Eight LGBT African-Americans Who Changed The Gay Community
Phill Wilson
AIDS activist, founder of Black AIDS Institute
In 1981, Phill Wilson and partner Chris Brownlie, who owned a small giftware company together, found themselves in a doctor’s office, puzzling over mysteriously swollen lymph nodes. While no test yet existed to accurately diagnose their condition, both were infected with HIV, which was already sending shockwaves throughout the gay community. Since then, Wilson, 55, has made it his life’s mission to battle the epidemic, particularly within the black community.
Living in L.A. at the time, he and Brownlie quickly became involved with every area organization tackling this new plague, and helped to found AIDS Project Los Angeles in the process. Tragically, Brownlie succumbed to AIDS in 1989.
Wilson funneled his 
anger and sorrow into even more intense community efforts: In 1999 he founded The Black AIDS Institute, where he remains Executive Director, and has helped create numerous other service and community organizations including the Chris Brownlie Hospice, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the National Minority AIDS Council, the Los Angeles County Gay Men of Color Consortium and the CAEAR Coalition.
In an interview for PBS’ Frontline, Wilson shared:
As early as 1984, 1985, 25% of the AIDS cases in America were African-American. The majority of children with AIDS were African-American. The majority of women with AIDS were African-American. African- Americans have always been disproportionately impacted by HIV and AIDS. The thing that strikes me about the AIDS epidemic is that, quite frankly, it’s always been about race, or it’s always been about ‘the other,’ and that’s one reason why stigma has been such a barrier to end this epidemic.
Asked what advice he would give young people today, he said:
“I basically would say to anyone, young, old or otherwise, that there will be an accounting, and you have to be comfortable with that. [The] price of the ticket for life is to leave the world a better place than you found it. That’s the minimum payment that we owe for the privilege of having spent time on this planet. Make sure that you at least pay the minimum dues.”
NEXT: “You. Better. WORK!”
Photo: Todd Williamson/PRNewsFoto
Frank Ocean has done nothing for the gay community or the music industry. Being gay is not an act of anything. There are far more artists in the last 20 years that have done more than come out of the closet.
As for his talent, he has done nothing Usher or Justin Timberlake have not done. Even the prick Chris Brown did it better.
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@Red Meat: The world disagrees with you:
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/albums/2012/
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@Eric Auerbach: Jazz album that got less than 2000 votes on a website directly about the thing he is in.
Lets not get ahead of ourselves, the world doesn’t give a fuck about Frank Ocean, it’s good that he’s come out and is continuing doing the thing he loves in spite of criticism.
But lets not go assuming he’s up there with MLK, Harvey Milk and countless others.
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@Red Meat: @2eo: Visibility is power. It’s light and truth and transformation. That’s never more true than in black communities that have long been ruled by cultural ignorance, groupthink insecurities and religious intolerance. Ocean’s coming out is significant and potentially huge for young black and minority LGBTQ and their families.
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Did we have a brain fart and just forget James Baldwin? Baldwin had to go off to the safety of Paris to write and publish ‘Giovani;s Room” one of the few gay themed novels around when I came out. He also wrote on the themes of race and sexuality and the intersection of those themes.
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Thank you for including Bayard Rustin on this list! A forgotten hero to the cause is finally getting the recognition he missed out on in life.
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How do Frank Ocean and RuPaul get on this list but not James Baldwin? Speechless.
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I say take Frank Ocean’s name off the list. He played the gay card because it was the only one in his hand. Frank is basically propped by a media who seemed to know what the worst outcome could have been in his coming out, and went out of their way to shield him from it. Behind the forced critical praise, on every blog, message board and real life conversation I’ve been witness to where he’s the topic, I see a stalemate in reaction; he has his defenders, but he also has many callous detractors.
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I’m sure Bayard Rustin would have dreamt that one day all his work would result in being on a list with Don Lemon and Frank “he’s never said he’s gay” Ocean.
I wonder if a similar list is being compiled of white gay people who changed the world. With Harvey Milk, Lance Bass and the Honey Boo Boo dude…
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Very confused, very: how about a column about those who are changing: Don Lemmon, Frank Ocean, Wanda Sykes, et al, and those who have: Bernard Rustin and Mabel Hampton.
Alas, a list of 8 is a list missing too many: No James Baldwin? No Langston Hughes? Where is Alvin Ailey? Long, long before RuPaul — who is making waves for the LGBT community and I applaud that — there was Sylvester.
Barbara Jordan? Alice Walker? Sheryl Swoopes?
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Honorable Mention — Julian Bond, the gay community has no better friend and advocate than the Chairman Emeritus of the NCAAP. An all-out advocate for equality for all; and his advocacy for marriage equality is changing the LGBT community as the walls of resistance from the larger black community crumble.
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Wanda Sykes grew up in suburban Maryland actually. She went to the same High School I did, just about 20 years apart.
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White, gay websites kill me trying to make Frank Ocean into some gay, black hero. He doesn’t even want to be associated with us and the fact that y’all label everything black “hip-hop” is so annoying. Bye.
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When will the click-through photos end???