Sunday, October 13, 2013

Out Spotlight



            Today's Out Spotlight describes herself as an “out, southern, black, lesbian, social justice activist.” She has been advocating for human rights for more than 45 years. Today's Out Spotlight is Mandy Carter.

 Mandy Carter was born in Albany, New York, November 2, 1948.  She was raised in orphanages and the foster care system.  Although she was first introduced to social justice activism in 1965 when the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee visited her high school in Schenectady, New York, it was the 1968 Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Poor People's Campaign that officially marked the beginning of her activism.

Carter also credits Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign projects such as those associated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the former Institute for the Study of Nonviolence founded by folksinger Joan Baez, and the War Resisters League (WRL), specifically WRL-West.

After high school, she attended Hudson Valley Community College before dropping out and moving to New York City. She met the League for Spiritual Discovery and traveled with them to San Francisco. In 1969, she joined the War Resisters League  with whom she got her first-ever paid position in the movement.
 
She went on to be the Executive Director and one of the six co-founders of the North Carolina-based Southerners On New Ground (SONG).  Founded at the 1993 National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's (NGLTF) Creating Change Conference in Durham, North Carolina, SONG integrates work against homophobia into freedom struggles in the South.




Carter served as campaign manager for North Carolina's Senate Vote '90 and Mobilization '96 political action committees. She served again as campaign manager for Florida Vote/Equal Voice based in Miami - a 2000 non-partisan, statewide voter empowerment campaign, which was initiated by the African-American Ministers Leadership Council of the People, People for the American Way Foundation, and the Florida NAACP - which resulted in one of Florida's largest black voter turn out's ever.

 Additionally, she was a four-year (1996-2000) North Carolina Member-At-Large of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and a member of both the DNC Gay and Lesbian Caucus and the DNC Black Caucus. She was a delegate at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, as well as one of the four co-chairs for the daily meeting of the DNC Gay and Lesbian Caucus.



Together with Matt Foreman, then executive director of NGLTF, she was one the two gay and lesbian people to speak at the 2003 Lincoln Memorial Rally for the 40th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. SONG and NGLTF had been asked by the 40th Anniversary Steering Committee, which included Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King III, to mobilize LGBT participation at the rally. They spoke at the event in honor of Bayard Rustin, the black gay activist who coordinated the 1963 march

She was one of the five National Co-Chairs of Obama LGBT Pride, the LGBT grassroots infrastructure for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. She focused on organizing grassroots networks, especially people of color throughout the South.
Carter won a Spirit of Justice Award from GLAD for advancing LGBT rights. The National Organization for Women called her “one of the nation’s leading African-American lesbian activists.” She was inducted into the International Federation of Black Prides' Black LGBT Hall of Fame during the January 2012 Martin Luther King Day holiday.

She is the National Coordinator for the Bayard Rustin Commemoration Project of the National Black Justice Coalition. Carter lives in Durham, North Carolina.

 “Sometimes you have to be bold and take a risk.”

20 comments:

Anonymous said...
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The truth said...

Above, you are lame. These out spotlights are amazing and you know it, which is exactly why you come here to read 'em. It scares the shit out of you that there'll be one on Jake someday.

Anonymous said...
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prairiegirl said...

He comes here to troll and troll only.

He is paid by Jake's Mgmt to patrol the activity, to keep roost over the blog next door and campaign that Austin is straight and pooh-pooh OMG and its bloggers in order to try and bring down this blog as well. That's what he gets paid to do. Racism and empty-headedness are by-products of his routine activity.

Oh, and OMG has scored several 'round-the-parkers lately which is why he suddenly is whimpering around these parts.

prairiegirl said...

Excellent Spotlight. I've never seen so many political and human interest groups. There's more acronyms in that post than a bowl of alphabet soup, lol. She is a real go getter and you can tell how intelligent and talented she is by how quickly she advanced through her career. Good for her. Looks like she was out and open from the very beginning, too.

?? said...

He is paid by Jake's Mgmt to patrol the activity, to keep roost over the blog next door and campaign that Austin is straight and pooh-pooh OMG and its bloggers in order to try and bring down this blog as well. That's what he gets paid to do.

Interesting. Do you think Jake is aware of what his management is up to? You know, using Jake's fees to pay racist trolls?

prairiegirl said...

All employers don't know every unsavory activity of their employees. They employ the person, don't/can't necessarily control or are knowledgeable of activity going on within the departments when they're not in the office or standing over people's shoulders.

That's called micro managing.

Employees are expected to behave and act with integrity on their own. When employees act up, it's the job of their supervisor to either take some form of disciplinary action or seek advice from their manager on how to handle.

Jake is not supervisor level. He has someone else to serve as supervisor. Otherwise, how does he have time to concentrate on his acting?

I guess Jake might be termed management/leadership or employer, not sure which.

But yeah, in the end the money he makes off of movies, appearances and products is dispersed and filtered down to fund paid trolling and monitoring, bearding and beard expenses, business expenses for travel which promote fauxmances and fake twitter/FB accounts.

Even if WME funds some of it, the money they use is because part of that money is made off of closeted actors. It all goes into the same pool.

Do any celebrities/professional athletes know everything their agents/managers are up to? I don't think so - look how many have had money/investments squandered because of mis-management. Probably depends on how much is on one's plate as to how much attention they can pay to what's going on with their books and online activity.

Interesting said...

I thought that Austin visits this blog, and even gives OMGers subtle 'shout outs'. May be Austin tells his husband what the trolls are up to. I suppose Austin wouldn't know the troll is on the payroll though.

hm said...

Oh, and OMG has scored several 'round-the-parkers lately which is why he suddenly is whimpering around these parts.

So you're equating OMG to a game, a contest?

destiny said...

It's a contest between the truth and the bullshit spewed by Jake's publicity machine.

Some of us would like to see the truth win.

Methodical Muser said...

I'm with you, Destiny. Beautifully, said.

prairiegirl said...

Could not have come close to saying it better myself, Dest. Sharp as a tack.

Cut! said...

samanthavalentine
1 hour ago
A movie is filming literally on my deck. Jake Gyllenhaal is the creep by the van. It's hard to tell but I heard the director yell his name a million times.
Short vid
10:10 AM - 14 Oct 13 · Details

Special K said...

Well said Dest, well said.

Florida Tom said...

Yep you are correct Destiny. Live and lie and you can never be happy.

the real m said...

Bravo, destiny. A real gem today.

the real m said...

Does anyone else find the new apple operating system a nuisance? I am 100% iPad while on the road and the keyboard is touchier than ever! Oh, well at least I have access to read such great comments.

prairiegirl said...
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prairiegirl said...

m, I cannot stand that you have to hit that passcode every single doggone time your IPad locks up.

That absolutely drives me insane. I didn't like anything about the new IOS. I don't know why these IT guys think they have to shake things up all the time. Leave things alone.

I haven't discovered anything good about it so far.

Does that help provide my feelings about the situation? LOL!

destiny said...

I had no idea my short, dashed-off post was going to be such a hit. (Blush)