Stonewall 50 Ofrenda

David Bowie 1947-2016 Alvin Ailey Jr. was an internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer. He founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a dance company hailed as an ambassador of American culture. Ailey formed a multiracial company and revolutionized dance, incorporating elements of ballet and jazz, along with modern and African dance, into his work. Ailey [...]

Alvin Ailey, Jr. 1931-1989 Alvin Ailey Jr. was an internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer. He founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a dance company hailed as an ambassador of American culture. Ailey formed a multiracial company and revolutionized dance, incorporating elements of ballet and jazz, along with modern and African dance, into his work. [...]

Barbara Gittings 1932-2007 Barbara Gittings is regarded as the mother of the LGBT civil rights movement. In the 1950s gay activism was in its infancy. “There were scarcely 200 of us in the whole United States,” Gittings said of her fellow crusaders. “It was like a club—we all knew each other.” Although Gittings lived in [...]

Carrie Ann Lucas 1971-2019 Carrie Ann Lucas was a lawyer, disability rights advocate, and activist in the United States. She founded Disabled Parents Rights, an organization to fight discrimination against parents with disabilities. In addition to fighting for parents’ rights in Colorado and nationally, she also worked to combat “right to die” legislation. With others [...]

Frank Kameny 1925-2011 Frank Kameny was the chief strategist and father of the LGBT civil rights movement. The nonviolence of black civil rights organizers Bayard Rustin and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. influenced his methods. A World War II veteran with a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Kameny worked as an astronomer for the [...]

Jeanne Cordova 1948-2016 Jeanne Córdova was a pioneering feminist and lesbian rights activist who helped lead the LGBT movement on the West Coast of the United States. She launched numerous civil rights and community organizations. For most of her life, she worked as a journalist and author. Her autobiography, When We Were Outlaws: A Memoir [...]

John J. Kelly 1941-2018 John was born in Illion, New York. He worked throughout school in various clubs and joined the military out of high school. He was stationed in Libya during the Cold War, serving in the military from 1959 until 1967. While on active duty, he was investigated for being gay. Yet, because [...]

Storme De Larverie 1921-2014 Ever since Stonewall became an important part of LGBTQ history, there has been a persistent and difficult-to-answer question: who threw the first punch? Some reports indicated that it was a woman who landed a blow on a police officer, thus setting off the riots. Some researchers took it further and said [...]

Ma Rainey 1882 or 1886-1939 Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey (1882 or 1886 - 1939) was a singer who popularized the “classic blues” style through her performances throughout the U.S. in the 1910s and 1920s and through nearly 100 recordings made between 1923 and 1928. In New York, she performed at the Lincoln Theater in Harlem and [...]

Audre Lorde 1934-1992 Audre Lorde was a writer and activist who was born in New York City and started writing poetry in her early teens. Her first poem was published by Seventeen magazine when she was still in high school. She described herself as a “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” and dedicated her life and [...]