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About STLBP |
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“Where is the love Black people have been accustom to facing adversity in this country, and around the world. The blatant racism here in America during the civil rights movement, and in South Africa during apartheid; racism that’s alive and well today, spoke volumes about our place in the world (or should I say where some people would like to place us). We always believed that if change was to come, it could only be achieved when we worked together, and as the late Malcolm X said, “by any means necessary!” It is this belief that drives our efforts then and today. I believe one of the things that made that challenge manageable has been the love we felt for each other as a people, as a race, and as part of our many communities. It’s the love I would imagine that allowed our ancestors to survive the middle passage. It’s the love that the late James Brown sang about when he said, “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud!” No one has written about, and sang about love the way African Americans have, love songs that help make Motown one of the top recording companies in the world. Yeah, as a people, we know love. However, as I look around today, I find myself, asking myself, “Where is the love?” Where is the love that inspired Bayard Rustin, a black gay man, and one of the most important figures in the history of the American civil rights movement, work to bring the cause to the forefront of America’s consciousness? Where is the love that leads many Black gay and lesbian people to play a pivotal role in many Black churches as they suffer in silence and shame about who they are? Where is the love of the brothers and sisters who founded St. Louis Black Gay & Lesbian Pride Committee, because they knew that the needs of the Black same gender loving community in our fair city where not being meet by the existing gay pride movement? Today, the Black community over-all finds its self confronting social ills on all fronts, in the area of employment, housing, education, and health, just to name a few. In spite of the many social strides that have been made for all gay people, Black gay men still find themselves as the bogeymen of the Black community, i.e., living on the DL (down-low) infecting Black women with HIV, and the social misfits sung about in popular hip-hop music. As the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), symbolically bury the “N” word, they left its cousins “faggots,” “punks,” and “sissies” free to live among us. Apparently these words don’t carry as much weight as the N word. So, what are a people to do? How do you live within a community where your people look at you in horror and prejudice when they learn that you are different? How do you get up every morning to go work with people who can legally fire you, if they found out you were gay, lesbian, transgender, or bisexual? How do you spend your money with businesses that support the very organizations and groups that ban you living with or marrying the person you love because that person is of the same gender? You do it with love. The love we feel for ourselves, sustains us. It’s the same love that has made it possible that after years of lynchings, rapes, murder, broken families, mis-education, denial of basic human rights, we are still here! As Black gay, lesbian, bisexual, same gender loving, transgender, however, we may identify, we must never forget that we are the descendents of a strong people, a people that understood the relationship between love and our survival. The annual St. Louis Black Pride Weekend aims to remind us of that love. On a personal note, it’s the love that I have for my Black gay community, and the Black community over-all that ssustains me as I face challenges in addressing health issues that impact all Black people. It’s when we don’t love ourselves or our communities, that we suffer. We suffer in ignorance, mentally, and physically. It’s the St. Louis Black Gay & Lesbian Committee’s hope that Our City, Our Pride will be rejuvenated after this year’s Black Gay Pride observance, and that we all will once again, feel and know, where the love is. Erise Williams, Jr. |
A Message From The President:  |
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