Africa

Filmmaker

b. May 13, 1966

“… There are other people with stories to tell.”

Cheryl Dunye is a Liberian-born American lesbian filmmaker, actor and educator. Her films highlight social and cultural issues surrounding African-Americans and the LGBT community, most notably, black lesbians.
 
Dunye grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Temple University and her Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts. In 1992 Art Matters Inc. awarded her a fellowship. The following year, her work appeared in the Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Dunye has made more than 15 films whose themes explore the intersection of race, sexuality and personal identity. Emerging as part of the Queer New Cinema movement of the 1990s, she began her career producing short film narratives. A compilation of her work from 1990 to 1994, “Early Works of Cheryl Dunye,” is available on DVD.

In 1996 Dunye wrote, directed, edited and starred in the romantic comedy-drama “The Watermelon Woman,” her first feature film and the first full-length narrative made by and about a black lesbian. It won the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Feature at L.A. Outfest. Her next project, “Stranger Inside” (2001), an HBO drama about black lesbian prison inmates, earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best director.

Dunye’s other films include “My Baby’s Daddy (2004),” a comedy that grossed $18.5 million against a $12 million budget; “The Owls” (2010); “Mommy is Coming” (2012); and “Black is Blue” (2014), a sci-fi film set in a futuristic Oakland, California, that explores black queer transgender love.

Dunye cites American film directors Woody Allen and Spike Lee as her artistic influences and Charles Burnett’s “Killer of Sheep” (1978) as a significant source of inspiration. Her distinctive style often breaks the fourth wall: characters directly address the camera, blurring the line between the actors and the audience. Industry insiders have labeled her creative mix of fact and fiction “Dunyementary.”

In addition to filmmaking, Dunye is a professor at San Francisco State University School of Cinema. She has taught at universities from coast to coast, including UCLA and Temple University. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Among other honors, Dunye received the Community Vision Award from the National Center for Lesbian Rights in 2004 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016.

She lives in Oakland, California, with her two children.

South African Activist

b. March 30, 1985

“There is no justification in a democracy for discrimination based on health status, race, nationality or ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, disability, social status or age amongst others.”

Mmapaseka “Steve” Letsike is a leading South African HIV/AIDS and LGBTI activist. She serves as deputy chair of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), overseeing campaigns to tackle the epidemic in her country. South Africa is home to the world’s largest HIV-infected population.

Letsike grew up in Atteridgeville, South Africa, an impoverished township comprising 99% black African residents. Her parents died when she was young. She was raised by her grandparents. 

Letsike’s childhood struggles helped her build resilience. She describes “hustling” from a young age to support herself. She persevered by experimenting in different fields, including entrepreneurship and activism.

As a child, Letsike did not identify as a “normal girl” or conform with societal expectations. She successfully challenged her school’s dress code, which did not allow girls to wear slacks. She played soccer, where she was nicknamed “Steve,” and she established the first female soccer team at her high school.

After high school, the self-described feminist joined a program for social development that exposed her to advocacy and training workshops. She founded her own organization, Access Chapter 2 (AC2), which brings attention to the intersectional issues facing the most marginalized South Africans: black people, women, children and the LGBTI community. The organization’s name refers to the Bill of Rights, which is Chapter 2 of South Africa’s Constitution. 

Letsike is the deputy chairperson of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), an association established by the government to respond to HIV, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases. For several years, Letsike co-chaired the organization with H. E. Cyril Ramaphosa, then deputy president and now president of South Africa. Letsike also serves as the chair of the SANAC National Civil Society Forum, which plays a pivotal role in program implementation at the grassroots level. 

In 2015 Letsike represented her country in the launch of DREAMS, an international initiative in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Girl Effect, created to secure an AIDS-free future for girls and women in sub-Saharan Africa. Each week more than 2,000 young South African women are infected with the virus—the highest rate on the continent.

In addition to her HIV activism, Letsike co-chairs the National Task Team, established by the South African Department of Justice to address hate crimes and violence against LGBT individuals. 

Letsike has a daughter who she says provides her main motivation in life. In 2018 Letsike married her longtime partner, Lucy Thukwane.

Ugandan Activist

b. June 17, 1979

“I am a gay man. I am also Ugandan. There is nothing un-African about me.”

Dr. Frank Mugisha is one of the most famous and outspoken advocates for LGBT rights in Uganda, a country where being gay is a criminal offense. He is the executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and advocates on behalf of LGBT Ugandans who face prison or even death for being openly gay. He has received both the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and the Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize for his work. 

When Mugisha was 14, he came out to his strict Catholic family. Many family members and friends disowned him. The rejection later inspired him to create Icebreakers Uganda, a group to help other young people with the coming-out process. 

In 2014 he came out publicly about Uganda’s anti-homosexuality law, which not only outlawed homosexual acts and compelled citizens to report suspected homosexual activity, but also mandated life imprisonment for LGBT citizens. “I want my fellow Ugandans to understand that homosexuality is not a Western import,” Mugisha said, “and our friends in the developed world to recognize that the current trend of homophobia is.”

Mugisha was also a plaintiff in a lawsuit against American evangelist Scott Lively for his work on Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill. Mugisha has received death threats for his ongoing advocacy, but he has said, “For me, it is about standing out and speaking in an environment where you are not sure if you will survive the next day; it is this fear that makes me strong, to work hard and fight on to see a better life for LGBTI persons in Uganda.”

South African Activist

b.March 21, 1962

“The desire to know requires courage, patience and persistence because freedom, dignity and equality depend on it.”

Zackie Achmat is a South African activist whose work has focused on people living with HIV/AIDS, the gay community and combating apartheid. He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and a recipient of the Desmond Tutu Leadership Award and the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.

Achmat was raised in Cape Town, South Africa. At age 14, he participated in the 1976 anti-apartheid uprising in Soweto. As an adolescent, he assisted the African National Congress by organizing his peers. He continued to fight against apartheid until its end in 1994.

Achmat became active in South Africa’s gay community and founded the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality. In 2000, he directed the documentary “Apostles of Civilised Vice,” chronicling the history of the gay community in South Africa.

In the late 1990s, Achmat was diagnosed as HIV-positive. It was difficult for him to obtain treatment or medications in South Africa, which had one of the highest rates of infection.

Achmat helped create the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). TAC led campaigns against the South African government, which was reluctant to get involved with the epidemic because it did not consider AIDS a significant problem. By organizing protests, Achmat demanded that the government take action to provide AIDS education, prevention and resources for HIV-positive citizens.

When pharmaceutical companies filed a lawsuit to block the import of cheaper HIV medications, Achmat and TAC led a successful campaign that thwarted their efforts. Achmat continued to lobby for price reductions and increased access to affordable, generic HIV drugs.

Despite being able to afford antiretroviral medications, Achmat refused to take the drugs until they became available to all South Africans. When asked about this decision, he explained, “I don't think it's noble; I think it's dumb. But it's a conscience issue. It's not something I advocate for anyone else.” In 2003, the South African government began providing free antiretroviral medications to a greater portion of the country.

Achmat cofounded ABIGALE (Association of Bisexuals, Gays, and Lesbians) and Ndifuna Ukwazi (Dare to Know), an education-based organization. Nelson Mandela called Achmat a national hero.

South African Activist

b. November 26, 1957

d. November 30, 1998

“I am black and I am gay. I cannot separate the two into secondary or primary struggles.”

Simon Nkoli was a South African anti-apartheid, gay rights and AIDS activist. He is recognized as the founder of South Africa’s black gay movement.

Nkoli was born in Soweto. At a young age, he was sent to live on a farm with his grandparents to avoid apartheid. He spent any spare moment in the classroom. Eventually his thirst for education led him to attend school full-time.

At 18, Nkoli came out to his mother. She sent him to a priest to be “argued” out of it. After this and further attempts by psychologists and doctors proved unsuccessful, Nkoli’s mother allowed her son to move in with his boyfriend.

As an activist in the 1970s, he was arrested in the student uprisings against apartheid. In 1979, he joined the Congress of South African Students and the United Democratic Front (UDF).

In 1983, Nkoli—frustrated that most gay venues were in districts reserved for whites—joined the Gay Association of South Africa (GASA), a predominantly white gay organization. After realizing that GASA would not relocate their social activities outside of whites-only facilities, Nkoli founded the Saturday Group, South Africa’s first regional gay black organization. 

For opposing apartheid, Nkoli and other UDF members were charged with treason. While awaiting sentencing, he came out to other UDF leaders, prompting them to recognize homophobia as oppression. In 1988, he and his co-defendants were acquitted.

After his release, Nkoli cofounded the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of Witwatersrand (GLOW), the first national black LGBT organization in South Africa. 

In the 1990s, Nkoli worked with Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) to end apartheid. His visibility in the anti-apartheid movement and his association with Mandela helped the gay movement gain support from the ANC. In 1996, South Africa became the first nation to include sexual orientation protection in its constitution.

Nkoli was one of the first South Africans to publicly disclose his HIV status. He cofounded the Township AIDS Project and the Gay Men’s Health Forum. In 1998, he died from AIDS-related complications. South Africa’s 1999 Gay Pride March was dedicated to Nkoli’s accomplishments.

Activist

b. February 13, 1964

d. January 26, 2011

“What they're doing now is to make it more harsh on people, anyone promoting homosexuality is being criminalized.”

David Kato was the founder of Uganda’s LGBT civil rights movement.  He was an outspoken advocate for equality in a country with some of the harshest anti-gay laws. His murder brought global attention to the plight of LGBT people in Uganda and Africa.

Kato and his twin brother were raised in a conservative family in a small Ugandan village.  He recalled being brainwashed to believe “it was wrong to be in love with a man.” He attended some of Uganda’s best schools before moving to South Africa in the mid-1990’s to pursue a teaching career.  Inspired by South Africa’s LGBT civil rights movement, Kato became an activist.

In 1998, intent on dismantling the homophobia, Kato returned to Uganda, where homosexuality is a crime punishable by up to 14 years imprisonment. Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity stated, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

Despite the risks, Kato held a televised news conference pressing for LGBT civil rights.  As a result, he suffered several arrests and beatings.

Undeterred but cautious, Kato continued to lead the movement while supporting himself as a teacher. In 2004, he cofounded Sexual Minorities Uganda Group (SMUG), Uganda’s first LGBT civil rights organization. 

In 2009, the Ugandan legislature proposed a bill designating the death penalty for homosexuality. The following year, a Ugandan national newspaper published the names and photographs of gay rights activists, including Kato. It explicitly called for homosexuals to be executed by hanging.

Four months later, Kato was bludgeoned to death in his home. Local authorities claim his death had nothing to do with his sexual orientation.

In response to Kato’s death, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “This crime is a reminder of the heroic generosity of the people who advocate for and defend human rights on behalf of the rest of us—and the sacrifices they make.”