GLBT History Month Celebrates Alice Walker

Alice Walker is an award-winning writer, activist and self-proclaimed “Womanist”—a term she coined in her book “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” (1974) to describe black feminists. The voices she brings to life in her novels, short stories and poems helped educate and inspire readers.

Walker was raised in Eatonton, Georgia, during segregation. She was the youngest of eight children born to poor sharecroppers.

Walker received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965. She moved back to the South to pursue civil rights work and met Mel Leventhal. Walker and Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights lawyer, were the first interracial couple to be legally married in Mississippi. Walker had her only child during the marriage. The couple divorced in 1976.

Walker began teaching at Wellesley College in 1972. Her course, dedicated to the study of African-American women writers, was the first of its kind.

Her most famous novel, “The Color Purple” (1983), won a National Book Award and made Walker the first African-American woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1985, the novel was made into a movie directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover. The film earned 11 Oscar nominations. In 2005, “The Color Purple” was adapted as a Broadway musical, with Winfrey as the lead financial backer.

Find OUT more about prominent GLBT figures at GLBTHistorymonth.com.

October is GLBT History Month

Equality Forum announces the following 31 Icons to be honored for GLBT History Month 2008 in October:

Georgina Beyer, first transgender member of a national Parliament
Mark Bingham, 9/11 hero
Margarethe Cammermeyer, military officer, GLBT service members advocate
Rachel Carson, environmental pioneer
Bertrand Delanoe, first openly gay Mayor of Paris
Melissa Etheridge, Grammy and Oscar Award-winning singer/songwriter
Harvey Fierstein, Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor, playwright and screenwriter
E.M. Forster, author of “A Room with a View,” “Howard’s End,” and “Maurice”
Allen Ginsberg, revolutionary poet and activist
Philip Johnson, innovative, internationally-renowned architect and designer
Bill T. Jones, Tony Award-winning dancer and choreographer
Cleve Jones, GLBT activist, founder of NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
Sheila Kuehl, first openly gay elected to the California legislature
Tony Kushner, Tony, Emmy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Greg Louganis, Olympic Gold Medal diver
Robert Mapplethorpe, groundbreaking photographer
Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon, founders of nation’s first lesbian organization and first same-sex couple married in San Francisco
Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist and author
Michelangelo, Renaissance painter, sculptor and architect
Rosie O’Donnell, comedian, talk-show host, actress, winner of 11 Emmy Awards
Troy Perry, spiritual leader and founder of Metropolitan Community Churches
Gene Robinson, first openly gay Bishop in the Episcopal Church
Anthony Romero, ACLU Executive Director
Randy Shilts, New York Times best-selling author and groundbreaking AIDS journalist
Stephen Sondheim, theatrical lyricist/composer, multiple Tony Award winner
Gianni Versace, fashion designer and entrepreneur
Alice Walker, author and feminist, Pulitzer Prize winner for “The Color Purple”
Andy Warhol, American pop artist and avant-garde filmmaker
John Waters, filmmaker, actor, and author of “Hairspray”
Jann Wenner, co-founder and publisher of “Rolling Stone”
Tennessee Williams, prolific American playwright, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner

“From Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon on October 1st to Michelangelo on October 31st, the 31 Icons for 2008 combined, with the 62 Icons for GLBT History Month 2006 and 2007, are impressive,” stated Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director, Equality Forum. “For a community deprived of its history, GLBT History Month teaches our heritage, provides role models, builds community, and makes the civil rights statement of our extraordinary national and international contributions.”

GLBT History Month was conceived in the mid-1990’s by educators and embraced by major GLBT organizations. In 2006, Equality Forum took responsibility for this communal project and solicits Icon nominations from state, national and international executive directors and other community leaders. The criteria are persons living or deceased, who have distinguished themselves in their field of endeavor, are a national hero or have made a significant contribution to GLBT civil rights.

All 2008 nominations were reviewed by GLBT History Month Co-Chairs Professor Sharon Ullman, History Department, Bryn Mawr College, and Professor Kenji Yoshino, Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law, and were approved by the Equality Forum Board of Directors

Each day in October 2008, an Icon is featured with a video, biography, bibliography and other educational resources. The resources for GLBT History Month 2008 Icons will be available in October at www.glbtHistoryMonth.com. Educational resources for 2006 and 2007 Icons are archived on the site.

GLBT History Month Icon videos are expected to be broadcast on Logo and here! and streamed on major gay portals. The videos are offered without charge to educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, for profit companies and the public. More than 300 educational institutions, organizations and companies hosted GLBT History Month 2007 on their Web sites.

Equality Forum is a national and international GLBT civil rights organization with an educational focus. Equality Forum coordinates GLBT History Month, produces documentary films, undertakes high impact initiatives and presents annually the largest national and international GLBT civil rights forum.

www.equalityforum.com

“Equality Forum” and GLBT History Month

Equality Forum is a national and international GLBT civil rights organization with an educational focus.  Equality Forum coordinates GLBT History Month, produces documentary films, undertakes high impact initiatives and presents the largest annual international GLBT civil rights forum.

Check out more and find information for GLBT history month at equalityforum.com.

Folsom Street Celebrates 25 Years of GLBT History

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Transgender (GLBT) Historical Society and Folsom Street Events™ are celebrating 25 years of the Folsom Street Fair with a new exhibit at the GLBT Historical Society.

The exhibit will open tomorrow, Thursday July 24th, the Thursday prior to the Dore Alley Fair. There will be an opening night reception at 6pm, and a special “Leather Week” reception on Friday, September 25 at 6pm. The exhibit will run through the end of October, which is National Gay History Month.

Find out more at glbthistory.org.