Mary Anne Adams, MSW, (born September 25, 1954) is an African American lesbian activist, social worker, and public health researcher who has focused on the health disparities within the lesbian and Black community. She also works at Georgia State University as the Director of the Community Engagement Core. [1] [2] Adams is most known for being the founder of ZAMI NOBLA (National Organization of Black Lesbians on Aging), an organization that provides resources to aid the coming-of-age process for Black lesbians over the age of 40. [3] [4]
Adams was born on September 25, 1954, as the second oldest of 10 children in Oxford, Mississippi, specifically Freeman's Town, just soon after the start of the United States Civil Rights Movement. As a child, when she was not in school, she was spending her summers at her grandmother's (whom she was named after) house reading anything she could get her hands on. Adams used reading as a means of mental escape from her feelings of seclusion. [5] [3] One of the biggest turning points in her life was discovering youth activism where she banded together with other activists, lawyers, and social workers to fight for civil rights for people of color, specifically African American people. [6] In 1970, when she was 16 years old, Adams went on to study social work and sociology at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) and eventually graduated at the age of 19. She later earned her master's degree in social work at Georgia State University in 2002. When she was young, her stepfather, Bubba, who adopted her, was hit and killed by a train. In her mid-twenties, her mother passed away, due to ovarian cancer at the age of 43. These events resulted in her assuming the responsibility of taking care of her younger siblings with the help of her sister who is three years younger than her. [5] [3]
Adam's activism journey began when she was 12 years old in her hometown. A minister named Reverend Wayne Johnson launched the "Black House" where civil rights activists, social workers, organizations, attorneys, and students came together organize plans. [6] She quickly became engulfed in the Black House where she was taught to embrace her blackness. She also aided in the creation and distribution of The Soul Force newspaper which was created in the Black House. Learning about Black history, protesting, and advocacy at the Black House from experienced activists became a regular occurrence for Adams. Her leaders there encouraged her to pursue higher education at Ole Miss to aid in the integration of the university. [5] [3]
After graduating from Ole Miss, she launched the Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund, with the help of the nonprofit organization ZAMI, to help financially support struggling Black lesbians ($1000 per recipient) who openly expressed their sexuality and were also seeking higher education. [7] [6] [5]
As a child, Adams knew an elderly woman that she called "Miss Savannah" who she spent ample time with. This bond is what later sparked Adam's interest in aging, specifically in Black lesbians. On her 34th birthday, Adams made the choice to move to Atlanta, Georgia to further pursue her education and career. There she became an executive board member of ZAMI, which was founded by Iris Rafi. Adams merged these two important aspects of her life, creating her nonprofit organization she named ZAMI NOBLA (National Organization of Black Lesbians on Aging). The primary motivations behind launching ZAMI NOBLA were to combat the invisibility of elderly Black lesbians within the queer community and to help them learn about and cope with the aging process. Along with mental health support, ZAMI NOBLA aids in providing/finding housing for elderly Black women who otherwise could not find any on their own. They focus on the intersectionality of being an older, Black, lesbian, and oftentimes poor, woman in the United States. [6] [8]
Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin and Phyllis Ann Lyon were an American lesbian couple based in San Francisco who were known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
Audre Lorde was an American writer, professor, philosopher, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet" who dedicated her life and talents to confronting different forms of injustice, as she believed there could be "no hierarchy of oppressions" among "those who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children."
Horace Julian Bond was an American social activist, leader of the civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1971, he co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, and served as its first president for nearly a decade.
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, but began in the late 1960s and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, sexism within the gay liberation movement, and homophobia within popular women's movements at the time. Many of the supporters of Lesbianism were actually women involved in gay liberation who were tired of the sexism and centering of gay men within the community and lesbian women in the mainstream women's movement who were tired of the homophobia involved in it.
Jean O'Leary was an American lesbian and gay rights activist. She was the founder of Lesbian Feminist Liberation, one of the first lesbian activist groups in the women's movement, and an early member and co-director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. She co-founded National Coming Out Day.
Black feminism is a branch of feminism that focuses on the African-American woman's experiences and recognizes the intersectionality of racism and sexism. Black feminism philosophy centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because of our need as human persons for autonomy."
The Inside Out Film and Video Festival, also known as the Inside Out LGBT or LGBTQ Film Festival, is an annual Canadian film festival, which presents a program of LGBT-related film. The festival is staged in both Toronto and Ottawa. Founded in 1991, the festival is now the largest of its kind in Canada. Deadline dubbed it "Canada’s foremost LGBTQ film festival."
Betty Reynolds Cobb was an attorney, author, and activist.
Theodore "Tiger" Flowers was an American professional boxer. Nicknamed "The Georgia Deacon", he rose to prominence in the early 20th century, becoming the first African-American World Middleweight Boxing Champion after defeating Harry Greb to claim the title in 1926. He was inducted into The Ring Hall of Fame in 1971, The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1976, The World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990, and The International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1993. A left-handed fighter, Flowers was fast and elusive, usually avoiding heavy punishment while landing quick, sharp blows.
Cheryl L. Clarke is an American lesbian poet, essayist, educator and a Black feminist community activist who continues to dedicate her life to the recognition and advancement of Black and Queer people. Her scholarship focuses on African-American women's literature, black lesbian feminism, and the Black Arts Movement in the United States. For over 40 years,
Cathy J. Cohen is an American political scientist, author, feminist, and social activist, whose work has focused on the African-American experience in politics from a perspective which is underlined by intersectionality. She is currently the David and Mary Winton Green Professor in Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago, and is the former Director of the Center for the Study of Race (2002–05).
Mary Ellen Peters Black (1851–1919) was a prominent organizer and activist related to women's issues in Georgia. Black also promoted agricultural reform and increasing educational opportunities, especially for women. She was an active member of the Atlanta Woman's Club as well as the Woman's Auxiliary of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.
Allyson Mitchell is a Toronto-based maximalist artist, working predominantly in sculpture, installation and film. Her practice melds feminism and pop culture to trouble contemporary representations of women, sexuality and the body largely through the use of reclaimed textile and abandoned craft. Throughout her career, Mitchell has critiqued socio-historical phobias of femininity, feminine bodies and colonial histories, as well as ventured into topics of consumption under capitalism, queer feelings, queer love, fat being, fatphobia, genital fears and cultural practices. Her work is rooted in a Deep Lez methodology, which merges lesbian feminism with contemporary queer politics.
The Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) was an American lesbian feminist organization, among the oldest and longest running in the country. It formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1972 as a breakaway from Atlanta's Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and Atlanta Women’s Liberation. The organization dissolved in 1994.
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Pauline Alice Young was an African-American teacher, librarian, historian, lecturer, community activist, humanitarian, and individualist.
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Angela Lynn Douglas was an American transgender activist and singer. She was a transgender woman who performed as a rock musician and was a prominent pioneering figure in transsexual activism during the 1970s. She founded the Transsexual Action Organization (TAO), the first international trans organization. She wrote articles about the state of trans politics at the time for the Berkeley Barb, The Advocate, the Bay Area Reporter, Come Out! and Everywoman, in addition to TAO's Mirage magazine and Moonshadow Bulletin. She expressed racist attitudes at various points in her life, and at one point became active with the Nazi party.
Lorraine Fontana is an American lesbian activist and founder of the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance.
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