Collections by Michelle Brown

Dr. Retzloff teaches LGBTQ studies and U.S. history at Michigan State University. The Tim Retzloff oral history interviews (1993-2012) consist of over eighty oral histories conducted by Retzloff with members of Detroit's LGBTQ community. In 2018 we sat down with LGBTQ historian Tim Retzloff to talk about his research on Michigan’s LGBTQ+ History. H returns to update us on his work as we celebate LGBTQ History month

His work chronicling the lives of the LGBTQ+ community continues with the addition of his website Michigan LGBTQ Remembers. The site was launched in March of 2017. It is dedicated to documenting the diverse lives of LGBTQ Michiganders and their allies who are no longer with us.The individuals on the website were leaders, activists, and volunteers. Some were bar owners or employees, customers, or entertainers. Some were elders, and some were still in their youth. All were ordinary people who were members of the LGBTQ community who went about their everyday lives. The website posts their obituaries and has even written obituaries for some members of the community who had no one to celebrate their life with a remembrance upon their passing.

In his blog “Queer Remembering” Dr. Retzloff offers advice for members of the community looking for an archival home for their records and other thoughts on comings and goings in the LBTQ community

Originally from Puerto Rico Bonsai Bermudez has a bachelor’s degree in Theatre and Dance and has worked professionally as a ballet/modern dancer and actor. Bonsai became a part of Ballet Teatro de Puerto Rico, Conservatory of Ballet Concierto, Broadway Dance Center, Traveling Theatre of Puerto Rico, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, among others.

He completed a Master’s Degree in Guidance and Counseling from the University of Puerto Rico with a concentration on LGBTQ issues. He has been working in the social justice-service field for over 20 years - focusing on trauma, transformative justice, and harm reduction practices.

He joined to Board of Chicago’s Orgullo en Accion in 2010 to politically advocate for the Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Community.  He spent five years at the Broadway Youth Center, a Chicago program that serves LGBTQ youth experiencing housing instability or homelessness, as the Drop-In and Resource Advocacy Manager.

Bermudez is Co-Founder and Executive Artistic Director of Chicago’s Youth Empowerment Performance Project.  YEPP is a program for LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness to explore their history, investigate new ways to address their struggles, and celebrate their strengths throughout the process of developing a theatrical performance piece.  

Bonsai also serves as a consultant to different organizations and collectives around the country that are working to incorporate trauma informed, harm reduction, and art-healing practices into their programs, policies, and institutional work.  He is quadrilingual (Spanish, English, French and Sign Language) with a strong interest in multicultural issues.

After graduating magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Political Science, Sydney Baloue pursued public policy research as a German Academic Exchange Scholar and Transatlantic Fellow in Berlin, Germany before completing a dual-degree masters in Urban Policy at the Paris Institute for Political Studies and the London School of Economics.

This amateur boxer/trainer, ballroom historian, writer, and advocate for racial, social, and gender justice, also advocates for trans-masculine visibility in voguing, in boxing, and in the film and television industry.

Sydney is a proud member of the House of Xtravaganza. He made history in 2019 as the first transgender man to win a voguing category (Old Way Performance) at The Latex Ball.

After writing an op-ed in the New York Times he was tapped to be a writer and producer on the HBO Max show “Legendary.”  He advocates for trans-masculine visibility in voguing, in boxing, and in the film and television industry,

Besides working on his book chronicling the history and evolution of New York City’s Ballroom Scene, Baloue is rewriting his original pilot, which reached the Second Round of The 2018 Black List/Macro’s Episodic Lab Competition.

Sydney is grateful for his global experiences as they have allowed him to connect stories across continents and have many of his own assumptions about the world blown apart.

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan is the author of the short story collection, Blue Talk and Love. This proud Harlem native holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Temple University, and a B.A. in Afro-American Studies from Smith College. 

She is Assistant Professor of English at Bryn Mawr College, where she teaches courses in African American poetry and poetics, black feminist literature, and creative writing.

Sullivan has a way with words. She beautifully weaves words together, telling the vivid stories of the characters in Blue Talk and Love. These eclectic characters come to life, bringing feelings of nostalgia, comfort, and connectedness.

In her fiction, she explores the intellectual, emotional, and bodily lives of young black women through voice, music, and hip-hop inflected magical realist techniques. Her short stories have appeared in several journals and periodicals.

She is the winner of several awards including the Charles Johnson Fiction Award, the James Baldwin Memorial Playwriting Award, and honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, among others.

Calling from Mumbai India, Vaishnavi Mahant MacDonald shares her thoughts about life, spirituality, her relationship with God in context with her life as an Indian film and TV actress.

Her first acting role was as a child when she had a small role in her uncle’s horror film. But acting wasn’t her first choice, Vaishnavi wanted to be a scientist but life had different plans

Six years later she returned to acting to help her mother support the family after her parents divorced. From 1998 to 2005, she played the female lead in a superhero series. The show, as well as her character, got high acclaim and was considered her breakthrough role. When her journalist character was written out of the series, fan protests prompted the producers to bring her back. She went on to play leading roles in several movies.

She has been nominated for and won awards for her acting and recently directed her first short film.

Her website VAISHNAVI REINVENTED brings a unique Holistic experience designed to enhance Spiritual, Emotional, Intellectual growth and promote participatory engagement in all aspects of life including an Actor's Preparation, Beauty, Health, and Wellness.

As if her plate wasn’t already full enough, she recently wrote her first book “The invisible hand of God” scheduled for release on October 1, 2020.

Originally from Detroit, this brother has lived all over the world. He speaks several languages including Mandarin Chinese and Arabic. He is one of five openly gay Imams in the world.

His parents supported him, his six older brothers, his younger sister, and his oldest step-sister from his father's first marriage to find religion despite his parent's Southern Baptist beliefs  When he was 8 years old, he visited a Synagogue, a Hindu temple, and an assortment of Christian denominations. None of these religions he had explored fit him exactly, so he continued to search for a religion he could put his faith into. He converted to Islam at age 30.

He is the Executive Director of the MECCA Institute, a non-profit organization, focusing on Women, the LGBTQ community, and Youth through its online school, which prepares Muslim scholars for leadership positions and through its think tank,

Thoughtful, world wise even funny its an honor to call him friend.

Reg Flowers is an artist, activist and educator, whose work is rooted in ancient shamanic, African trickster, and Brazilian Joker traditions. They use Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, Navajo Peacemaking, and other anti-oppression techniques, as the foundation of their theater-making, mediation, problem-solving, and group healing practices.

Reg began their career as a theater artist, on and off-Broadway. They are the founder of Award-winning Falconworks Theater Company in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which uses popular theater to build capacities for civic engagement and social change. They have received broad recognition, numerous awards, and citations for their community service. They are a faculty member at Pace University and a company member of Shakespeare in Detroit.

Listening to Reg, one word that comes to mind is magic. Reg’s recounting of their experiences from childhood to the present day really captures what it means to be deeply connected to flow and intuition. Reg has always embraced play and imagination as a form of magic — gathering their school peers to put on a play in elementary school to producing their own plays on the big stage as an adult. Magic for Reg is also about connecting with the ancestors and embarking on their healing journey.

Reg who also blogs as Notorious PINK, now has a home in Detroit and works with the Allied Media Project. They still have their Brooklyn roots but has found a space where their work in theater and as an artist, activist, educator and shaman can flourish on Detroit's eastside.

Verlena Johnson was born in Chicago and grew up in Madison and Beloit Wisconsin but now calls California home.

She is a multimedia artist whose artwork includes drawing, painting, sculpture, puppetry, performance and video. Her art is often figurative and conveys a narrative. exploring racial and gender identity—how they are constructed, their social/cultural/political meaning, and her relationship to them.

She shares her journey in expressing art from the political to the personal. Especially interesting is how she brings her energy work, her spirituality into her art. Various symbols that appear in mysticism, e.g., halos, spirals, and birds appear in much of her work.

Halos are depicted in many of the pieces and symbolize the subject’s divinity (her belief is that we are all divine). While halos often have religious origins, for Verlena they represent a figure’s life force or the energy That Moves Through ALL Things.

She says "Further, circles represent continuity, connectivity and the cycle of life (ideas present amongst many African and Native American people). Spirals represent spiritual development, eternity, the slow reveal of things that are hidden and feminine energy. Birds symbolize the communication with Spirit and our connection to the Divine, as well as spiritual evolution. Feathers are also depicted in her art to symbolize Divinity and as a nod to her Salish Kootenai ancestors.

She earned an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in Afro-American Studies with an emphasis in Art History.  She earned an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Sculpture and studied wood carving with Ghanaian Master Wood-carvers, Djam Vivie & Kwakou Gerai.

Barbara L. Jones, is a lifelong Detroiter and community activist, organizer and youth-violence prevention advocate.

She is the Community Dispute Resolution Specialist and Faculty Instructor for the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies Program at Wayne State University.

Barbara mentors and advocates for the youth in Detroit and in the metro Detroit area in a variety of capacities in schools and with organizations. She is the Program Director for the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute, a program that delivers expertise training in a higher learning academic setting that provides high school youth development services that focus on civic engagement, conflict resolution intervention, violence prevention, bullying, diversity, civil rights, race relations, negotiation, leadership, international affairs, diplomacy, social justice, and crucial life skills with the overarching theme and tools of how to teach students to individually and collectively foster peace within their own schools and communities.

She has worked with The Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership as a housing coordinator and served as a caregiver for legendary activist Grace Lee Boggs the final years of her life. The Boggs Center is a non-profit center founded in 1995 by friends and associates of James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs to honor and continue their legacy as movement activists and theoreticians.

Barbara also has over 22 years of broadcast media advertising and marketing experience.

Vinnie Bagwell is a sculptor who creates three-dimensional and bas-relief sculptures in bronze and bronze resin. Born in Yonkers, New York she is an untutored artist who began sculpting in 1993.

She has the rare ability to cross over between illustration, graphic design, painting, and sculpture. Her portraits display immense spirit and authenticity. She has powers of observation and an innate understanding of proportion.

Her first commission: “The First Lady of Jazz Ella Fitzgerald” was commissioned by the City of Yonkers in 1996. It is the first sculpture of a contemporary African-American woman to be commissioned by a municipality in the United States. In 2018, a sculpture of Hartford educator, “Walter ‘Doc’ Hurley”, commissioned by the State of Connecticut, became the first public artwork of a contemporary African American in Connecticut. A life-sized sculpture of music icon Marvin Gaye has also commissioned for the new Marvin Gaye Recreation Center in NE DC.

After ten years she will complete the Enslaved Africans’ Rain Garden, the urban-heritage public-art project for the City of Yonkers, New York, to commemorate the legacy of the first enslaved Africans to be released by law in the United States, 64 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. She will also complete and install “Sojourner Truth” for the Walkway Over the Hudson” in Poughkeepsie, NY and begin the creation of “Victory…” a 15’ angel to replace the J. Marion Sims on Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street for New York City.