The Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club celebrates 50 years of political activism
Addressing longtime members and political leaders at the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club’s golden anniversary event, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee tasked the attendees to keep fighting, keep organizing, and to keep showing up.
“And let's have some joy while we do that,” said Lee, despite the federal rollback of queer and trans rights being undertaken by the Trump administration. “We cannot allow them to divide black and brown communities from the LGBTQ-plus community. No way, we cannot do that.”
Lee accepted the LGBTQ political group’s Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Award at its 50th Anniversary Gayla titled “Unstoppable.” The award is named after the late gay Black leader was the lead organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
“Wow, a brilliant organizer. He was a man who lived his truth in the day, as a gay black man, decades before, really, the world, in our own country, was really ready to accept it, you know, and to carry his name on an award for me is truly humbling,” said Lee, a Democrat who just marked her first year leading her East Bay city.
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