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Obama, civil rights advocates commemorate March on Washington

Several speakers on steps of Lincoln Memorial referenced LGBT issues

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Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Barack Obama, 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, Lincoln Memorial, gay news, Washington Blade
Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Barack Obama, 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, Lincoln Memorial, gay news, Washington Blade, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, Jimmy Carter

Clockwise from top left: Ambassador Andrew Young, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy, President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 2013. (Washington Blade photo by Jon Wooten)

More than 100,000 people on Wednesday gathered on on the National Mall to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.

President Obama, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, Oprah Winfrey, Georgia Congressman John Lewis, U.S. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine,) U.S. Reps. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and JoaquĆ­n Castro (D-Texas,) Revs. Al Sharpton and Joseph Lowery, Myrlie Evers Williams, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie and Dolores Huerta who co-founded what became known as the United Farm Workers are among those who spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Two of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.,ā€™s children ā€“ Martin Luther King, III, and Rev. Bernice King ā€“ and the slain civil rights leaderā€™s sister, Christine King Farris, also addressed the crowd.

ā€œBecause they marched, America became more free and more fair ā€” not just for African Americans, but for women and Latinos, Asians and Native Americans; for Catholics, Jews and Muslims; for gays, for Americans with a disability,ā€ Obama said. ā€œAmerica changed for you and for me, and the entire world drew strength from that example.ā€

The president said the 1963 March on Washington during which Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous ā€œI Have a Dreamā€ speech ā€œteaches us that we are not trapped by the mistakes of history; that we are masters of our fate.ā€ Obama stressed unity, while saying Americans will have to ā€œreignite the embers of empathy and fellow feeling, the coalition of conscienceā€ he said participants of the historic 1963 gathering expressed 50 years ago.

ā€œThat spirit is there,ā€ Obama said. ā€œI see it when a white mother recognizes her own daughter in the face of a poor black child. I see it when the black youth thinks of his own grandfather in the dignified steps of an elderly white man. Itā€™s there when the native-born recognizing that striving spirit of the new immigrant; when the interracial couple connects the pain of a gay couple who are discriminated against and understands it as their own.ā€

LGBT speakers who spoke during the 1963 March on Washington commemoration on Wednesday included Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) Executive Director Eliza Byard, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Mary Kay Henry. Alan van Capelle, the former executive director of the New York LGBT group Empire State Pride Agenda who is now the CEO of Bend the Arc, a Jewish social justice organization, also addressed the crowd.

ā€œWe may be closer to full legal equality; but we are far, far far from justice,ā€ van Capelle said as he spoke out against a number of issues that include the New York Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy and anti-LGBT employment discrimination. ā€œWe are far from justice when a gay, lesbian or transgender person can be fired from their job simply because of who they are.ā€

A number of other speakers included LGBT-specific remarks in their speeches.

Mee Moua, president of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said the slain civil rights leaderā€™s vision for the country is ā€œinclusive of all America.ā€

ā€œHis call to action invites each America: Asian America, black America, Hispano/Latino America, Native America, GLBTQ America, white America and men and women of America to take inspiration from our own circumstances,ā€ Moua said. ā€œAnd to know the price of freedom is the commitment to ensuring the security of liberty and justice for all.ā€

Maryland Gov. Martin Oā€™Malley noted his support of gay nuptials in his remarks.

Bernice King, who opposes marriage rights for same-sex couples, said the country has seen ā€œgreat strides towards freedom for allā€ regardless of sexual orientation and other factors since the 1963 March on Washington and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other landmark civil rights measures.

ā€œIt doesnā€™t matter whether youā€™re black or white, Latino, Asian America or Native American, whether youā€™re gay or straight,ā€ Lewis, who is the last living speaker from the original March on Washington, said. ā€œWeā€™re one people, weā€™re one family. We all live in the same houseā€”not just the American house; the world house.ā€

The commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington took place four days after Martin Luther King, III, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and others linked LGBT equality to the broader civil rights movement during a separate gathering on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that marked the landmark event.

Speakers honor Bayard Rustin

Ben Jealous, NAACP, March on Washington, gay news, Washington Blade

Ben Jealous, NAACP president and CEO (Washington Blade photo by Jon Wooten)

Byard is among those who paid tribute to Bayard Rustin, the gay man who organized the 1963 March on Washington, during their remarks at the Lincoln Memorial.

ā€œA movement spoke through him, but the world would not yet embrace him as a gay man,ā€ Byard said. ā€œToday, LGBT voices are welcomed to this stage.ā€

Kristin Stoneking, executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, noted Rustin was also a Quaker and a pacifist.

ā€œHe refused to accept war by denying societyā€™s expectation that he be straight,ā€ she said.

Jealous noted to the Washington Blade during an interview after he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial the slain civil rights leaders backed Rustin in the years leading up to the original March on Washington and during the event itself.

ā€œHe made sure that Bayard, who was as out as anyone in 1963, was visible,ā€ Jealous said. ā€œThose small acts of courage magnify overtime and become transformative and set benchmarks and bars for the rest of us in our own lives and ultimately in our own politics.ā€

Van Capelle also discussed Rustinā€™s legacy with the Blade before he traveled to D.C. to speak at the March on Washington commemoration.

ā€œIā€™ll be thinking as much about Bayard Rustin as Iā€™ll be thinking about King, and how happy Bayard Rustin would probably be 50 years later to know that this country is embracing the civil rights of LGBT Americans,ā€ van Capelle said.

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National

Trump refers to Anderson Cooper as ā€˜Allisonā€™

Crude insults continue in effort to attract male voters

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Donald Trump is referring to CNNā€™s Anderson Cooper as ā€˜Allison.ā€™

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump referred repeatedly over the weekend to CNNā€™s Anderson Cooper as ā€œAllison Cooper.ā€

Cooper, one of the nationā€™s most prominent openly gay television anchors, moderated a town hall last week with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump last Friday called Anderson ā€œAllisonā€ in a social media post, then used the moniker again at a Michigan rally.

ā€œIf you watched her being interviewed by Allison Cooper the other night, heā€™s a nice person. You know Allison Cooper? CNN fake news,ā€ Trump said, before adding, ā€œOh, she said no, his name is Anderson. Oh, no.ā€

Trump repeated the name during another Michigan rally on Saturday, according to the Associated Pres, then followed it up during a reference in Pennsylvania. ā€œThey had a town hall,ā€ Trump said in Michigan. ā€œEven Allison Cooper was embarrassed by it. He was embarrassed by it.ā€

Describing Anderson Cooper as female plays into offensive and stereotypical depictions of gay men as effeminate as Trump continues to pursue the so-called ā€œbro vote,ā€ amping up crude and vulgar displays in an effort to appeal to male voters.

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Pennsylvania

Transgender Honduran woman canvasses for Harris in Pa.

Monserrath Aleman is CASA in Action volunteer

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Monserrath Aleman, a transgender woman in Honduras, has canvassed in Pennsylvania for Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democratic candidates. (Photo by Phil Laubner/CASA in Action)

A transgender woman from Honduras has traveled to Pennsylvania several times in recent weeks to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democratic candidates.

Monserrath Aleman traveled to York on Aug. 31 and Lancaster on Sept. 21 with a group of other volunteers from CASA in Action. 

They door-knocked in areas where large numbers of African Americans, Black, and Latino voters live. Aleman and the other CASA in Action volunteers urged them to support Harris, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and other down ballot Democratic candidates.

Aleman will be in Harrisburg on Nov. 2, and in York on Election Day.

“We achieved the goal that we had in mind and that we wanted to achieve,” she told the Washington Blade on Oct. 22 during a Zoom interview from Baltimore. “We knocked on doors, passed out flyers.”

Aleman cited Project 2025 ā€” which the Congressional Equality Caucus on Thursday sharply criticized ā€” when she spoke with the Blade.

“We know that there is a Project 2025 plan that would affect us: The entire immigrant Latino community, the LGBTI community, everyone,” said Aleman. “So that’s why I’m more motivated to go knocking on doors, to ask for help, for support from everyone who can vote, who can exercise their vote.”

She told the Blade that she and her fellow volunteers “did not have any bad response.”

Aleman grew up in Yoro, a city that is roughly 130 miles north of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.

She left Honduras on Nov. 25, 2021.

Aleman entered Mexico in Palenque, a city in the country’s Chiapas state that is close to the border with Guatemala. The Mexican government granted her a humanitarian visa that allowed her to legally travel through the country.

Aleman told the Blade she walked and took buses to Ciudad JuƔrez, a Mexican border city that is across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

She scheduled her appointment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection while living at a shelter in Ciudad JuĆ”rez.Ā Aleman now lives in Baltimore.

“Discrimination against the LGBTI community exists everywhere, but in Honduras it is more critical,” said Aleman.

Aleman added she feels “more free to express herself, to speak with someone” in the U.S. She also said she remains optimistic that Harris will defeat former President Donald Trump on Election Day.

“There is no other option,” said Aleman.

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National

HRC rallies LGBTQ voters in 12 states ahead of Election Day

10 Days of Action campaign targets pro-equality candidate

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Human Rights Campaign headquarters (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Human Rights Campaign said it filled 1,426 new volunteer shifts and held 174 events across key swing states between Oct. 10-20 as part of its 10 Days of Action campaign.Ā 

The LGBTQ civil rights advocacy group is working to mobilize and turn out voters in support of pro-equality and LGBTQ candidates, including the Harris-Walz ticket, on Election Day.

HRC reported exceeding its recruitment goals, noting the strong response across the 12 states as a ā€œclear and resounding messageā€ that LGBTQ and allied voters are energized to back the Harris-Walz ticket. 

To kick off the 10 Days of Action, Gwen Walz, the spouse of Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, spoke at a Philadelphia event that HRC and the Out for Harris-Walz coalition hosted on Oct. 10.

Walz highlighted her husbandā€™s long-standing support for LGBTQ issues, such as his role in fighting to repeal “Donā€™t Ask, Donā€™t Tell” in Congress and banning so-called conversion therapy as governor, according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.Ā 

Other events launched canvassing efforts for Senate candidates, such as U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), along with House candidates, such as Will Rollins and Mondaire Jones in California and New York respectively. 

A virtual organizing call on Oct. 11 that the Out for Harris-Walz coalition hosted featured prominent figures, including actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Andy Cohen, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), and Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride, who is running for Congress.

To close out the 10 Days of Action, HRC President Kelley Robinson canvassed with LGBTQ organizers in Phoenix on Oct. 20. 

In a statement, Robinson said the campaignā€™s work is ā€œfar from over.ā€

ā€œWe plan to spend every day until the election making sure everyone we know is registered to vote and has a plan to vote because no one is going to give us the future we deserve ā€” we have to fight for it and show America that when we show up, equality wins,ā€ she said. ā€œTogether, we will elect pro-equality leaders like Vice President Harris and Governor Walz who value our communities and are ready to lead us forward with more freedom and opportunity.ā€

A September HRC poll found that LGBTQ voters favor Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the presidential race by a nearly 67-point margin.

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