A letter from Mama Cash Co-Executive Director, Happy Mwende Kinyili
Dear Mama Cash supporters and friends,
I recently came across a transcript of a panel conversation between the LGBTQI+ organisers who, in the aftermath of the 5-day long Stonewall Rebellion in June 1969, decided to form the New York Gay Liberation Front (GLF). One of the things that stood out to me was the speed at which a variety of LGBTQI+ organisations were meeting to capitalise on what had been a spontaneous, but deeply heartfelt expression of community, and anger in the face of police violence and institutional repression.
Barely a week after the Stonewall Rebellion, organisers from the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, and possibly others, had established the GLF and were already meeting and planning their next march. Barely a month after the Stonewall Rebellion, this brand-new organisation had mobilised 400-500 people to march New York’s streets in passionate defiance of the social, political, legal, institutional and religious persecution that their beleaguered, marginalised and reviled community lived under.
Why did this stand out to me, and why should we take note of it? I believe it points to an important but often overlooked insight about the many ways in which LGBTQI+ organising was able to bring about such profound – and relatively rapid – shifts in cultural attitudes, laws, policies and socio-economic conditions. And that insight is quite simply that, they were ready, because they had been getting ready for quite some time. The Stonewall Rebellion was not the first uprising against police brutality and criminalisation of gender diversity, it was not the first protest for gay rights, it was not the first rally for queer visibility. LGBTQI+ organisers were able to capitalise on the Stonewall Rebellion because they had been learning, thinking, working, experimenting, connecting, growing … BUILDING their movement so that it could become both an engine and a driver for social revolution.
Flavia Rando, an early member of the Gay Liberation Front, says of that time: “With each demonstration and each occupation of the streets, we remapped our understanding of self and a world that had so brutally contained us…We challenged, received knowledge and became our own teachers…We learned from the Civil Rights Movement. We learned from the Anti-War Movement. We learned from all who came before us and from our experience…
…Even after 53 years, my quality of relief and our shared sense of purpose remains palpable.”
I find Flavia’s moving words to be deeply resonant with movement dynamics that we, at Mama Cash, witness every day. In our work with community organisers and movement builders in the Netherlands and far beyond, I see how much hope and resilience they are able to generate – for themselves and their communities – out of the work that they do. These are the people who teach me every day, on a very personal level, that community is something that is neither “sought” nor “found” – community is built, it is forged, and when called to, it is defended.
I hold the conviction that Mama Cash, at its very core, is more so a bridge than a conduit for resources to feminist groups. I think of us as a bridge between individuals and groups, that are building and forging the global movement for social change, that we are all called upon to defend. We are the bridge upon which many have met their teachers, collaborators, allies and supporters. We are the bridge upon which many grantee-partners have made meaningful connections with each other – and with you.
We are the bridge and we invite you to cross it, and join forces with those who stay ready, resilient and full of hopeful purpose for those moments of change on the horizon.
If you believe, as I do, in the power of feminist movements to build resilience and defend hope, then know that your support makes it possible for Mama Cash to stay ready too. With your help, we show up for embattled and passionate organisers.
Make a donation today. Together, we can make sure that they have what they need to keep going.
Yours, and truly so,
Happy Mwende Kinyili
Co-Executive Director