OPEN LETTER FROM LGBT ACTIVISTS TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY OF BEDFORD-STUYVESANT

We ask other LGBT activists in NYC and nationally to join us in signing this important solidarity message. Sign on at: lgbt4sonnystreet@gmail.com .

We the undersigned--lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, gender-nonconforming, and other activists fighting oppression based on sexuality, gender and sex--express our support for the right of the Black community in Brooklyn to decide to rename an avenue for the late Black community activist Sonny Abubadika Carson, who some called the "Mayor of Bed-Sty" for his long-time community activism.

The white members of the New York City Council, led by Speaker Christine Quinn, does not speak for us when it tries to block the right to honor Sonny Abubadika Carson by charging that he was "anti-white." That political charge that the anger in nationally-oppressed communities towards the oppressor nation is "reverse racism" is a white supremacist weapon.

Many Brooklyn streets still bear the name of slave owners. And Quinn helped get a measure passed to name a Brooklyn street for Al Jolson, a white singer who performed in "blackface" as part minstrel shows.

This racist stance flies in the face of a long history by LGBT people who worked to build solidarity, between oppressed people in this city: from the four-day, multiracial Stonewall Rebellion in the West Village in 1969 to the solidarity between the Gay Liberation Front and the Black Panthers in the early '70s to the many AIDS activist campaigns of the past two decades demanding life-saving government action for ALL communities assaulted by this epidemic.

We as people of all nationalities express our solidarity with the Black community of Bedford-Stuyvesant. We demand that the City Council respect the right of Brooklyn 's Black community to self-determination by officially recognizing what the community has already made a reality: Sonny Abubadika Carson Boulevard .

We ask other LGBT activists in NYC and nationally to join us in signing this important solidarity message. Sign on at: lgbt4sonnystreet@gmail.com.

in Solidarity! 

Endorsers as of 7/19/07

Vanessa Agard-Jones, Managing Editor, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, New York
Wayne Bryant, Bisexual Writer/Activist
The Rev. Pat Bumgardner
Susan Elizabeth Davis, National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981*
LeiLani Dowell, FIST--Fight Imperialism, Stand Together
Shelley Ettinger
Tim Eubanks, Austin, TX
Kenyon Farrow, Black Gay Writer and Activist
Leslie Feinberg, Managing Editor, Workers World newspaper
Gael Guevara, Brooklyn, NY
Marsha Goldberg
Liz Green, Member, Women's Fightback Network
Martha Grevatt, former National Secretary, Pride At Work--AFL-CIO*
Teresa Gutierrez, Organizer, May 1 Coalition for Immigrant Rights
Jesse Lokahi Heiwa
Imani Henry, Playwright/ Performer, Brooklyn , N.Y.
Beverly Hiestand, CWA Local 1168
Lourdes Hunter
D'Angelo Johnson, Human and Transgender Rights Activist
Lani Ka'ahumanu, BiNetUSA*
Bob Lederer, Queer liberation and Anti-racist Activist, Resistance in Brooklyn *
Victor Lee Lewis, Diversity Activist, Center for Diversity Leadership, Berkeley , CA
Joan Marquardt
Bob McCubbin, formerly of the San Francisco Gay Liberation Front
Sebastian Pernice, Resident of Greenwich Village, NYC
Andre' Powell, member, Baltimore Metro AFL-CIO Central Labor Council *
Minnie Bruce Pratt, National Women's Fightback Network
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Gloria Rubac, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement
Bob Schwartz, Gay Liberation Network, Chicago * 
Leslie Senior
Shante Paradigm Smalls, Executive Producer of Peace Out East NYC's Annual LGBTQ hip hop festival
Shawnta Smith, Lesbian Librarian, Home owner and Resident in Bedford Stuyvesant
Jessica Stern
Craig Teichen, Chicago's Gay Liberation Network*
RJ Thompson, US Human Rights Network*
Ananda Timpane

*For Identification Purposes Only