C. Alicia Heath-Toby resides in Newark, NJ with her wife, Saundra ‘Honei’. She is the current board president of the Newark LGBTQ Community Center Board of Directors. In 1984 she received her Bachelor of Arts from the College of the Holy Cross. After leaving college, she was given the opportunity to work with a team of black doctors and community activists on addressing the HIV and AIDS crisis for Black Americans; this organization became known as the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS. In 1997, she joined Liberation In Truth Unity Fellowship Church (LITUFC) in Newark, NJ; a local church of...
Louie Crew Clay is a pioneering activist who founded the gay Episcopal group Integrity USA in 1974 and co-founded the LGBT caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English in 1975, among numerous other achievements. In this interview, we focus on his life in Newark, where he moved in 1989 to teach English at Rutgers University-Newark. You can read more about his life and work in his most recent book, Letters from Samaria (2015), and his Wikipedia page, from which we take the following biography. See also Louie’s richly-documented website, as well as his online photo album, with an...
June Dowell-Burton is the founder and an executive board member of Newark Gay Pride, Inc., a LGBT community-based, volunteer run organization that works to enhance LGBTQ life by producing an annual Gay Pride Week and facilitating programming in Newark, New Jersey. The organization was recognized by the White House in 2012 and recently celebrated its Decennial anniversary in 2015. June became an Essex County LGBTQ advisor in 2011, working primarily on identifying issues, providing recommendations and guiding strategy for the County Executive. In 2010, June was vetted and hired as 1 of 23...
Renata Hill is currently a full-time student on the path to earn an Associates degree in Human Services at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and will then work to get her master’s degree in Social Work. She has toured the country speaking out for this case and also for all women who are incarcerated for defending themselves. She spoke to a room of over 1600 people at the national INCITE! Color Of Violence Conference in Chicago in March 2015. Renata won the 2015 Beyond Measure Award co-presented with DapperQ and New York Fashion Week for her dedication to activism and social justice...
