https://archives.rainbowhistory.org/files/original/74d1db7b54e20f81227ff3a50dc16117.pdf b03f6d26166c197a6ced1043d41ba201 PDF Text Text Rainbow History Project Community Pioneers 2015 Reception May 14, 2015 The Thurgood Marshall Center 1816 12th St. NW Washington, DC 20009 6:30-8:30 PM This event was made possible by a generous grant from Brother Help Thyself www.brotherhelpthyself.org �About Rainbow History Project T he Rainbow History Project was formed on November 4, 2000 with the mission to collect, preserve, and promote an active knowledge of the history, arts, and culture relevant to sexually diverse communities in metropolitan Washington, DC. To further our mission, we have a number of on-going projects: • • • • • • Oral Histories: We have collected and have available in digital format more than 160 oral histories, as well as more than 100 oral histories collected by others and donated to us. Physical Collection: We have received, processed, and constructed finding aids for a large number of historically significant collections that are now available to researchers at the Kiplinger Library of our archival partner, the Historical Society of Washington, DC. Public Education Events: We hold panel discussions, exhibits, walking tours, presentations, and readings. Supporting Researchers, Journalists, and Film Makers: We help a wide range of researchers access information from our collection and put them in touch with historically knowledgeable individuals in our community. Community Outreach: We reach out to the community by participating in festivals and attending community events. Website and Online Presence: We digitize and place on our website key documents from our physical collection and provide interactive access to key databases such as our Places and Spaces database. The Rainbow History Project welcomes anyone in the community who wishes to support us as a member or volunteer to help with our work. The Rainbow History Project’s activities are planned and organized by an executive board of directors whose meetings are open to all members and volunteers. Elections are held at the Rainbow History Project’s annual meeting in March. All dues-paying members are eligible to vote and to be elected to the Board. Board officers are elected at the April board meeting. Chuck Goldfarb Jim Marks Jeff Donahoe Cassandra Ake Philip Clark Jose Gutierrez Richard Haight Bonnie Morris Vincent Slatt Page 2 Community Pioneers 2015 Board of the Rainbow History Project Chair Treasurer Secretary �W e are gathering once again to recognize and say “thank you” to individuals whose vision, perseverance, and plain hard work made a lasting impact on DC’s LGBT community and on the nation’s capital at large. These Community Pioneers turned ideas, indeed dreams, into concrete reality. Some established enduring institutions; others changed the shape of the law, health care, social services, and personal services available to the general public to make them more attentive to LGBT needs. The breadth of their collective accomplishments demonstrates the richness of the DC LGBT community. Whether working to create LGBT-friendly family law, to provide LGBT-friendly healthcare and health education, to nurture arts institutions that reflect our culture, to provide safe havens and advocacy platforms for gender and racial minorities, or to establish service organizations that support the work of other LGBT organizations, these leaders have left a legacy that we call community. In acknowledgement that our community continues to grow and change, this year’s honorees include individuals from a younger generation who have stepped forward to identify and address previously unmet needs, as well as leaders who have been active since the 1970s. These new leaders created institutions responsive to previously unserved immigrant and transgender communities. They provided support and visibility and forced the mainstream leadership to expand its vision and understanding of the LGBT community. Rainbow History Project is happy to again hold its Community Pioneers reception at the Thurgood Marshall Center. Our success depends on the support of like-minded individuals, like those of you attending the reception this evening, but also on working closely with other community-based organizations who also seek to strengthen community in metropolitan Washington, DC. We are thankful for our on-going archival relationship with the Historical Society of Washington, DC and the enduring support from Brother Help Thyself, whose funding has made this event possible. We hope you enjoy this evening’s event. We remind you that Rainbow History is a 501(c)(3) organization with no paid staff. If you like the work we do, please join us as a volunteer or with your tax-deductible contributions. The photographs of the Community Pioneers will be on exhibit at the Metro DC Community Center, 2000 14th Street NW, Suite 105,Washington DC 20009 for the remainder of the month of May. Community Pioneers 2015 Page 3 �Eric Cohen (left) and Jonathan Blumenthal J onathan Blumenthal and Eric Cohen founded Burgundy Crescent Volunteers in 2001 to connect LGBT people with each other and with opportunities to help their communities. They have remained at the helm of the group ever since, and its thousands of members have together given more than 100,000 hours of service to organizations throughout D.C., Maryland and Virginia. Jonathan and Eric, who are now married, met in 1999 at a social event planned by Gay, Lesbian, and Other Volunteer Singles. The organization disbanded that same year, and the couple felt it had limited its viability by restricting its membership to single people. “We started dating and we weren’t allowed to volunteer anymore, and I think that part of the GLOVs model wasn’t an effective way to go forward, because people would meet and want to continue to volunteer,” Jonathan says. They appreciated the defunct organization’s strong social focus, and they aimed to recreate it in founding Burgundy Crescent Volunteers. The group offers its members colorcoded name tags, printed from Jonathan’s computer, that let volunteers identify themselves to each other as either “single” or “committed.” Helping all of BCV’s members to feel welcome is at the heart of the group’s mission. As LGBT people continued to struggle for acceptance and equal rights, Jonathan and Eric gave their organization a whimsical name with no explicit reference to the community. Page 4 Community Pioneers 2015 “I felt it was important that we had a name that didn’t necessarily say we were a gay organization, because I wanted people who were like me who were just coming out to feel comfortable,” Eric says. “If people ask what they’re doing or who they’re volunteering with, they don’t have to immediately come out to them.” As BCV’s membership roster grew to exceed 5,000 people, Jonathan and Eric never compromised on the personal touch they have given the group. They send out volunteer requests and coordinate all of their events by e-mail, creating human connections that they credit in part for the high reliability of BCV volunteers. BCV has established strong ties between D.C.’s LGBT community and the organizations it serves, which include the D.C. Central Kitchen, Food & Friends, and the Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation among dozens of others. Among its numerous distinctions, BCV is the only volunteer organization trusted by the National Park Service to prune the cherry blossom trees that surround the Tidal Basin. Jonathan and Eric run the organization in their free time and rely on a core network of supporters to share the administrative burden. As the group moves through its 15th year, the couple is showing no sign of tiring. �R uby Corado was born in in hate crime cases, appropriate San Salvador, El Salvador, placement and access to and fled the country’s civil hormones for trans inmates, and war at 16, leaving her family bepolicies prohibiting transgender hind. For years later, while workdiscrimination by private health ing in real estate management, insurance companies in D.C. Ruby Corado Ruby felt called to give back and The coalition also completed began volunteering with a hospice a needs-assessment survey for organization. Seeing the love and care that the nuns gave to the transgender community intended to inform the city’s their patients—even if they had nothing material to spare— political and funding priorities as well as help launch inspired a lifelong passion for social justice. an awareness campaign to “increase understanding and respect” for the community. Through it all, Ruby has After living as an undocumented immigrant herself maintained close relationships with local officials, providing and witnessing waves of violence committed against trans people in D.C.—which is fifth in the nation in transgender community-specific information and access when requested — or a scolding when necessary. deaths — Ruby recognized how the two movements intersected and has dedicated herself to a life of activism. Most recently, Ruby has dedicated herself to helping Ruby has also spoken out as an HIV-positive woman for a transgender people — particularly youth — succeed on a voice in the D.C. government’s distribution of HIV/ AIDS personal level. Approximately 40 percent of D.C.’s trans funds and to encourage safe sex in a city where an estimated community have experienced homelessness and are often 1 in 50 residents live with AIDS and 1 in 20 test positive unsafe at shelters, so Ruby has sought to build a home to for HIV. meet a number of LGBT community needs. Opened in 2012, Casa Ruby serves approximately 160 Spanish- and Throughout her career, Ruby has been a community English-speaking clients per week and provides clothing, leader an has served as spokeswoman or otherwise food, vocational training, meeting space, legal services, contributed to a number of organizations, including: health screenings, emergency housing referrals, support Whitman-Walker Clinic; Latin@s en Accion, originally groups, and a cyber center. She has also led a recent effort formed as a vehicle for Latino LGBT participation in to open a shelter to house 10-12 transgender youth aged 18 Capital Pride; the D.C. Trans Coalition; the Fotonovela project, which portrays the daily lives of transgender people; to 24. The residents may stay for up to 18 months and will either continue their education or seek work to promote and her own Casa Ruby and youth homeless shelter. self-sufficiency. The D.C. Trans Coalition, established in 2005, now Ruby lives with her husband, David Walker, whom she meets twice a month at Casa Ruby and has successfully lobbied for strengthening collaboration between the police’s wed last year with Mayor Vincent Gray to give her away. Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit and the trans community Community Pioneers 2015 Page 5 �Wallace Leo Corbett Jr “I was first diagnosed in 1988 and soon entered a vaccine trial at Georgetown University Hospital. Everything was anonymous. I was scared. I couldn’t tell anybody. My partner had just died. I wanted to live. I was 28 years old.” — Wallace Corbett W allace Corbett was raised in the South. His parents taught him that acts of kindness come from the heart. When he discovered that he was HIV-positive in the late 1980’s, the love he received from his family carried him through his battles against AIDS. Wallace has worked in the Department of Radiology at George Washington University for the last 20 years. “I have seen so many of my brothers and sisters in their fight against AIDS and hope I have helped to make it easier for them along the way,” he says. He has served as the chair of the Metropolitan Washington Regional Health Planning Services for four years and also has served with the HIV Prevention Community Planning Group. Wallace has been on the Board of the National Association of People with AIDS and has been the chair of the Max Robinson Center Community Advisory Board. He also has been on the Board of Directors of the Whitman-Walker Clinic. At George Washington University, Wallace is on the Page 6 Community Pioneers 2015 Advisory Board for the D.C. Development Center for AIDS Research. He is also on the Board of Service and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Elders, and he is a member of the Metropolitan Community Church’s Older Adult Ministry Group for Health and Wellness. He has been a major figure in the AIDSRIDES, once cycling more than 117 miles in one day. He founded and is currently the chair of Brother to Brother, Sister to Sister United, Inc., one of the largest African-American cycling teams. The organization has raised over $1 million for HIV/AIDS causes through AIDSRIDES. The group has also supported the Sickle Cell Anemia awareness project at Howard University. Wallace observes that “the tight bonding of our team changed the lives of thousands in a positive way.” Wallace also chairs Our Heroes Exhibit of D.C.—a large scale photo exhibit showing those people who have made a change in the fight against HIV/AIDS during 1983-2013 in the Washington area. That exhibit is being shown widely and is part of the collection at the Martin Luther King Memorial Library. It is important to Wallace Corbett that he continue “to be part of the journey for services and care and prevention, for those with and without HIV, and lead in the process for long-term care.” �Kathleen DeBold (right) and Barbara Johnson L ongtime community activist Kathleen DeBold, now the national administrator for the Lambda Literary Awards, is best known locally for her dynamic leadership as executive director of the Mautner Project. This D.C.–born grassroots service organization for lesbians with cancer grew into a model national lesbian health program advocating for—and bringing hope and healing to—women who were invisible to or stigmatized by the medical establishment. In addition to touching countless lives with its innovative outreach and awareness programs, the Mautner Project brought the healthcare needs of lesbians into the mainstream by educating healthcare providers and advocating for quality health care for all.   After earning a B.S. in Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Maryland and becoming Maryland’s first female apiary inspector in 1978, Kathleen worked in the Central African Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer and an agricultural extension specialist for Africare. After returning to the U.S., her deep love for our community’s history and literature led her to the (then D.C.-based) Lambda Literary Foundation, where she found a niche as a writer, cartoonist and puzzle creator. In addition to writing the marketing copy for the popular lesbian publisher Naiad Press, she also created the first LGBT-themed syndicated crossword puzzle, Wordgaymes, which appeared in dozens of community publications including the Washington Blade.    Kathleen continued her service to D.C.’s LGBT community as deputy and political director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, where she campaigned and raised funds for openly LGBT candidates including D.C. Councilmembers David Catania and Jim Graham, U.S. representative (now U.S. senator) Tammy Baldwin, New York City Councilmember Rosie Mendez, and Houston City Councilmember (now Mayor) Annise Parker.  As interim Executive Director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) she fought for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”    Kathleen is a strong believer in volunteerism and has donated her time and talents to dozens of local and national organizations including her current service with the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund (the oldest ongoing feminist granting agency) and the multicultural lesbian literary and art journal, Sinister Wisdom.  In addition to a 2015 Community Pioneers award, Kathleen has been recognized as an LGBT and social justice leader with the Women’s eNews 21 Leaders for the 21st Century Award, An Uncommon Legacy Foundation’s Uncommon Woman Award, Gertrude Stein Democratic Club’s Justice Award, D.C. Capital Pride’s Pride Hero Award, D.C. LGBT Center’s Distinguished Service Award, D.C. Black Lesbian Support Group’s Honorary Colored Girl Award, WOMO’s (Women’s Monthly) Community Service Award and the Washington Blade’s “Most Committed Female Activist” and “Local Hero” designations.  Kathleen asks that this recognition be shared with her life partner Barbara Johnson and with everyone who has supported, inspired and tolerated her along the way: “There is nothing in those 40-plus years that I have accomplished alone. I am terribly shy and introverted, which is not the best foundation on which to construct an activist life. But the work is so important and the need for change so great that I’ve just had to cowgirl up.”  Community Pioneers 2015 Page 7 �Atul Garg and Yassir Islam A tul Garg and Yassir Islam each felt isolated as gay men of Indian heritage when they each first moved to D.C. in the early 1990s. Washington lacked organizations for LGBT people of South Asian heritage, and in an era before widespread Internet communication, the community largely contended alone with a mainstream gay culture dominated by Western values and assumptions. Being out about sexual identity could often mean difficulty within the South Asian community. “It felt odd at that time to feel like I was giving up in some ways my South Asian identity to be gay,” says Atul. The two men lived in D.C. for years before they finally crossed paths — at an event organized hundreds of miles away. They had traveled separately to New York City for a 1994 parade commemorating the 25th anniversary of Stonewall, and they loved taking part in the march with a contingent organized by New York’s South Asian Lesbian & Gay Association. Never before had they engaged in one place with so many LGBT people of similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and they left the parade determined to build a similar community closer to home. “Both of us were blown over by what we saw, and were like, “Hey, I don’t want to come to New York to experience this. I mean, that’s crazy,” Atul says. “D.C. is a big city and we should have something similar.” An advertisement they placed in the Washington Blade kicked off the founding of what would become KhushDC, Page 8 Community Pioneers 2015 a community organization serving South Asian members of the LGBTQ community. “Khush means happy and gay, so it became a bit of a buzzword for being gay, like a secret word,” says Yassir. KhushDC began as a support group, helping its members to publicly come out in South Asian communities that often considered heterosexual marriage to be a key step toward adulthood. The organization later took on social and activist roles, and it has grown to represent a widening range of identities throughout its 20-year history. Launching KhushDC was a risk for Yassir, who was at that time an Indian citizen in the process of obtaining a U.S. green card. “Back then, you couldn’t immigrate to the U.S. if you were gay, and there was a question asking you that on the form, so if you were gay publicly or your name was in the paper or anything else, it could affect your chances,” Yassir recalls. “So I had to be very careful about using my real name.” Yassir was born in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). After studying at Cornell University and the University of California at Davis, he moved to Washington and has pursued a career in international agricultural development. Atul, a Chicago native, earned his MBA at Georgetown University. He is currently a real estate broker in Washingon. �A nnette “Chi” Hughes is renaissance among Washington, always looking for famD.C.’s LGBT black community. ily. Whether biological It was the time when Chi or surrogate, born from blood or experienced a highlight of her mutual struggle, Chi finds love life as an artist. She performed and support in a close-knit comspoken-word poetry with the munity. She found a family in legendary Essex Hemphill as D.C. by organizing fellow Howthe only female member of ard University students, through CINQUE and took the stage at performing spoken word poetry, the National Theater as well as and, more than anything, by darunderground arts spaces where ing to be open about her identity. the Sapphos sponsored events When HIV reached Washington, featuring poet Audre Lorde and Annette “Chi” Hughes D.C., Chi quickly used her gift for the famed women’s musical group leadership to protect and inform Sweet Honey in the Rock. She even her community, thus beginning a lifetime of service in sosang with Sweet Honey in the Rock’s workshop group Incial welfare. Process. Chi was born in Alabama and grew up in Queens, NY. Chi’s life was dramatically transformed by the unforeseen She arrived in D.C. in 1975 to attend Howard University. AIDS epidemic. She was in her mid 20s when the disease It was at Howard that she began to connect with other gay reached D.C., and she soon was offered a position doing students; yet, a culture of fear was omnipresent. She recalls outreach for Whitman-Walker Clinic. The work was often that the informal code on campus for gays was to avoid difficult. “At some point I actually felt like an outsider in acknowledging any weekend social rendezvous, leaving the communities that I straddled,” she recalled. “If I was students closeted and disconnected. Not a single black in the black gay community talking about HIV, people university in the country had a club for gay students when didn’t want to hear it, and if was in the straight community, Hughes helped found the Lambda Student Alliance, only people were asking, ‘Why are you talking about this white realized under threat of a lawsuit. Their mission was to be a gay male disease?’ It was lonely work.” The task of directing visible organization, not to hide in undercover meetings. meager federal resources to minority communities proved For Chi “being a visible gay woman of color at that point monumentally difficult, but it became her mission over the next 15 years. Fieldwork in HIV proved an entrée into in time, in the early ‘80s, was a political statement.” To understanding social issues ranging from homelessness to foster support among lesbian women of color, in 1979 she substance abuse and the ramifications of race and class. Chi co-founded the Sapphire Sapphos, a social and political was inspired to obtain a master’s degree in Social Welfare organization. Their activities included dances, picnics, regular support group meetings, family-friendly gatherings, and turn this work into a lifelong career. and participation in Take Back the Night marches and the Chi moved with her partner to Los Angeles in 1986 annual Pride parade. The organization encouraged women’s and became the first African American Deputy Director of voices to be heard at a time when the principal LGBT the Los Angeles LGBT Center. She continues to work in organizations were dominated by men. Chi later stated, “I the nonprofit sector as owner/consultant of ANetteWork. think the organization gave us all the sense of self-identity In 2014 she returned to the Los Angeles LGBT Center and empowerment, just by the fact that it existed and you as the Manager of Social Services in the Senior Services knew that there was support.” department, again finding and fostering family. The Sapphire Sapphos helped introduce Chi to an arts Community Pioneers 2015 Page 9 �Susan Silber A ttorney Susan Silber remembers a time—likely in the 1980s—when she walked into a local courtroom to defend the parental rights of a gay father. The opposing attorney, so indignant with the idea that a gay father could have a legitimate case, could barely get the word “homosexual” out of his mouth. Fortunately the judge interrupted from the bench to say that it was the best interest of the child—not the parent’s sexual orientation—that mattered. “If you were gay, people assumed that you were a bad person, an unfit parent,” Susan recalls. She has been a major force in changing how the law protects LGBT rights. Her work as an attorney has emphasized legal issues centering on family, employment,and juvenile rights. Much of her work has focused on municipal law and her efforts have hadthat have had a major impact not only for families and individuals but also for equality in laws that affect every gay person in the Washington, D.C. area. Susan came to Washington in 1977, attracted by opportunities in civil rights and international human rights law. A position at Antioch School of Law—now part of the University of the District of Columbia—meant not only directing legal clinics on employment and labor law, but also a leadership role in organizing a group for gay and lesbian faculty and students. This inspired her to found and lead LGBT groups within the National Lawyers Guild and co-chair the Gay and Lesbian Section of the D.C. Bar. She also was part of the 1979 March on Washington. “It was an exciting time to be part of the movement pushing for civil rights for gays and lesbians,” she says. Early on, representing clients in cases related to sexual Page 10 Community Pioneers 2015 orientation meant being creative. Little case law specific to gays existed, so she had to piece together arguments from diverse cases. Her reputation quickly grew, and today her practice concentrates on issues relating to gays and lesbians, including second parent adoptions, domestic partnership agreements and dissolutions, non-biological parent custody and visitation, and divorce. She also advises same sex couples about the legal implications of marrying in the District of Columbia and Maryland. A major accomplishment was her leadership in the statute on domestic partnership in D.C. That statue was enhanced over time until it was replaced with marriage equality. Susan’s practice also reflects her longstanding interests in employment law and includes representing victims of illegal workplace discrimination, including workplace sexual orientation discrimination and gender stereotyping discrimination. She also represents government employees in civil service grievances and disciplinary actions as well as in security clearance proceedings.  She has been the City Attorney for the City of Takoma Park, Maryland, since 1981. In this role, she has been a pioneer in creating the city’s domestic partnership laws, clarifying employment law and creating other structures to protect rights of the LGBT community. Susan says she can see how much has been accomplished in the Washington area since she arrived in 1977. “It’s been amazing to live through these times when you can see so much progress. I think that we have really won over the hearts and minds of people.” �J ill Strachan was born in making. The members sang for Athens, Greece, into a foreign different reasons, such as the close service family that returned community or to translate diverse periodically to Washington, D.C., experiences to new audiences, between stints living in many but Jill says she sang partly to countries around the world. While be visible and because she was Jill Strachan a PhD student in snowy Syracuse in “angry, angry that so many young the late 1970s, she and her girlfriend of the time decided people were dying of AIDS and no one seemed to care.” to move to D.C. after reading in the Off Our Backs feminist Unfortunately, with the multitude of new options for gay magazine about the city’s gay locations, movement, and socialization, the group dissolved in 2010. pro-gay ordinances. After moving to D.C., she got jobs as a Beyond Jill’s extensive involvement in the arts typist and later worked for a trade union while completing community, she volunteered with organizations like her dissertation on Richard Nixon as a representative SMYAL, serving on its Board of Directors, as well as religious American. Food and Friends, delivering food to HIV/ AIDS patients Over the years, Jill became increasingly involved in the throughout the city after being inspired by the agitation local LGBT arts community, serving for many years as from the ACT UP group and the March on Washington in the general manager of the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of 1987. During her time on the SMYAL board, Jill organized Washington, a GALA Choruses board member, and the many successful fundraising efforts and participated in co-founder of the LGBT Arts Consortium. The consortium important discussions on the psychological ethics involved was a network of 15 D.C.-based arts organizations from with directly serving children, and the importance of 1999 to 2012, and was founded to increase communication influencing the D.C. school board. After resigning from among LGBT arts groups and artists in the D.C. area and SMYAL’s board in 1993, she wrote a successful grant that to increase their visibility. The consortium’s innovations funded the organization’s first full-time social worker. included establishing a small stage at Capital Pride that was Jill has served as the Executive Director for the Capital more conducive to smaller community arts organizations’ Hill Arts Workshop since 2007. In this organization and in performances. An annual Gilbert and Sullivan performance others, Jill has been proud to build a sense of community, as was another memorable hallmark. an “important stepping stone to peace and the world [and] The Lesbian and Gay Chorus of Washington was a because it increases the understanding we have of others… mixed chorus, which was rare among LGBT choruses, it breaks down stereotypes.” When not working at Capital particularly for those involved in the GALA Chorus Hill Arts Workshop, Jill enjoys singing soprano in a small a organization. The Lesbian and Gay Chorus of Washington capella group, “Not What You Think,” playing and watching initially had difficulty recruiting men, but the members tennis, walking her dogs, reading, and making pies. She it did attract were staunch advocates of women’s lives with her partner, Jane Hoffman, on Capitol Hill. representation, inclusivity, and consensus-based decision Community Pioneers 2015 Page 11 �Michele Zavos I f you are in the office of attorney Michele Zavos, you can take a look at a wall covered with photographs of clients that she and her colleagues have served. The majority of the clients are from the LGBT community, and their issues involve life’s major milestones: births, marriages, parenthood and death. “These are cases that we can be really proud of—they are individuals and families that we’ve helped take care of,” she explains. “We want everyone in the office to understand and be reminded of why we do the work that we do.” Even before she began law school, Michele knew that her interests were in using the law as an agent of social justice and change. Along the way, she worked with diverse populations and causes as well as local and national organizations, both as a staff member and volunteer. Most of her practice has involved the special issues that affect the rights of LGBT residents in the D.C. area. By the 1980s, Michele knewmany f lesbians who, like her, wanted to have children. The laws and processes for gays to start families were few and poorly understood and social support was spare. In 1981, Michele and her then-partner started a group for lesbians to discuss the social, legal and logistical aspects of becoming mothers. The group started small, but grew quickly. “Every other Tuesday, sometimes up to 50 women would meet in the basement of our home,” she recalls. Eventually the core “Maybe Baby” group became the “Mothers’ Group.” Michele also became a mother with the arrival of daughter Addie. Page 12 Community Pioneers 2015 In 1985, Michele opened her first law practice, working from home so she could provide care for her daughter. She worked with clients in their estate planning, divorce, real estate, and other matters. She also worked as a consultant on AIDS-related legal issues for the American Bar Association and was a pro bono attorney for WhitmanWalker Clinic. She still frequently writes, lectures and advises on LGBT legal issues, and she has been an adjunct professor of law.   Michele has played a major role in litigation that effects the Washington LGBT community, including litigation that resulted in a Virginia Supreme Court decision requiring the Commonwealth of Virginia to place two same-sex legal parents on a child’s birth certificate. She worked to amend the D.C. Code to allow same-sex couples married in D.C. who found they were unable to divorce in another state to return to D.C. to obtain a divorce. Her proposed amendment to D.C.’s adoption laws was enacted into law, giving the District of Columbia jurisdiction to grant an adoption based solely on the birth of the child in the District. Michele says that her passion in the law is helping individual clients. “Sometimes I thought that there was something wrong with me that I wasn’t interesting in defending a case in front of the Supreme Court,” she says. “But I like working with real people who have real problems. My passion is figuring out how the law can help them.” �A nnie Kaylor, who presided in for dinner and drinks. By the over the eponymous Anearly 1960’s the restaurant had nie’s Paramount Steakwon a reputation as a kind of house for more than 50 years, sanctuary for gays. served more than strong cocktails “We wouldn’t know they were and inimitable hospitality. She gay,” Annie told Metro Weekly Annie Kaylor made the restaurant into a spot in 2006. “We just noticed that that all communities need—a place every time you turned around, to be yourself. The restaurant—still going strong on 17th we’d be filling up with guys and filling up with guys. It was Street—remains a landmark and popular social gathering a gradual thing without us even being aware of it.” spot for Washington’s gay community. Annie died in 2013. A popular story about Annie goes like this: Sometime “Because of her leadership, Annie’s became a gay in the 1960s, she noticed two men holding hands under a institution,” says longtime D.C. resident and gay rights table. She came to them and said, “You guys don’t have to activist Paul Kuntzler, who first visited the restaurant in hold hands under the table. No, no—you hold those hands 1962. “Going to dinner at Annie’s was an act associated right up here on top of that table.” with the gay community.” “Gradually, Annie made the gay cause her cause,” Paul Annie began working the night-and-weekend shift Kuntzler says. “She went out of her way to understand the at what was originally called simply the Paramount lives of the people whom she was serving and to instill her Steakhouse in 1952, four years after it was opened by her values into the restaurant staff.” brother, George Katinas. Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse was an early sponsor of At that time, the federal government persecuted gay the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, had a presence at men and lesbians. “Gay people lost jobs in government and Pride and became the site of numerous weddings of samelost security clearances for government-related jobs simply sex couples. because of sexual orientation,” Paul says. “She was like a mother to all of us,” says Paul. “It’s hard Not long after Annie began working at the restaurant, to think of anyone who wasn’t gay or lesbian who played she noticed a growing number of unattached men coming such a prominent role in the gay and lesbian community.” Community Pioneers 2015 Page 13 �Membership We are all volunteers at the Rainbow History Project. The project needs your time. It also needs your money. Memberships are an important way of financing the Project. When you become a member, you pay your annual dues. 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I’m enclosing my membership dues of: q$35 Regular Member q$50 TwoFer (two at a time/couple) q $10 Student/Fixed Income Member q $100 Very Special Person Personal Information (give as much as you are comfortable with) Name(s): Adress: City/State/ZIP: Home: Work: Fax: Email: The Rainbow History Project has several committees. If you’d like to work with one of these, please check the one you’re interested in: q Archives (organizing and preserving materials, surveying existing archives ...) q Oral History (taping, copying, transcribing and organizing oral histories ...) P Photo Credits Several photographers generously contributed their time and talent in taking the portraits of the Pioneers displayed in the Thurgood Marshall Center this evening and printed in this booklet. • The photograph of Ruby Corado is by Todd Franson | Metro Weekly. • The photograph of Annette “Chi” Hughes is by Tracey Jones. • The photograph of Jill Strachan is by Leslie Mansour. • The photographs of Jonathan Blumenthal, Eric Cohen, Susan Silber, and Michele Zavos are by Jim Marks. • The photographs of Wallace Corbett, Atul Garg, and Yassir Islam are by Richard Haight. • The remaining photographs were provided by individual Pioneers or by their friends and families. The image of the sundial on the cover was provided by Patsy Lynch Page 14 Community Pioneers 2015 Please indicate payment method: [All memberships are tax deductible.] q Check — please make payable to “The Rainbow History Project” q Cash You can also become a member online at www.rainbowhistory.org q Fundraising (looking for donations, fundraisers, gifts in kind, grants ...) q Outreach (displays, panel discussions, Pride events, representing the project ...) We appreciate your support of The Rainbow History Project’s efforts to collect, preserve, and promote our community’s memories. Send this form to: Rainbow History Project PO Box 12075 Washington, DC 20005 Visit us at www.rainbowhistory.org The Rainbow History Project is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Thank You The 2015 Community Pioneers Reception has been a labor of love by the Board of the Rainbow History Project. Considerable work has gone into taking oral histories, preparing biographies, and selecting the Pioneers we are honoring tonight. Special acknowledgment is given to the following individuals and organizations. • Jeffrey Donahoe and his team of able and enthusiastic volunteers, who interviewed the Pioneers and gathered biographical information from a variety of sources. • The Board members and volunteers who wrote the stories of the Pioneers and other items appearing on these pages. • Jim Marks, who designed, laid out, and edited this booklet. • The staff of the Thurgood Marshall Center, who have graciously permitted the Rainbow History Project to use this historic facility this evening. • The Metro DC Community Center, which will be hosting the exhibition of the Community Pioneer photos for the remainder of May. �Community Pioneers I n 2003 The Rainbow History Project established the Community Pioneer Award as a means of recognizing people whose contributions to the community merited special recognition. The recipients of this award are chosen for their pioneering work in helping to create the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community of metropolitan Washington, D.C. Below are the Community Pioneers recognized to date. Sheila Alexander-Reid Robert Alfandre A. Cornelius Baker Vic Basile Christopher Bates Joan E. Biren/JEB Dr. Melvin Boozer Barrett Brick Earline Budd Colevia Carter David Catania Carlene Cheatam Lou Chibbaro, Jr. Rev. Dr. Rainey Cheeks Barbara Chinn Keith Monroe Clark James ‘Juicy’ Coleman Toni Collins James ‘Hawk’ Crutchfield Mindy Daniels Dr. Richard DiGioia Mary Farmer Eva Freund Leti Gomez Paulette Goodman Jim Graham Jose Gutierrez Dr. Patricia D. Hawkins Essex Hemphill Susan Hester Leonard Hirsch Dr. Theo W. Hodge Jr. Craig Howell Dr. Loraine Hutchins ABilly S Jones-Hennin Dr. Franklin E. Kameny Paul Kuntzler Patsy Lynch Deacon Maccubbin Valerie Papaya Mann Ric Mendoza James Edward Mercer Robert Miailovich Don Michaels Jack Nichols Philip Pannell Michelle Parkerson Bruce Pennington Carl Rizzi/Mame Dennis Donnell Robinson/Ella Fitzgerald Rick Rosendall Randy Shulman Rev. Dr. Candace Shultis Dr. Ron Simmons Cheryl Spector Larry Stansbury Bob Summersgill Otis ‘Buddy’ Sutson Nancy Tucker Larry J. Uhrig Lilli Vincenz Stefan Wade Cade Ware Jessica Xavier Dr. James Zais Community Pioneers 2015 Page 15 �Lost Lesbian Spaces: A Panel Discussion When: Noon-1 p.m. June 16. 2015 Where: Library of Congress, LM-139 Madison Building, 1st Floor 101 Independence Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20540 Please join Library Congress GLOBE in association with the Rainbow History Project as we explore the swift disappearances of women's bars, bookstores, and festivals in recent years. Local experts Denise Bump, Natalie Illium and Bonnie Morris will discuss questions such as: How will we remember spaces such as Sisterfire, Mothertongue, the Hung Jury, Lammas Books, and more? Will we see new cultural spaces for lesbian expression emerge in our nation's capital? And how do we archive the recent past? Bring your lunch, your stories, your ideas. For more information, please contact ehawkins@loc.gov. Please request ADA accommodations at least 5 days in advance at 202-707-6362 or ada@loc.gov. Top: Lammas Capitol Hill tentrrance. Bottom: Lammas founder/ owner Mary Farmer, Lammas book buyer Susanna Sturgis and printer Tina Lunson celebrate a Lammas anniversary (photo courtesy of Susanna Sturgis) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Community Pioneers Collections, 30 Alternative Title An alternative name for the resource. The distinction between titles and alternative titles is application-specific. <a href="https://rainbowhistory.omeka.net/exhibits/show/pioneers" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Community Pioneers: Creators of DC's LGBTQ Communities</a> [Online Exhibit] Description An account of the resource This collection contains contemporary photographs of community pioneers. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Rainbow History Project Community Pioneers 2015 Reception Booklet Subject The topic of the resource Rainbow History Project of Washington, D.C. Community Pioneers Description An account of the resource This booklet introduces the Rainbow History Project and its Community Pioneer Award. The booklet provides profiles of each of the 2015 award recipients. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=March+14%2C+2015">March 14, 2015</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=47&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Reproduction+and+use+of+this+material+requires+permission+from+the+copyright+holder.+Please+contact+the+Rainbow+History+Project+for+more+information.%0D%0A">Reproduction and use of this material requires permission from the copyright holder. Please contact the Rainbow History Project for more information. </a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF