Everette Lynn HarrisĮverette Lynn Harris (J– July 23, 2009) was an openly gay American author who was best known for his depictions of African-American men who were on the down-low and in the closet. In his autobiography, Duke Ellington noted what he considered Strayhorn's 'four major moral freedoms': freedom from hate, unconditionally freedom from self-pity freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might possibly help another more than it might himself freedom from the kind of pride that might make a man think that he was better than his brother or his neighbor. Martin Luther King, Jr., and arranged 'King Fit the Battle of Alabama'' for the Ellington Orchestra. She also lectures at events nationwide and was an honorary co-chair at the 2017 Women's March on Washington.īilly Strayhorn (Novem– May 31, 1967) was a gifted composer who is best known for his collaboration with Duke Ellington and wrote the jazz standard “Take the A-Train.” He was a brilliant jazz artist – indisputably a genius – and many claim he could have been as famous as Ellington, but for the fact that he chose live as an openly gay man knowing the limitations it would place on his life and career. Davis now works as a professor and activist who advocates for LGBTQ rights, gender equity, prison abolition, and anti-racism. In 1997, she came out as a lesbian during an interview with Out Magazine. She later co-founded Critical Resistance, an organization working to abolish prisons. Davis was charged with aiding the attempted escape of Jackson and served roughly 18 months in jail before her acquittal in 1972. Many thought these prisoners were being used as scapegoats because of political work within the prison. Cluchette, Fleeta Drumgo, and George Lester Jackson-were accused of killing a prison guard after several African American inmates had been killed in a fight by another guard. Outside of academia, Davis had become a strong supporter of three prison inmates of Soledad Prison. She fought the administration in court and was reinstated. In her early life as an academic she was hired to teach at the University of California in Los Angeles, Davis was fired for her association with communism. She began her life as an organizer as a teenager when she organized interracial study groups, which were then broken up by the police. Angela DavisĪngela Davis is best known as a radical Black educator, author, and activist for civil rights and other social justice issues. He also helped organize and participated in the nation’s first ever meeting between a sitting president and leaders of the LGBTQ community. Boykin served in the White House as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton, where he was once the highest ranking openly gay person in the Clinton White House. His four books have all been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, including his most recent book, “For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Still Not Enough.” That work also won the American Library Association Stonewall Award for Nonfiction in 2013. Boykin co-founded the National Black Justice Coalition, a Washington-based civil rights organization dedicated to fighting racism and homophobia.

He also teaches at the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University.

Keith Boykin is a CNN political commentator, New York Times best-selling author, journalist, actor and public speaker.

Black icons