File:Abortion Care Network Celebrating Pride and Juneteenth 2024.JPG

Summary

On June 19, 2024, the Abortion Care Network sent a mass email celebrating "Black Queer Icons", which they also posted to their Instagram Account:^[1]

"In June, we honor two historic celebrations of freedom: Pride and Juneteenth. Celebrating freedom, understanding, and centering the history that makes progress possible is critical to the fight for liberation.

Pride commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riot—an uprising against police led by Black and brown queer and trans people. Today is Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people of African descent in America—it’s also a day to honor and center Black people’s long and continued work toward justice and freedom in the US.

We wanted to commemorate both of these celebrations by taking a moment to share admiration and reverence for Black queer icons and visionaries of the past and present who inspire us.

From the images:

"To commemorate Juneteenth & Pride we're uplifting some of our staff's favorite Black queer icons of the past and present.

"Pauli Murray was an American civil rights activist, advocate, legal scholar and theorist, and author. Murray's work influenced the civil rights movement and expanded legal protection for gender equality.

Angela Davis is an American political activist, professor, and author who was an active member in the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party. She is a professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Lorraine Hansberry was an American playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway.

"Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is an American author, activist, and community organizer for transgender rights. She is the former ED of the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project.

Alvin Ailey was an American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

June Jordan was an activist, poet, writer, and teacher, as well as a prominent figure in the civil rights, feminist, antiwar, and LGBTQ movements of the twentieth century.

Oriaku Njoku is a reproductive justice advocate and leader. They are the current ED of the National Network of Abortion Funds and the former ED and co-founder of Access Reproductive Care-Southeast.

Toni-Michelle Williams is an auto- theorist, performance artist, embodied leadership/somatics coach and executive director of Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNAPCO).