to attend the October 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights as part of Sistah Boom, an all-women samba band. Our bass drums were stowed in the cargo hold, my dance outfit packed in my carry-on: a turquoise sheath dress with a belt made
of a rainbow-array of ribbons that swayed with our movements. We would be joining the march and then performing onstage.
In 1987, we had yet to add the "B" for bisexual -- not to mention "T" for transgender -- to form the acronym LGBT. AIDS was raging. Whenever I walked on San Francisco's Castro Street, I would encounter skeletal young men,
hobbling along with a cane or pushed in a wheelchair. Reagan's communications director, Pat Buchanan, called AIDS "nature's revenge on gay men." The AIDS activist group ACT UP had just coined the slogan SILENCE EQUALS DEATH.
Other than AIDS, gay issues and gay people were rarely mentioned in the mainstream press. There were very few out celebrities, and no gay characters on TV. The subway was jammed with gay folks of all stripes, strangers greeting each other like
long-lost family. As we wandered the raucous streets, filled with jubilant queers, I felt safe holding my partner Dana's hand in a way I rarely did, even in the Bay Area. To feel that way here in the nation's capital was exhilarating.
The next day, Sistah Boom joined the marching throng, our bells ringing a high note against the deep bass thumps and polyrhythms of the drums. Four of us dancers samba-sashayed down the street at the front of the drummers. government power. Half a
million strong, we marched past the marble columns and along the wide boulevards.
Two days later, I would be back outside the Supreme Court to witness the non-violent civil disobedience action. I watched as ACT UP members and others linked arms, pushing through police barricades. They were protesting the court's decision, in
Bowers vs. Hardwick, to uphold a Georgia sodomy law used to arrest two gay men engaged in consensual sex in the privacy of their own bedroom. As police moved to arrest demonstrators, they put on gloves as protection against catching AIDS, nike nfl
jerseys 2012 even though by now it was known that AIDS was not spread by casual contact. Chants broke out: "Shame, shame!" and "Your gloves don't match your shoes!" The protesters were sitting down in a chain of interlocked
elbows, singing and chanting with solidarity and fierce courage as the police descended. Over several hours, six hundred demonstrators were arrested one by one. Some walked handcuffed; others were dragged by police across the plaza to waiting city
buses.
But back on the day of the march, as our band got to the march's end, we filed to the outdoor backstage area to await our performance. Cesar Chavez mounted the stage, advocating for gay rights, and I choked up: this beautiful leader of the
United Farm Workers -- he was with us. It was rare back then to have a prominent heterosexual make a public appearance in our support.
A chill wind came up, bringing goosebumps to my skin, still sweaty from dancing. Frail, gaunt men with AIDS in wheelchairs were seated in a special section at the very front of the audience. In the unexpected cold, the organizers sent scouts on a
frantic search to local stores for blankets, and some men were being taken off in ambulances, their weak bodies in shock. Nearby, the first-ever full display of the NAMES Project AIDS memorial quilt was laid out in a section of the National Mall
larger than a football field. Later that day, Dana and I would wander amidst the memorial with its 1,920 panels, deeply affected by the potent mix of the quilt's vastness, and the intimacy of the panels, each its own world of those who wove
grief, love, and memories of their beloved onto cloth.
I will never forget the moment when it was Sistah Boom's turn, and I stepped with the dancers to the front rim of the stage, looking out at the vast crowd completely filling the National Mall with the Washington Monument in the distance. It was
a stunning sight. We were a force, making ourselves visible both as celebrants of our humanity and as protestors demanding civil rights.
The drums began their beat, and we took up new nike nfl jerseys a chant from the slogan of the March: For Love! Boom boom. For Life! Boom boom. We're Not Going Back! Boom boom. As we danced, our hips and torsos shimmied as our hands spoke the
chant in American Sign Language. Our rhythm was infectious and hundreds of thousands swayed with us. I danced for the men with AIDS, danced for our diverse queer beauty, for our liberation from oppression, moving to the rhythms of the Sistahs,
drumming our joy, our love, and our strength.
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I'm straight and I loved this article! I just don't get the bigotry but hey that is the curse of humankind apparently.
I remember volunteering at one of the first Aids kitchens in NYC- God's Love We Deliver-around this time. I was so young and I really did not understand why people were so hateful about AIDS even being from a small town. When we went around in
the van; it was heartbreaking seeing detroit lions nike nfl jerseys people in little rooms, shut away to die, yet so happy to get that little bit of a drop-in visit and nutritious food being prepared for them. It is nice to see how progress is being
made.:)
Thanks for some smiles and a few tears mixed in. I was not able to go to Washington, but, we knew all about the march here in my bible belt buckle town, and some of the younger folks felt the real power that was being unleashed. My partner, my
husband and I had been together 30 years that's three oh when we were able to marry, in that one brief shining moment when same sex jacksonville jaguars nike nfl jerseys marriage was legal in California. We remember, oh yes. ( and going stronger
than ever)
I'd like to think the work of my generation will be recognized and valued by the young people coming up into the world now., but even if it isn't I'll know that at least one part of their world is a little better than it was then, and
than it would have been without the work we all did. That alone is satisfaction enough.
Chana--thanks for the trip down (good and bad) memory lane. The world 25 years ago was a very bad place for the lesbian and gay community (and we were a united community, despite what was happening). What saddens me (a little) is how little the
young members of today's LGBT community know what we all went through, how many dying friends we held in our arms, how many marches we had to march in, or how many protests we had to stage. It saddens me only a little because nike nfl jerseys
cheap I also celebrate our victories enabling them to come out and be proud. Maybe we struggled but I see hope in their greater acceptance by the world at large (we're still a long way from where we need to be, but we are a heck of a lot closer
to that goal than we were 25 years ago).
I'm closing in on 60, but I still work tirelessly for marriage equality these days. People ask me why. My partner and I were together for 23 years, but he passed away suddenly from metastatic cancer in 2008 (we didn't know he was sick until
a week before he died). So what if marriage isn't necessarily for me? It's for the next generation of LGBT people. And that's a good thing.
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