The group submitted two applications, one using the word gay, the other turned in later and badly written but with no mention of being a gay group—the second application was accepted. The Chicago Defender newspaper's charity arm, which in the 1940s took over operation of the parade, turned down the gay group, and the legal action started. Assisted by the newly forming Chicago office of the Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, APBLG fought back against Defender Charities. It filed a complaint with the Chicago Commission on Human Relations. APBLG and Lambda convinced the Defender to settle out of court, and its members marched near the front of the parade.

In August 1993 and in two subsequent years, the gay contingent received an almost universally warm acceptance from the crowd. Besides Layne, key people involved were Stephanie Betts, Julianna Cole, Karen Hutt, Saundra Johnson, Karen Long, Lisa Marie Pickens, Stephanie Stephens, Valeria Lopez, Robert T. Ford, Michael O'Connor, Michael Harrington, Michael Norman Haynes, Max Smith, and Shelton Watson. Otis Richardson videotaped the marches.

The bold move to be out where you live, or with your ethnic community, inspired the Association of Latin Men in Action, Amigas Latinas and others to march in parades such as those for Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and even St. Patrick's Day. In 2007, the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays suburban group marched openly in the Crystal Lake Independence Day Parade—their determination reminiscent of that 1993 Bud Billiken Parade.

The Fight Within and

Beyond the Gay Community

Chicago's gay community is a reflection of the greater divisions within the city, which is among the nation's most racially segregated. Many generations grew up in homogeneous neighborhoods with stereotypes that were played up in the media and by politicians. The violent 1960s demonstrations on the city's West Side showed that a northern city like Chicago could seem just as racist as those in the nation's South.

The Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 1970s provided a training ground for both Black and white gay activists. Many of Chicago's gay activists grew up in that era, and some of the white ones learned important lessons about diversity, while others remained isolationist, treating people of color as tokens or, worse, trying to keep them out of gay bars and neighborhoods.

The Chicago Gay Alliance of the early 1970s had a Black caucus, but it soon broke away to become Third World Gay Revolutionaries. The fight for identity for African-Americans took many forms: political, cultural, social, athletic and spiritual. Sons of Sappho had been a long-time Black lesbian group, going back to the 1940s: Earnestine Medley and Yvonne Hudson were two of the club's early pioneers.

Some African-American gays worked within predominantly white organizations. Others formed independent Black gay groups, and still others worked as out gay people within mainstream groups such as Operation PUSH. When lesbian bars were carding Blacks more than whites, Pat McCombs fought legally for the right to enter, but also helped create safe spaces for African-American lesbians with business partner Vera Washington. Their Executive Sweet organization still plays an important social role nearly three decades later.

Because of AIDS, the out African-American gay community became larger and more organized in the 1980s, starting organizations such as Kupona Network and Image PLUS ( co-founded by Earnest E. Hite Jr., who died in 2008 ) . Men and women of all colors came together in AIDS organizations, to provide services and to ACT UP. The Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1980 presidential campaign and the support of gay issues by the Rev. Willie Barrow, an Operation PUSH leader whose son died of AIDS, helped to cement strong ties between non-gay and gay African-Americans. While some Black churches shunned their gay members, others opened their arms. And Black politicians in Chicago were overwhelmingly supportive of gay rights, with few exceptions.

But by the 1990s it was clear that Black gays needed their own institutions to wage a battle on two fronts—the mainstream and the gay community—for visibility, power and access to resources. Key leaders emerged through Chicago Black Lesbians and Gays, a critical unifying agency that brought together individuals and representatives from other organizations. CBLG hosted national Unity conferences, an annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast and other events.

Church of the Open Door provided religious services. Yahimba held important conferences in the 1990s for Black lesbians, and Literary Exchange still provides support for Black women writers. The presentation of Bayard Rustin Awards by Derrick Hicks' Greater Chicago Committee was an important community event every year it was held, in the early 1990s. Affinity Community Services started for South Side African-American lesbians and is among the city's most important agencies in the 2000s. Adodi, for African-American gay men, has been a longtime core of the community, with members including Max Smith and Alden Bell keeping it networked with the national movement.

Talents of Chicago has provided social outlets for Black gays, as have DJ Sheron Denise Webb and the late Chef Tania Callaway. Onyx created a safe space for Black leathermen. A Real Read in the 1990s and early 2000s introduced Chicago to a new generation of performers, some of them still active in the 2000s in the amazing POW WOW poetry slam group. Lorraine Sade Baskerville and her Transgenesis group mounted an important interracial trans effort, and Baskerville was a frequent speaker at gay events until she moved out of town. Art “Chat Daddy” Sims is a party host and columnist working to build bridges between many communities.

Richard Gray has created a photo exhibit showing the faces of African-American gays and lesbians. New generations of Black gays are creating spaces for youth, and “houses” that take the place of parents who have kicked out their gay teens. The Chicago Black Gay Men's Caucus, including the Rev. Kevin Tindell, is continuing the battle for HIV education.

In the media, Robert Ford's Thing 'zine was around for just a few years but had a huge impact. It was followed for 10 years by BLACKlines. BLACKlines merged with En La Vida to become Identity, an online-only publication. Vernita Gray, Max Smith, Donna Weems, Earnest Hite, Lynnell Stephani Long, and others have contributed to BLACKlines and other Windy City Media Group Publications. Kevin's Room, a wonderful three-part film series about Black gays and AIDS, has had a national impact, thanks to the work of Lora Branch.

On spiritual issues, the Rev. Deborah Lake has started Sankofa Way in the 2000s, and some mainstream Black churches are further trying to embrace their gay members.

The battles in the 2000s will continue to be against the disproportionate impact of AIDS on the Black gay community and for making sure that Black gay youth, and gay seniors, receive the services they need. There are also divisions within the Black gay community, including competing Black Pride events, which show that the community is struggling with unity but is large enough to support multiple projects.

Many longtime activists from the African-American gay community have played integral roles in the wider community's gay and lesbian activism, including Mary Morten, Lora Branch, Vernita Gray, Jackie Anderson, Richard Gray, Israel Wright, Steve Wakefield, Chris Smith, Max Smith, Renae Ogletree, Natalie Hutchison, Lloyd Kelly, the Rev. Juan Reed, Ronald Wadley, Sherri Jackson, Sanford Gaylord, Byron Stewart, C.C. Carter, Gladys Croom, Melba Poole, Vada Vernee, Ted Dobbins, Barb Smith, Michael Harrington, Michael O'Connor and hundreds more, including those who have died: E. Kitch Childs, Ortez Alderson, Earnest Hite, Charles Clifton, Thom Ford, Troy Ford, Derrick Hicks and Chris Cothran. Many have worked to dismantle individual and institutional racism, at a high cost personally but in an effort to change both the gay community's and mainstream society's stereotypes of what it means to be ( to paraphrase lesbian playwright Lorraine Hansberry ) “young, gifted, Black—and gay.”

From Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Community, edited by Tracy Baim, Surrey Books, 2008.