LGBTQ workers & militants take to the streets

Ever since the Los Angeles Compton Cafeteria and New York City Stonewall rebellions of the 1960s, Pride marches have brought lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities, and their friends and supporters into the streets in the month of June, and in some areas in July or August, to honor and carry on the traditions of struggle. The commercialization and corporatization of Pride over the years has not been able to dim the essential spirit of fightback.

WW photos: Steve Kirschbaum

That spirit was on full display in the Boston Pride march on June 9. Well-organized and forceful contingents representing Free CeCe McDonald, ACT UP Boston, Local 26 of UNITE HERE, the Stonewall Warriors and the Anarcho Queer Bloc marched one after the other through the streets, passing hundreds of thousands of onlookers.

These contingents consciously planned and organized to march together in a spirit of unity and militancy. They did not march to elect sellout Democrats to office. They did not march to advertise beer, luxury gay vacations or the Bank of America. The workers, unemployed and youth who took to the streets were there to raise up and organize around life-and-death issues that face the most oppressed among us.

Chants of “Free CeCe McDonald!” boomed from the open microphone of the Stonewall Warriors float, which led the contingents. McDonald had just been sentenced to 41 months in prison for fighting back in self-defense against a gang of openly fascist thugs just over a year ago in Minneapolis. The trans community and other supporters have been galvanized in defense of McDonald in recent months all over the U.S. Acclaimed trans activist and author Leslie Feinberg was arrested last week in Minneapolis for demonstrating support for McDonald and was released from jail just two days before Boston Pride.

Stonewall means Fight Back!

Members of the newly reorganized ACT UP Boston raised high their banners as well, their placards demanding: “Tax Wall Street! ACT UP! Fight Back! Fight AIDS!” More than 1,000 people living with HIV are homeless in eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire, and ACT UP Boston is planning direct action to demand affordable housing.

Many marchers carried placards for Pvt. Bradley Manning, who is on trial in a military court for allegedly revealing the Pentagon’s war crimes in Iraq. Others carried signs for Tarek Mehanna, a 29-year-old Egyptian man from Stoughton, Mass., who was wrongly charged with terrorism in federal court after refusing to participate in a violent action by undercover FBI “sting” agents.

The largest contingent numerically was that of the hotel and restaurant workers of UNITE HERE Local 26. Their members, one after the other, took the Stonewall Warriors’ microphone to proclaim their recent union victories. The union and its student and community supporters recently won a resounding election victory for Northeastern University cafeteria workers by an unheard-of majority vote of 299-46! The national union has organized its locals to march in Pride every year across the country as part of the LGBT/Labor “Sleep With the Right People” campaign, which urges the communities to boycott hotels where there is an organizing campaign or a strike. This effort was initiated several years ago by Harvey Milk colleague and AIDS Quilt originator, Cleve Jones.

The spirited Anarcho Queer Bloc organized dozens of their numbers from Occupy Boston and elsewhere in a rousing rebuke to assimilationists, gay and straight monied forces and, above all, the bourgeoisie. They and Workers World Party Boston proudly carried banners for CeCe McDonald with revolutionary commitment and homage worthy of the sacrifice of the first Stonewall combatants, true leaders in the struggle for LGBTQ liberation such as Sylvia Rivera and Marsha Johnson.