------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 23, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
THOUSANDS MARCH IN NEWARK, N.J.: MOURN SLAIN BLACK LESBIAN TEENAGER
By Leslie Feinberg
On May 16 a crowd of some 2,500 people united with the family of Sakia Gunn at the funeral for the 15-year-old Black butch lesbian. She had been stabbed to death in Newark, N.J., five days earlier.
The turnout was unprecedented: predominately Black, largely high school students, mostly lesbians.
The day before, hundreds of youths had marched with Gunn's family to the steps of Newark's City Hall to express their anger at the killing. Throughout the week, hundreds of high school students and others turned out for vigils at community-built memorials outside Gunn's West Side High School and the site where she was killed.
Sakia Gunn was killed at a Newark bus stop on May 11. She was on her way home from New York's Greenwich Village with four friends. According to the other women, two men got out of a car, made sexual advances and physically attacked the teenagers. The women fought back. Gunn was stabbed in the chest. She died a short time later at a local hospital.
Richard McCullough turned himself in to the prosecutor's office five days later, after reports that the police considered him a suspect in the stabbing. He was arraigned May 16 in Superior Court on murder, weapons and bias charges. His lawyer entered a not-guilty plea.
McCullough's mother expressed her deep condolences to Sakia Gunn's family. She argued, however, that she does not believe her son is anti- gay. She said his grandmother, who helped raise him, was a lesbian. (Newark Star-Ledger, May 17)
A June 3 protest rally on the steps of Newark City Hall was set after members of the Newark Pride Alliance explained that they had been unable to secure a meeting with Mayor Sharpe James to deal with issues of community safety. They also reported official insensitivity in response to Gunn's murder.
The Pride Alliance, formed after Gunn's death to support lesbian, gay, trans and bisexual youth, is putting forward five demands:
--Grief counseling for Gunn's fellow West Side High School students.
--Support for gay and straight alliance high school clubs to educate parents, school administrators and other students about the LGTB community.
--Development of and support for a Newark LGTB community center--a safe space to get together.
--Posting of at least two police officers on round-the-clock patrol on the Penn Station-Broad Street Corridor where Gunn was killed.
--That city legislators take responsibility to improve the quality of life for their LGTB constituency "that they have neglected and ignored for so long."
--That the school board be held responsible for the lack of compassion and concern exhibited by the principal of West Side High School, and allow for an independent investigation into allegations made by the students.
West Side students report that the principal made anti-lesbian statements about Sakia Gunn after her death, according to Laquetta C. Nelson, founder of the New Jersey Stonewall Democrats.
COURAGE AND PRIDE
On the afternoon before Gunn's funeral, several hundred people--mostly teenaged Black lesbians and gays--marched from the site where she was killed to City Hall. Police lined the street.
Toni Gunn, Sakia's mother, told the crowd, "My daughter did not die in vain. She will be remembered."
Sakia Gunn's uncle, Anthony Hall, led the chant, "No justice, no peace." Protesters also sang "We Shall Overcome"--the anthem of the African American civil rights struggle waged in the United States long before many of the young demonstrators were born.
The outpouring of Black youths flooded the streets and parking lot around Perry's Funeral Home on May 16. Many wore t-shirts emblazoned with Gunn's photo or rainbows--symbol of the modern LGTB freedom movement.
A number of the teenagers outside the funeral home were from West Side High, waiting to say goodbye to the friend they knew as "T," who aspired to be a Women's National Basketball Association player and an architect.
Many in the crowd spoke proudly of the way Gunn lived her life--and affirmed their own pride as well.
Inside, Sakia Gunn lay dressed in a white sweat suit. A rainbow symbol-- the assertion of her sexuality and of LGTB pride--lay just above her head.
Her parents, LaTona Gunn and Gerald Gadson, sat together among what was described as literally hundreds of relatives.
Her mother said of the sheer numbers who came in solidarity, "All this love, that's what's keeping me strong. I love my daughter so much. I'm so proud of her."
Gadson said he was also emotionally moved by the support for his daughter, with whom he was reunited last year.
Sakia Gunn's grandmother, Selma Gunn, is in cardiac intensive care. She suffered a heart attack after hearing the news of the stabbing. She said of the lesbian granddaughter she raised: "I knew about her and I accepted her. I loved her. And she loved me."
City officials, including the mayor, were reportedly caught off guard by the response. "They weren't prepared for how many people showed up," observed Gary Paul Wright, director of Newark's African American Office of Gay Concerns. "It wasn't until gay activists cornered the mayor as he went into the funeral that he realized the depth of feeling the murder had caused."
The mayor did not attend the May 15 vigil on the steps of City Hall. And his office had made plans for only several hundred mourners the next day. But as the crowd of thousands marched from the funeral parlor to neaby Essex County College, the mayor joined in.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
