By JULIE SCHARPER and WESLEY CASE | Soon after Jim Becker came out as gay in 1967, he ducked into a Mount Vernon bar called Leon’s.

In the dark, smoky bar, men used pseudonyms for fear of being outed, as homosexual acts were illegal in Maryland. Bartenders, wary of vice squad raids, would blow a whistle if couples leaned in for a kiss.

But to Becker, arriving at Leon’s was a kind of homecoming. He could explore his identity, connect with other gay men and build community in the anxious years before the 1969 Stonewall uprising, a pivotal moment in the LGBTQ rights movement.

The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

Sometimes I wonder whether home is a place or a feeling.

I have lived in places where I never imagined I would stay. I have crossed borders I never expected to cross and spent years in refugee communities where people wake up each morning wondering what the future will bring. I have known Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, spent time in Zambia and South Africa, and now live in Gorom Refugee Settlement in South Sudan.

So, when I think about migration, I don’t think first about passports, borders, statistics, or immigration offices.

I think about people.

I think about the mother who leaves everything behind because she wants her children to survive. I think about the young person crossing a border with little more than a phone, a few clothes, and memories of a life that may no longer exist. I think about the refugee who has spent years waiting for a durable solution and still doesn’t know where they will eventually call home.

Migration is often described simply as movement from one place to another. But sometimes it is much more than that.

It can mean leaving behind a version of yourself.

Africa has always been moving

Africa’s migration story did not begin with modern refugee camps or today’s international borders.

People have moved across this continent for generations. They have followed trade routes, searched for pasture and water, moved for marriage, education and employment, escaped conflict, and built new communities elsewhere.

Migration has always been part of African life.

Today, people move for many different reasons. Some flee war and political instability. Others escape persecution or discrimination. Some leave because they cannot find work or see a future for themselves. Others migrate to study, find employment, start businesses, join family members or simply seek new opportunities. There is an important distinction here.

Not every African migrant is a refugee.

A refugee is someone forced to leave because returning home is unsafe. An asylum seeker is someone seeking protection and waiting for a decision on their claim. Exile can mean living away from one’s homeland, sometimes unwillingly. The diaspora is broader still: it includes people of African origin living outside their country or continent, whether they left by choice or were forced to leave.

These words matter because behind each one is a human story.

When leaving is not a choice

I know what it means when leaving is no longer a choice.

Forced displacement takes something from you that is difficult to explain. You may still have your memories, your language and perhaps a few possessions, but the ordinary things that once made life predictable can disappear.

You begin again.

Sometimes you begin again in another country. Sometimes you begin again in a refugee camp.

My experiences in Kakuma taught me that displacement does not necessarily end when you cross a border and reach somewhere safer. The uncertainty can continue for years.

Now, in Gorom Refugee Settlement, I see that uncertainty in the lives of people around me. Mothers worry about food and the health of their children. Young people wonder whether they will return to education. Others wait for resettlement or another safe pathway while trying to build a life with very limited resources. There is a strange feeling in waiting.

You are physically present somewhere, but mentally you may still be traveling towards a future you cannot see.

What happens to identity?

One of the hardest questions migration raises is: Who am I when I am no longer where I came from?

A person can cross a border in a few hours. Identity doesn’t move that quickly.

You carry your accent.

You carry your food.

You carry your mother’s stories.

You carry songs you heard as a child.

You carry the names of people who may never know where you ended up.

You carry memories.

And sometimes you carry pain.

I have met people who have lived in several countries and can no longer give a simple answer when asked where they are from. They may have been born in one country, grown up in another, lived in a refugee settlement somewhere else and now dream of resettling in a fourth.

Does that make them less African?

I don’t think so.

Perhaps it makes their identity larger.

Carrying Africa across borders

The African diaspora is sometimes discussed as though it were simply a population scattered around the world. I see it differently.

People carry pieces of home wherever they go.

An African family living in Australia, Canada, Britain, the United States, or elsewhere may still cook the food they grew up eating. They may speak their mother tongue at home, send money to relatives, listen to African music, support community projects and remain closely connected to events thousands of miles away. Migration doesn’t necessarily erase belonging.

Sometimes it creates several belongings at once.

The diaspora also contributes enormously to communities back home. Remittances help families pay school fees, buy food, build houses, access healthcare and start businesses. Migrants also carry knowledge, professional experience, ideas and connections that can benefit communities across borders.

A person may leave Africa physically and still spend much of their life contributing to Africa.

That matters.

The price of being a migrant

But migration has another side.

Not every new country means a new beginning.

For some migrants, the journey leads to racism, xenophobia, exploitation, or discrimination. People can be judged because of their nationality, accent, skin color, immigration status or refugee identity.

Others discover that qualifications earned at home are not recognized. A professional becomes a cleaner. A teacher struggles to find work. A skilled worker is told to start again.

There is nothing wrong with honest work. The problem begins when someone’s dignity is reduced because they are a migrant.

For refugees, bureaucracy can become another form of suffering. A person can become a case number, waiting months or years for interviews, decisions, relocation opportunities, or family reunification.

But life doesn’t stop while the paperwork continues.

Children grow older, parents become sick, people lose loved ones, birthdays come and go and still the waiting continues.

I sometimes wonder whether the people making decisions about migration fully understand how heavy that waiting can become for someone sitting on the other side of the process.

Women, children, and LGBTQ refugees

Migration does not affect everyone in the same way.

Women often carry enormous responsibilities after displacement. They may become the main providers for their children while dealing with their own trauma and uncertainty.

Children experience displacement differently. They may not fully understand why they had to leave home, but they understand the absence of familiar faces, schools and routines.

Young people face another difficult question: how do you plan a future when you don’t know which country you will be living in?

For LGBTQ refugees, the journey can be even more complicated. Some leave because the place where they were born no longer feels safe for them. They may have experienced rejection, threats, violence or discrimination before they ever reached a refugee settlement.

And yet, even in such circumstances, people create community.

In Gorom, LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers come from different African countries and backgrounds. We don’t always agree on everything. But we understand something important: when the world has already made you feel unwanted, having people around you who understand your experience can mean everything.

Community can become another form of home.

Should borders decide our worth?

I understand why countries have borders. Countries have laws and responsibilities.

But I sometimes ask myself a simpler question: Should crossing a border change the value of a human life?

A child doesn’t become less deserving of food because they were born on the other side of a political boundary.

A mother doesn’t become less worthy of safety because she crossed without the right document.

A refugee doesn’t stop being a human being while waiting for an immigration decision.

From a Humanist perspective, this seems straightforward to me. Human dignity should not depend on nationality.

We can have immigration systems and still treat migrants with compassion.

We can protect borders without forgetting that the people standing behind those borders are human beings.

We can disagree about migration policy without dehumanizing migrants.

That balance isn’t easy. But perhaps that is exactly why we need more humanity in conversations about migration.

What does home mean now?

I have asked myself this question many times: Where is home?

Is it where I was born?

Where I first felt safe?

Where my memories live?

Or perhaps home isn’t always a geographical location.

Maybe home can be the people who stand beside you.

Maybe it is the language you speak when you are emotional.

Maybe it is the smell of food that takes you back to childhood.

Maybe, after so much has been taken away, home becomes something you slowly rebuild.

My birthday falls on Sept. 12. Birthdays usually invite us to think about another year of life. But for someone who has experienced displacement, another birthday can mean something deeper.

It means I made it through another year.

I am still here.

And I think about the many refugees who don’t know whether they will be safe long enough to celebrate their next birthday. I think about children growing up in camps who deserve to celebrate their birthdays in a home they can call their own.

That thought stays with me.

We are more than where we come from

Migration has taught me that people cannot be reduced to the countries printed on their passports.

We are our memories, our relationships, our struggles, our dreams, and our choices.

Africa’s diaspora is not simply a story of people leaving Africa. It is also a story of people carrying Africa with them.

And the refugee experience is not simply a story of loss. It is also a story of survival.

I don’t know where my own journey will eventually take me. Perhaps that is one of the things migration teaches us: we can make plans, but life sometimes writes a different story.

What I do know is that every person deserves the chance to live without fear, to love without persecution, to work with dignity, to raise children safely and to imagine a future.

Borders may separate countries.

They should never separate us from our humanity.

If migration has taught me anything, it is that home is not always the place we left behind. Sometimes home is the safe place we are still searching for.

And sometimes, while searching, we become one another’s home.

Gay activist Randy Downs said he and his business and life partner Ricky Bennett are grateful for the support they have received from the Dupont Circle community after they released a video showing a suspect breaking into their recently opened pizza shop and taking money from a cash register shortly before 3 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 21.

The surveillance video shows a man wearing black clothing with his face covered, smashing the glass front door of Protest Pizza, located at 1633 ½ P St., N.W. The video, which Downs and Bennett provided to D.C. police, also shows the suspect climbing over the bar to get to a cash register, which he opened to take out cash.

A D.C. police report obtained by the Washington Blade lists the incident as a Burglary in the Second Degree and says the owners reported “approximately $78 in cash” was taken from the cash register.  The report says the incident is not listed as a suspected hate crime.

Downs told the Washington Blade that after he and Bennett reported the break-in and theft on social media, they received an overwhelming showing of support from neighbors and others, including business owners, from across the nation. 

“The break-in was upsetting, but it is not what will define Protest Pizza,” Downs said. “What defines us is how quickly people showed up,” he told the Blade. “One person came looking for a cash register; our community saw a gathering place worth protecting. The response reminded us that Protest’s real value was never in the register.”

Downs said he and Bennett, who live around the corner on the section of 17th Street, N.W., near several other bars and restaurants, including the gay bar JRs are located, opened Protest Pizza in November 2025.

“Ricky and I built Protest Pizza as a positive, welcoming, queer owned neighborhood restaurant and bar — a space for protest and joy,” he said.

A D.C. police spokesperson said police offer a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction of a suspect responsible for the type of burglary and theft that occurred at Protest Pizza. Police say anyone with information to help solve this type of crime should call the police tipline at 202-727-9099.