![Audre Lorde Project logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Audre_Lorde_Project_logo.jpg)
The Audre Lorde Project is a
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York-based organization for
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term ...
people of color
The term "person of color" ( : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the U ...
. The organization concentrates on
community organizing and radical
nonviolent
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
activism around
progressive issues within
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, especially relating to
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term ...
communities,
AIDS and
HIV
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...
activism, pro-
immigrant activism,
prison reform
Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are impacted by crimes ...
and organizing among youth of color. It is named for the lesbian-feminist poet and activist
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...
and was founded in 1994.
History
The purpose of the Project emerged from "the expressed need for innovative and unified community strategies to address the multiple issues impacting LGBT People of Color communities."
In 1996, the organization moved into its permanent home in the
Fort Greene
Fort Greene is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Flushing Avenue and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north, Flatbush Avenue Extension and Downtown Brooklyn to the wes ...
neighborhood of Brooklyn, parish house of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church.
The Project was begun to "serve as a home base" for LGBT peoples of African/Black/Caribbean, Arab, Asian and Pacific Islander, Latina/o and Native/Indigenous descent can work to further a collective history of struggle against discrimination and other forms of oppression.
At the time of its founding, it was the only organization in New York dedicated to people with an intersection of those identities.
Radical politics and nonviolence
The Project's decision-making structure seeks to be "representative of our communities" and acts to promote existing LGBT people of color organizations, cultural workers and activists. The organization also acts in an explicitly
feminist,
anti-sexist practice because it believes women's leadership "continues to be de-valued and discouraged in broader LGBTST organizations/communities." In the public arena, it often engages in nonviolent civil disobedience.
Campaigns and Working Groups
Safe OUTside the System: the SOS Collective
The Collective is an anti-violence organization focusing on hate and police violence targeting "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans, and Gender Non Conforming people of color", in particular in the
Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. The Collective uses community-based strategies, declaring that "strategies that increase the police presence and the criminalization of our communities do not create safety."
[Safe OUTside the System: The SOS Collective]
Originally called the Working Group on Police and State Violence, it began in 1997 in response to a rise in street violence and police harassment the organization believed was connected to the "
quality of life
Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards ...
" policies of Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani.
The group helped to found the
Coalition Against Police Brutality and
People's Justice 2000 soon after the killings by police officers of unarmed men of color
Amadou Diallo
In the early hours of February 4, 1999, an unarmed 23-year-old Guinean student named Amadou Diallo (born September 2, 1975) was fired upon with 41 rounds and shot a total of 19 times by four New York City Police Department plainclothes offic ...
and
Abner Louima
Abner Louima (born November 24, 1966 in Thomassin, Haiti) is a Haitian American man who, in 1997, was physically attacked, brutalized, and raped by officers of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) after he was arrested outside a Brooklyn ni ...
, as well as annual
Racial Justice Day
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
s, focusing on the appeals of families of color who suffered violence by the
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
.
The Collective manages the legal case for
Jalea Lamot
Jalea is a Peruvian cuisine dish consisting of fried fish, squid, and other seafood
Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs (e.g. bi ...
, a
trans woman
A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and s ...
who was arrested and brutalized by
New York City Housing Authority
The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is a public development corporation which provides public housing in New York City, and is the largest public housing authority in North America. Created in 1934 as the first agency of its kind in the U ...
police.
As part of a broader anti-violence and
anti-oppression approach, the Collective has collaborated with other progressive organizations, including the
Rashawn Brazell Memorial Fund, the
Third World Within-Peace Action Coalition,
Racial Justice 911
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
,
Al-Fatiha Foundation and the
American Friends Service Committee, following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The Collective's "war against terror meetings" focused on how homophobia and transphobia are a part of the policies of the United States'
war on terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...
. Following the start of the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
in 2003, SOS helped to coordinate
Operation Homeland Resistance, civil disobedience protesting the war.
TransJustice
TransJustice is an advocacy organization created by and for
trans
Trans- is a Latin prefix meaning "across", "beyond", or "on the other side of".
Used alone, trans may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Trans (festival), a former festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
* ''Trans'' (fil ...
and
gender non-conforming
Gender variance or gender nonconformity is behavior or gender expression by an individual that does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A gender-nonconforming person may be variant in their gender identity, being transgender or non-bi ...
people of color. The group focuses on trans-related policies in jobs, housing and health care, including job training programs, resisting transphobic violence, HIV services and trans-sensitive medical services.
Working Group on Immigrant Rights
The Working Group on Immigrant Rights consists of volunteers who are LGBT people of color born outside of the United States (including
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
). The working group seeks in particular to build the leadership of
undocumented immigrants
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...
, low-wage workers and trans, two-spirit and gender non-conforming immigrants. Every campaign is required to be relevant to these "priority communities".
[Working Group on Immigrant Rights]
The group also places itself within the global justice and peace movements, and acts in
solidarity with
liberation struggles throughout the world. The working group's members "reject the us/them divide of citizens and foreigners, and are working toward a US
foreign policy rooted in
nonviolence, fair distribution of resources, and equity. We also recognize that the War on Terrorism is both a war abroad and a war at home, oppressing our communities in many places at once."
The organization went on record in 2006 as opposing the three-tier "path to legalization" legislation (the
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act) and guest worker programs, declaring that "full legalization is a nonnegotiable demand."
The group seeks to increase understanding of
transphobia
Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger to ...
and
homophobia within immigrants rights and social justice movements and immigrant communities within New York City.
In 2004, the working group published a report, "Communities at a Crossroads: U.S. Right Wing Policies and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit and Transgender Immigrants of Color in New York City".
Facilities Program
The Audre Lorde Project acts to "build capacity and support the organizational development" of LGBT people of color organizations by making available the Project's meeting space, office infrastructure and training as well as offering technical assistance, networking and coalition-building opportunities. Some of the groups that have met in the Project's meeting space "include African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change (formerly the Salsa Soul Sisters), Arab and Iranian LBT Women’s Group (formerly Arab and Persian LBT Women’s Group), Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA), Brooklyn Pride, Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD), Queer Koreans of New York, South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association (SALGA), Las Buenas Amigas, and Latino Gay Men of New York."
Awards
In 2000, then-executive director
Joo-Hyun Kang was awarded the
Union Square Award
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
from the
Fund for the City of New York
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. In its award, the fund declared the Audre Lorde Project to be "an important cultural and information center in New York City."
See also
*
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...
*
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) is a legal aid organization based in New York City at the Miss Major-Jay Toole Building for Social Justice that serves low-income or people of color who are transgender, intersex and/or gender non-conforming. ...
*
Black Radical Congress
*
Critical Resistance
Critical Resistance is a U.S. based organization that works to build a mass movement to dismantle what it calls the prison-industrial complex (PIC). Critical Resistance's national office is in Oakland, California, with three additional chapters ...
*
The New York Foundation
The New York Foundation is a charitable foundation which gives grants to non-profit organizations supporting community organizing and advocacy in New York City.
History
1909–1919
The New York Foundation was established in 1909 when Louis ...
References
External links
Audre Lorde Project website ''Curve'' magazine
{{Authority control
HIV/AIDS activism
Audre Lorde
Feminist organizations in the United States
Organizations for LGBT people of color
Health and disability rights organizations in the United States
Immigration political advocacy groups in the United States
LGBT and multiculturalism
LGBT organizations based in New York City
LGBT political advocacy groups in New York (state)
Organizations established in 1994
1994 establishments in New York City
Women in New York City
1994 in LGBT history