She Fest

Audre was a black feminist, lesbian, poet, and mother. Born to Grenadian immigrants, Audre began writing poetry around the age of 12. Her activism and her published work speak to the importance of the struggle for liberation among oppressed peoples and of organizing in coalition across differences of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, age, and ability. An internationally recognized activist and artist, Audre Lorde was the recipient of many honors and awards, including the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit and recognition as the 3rd New York State poet.

Check out the Links Below to Learn More:
Poem titled “A Song for Many Movements”
Poem titled “A Black Unicorn”
Keynote presentation at the 1981National Women’s Studies Association Conference

Known for her contribution to the stonewall riots and the surrounding activism that sparked a new phase of the LGBTQ+ movement in 1969. At stonewall, she apparently shimmied up a lamppost to drop a heavyweight that shattered a police car’s windshield. Marsha also established the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in 1970 with Sylvia Rivera, a group committed to supporting transgender youth experiencing homelessness in New York City. She appeared regularly with the flamboyant performance group, the Hot Peaches Review, and was photographed by Andy Warhol as part of his “Ladies and Gentleman” Polaroid series in 1974. Her story is featured in Pay It No Mind: Marsha P. Johnson (2012) and The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) and Happy Birthday, Marsha! (2017). Marsha is honored as a Stonewall pioneer, a drag queen, an Andy Warhol model, an actress, and a revolutionary trans activist.

Check out the Links Below to Learn More:
GLSEN History Cards.
Legacy Project Chicago
Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs – New Jersey

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a life-long activist and advocate for trans rights. She’s a mother, father, mammy, performer, feminist, cultural icon and community leader. As a young trans girl she performed in Chicago’s Drag Balls and started to embrace her identity. She was expelled from two colleges for cross-dressing and without support from her family, or a college degree she made her way to New York City where her activism work began. In 1969 Miss Major was arrested for her involvement in the infamous Stonewall Raid and subsequent riots and she spent five years in prison. It was there that she met Frank “Big Black” Smith, a leader of the Attica Correctional Facility Riots in 1971. Big Black opened her eyes to the prison industrial complex and upon release, Miss Major got involved in HIV/AIDS outreach and started providing health services to incarcerated trans women in San Diego. Serving as the Executive Director of Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project (TGJIP) for 10 years, she worked with a diverse team to fight police brutality and provide support and services for trans women in and out of prison. To honor her work, The Miss Major – Jay Toole Building for Social Justice was opened in NYC as a shared space for social justice organizations. She later founded the House of GG in Little Rock, AK which is an educational retreat and historical center for trans women of color in the south.

Check out the Links Below to Learn More:
Watch the documentary film, Major here.
Learn more and support TGJIP
Trans rights, social justice, healthcare, and prison abolition organizations.
House of GG

Monica Roberts, AKA the TransGriot (Gree-oh) was a GLAAD award-winning blogger, writer, and award-winning trans human rights, advocate. Before her, no journalist had painstakingly recorded and reported on the murders of transgender women of color. She was the founding editor of TransGriot, and her writing has appeared in numerous well-known publications. TransGriot got its name from the word “griot,” a term for West African people who preserved the history and traditions of their community. She worked to foster understanding and acceptance of trans people inside and outside communities of color. She provided a blueprint for the national media on how to report about trans people with sensitivity and empathy. She championed Black trans women and men in their triumphs and mourned them in their deaths, often unreported by local or national outlets. Among her many honors she was awarded the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award, the Robert Coles Call of Service Award, the Barbara Jordan Breaking Barriers Award, and the 2020 Susan J Hyde Award for Longevity In The Movement.

Check out the Links Below to Learn More:
TransGriot Blog
Acceptance of Sue Hyde Award for Longevity in the Movement during the Creating Change Conference

Stacey Abrams was born in Madison, WI. She and her five siblings grew up in Mississippi and Georgia. A brilliant student and young activist, Stacey was valedictorian of her high school class and spoke at the 30th anniversary of the March on Washington.
She graduated from Spelman College in 1995 and went on to study public policy at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1999 she received a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. Shortly after law school, she became deputy city attorney for the City of Atlanta and in 2006 she was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. Stacey became a household name during her 2018 gubernatorial campaign where she valiantly fought voter suppression, gerrymandering, and Georgia’s secretary of state and Republican candidate for governor, Brian Kemp. Losing the election launched her back into activism. She founded Fair Fight Action, a nonprofit that supports voter protection and because of her work, she is credited with flipping the senate in 2020. Stacey has published a handful of romantic suspense novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery and she is New York Times Best Selling author for her recent book, Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change.

Check out the Links Below to Learn More:
Learn about Fair Fight, an organization founded by Stacey Abrams to support voter protection teams.
Stacey’s books.
Watch All In: The Fight for Democracy (a documentary film about voter suppression, starring Stacey Abrams)

Storme DeLarverie was born in New Orleans to a black mother and a white father. He* was bullied harshly for being biracial, and realized he was a lesbian at eighteen years old. Storme sang jazz in Europe and worked as a bodyguard for Chicago mobsters prior to MC’ing the Jewel Box Revue, the US’s first interracial drag show, from 1955-1969. The show featured 25 drag queens and advertised “one real girl.” The audience would spend the show guessing which drag queen was “real,” and then Storme would reveal “herself” for the last number. In 1969, Storme was at the Stonewall Inn when the police conducted a raid. He is rumored to have thrown the first punch in the civil disobedience that sparked the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement. After Stonewall, Storme worked as a “protector” at lesbian bars in New York City. He became known as the “guardian of lesbians in the Village.” He continued to work until the age of 85. Storme had one true love, his partner Diana of 25 years. Diana died in the 1970s, but Storme continued to carry a picture of Diana for the rest of his life.

*in his later years, Storme used he/him pronouns, which are used here.

Check out the Links Below to Learn More:
Stonewall Rebellion Veterans Association
Interview with Storme.

Tracy was raised by her mother in Cleveland, Ohio, and was given her first instrument, a ukulele, at age three. She began writing songs and playing guitar at age eight. She attended Tufts University and graduated with a degree in anthropology and African Studies. During school, she would drive up to Boston to perform in various locations and where she was discovered in 1986 and signed to SBK Publishing. After graduation in 1987, she signed with Elektra Records whom she produced self-titled “Tracy Chapman” with and which won three Grammy awards. Her song “Fast Car” from the album holds Billboard’s highest-ranking song (charting at six) to be written and performed by a woman. She has written seven other successful albums and her second album, Crossroads, won her a fourth Grammy.
In addition to being a renowned musician, she has used her success to advocate for causes close to her especially issues affecting black people. Chapman has continued to support her hometown by producing a music video for Cleveland schools to use for teaching African-American history and achievements. She has performed at various other events supporting causes such as AIDS prevention and treatment, Amnesty International commemoration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and an Anti-Apartheid event for Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday tribute. She has continuously supported anti-racist activism and was even asked to compose music for Athol Fugard’s Blood Knot, a production about the South African Apartheid, by the American Conservatory Theater.

Check out the Links Below to Learn More:
“Give Me One Reason” feat. Eric Clapton (with a blurb to the side about her life)
“Talking About a Revolution” Music Video
“Fast Car” Music Video