Related Links

20 Years Later, GLAA Remembers Mel Boozer 08/16/00 GAA President Mel Boozer Addresses 1980 Democratic National Convention (complete text) GLAA: a brief history and timeline Blacklight Interview with Melvin Boozer (includes photo) 1980 Blacklight Online: Who's Who in Gay Politics, by Melvin Boozer 1983 Blacklight Online: Past as Prologue National Association of Black & White Men Together: Memorial Africana.com: Gay and Lesbian Movements in the United States See also: Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney, Out for Good, 1999, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, p. 418-420.

Summersgill corrects record on historic convention speech

[Note: A condensed version of a similar letter, in response to a syndicated column by Chuck Colbert in the August 20 issue of The Dallas Morning News, was printed in that newspaper on September 2, 2000.]

August 22, 2000

Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071
[via email to letters@washpost.com]

To the Editor:

Ruth Marcus' article entitled " 'Pink Money' Flowing to Democrats" [August 18, 2000] states that Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, is "the first leader of a gay organization to speak at a national political convention . . . ." This is incorrect.

Twenty years ago, in 1980, Mel Boozer, then President of the Gay Activists Alliance of Washington DC, addressed the Democratic National Convention in New York City, his name having been placed in nomination for the office of Vice President of the United States. Though Mel Boozer spoke to withdraw his candidacy, his historic address as the first leader of a gay organization to speak at a national political convention should not be forgotten, nor should his challenging words:

"Would you ask me how I'd dare to compare the civil rights struggle with the struggle for lesbian and gay rights? I can compare, and I do compare them. I know what it means to be called a nigger. I know what it means to be called a faggot. And I can sum up the difference in one word: none."

Sadly, Mel Boozer is no longer with us. But it was his efforts and his achievements that paved the way for people such as Elizabeth Birch to follow in his footsteps two decades later.

Sincerely,

Bob Summersgill, President
Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC