Collections by Michelle Brown

Together Carter Brown, founder of Black Transmen Inc., the first national nonprofit organization that is providing resources, support and social advocacy to transgendered people throughout their transition, and Carmarion Anderson, minister at Living Faith Covenant Church, the south regional minister for the national group TransSaints of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries and Co-founder of Black Transwomen Inc., will co-convene BTAC2018 in Dallas, TX April 23-29. The conference was Initially a program of Black TransMen Inc. The group facilitated the launch the women’s portion of the organization at the second Black Trans Advocacy Conference in 2013 following conversations about expanding the group’s reach.

This year’s National Black Trans Advocacy Conference will have featured events including TransManifest Live!; Mr & Miss Black Trans International Pageant; Black Trans Advocacy Awards Gala and Black Trans Family Reunion Day.

The theme of this year's conference is "BTAC 2018: Journeying Together: Living in Greater Truth and Healing. BTAC’s co-conveners Carter Brown, Founder and National Executive Director of Black TransMen Inc and Black Transwomen Inc Co-Founder Rev. Carmarion Anderson will share what has been learned from past conferences and what this year's attendees can expect.

On Sunday, April 22, 2018, at 5:00 pm, there will be a special worship service inviting the community to join in prayer and praise for the direction and grace of God as Full Truth Fellowship of Christ Church moves forward.  The church is located at  4459 Joy Rd in Detroit. Everyone is welcome.

A must hear conversation in preparation for this special worship service is this conversation with The Rev. Dr. Renee McCoy. She shares her personal story and reflects on the history, power and presence of Full Truth Fellowship of Christ Church in Detroit’s African American LGBTQ community.

As Rev. McCoy relates the church is currently in need of immediate assistance for repairs and community support. She is also seeking artifacts including photos of not only the church’s history but of Detroit’s African American LGBTQ community.

Tim’m West is a poet & Hip Hop Artist, a youth advocate and an educator & scholar. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, West has traveled the nation speaking about issues at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and social justice.

A graduate of Duke University with a Bachelors of Arts, an MA from The New School for Social Research, and Stanford University, he is also the author of several books, Hip-Hop projects, and appears in several anthologies. He started the Front Porch: a performance art series that has mobilized hundreds of artists for more than a decade and has also appeared in multiple documentaries at the intersection of Hip Hop and black masculinity,

His 4th book in 2015, "pre|dispositions: a poetic memoir"  contains, in part, a Chapter about his experiences as an educator. In 2016, he released his 6th solo Hip-Hop/Soul project, ICONography.

Tim’m West is currently the leader of Teach For America’s national LGBTQ Community Initiative, advancing safer and braver classrooms for LGBTQ students preK-12 and their educators. Teach For America is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to "enlist, develop, and mobilize as many as possible of our nation's most promising future leaders to grow and strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence. 

A celebrated poet and hip-hop artist, youth advocate and educator Tim’m West embraces the power of words to challenge ideas of masculinity, and race.

JP Howard curates and nurtures Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon, a forum offering all writers, but especially women, at all levels, a monthly venue to come together in a positive supportive space. The Salon celebrates its 7th Anniversary on April 14, 2018.

She is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and is the author of “SAY/MIRROR,” a debut poetry collection published by The Operating System. “SAY/MIRROR” was a 2016 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in the Lesbian Poetry category. Howard is a 2018 featured author in Lambda Literary’s LGBTQ Writers in Schools program, a Push Cart Prize nominee and was a finalist for Split This Rock’s 2017 Freedom Plow Award for Petry & Activism.

With Amber Atiya, she edited Volume 107 of Sinister Wisdom – “Black Lesbians-We Are the Revolution.” Sinister Wisdom is a multicultural Lesbian literary and art journal.

Howard grew up in Sugar Hill, Harlem the daughter of the groundbreaking African American model of the 1940s and 50s, Ruth King. Poetry has played an important role in her life since childhood allowing her to find her own voice.

He went from making it on his own at age 15 to become an icon in the ballroom culture for the House Infiniti. Along the way, he graduated with highest honors as the Valedictorian and a Presidential Scholar from Olive Harvey College and graduated in the top 1% of the Honors and Arts and Sciences Colleges as Summa Cum Laude from Chicago State University.

His many Ballroom recognitions include being inducted into the Midwest Awards Ball Hall of Fame, receiving the Eric Christian Bazaar Breakthrough award (2002), being deemed a Legend for Bizarre Bazaar (2004), and deemed an Icon for Community Outreach as the Blueprint (2016). He was recently inducted into the Ballroom Scene Radio Hall Of Fame.

He does not take his ballroom status lightly, recognizing that with the status comes great responsibility and he's used it to advocate for the LGBTQ community and has been recognized for his efforts to advance social justice and equality.

Solomon founded In Demand Entertainment  (IDE) in 2002. IDE's mission is to bridge the gap between public health and social service organizations and underserved populations, who are and in-need, at-risk, and often hard-to-reach, as a means for community empowerment. As a tool for fighting the HIV epidemic, Solomon pioneered the concept of getting ball participants screened at a Ball in Chicago.

For his efforts to advance social justice and equality for the LGBTQ community, Solomon was also recognized in 2012 by the Coalition for Justice and Respect as a Community Warrior. In 2013 he was appointed by the Gay Liberation Network as a co-chairperson for the March on Springfield for Marriage Equality.

Emily Stevenson offers inclusive care for all families and individuals, including fertility, conception, prenatal, homebirth, postpartum, lactation and doula services. Emily offers her services not just as a Certified Professional Midwife but as a Queer Certified Professional Midwife. She recently worked with Haitian midwives at the MamaBaby Haiti Birth Center. Prior to becoming a midwife, Emily spent several years as a doula and trained in emergency medical services. 

Pregnant persons have a right to be treated with respect and dignity during labor and child birth.  This is especially important to LGBTQ families that also exist outside cisgender and heteronormative worldviews. LGBTQ families might have a hard time within the healthcare system because of seemingly simple things like the language we use when taking a history, lack of social support, and discrimination from providers and other healthcare staff. 

Midwives often meet people at their most vulnerable. A young woman may be coming in for her first annual exam, or a pregnant woman is coming in for prenatal care. Women come from different walks of life, and Midwives strive to give compassionate care to everyone.

A native Detroiter, Nicole Denson is a mother, artist, and social justice activist. She has volunteered within the community in many capacities.

She is currently the Associate Director of Advocacy Services for the Wayne County Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner's Advocacy Program (WC SAFE). WC SAFE’s mission is to provide comprehensive and compassionate medical-forensic care to Wayne County survivors of sexual assault in a timely manner with immediate crisis advocacy, follow-up care & counseling, and provision of expert witness testimony. She was awarded Advocate of the year in 2015 and 2016 by the WC SAFE Program. In 2017 she spearheaded a support group, one of the only groups of its kind in the metro-Detroit area, for LGBTQ people who have experienced sexual support. Using her 15 years of experience working with survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, she sheds light on the #MeToo and #MuteRKelly movement and actions following the Women's March.

She has advocated in creating systems for change and activism within Michigan State University’s Campus, Oakland County Police Stations and Courts, Detroit Police Department, 36th District Court, 3rd Circuit court, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and Frank Murphy Hall of Justice.

International Women's Day first emerged from the activities of labor movements at the turn of the twentieth century in North America and across Europe. The United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day during the International Women's Year in 1975. Ashley Scales is one of the co-organizers of the International Women's Day celebration in metro-Detroit which includes women from all walks of life including labor and community activists. She is a wife, mother, an expectant parent, a member of Lambda Pi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and proud member of the UAW Local 160. She is currently District 1 Alternate Representative for Skilled trades and Non-trades members in the pre-production body shop, machining and stamping areas.  This year to her already very full plate, she has taken on co-organizing the International Women's Day celebration in metro-Detroit. The theme for this year's celebration in the metro-Detroit area is Creating Victory Through Values, Voices, Vision! They will be recognizing/celebrating women’s rights and equality with a program on Saturday, March 10  at UAW Local 600 in Dearborn, MI.

Dr. Imani Woody the founding director and CEO of Mary's House for Older Adults. She's been an advocate for women, people of color and LGBTQ/SGL issues for more than 20 years.  Mary’s House for Older Adults, Inc. has a mission is to create safe and affordable nonprofit housing project in Washington, DC that will honor the whole person as they age.

At the 2018 Creating Change Conference in Washington, DC, SAGE, the nation’s largest & oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBT elders, presented Dr. Woody the SAGE Advocacy Award for Excellence on Aging Issues in recognition for her passion and leadership.

Dr. Woody has a Ph.D. in Human Services, specializing in non-profit management. She holds a Master of Human Services degree from Lincoln University and is a graduate of Georgetown University.

She also works as a diversity and inclusion consultant in the field of health, aging, and issues affecting the LGBTQ/SGL and people color communities. She has presented on LGBT aging issues at the White House National LGBT Elder Summit and at the 2017 National Equality March for Unity and Pride.

Amazing, incredible, inspiring are but a few words that could be used to describe Dr.Wilhelmina Perry. 

She grew up in Harlem with her parents, grandmother, and eight siblings. Her father was a deacon and union leader who sometimes held two jobs to support the family, and her mother also worked outside the home. Dr. Perry was raised in the Pentecostal church in a household filled with a strong sense of community activism and Black pride. 

She earned a BA in social welfare and a master’s degree in social work. Perry later earned a doctorate in human behavior and leadership. 

She met her life partner, civil rights activist Antonia Pantoja while teaching at San Diego State University in California.  Over the course of their three-decade relationship, they founded the Graduate School for Community Development in San Diego and were mainly involved with social work in low-income communities in both the United States and Pantoja’s native Puerto Rico, to where the pair relocated in the mid-1980s returning to New York in the late 1990s.

Following Pantoja’s death from cancer in 2002, Dr. Perry found a purpose by returning to her church roots and joining the Maranatha LGBTQ initiative at Riverside Church in New York City. 

She co-founded the Interfaith Task Force for LGBT Homeless Youth. She also worked as a marriage equality advocate for Empire State Pride Agenda and was a co-founder of the LGBT Faith Leaders of African Descent. She was honored with the Encore Purpose Prize fellowship, one of the nation’s largest and most popular prizes for people over the age of 60 fighting social inequality and recently joined the advisory board for Zami Nobla.