Cleve Jones to Bilerico.com

“We’re trying to change the strategy of the movement. We believe that the strategy that we have followed thus far — which was what made sense at the time and a strategy that was advanced by good, dedicated, hard-working people — is nonetheless a failed strategy. I am tired of fighting state by state, county by county, city by city for fractions of equality. I am tired of compromises and I am tired of the strategy that divides us from each other. It is time for us to unite across state boundaries in a truly nationwide movement to win full, actual equality, which can only come from the federal government. That’s not my opinion. That’s a fact. If we want to be equal under the law, we must now — as the great heroes of the civil rights movement of 1963 and 1964 showed us — turn our attention to the federal government.”

–Veteran activist, AIDS quilt founder and Milk movie character Cleve Jones, a key organizer of the Oct. 11 National Equality March in Washington, D.C., to Bilerico.com, Sept. 4.

By Rex Wockner