Mel Boozer

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Melvin Boozer (born June 21, 1945 in Washington DC ; † March 6, 1987 ibid) was an American sociologist , university professor, LGBT and AIDS activist.

Life

Boozer grew up in Washington DC. He attended Dunbar High School and then Dartmouth College . In 1963 he began to study sociology at Yale University . After his graduation he worked in the Peace Corps in Brazil and was then employed as a lecturer in sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park . In 1979 Boozer was elected president of the LGBT organization Gay Activists Alliance . He stayed at the head of this civil rights organization for two years. In 1980 he was proposed for the office of US Vice President by the Socialist Party ; on the electoral party of the Democrats in August this year in New York City also carried a petition to nominate him. Boozer was the first openly gay politician to be proposed for this office. He received 49 votes in the first ballot; thereafter, the incumbent Walter Mondale was nominated again by acclamation.

At the convention, Boozer gave a speech for the rights of homosexual people:

“Would you ask me how I dare to compare the civil rights struggle with the struggle for lesbian and gay rights? I can compare them and I do compare them, because I know what it means to be called a 'nigger' and I know what it means to be called a 'fagot', and I understand the differences in the marrow of my bones. And I can sum up that difference in one word: none . "

In 1981 Boozer was hired as a director and LGBT lobbyist by the US civil rights organization National Gay Task Force . In March 1987 Boozer died of complications from AIDS in Washington.

literature

  • Mel Boozer: Text of Mel Boozer's Convention Speech . Washington Blade , August 21, 1980.
  • Sidney Brinkley: Interview with Melvin Boozer . Blacklight Online 2, 2nd edition.
  • Don Leavitt: Coming Out to an Entire City . Washington Blade, October 25, 1979.
  • Thomas Morgan: A Black Gay Leader Speaks Out . Washington Post , October 13, 1979.
  • Richard Pearson: Homosexual Rights Activist Melvin Boozer Dies at 41 . Washington Post, March 10, 1987.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b MELVIN BOOZER. In: nytimes.com. March 11, 1987, accessed January 3, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Jet. from March 30, 1987, ISSN  0021-5996 , Volume 72, No. 1, p. 13. Restricted preview in the Google book search
  3. ↑ Leigh Rutledge: The Gay Decades . Penguin, New York 1992, ISBN 0452268109 , p. 156.
personal data
SURNAME Boozer, Mel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boozer, Melvin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sociologist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, DC , USA
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1987
Place of death Washington, DC , USA