housing
Beatrice Simpkins
Beatrice Dolores Simpkins is an alum of Rutgers University-Newark.In 2016, Ms. Simpkins became a Rutgers University 250 Fellow – receiving a medal at the “A Day of Revolutionary Thinking”, the culminating event of Rutgers’ 250Th birthday celebration.
She serves as the pro-bono Executive Director of the Newark LGBTQ Community Center and is the Chief Program Officer for The Partnership for the Homeless, located in New York City. In 2021, Ms. Simpkins received the Equality Leadership Award from Garden State Equality and the LGBTQ-Police Community Partnership Award...
Terri Suess
Terri was born and raised in Seattle, Wa. and has made Newark, NJ her home with her life partner. She studied communications at the University of Washington, Seattle and worked several years as a journalist in the Pacific Northwest. In the mid-70s, she moved to New York City to earn a Master’s Degree in Urban Affairs and public policy from City University of New York, Hunter College.
As a young person, she saw the power of community organizing in Seattle, when neighbors circulated petitions to stop freeways, marched against the Vietnam War, Saved the Pike Place Market and...
Bob Cartwright
Bob Cartwright’s introduction to Newark was in 1966, when he entered NJIT, which was then called Newark College of Engineering. He became radicalized because of the anti-war movement and the Civil Rights Movement. Later he was recruited to a position with the Urban Institute at Essex County College and then worked as a community organizer.
As a straight man involved in the Newark left, he worked closely with several important figures in local LGBTQ history who are no longer with us, and so in this interview he recounts Raymond Proctor, Derek Winans, and Frank Hutchins....