in honour of pride month and the #BlackLivesMatter movement, i’m going to try and do something that i’ll inevitably give up on because i lack the ability to focus. but each day this month i’m going to post about a queer black person who we owe our rights, to honour them

first up is the one and only Marsha P. Johnson (1945-92). a transgender rights activists and a leader of the stonewall riots. she founded STAR, a charity which housed homeless queer youths and sex workers before likely being murdered in 1992. please say her name today

Day 2 and we have Bayard Rustin. Rustin was an LGBTQ and Civil Rights Activist known for being an advisor to Martin Luther King. he was a socialist and championed labour movements, particularly through trade unions. he fought for New York State’s Gay Rights Bill in 1986

in 1953 he served 60 days in jail for a ‘sexual perversion’. he also protested british imperial rule in India, segregation within prisons and the internment of japanese soldiers. he died in August 1987 of a perforated appendix. please remember him today

day 3, a bit delayed (been on work calls sorry). Today we have Audre Lourde, self describes “black, lesbian, feminist, mother, poet, warrior”. famous for her poetry and her contribution to gender, gay and race theory. early on in her career she wrote about intersectionality

and the importance how oppression intersects through race, gender and sexuality. she once said “my sexuality is part and parcel of who i am, and my poetry comes from the intersection of my worlds”

interestingly when she was a girl she spoke in poems- if someone asked her how she was, she would reply with a poem. when she didn’t have a poem, she started writing them herself

she had two children with her white, gay husband until they divorced in 1970 and in 1972 she then met her long term partner Frances Clayton. in her most famous work, The Cancer Journals, she confronted the possibility of her own death. she passed away in 1992, remember her today

i haven’t forgotten about this i’ve just had a long day and gonna do my research now

okay day 4?? and we are looking at Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. Born October 25th 1940, Miss Major is a trans woman, activist and community leader. She helped establish Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project, a group which aims to support the trans people of colour

who are disproportionately more likely imprisoned in the prison industrial complex. Miss Major was one of the leaders of the stonewall riots and good friend to Sylvia Rivera (who will be a later topic). in 1978 she moved to San Diego where she begun working in food banks and

then began to help trans women who had been incarcerated. This is when she established TGVIJ and she actively campaigned against police brutality. Now 80, Miss Major, known to many simply as “Mama,” resides in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she continues to be a vocal activist.

day FIVE and we have Barbara Jordan. born in Houston, Texas in 1936 to a religious family. she attended Texas Southern University, because she was refused entry to The University of Texas at Austin due to segregation

she was a lawyer and was the first african american to be elected to the texas senate in 1966 and became the first black woman to be (acting) governor of texas in 1972. she later was elected to the house of representatives in 1972 and was influential in the impeachment of nixon

she was the first black woman to deliver a keynote address to the democratic national convention in 1976. she met her partner of 20 years (Nancy Earl) in 1960 on a camping trip and died in 1996, after receiving the presidential medal of freedom in 1994

sorry, yesterday was a bad day for old ed and i spent it feeling sad and sorry for myself! so i’m gonna do two day to make up for it- watch this space

okay first up we have Bisi Alimi, born in Lagos Nigeria Bisi is a AIDs and gay rights activist who gained notoriety when he became the first nigerian to publicly come out on telly. he started his career after a number of his friends died from HIV in the 1990s by distributing

contraception for gay men in Nigeria. he spent the early 2000s working for various AIDs charities in nigeria before having to flee the country for the UK in 2007 after receiving death threats. he’s continued his work for HIV charities and advocating for how the UK can better

support gay rights abroad by funding local charities, rather than national governments. i even saw him give a talk back in 2015 and his passion reallt shon through and inspired me. please say his name today and check him out!

and i would also like to discuss Willi Ninja aka the grandfather of vouge. born in New York 1961 he joined the Harlam Ball scene where they led ‘the house of Ninja’. they did not create vogueing, but instead refined it with clean, sharp movements

they later gained the recognition of Jennie Livingston who featured Ninja in the film ‘Paris is Burning’ where Ninja was able to shine a light onto the world of ball room. this launched Ninja’s career and they stared in Malcolm McLaren’s “Deep In Vogue”. one year later Madonna

released her number one song “Vogue” bringing the dance style to further attention. Ninja started their own House of Ninja in 1982, with Sophie Apollonia Ninja, which is still open today with 220 members world wide. sadly Ninja lost their life in 2006 at 45, due to an Aids

related heart attack. Ninja is still a central figure in LGBT studies even today, please remember their impact

as a side point, i struggled to find out what the correct pronoun was for Ninja, so i used they and i’m sorry if i got that right and will rewrite all of this to be correct