Michelle Obama received loads of praise last month when, at an event for gay Democrats, the potential first lady said, “We are all only here because of those who marched and bled and died, from Selma to Stonewall, in the pursuit of a more perfect union.”
The “Selma” of which Mrs. Obama spoke refers to a 1965 march in Selma, Alabama, when police beat back civil rights activists trying to march to Montgomery as a protest to a black teenager’s shooting. The event immediately became known as Bloody Sunday. The “Stonewall” of which Mrs Obama spoke, of course, refers to the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, widely seen as the launch of the contemporary gay rights movement. With that geographical reference, Obama sought to - and succeeded in - linking the civil and gay rights movements. The crowd - and the press - went wild, but not everyone agrees with Obama’s optimism.
Editor
Lauren Williams Editor-at-Large
Cord Jefferson Editorial Director
David Hauslaib Managing Editor
Andrew Belonsky Publisher
Jossip Initiatives
All Hip Hop
The Assimilated Negro
The B Life
Black Agenda Report
Black Male Appreciation
Black Prof
Black Voices
Bossip
Cake & Ice Cream
Clips and Kisses
Clutch Magazine
Concrete Loop
Crunk & Disorderly
Essence
EUR Web
The Fashion Bomb
Giant
Greasy Guide
Hip Candy
HipHopDX
Hip & Pop
Juicy News
King
Miss Info
Mollygood
My Urban Report
Nah Right
Necole Bitchie
Nova Slim
Panache Report
Racialicious
The Rap Up
Rhymes With Snitch
Sandra Rose
Shake Your Beauty
Straight Outta NYC
SOHH
TMZ
Vibe
Wendy Williams
XXL
Young, Black, Fabulous
Any Historians here??? Please help me out.
My mind runs blank when it comes to names& events right now but…
One of the biggest blk civil rights heroes was openly gay Bayard Rustin. He organized the March on Washington along with A.Philip Randolph of the brotherhood of the sleeping car porters. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.(?) threatened to start a rumor saying that he and Dr. King where gay if he didn't back down about or from________.
I agree with Michelle
I agree with Michelle as well and hopefully, news sources pick this up and label it the "black position" since they are so eager to do so in other areas. Michelle hath spoken. It is so.
Maybe if black people hear it repeatedly on the news, they'll adopt those views.
I agree w/ M. Obama, but I'm not so optimistic about the ability of a lot of black people, especially very religious ones, to get on board with this. I was terribly disappointed with how many black pastors came out strongly against gay marriage when that debate was hot in Massachusetts, even though it paralleled the old debate on interracial marriage so closely. It's the same way I feel sometimes about Israel: With all these millennia of being oppressed and cast out unjustly, you would hope Jews could rise above that once they got their own state, but, well, they haven't. I always want people who are members of traditionally oppressed groups to find common cause with other traditionally oppressed groups, but well-ingrained prejudices and the human instinct to dislike people you don't understand are apparently not so easily beaten down with logical and historical arguments.
Still, good for M.O. for taking that stance. I join Daria in hoping that this will make it a little safer for black people (well, all people, but especially black people) to embrace gay rights.