This week, the Shepherd Express bestows its LGBTQ Progress Awards on eight recipients. Instituted in 2015, the awards recognize those organizations, individuals and businesses whose long and sustained commitment to their community has helped move our city forward towards LGBTQ equality. They represent a broad spectrum of past and on-going achievement in comprehensive spectrum of categories ranging from the arts, education, philanthropy and health services to political activism, entrepreneurship and volunteerism.
An important criterion of the award is longevity of service. Most awardees began their work in the shadow of the Stonewall Uprising or, in at least one case, before it. All the recipient organizations, whether representing health, athletic or recreational fields, were established decades ago. Milwaukee’s LGBTQ softball and bowling leagues, both founded in the 1970s, not only contributed to our local progress but were instrumental in the development of their respective sports on a national level. Among this year’s winners are the GALANO Club has provided its services helping community members overcome addictive behaviors for nearly half a century, and FORGE, a local transgender resource organization that, over its over 35-year history, has become a national leader in its field.
Long Term Engagement
The Shepherd Express Progress Awards recognition of individuals’ is based on their long term engagement as well as well as other criteria. For the most part, they have made their impact on the community’s progress as volunteers In the past, LGBTQ activism, on whatever level, was simply something certain individuals undertook without any intent of making history or creating progress. Regardless of risk, they engaged out of pure conviction for the common good.
Their work for social justice took a myriad of forms, sometimes inadvertently. Past winners include Milwaukee politician, civil rights activist and community ally Lloyd Barbee, who, in 1967 introduced legislation in the Wisconsin Assembly to decriminalize homosexuality; Donna Burkett, along with her partner Manonia Evans, applied for a marriage license, in 1971; Yuri Keegstra, a leader of the Milwaukee Act-Up organization, fought for the rights of HIV victims; and Karen Gotzler, in 1996, ran as the first out candidate for the city’s Common Council.
This year, Robert “Bim” Florek, receives his award as a pioneer of LGBTQ progress for his decades of volunteerism that began in the 1980s as a hospice worker for men dying of AIDS. In the four decades that followed he has volunteered for arts, recreational and health organizations. Jennifer Murray MPH, Director of UW-Milwaukee’s LGBTQ Resource Center among her many other roles, receives her award this year as a leader in higher education.
Businesses, too, contribute the needs of the community and to its progress. This year, Walker’s Pint, for 20 years the city’s leading lesbian bar, and today one of few remaining in the country, is honored for its long term community support.
Coincidently, the presentation ceremony takes place on an auspicious date in Milwaukee’s LGBTQ history, August 5th. It was on that day in 1961 that an event took place that has since been cited as “The Black Nite Brawl.” As the name implies, the incident was a bar fight. In the grander scheme of things, the event may have been forgotten as just another violent ignition of alcohol fueled (and clouded) tempers. But, that night at the Black Nite, it was a cultural collision of drunken sailors, a plucky drag queen, Josie Carter, and other LGBTQ bar patrons. Drawing local media attention at the time, it brought the otherwise underground world of gay Milwaukee into the public eye. It also defied the notion of gays and lesbians willing to submit to the status quo of being an oppressed class. This time, they fought back.
The Shepherd Express LGBTQ Progress Awards celebrate our past, particularly our unsung heroes. It is hoped, that, through these awards, our community will be reminded of their efforts and sacrifices and especially of the contributions and the progress made by them. It is also hoped that future activists, organizations and businesses will be inspired to continue their unfinished work and move Milwaukee’s LGBTQ community forward towards full equality.
