5 reasons Martin Luther King, Jr. matters more than ever

Today is Martin Luther King Day. While much ink has been spilled focusing on contribution to racial equality, it is important also to explore the meaning of the man and his work to LGBTQ people as we exist today.

Here are five Reasons Martin Luther King, Jr. matters to us in a time when the president-elect attacks one of the original Freedom Riders, the legendary John Lewis, as somehow “all talk”:

1. His tactics

The civil disobedience tactics that were employed by civil rights movement were also used by LGBT activists. When gay couples who want to get married stage sit-ins in county offices of states that don’t allow it, when ACT-UP protesters took to the streets of NYC in the early ’80s, and when LGBT veterans protested DADT in Washington, D.C., we were borrowing directly from the playbook MLK used in the African-American civil rights movement. We’ll need even more of that today.

2. His gay right hand man

The primary organizer of the legendary March On Washington was another great American hero who was both Black and openly gay in the 1960’s.  Imagine that for just a moment. His name was Bayard Rustin, and he is the focus of an incredible documentary called Brother Outsider. We cannot and must not allow our media or each other to erase or ignore or minimize the achievements of LGBT people of color like mainstream African-American society has attempted to erase the service and sexual orientation of Bayard Rustin.

3. His rhetoric

Though his “I Have A Dream” speech is legendary, there was much more to the man and his oratorical skills than just that one speech….

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