to bandiscrimination based on sexual orientation withinits constitution.
Mandela said, "For to be free is not merely to castoff ones chains, but to live in a way that respectsand enhances the freedom of others," So as thesemovements continue on and as freedom strugglesall around the world continue on, let's rememberthat not only are they interconnected but theymust support and enhance each other for us to betruly victorious. Thank you.
