Chicana lesbian writer and cultural/queer theorist whose poems and essays reveal the isolation and angst of occupying the fringes of identity.

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"Write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. You are the truthsayer with quill and torch. Write with your tongues on fire."

Resources

• University of Texas Library Collection

• Legacy Project Chicago

• Where to Start with Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poems and Books

• Anthony Gonzales Lecture on How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldúa (2016)

• Gloria Anzaldúa Biography and More

Prolific orator, debater, author, and activist whose personal and searing analysis of race in the United States ran parallel with the civil rights and gay liberation movements of the mid-twentieth century.​

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"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."

Resources

• I am Not Your Negro: Documentary based on Baldwin's unfinished manuscript Remember This House (2017)

• 10 James Baldwin Books to Read in Your Lifetime

• James Baldwin's Poetry

• The Art of Fiction No. 78: Interview with James Baldwin in the Paris Review

• James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)

Chinese-American activist, author, and philospher whose Marxist leanings and vision of what an American revolution could be led to a hefty FBI file and legendary imprint in Detroit.​

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"Love isn't about what we did yesterday; it's about what we do today and tomorrow and the day after."

Resources

• The Legacy of Grace Lee Boggs and the Spirit of Detroit Activism

• James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership

• The Essential Grace Lee Boggs Reading List

• Detroit Summer

• Grace Lee Boggs Biography and More

A pioneer of the LGBTQ+ community, prominent figure of the Stonewall riot, gay liberation activist, and self-identified drag queen. She sang, she modeled for Andy Warhol, she created a home for those who didn’t have one, and word on the street is she threw a shot glass that was “heard around the world.” ​

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"No pride for some without liberation for all of us."

Resources

• Pay It No Mind: Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson Documentary (2012)

• The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson Documentary (2017)

• Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries: Survival, Revolt, and Queer Antagonist Struggle Zine by Johnson and Sylvia Rivera

• The Stonewall Riots

• Marsha P. Johnson Biography and More

A "concert of voices," Audre Lorde was a writer, feminist, lesbian, and civil rights activist wose work magnified the conflicting differences within the self and the necessary resistance of injustice.​

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“If [we] cannot love and resist at the same time, [we] probably will not survive.”

Resources

• Audre Lorde Project

• Audre Lorde's Poetry

• 5 Best Audre Lorde Books to read right now

• Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power by Audre Lorde

• Audre Lorde Biography and More

K'iche' feminist and Indigenous rights activist from Guatemala and founder of the country's first Indigenous political party, Winaq.

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"I am like a drop of water on a rock. After drip, drip, dripping in the same place, I begin to leave a mark, and I leave my mark in many people’s hearts."

Resources

• Fundación Rigoberta Menchú Tum

• Nobel Peace Prize 1992 Winner Biography

• La Entrevista por Adela: 2016 Television Interview (en Español)

• The K'iche'

• Rigoberta Menchú Tum Biography and More

Korean-American disability rights activist and advocate of fair treatment of people with disabilities and advisor to the Obama administration.

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"Grow. Change. Be better. But also [...] know you are a beautiful human being who deserves love and tenderness and care as you are."

Resources

• #StaceyTaughtUs: Syllabus featuring Stacey's blog posts, book chapters, poetry, essays, and speeches.

• What Disability Justice Activist Stacey Park Milbern Taught Us: KQED Radio Profile (2020)

• Stacey Milbern, a Warrior for Disability Justice, Dies at 33

• The Disability Rights Movement

• Stacey Park Milbern Biography and More

First openly gay elected official in the history of CA who shifted San Francisco politics and sponsored a bill that passed banning discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment on the basis of sexual orientation.

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"If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities—the expression of love—then life itself loses its meaning."

Resources

• Meet San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk: NBC Archival Footage (1978)

• Harvey Milk Foundation

• Legacy Project Chicago: Lesson plans and resources.

• "If I'm killed, let that bullet destroy every closet door": Article about Harvey Milk and the 2008 Film Milk 

• Harvey Milk Biography and More

Puerto Rican/Venezuelan gay liberation and transgender rights activist and drag queen who co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries with Marsha P. Johnson.

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"We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are."

Resources

• Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries: Survival, Revolt, and Queer Antagonist Struggle Zine by Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson

• Y'all Better Quiet Down: Video of Speech at 1973 Gay Pride Rally in NYC

• Wonder Women Biography and More

• The Transgender Rights Movement

• Sylvia Rivera Biography and More