Oral history interview with Earl Fowlkes

Earl Fowles moved to Washington DC from New York in 1996 for a position in Damien Ministries and at the encouragement of his friends in DC. His friend, Christopher Bates, connected him to several people and organizations that he became involved in, such as the DC Care Coalition where he served as a board member. He succeeded Carlene Cheatam as president of DC Capital Pride in 1997. He remained in that role for three years. He then became president of the National Federation of Black Prides (the predecessor of today’s International Federation of Black Prides). Upon leaving that role, he served as co-chair of the Community Prevention Group, an advisory body for DC’s Agency for HIV/AIDS (AHA). In that role, he advised AHA on how to spend monies provided by the CDC for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. 

Fowlkes preferred “behind the scenes” activism; continuing dialogue and managing follow-up activities long past marches, demonstrations, and events. Key events that he did attend include the AIDS Memorial Quilt display on the National Mall in 1992 and 1996, the latter in which he participated by reading a selection of names of those represented in the quilt. Other topics covered include: His work of getting DC’s Pride organizations with similar missions to talk to each other and learn from each other; The importance of patience in nonprofit work and how progress is propelled by a small committed group of activists; DC institutional culture and how to make career civil servants in hospitals, prisons, police, and other community services care about LGBT issues; His personal life, including where he goes to socialize in DC and Atlanta; and the inception of a DC-area archive for saving items from the prides and other LGBTQ+ activism, and archivists interested in volunteering.