The Rainbow Honor Walk (RHW) is a
walk of fame installation in San Francisco, California to honor notable lesbian, gay,
bisexual,
transgender, and
queer (
LGBTQ) individuals from around the world "who left a lasting mark on society."[1][2] Its bronze plaques honor LGBTQ individuals who "made significant contributions in their fields".[3] The plaques mark a walk located within the business district of the
Castro neighborhood, which for decades has been the city's center of LGBTQ activism and culture.[1][4]
The project was founded by David Perry to honor LGBTQ pioneers, who are considered to have laid the groundwork for
LGBTQ rights, and to teach future generations about them.[1][5] The sidewalk installations are planned to extend from the
Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy at 19th Street & Collingwood, to proceed along Castro Street to its intersection with
Market Street, and follow Market to the
San Francisco LGBTQ Community Center at Octavia Boulevard; additionally the Walk will branch out in both directions at 18th Street and Castro.[6] The RHW eventually could number up to 500 honorees.[7] The first round of twenty plaques was installed in 2014, a second round of twenty-four was completed in 2019.
A separate sidewalk installation, the
Castro Street History Walk, is a series of twenty historical fact plaques about the neighborhood—ten from pre-1776 to the 1960s before the Castro became known as a
gay neighborhood, and ten "significant events associated with the
queer community in the Castro"—contained within the 400 and 500 blocks of the street between 19th and Market streets.[8]
"I was very cognizant of the fact we were losing a generation of people. And I was thinking: What happens if there's no one here to tell our story? We need to memorialize our history, because if we don't, nobody else will. Or they'll tell it in the wrong way."[9]
The Bay Area Reporter noted five of the inaugural twenty:
Keith Haring, activist George Choy,
Sylvester,
Randy Shilts, and
Tom Waddell; all died from AIDS.[11] Perry envisioned a
Hollywood Walk of Fame but for LGBTQ people to reach future generations.[9]Gayle Rubin, a "scholar of San Francisco LGBTQ history and professor of anthropology and women's studies at the University of Michigan" stated, "Marginal groups and those who are disrespected for various reasons tend to not have their accomplishments recognized in public landmarks."[12] The RHW could eventually include 500 honorees.[7]
In 1994, Perry proposed the LGBTQ walk of fame to the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors and LGBTQ community leaders including the Castro Business District (CBD).[13] All approved the concept.[13] The CBD would later serve as the
fiscal sponsor until the RHW was an independent charity.[14] Because of the more urgent needs related to the
HIV/AIDS pandemic in San Francisco, the project and its fundraising goals were put on hold.[15] Separately in 2009, Isak Lindenauer, a poet, writer, Castro business-owner and resident since the 1980s, had a similar vision; then-city Supervisor
Bevan Dufty connected the two,[16] so they joined efforts.[17][18] Lindenauer coined Rainbow Honor Walk;[11] and used a
mockup showing the name surrounded by rainbow motif
mosaic tiles.[19] Supervisor
Bevan Dufty authored city legislation for the project in 2010,[20] although most of the details, including design and scope, had yet to be worked out.[21]
The RHW has been approved to extend from the
Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy at 19th Street & Collingwood, to proceed along Castro Street (the 400 and 500 blocks) to its intersection with
Market Street, and follow Market to the
San Francisco LGBTQ Community Center at Octavia Boulevard; additionally the RHW will branch out in both directions where 18th Street intersects Castro Street.[6][22]
In 2009, Perry and other community advocates co-founded the RHW, an all-volunteer, non-profit organization to manage the process of identifying and documenting about twenty honorees each round, and to gain funding for commissioning plaques and their installation.[13] Perry has served as the board chair until stepping down in 2019, although he'll remain as an unpaid consultant to the project.[9] Anyone can nominate potential honorees; the inaugural round had more than 150 people suggested.[9][17] In 2011 the non-profit announced the inaugural twenty honorees, whose plaques were installed in 2014.[6]
Kathy Amendola, owner of Cruisin’ the Castro Walking Tours, the city's "first and only Legacy Business Tour Company",[23] and the first female RHW board member, noted the diversity of the honorees; and said it was a part of the RHW's mission: to “present multi-sexual, multi-gender and multi-cultural spectrum of human history.”[24] The tour company added routes based on the RHW.[24]
RHW board
The ten-plus member RHW board of directors oversees all aspects of the project.[9] In addition to selecting the honorees, they direct the planning, fundraising, and execution of producing and placing the permanent bronze plaques.[9] One RHW board member, Benjamin Leong, was already an LGBTQ activist when Perry and Lindenauer recruited him in July 2011, "The project grabbed my interest and attention because it is important to know ones history and this project serves to educate and honor the LGBTQ heroes and heroines of the past and present."[14][a]
In 2012 the RHW board held a no-fee, international design competition, led by Anthony Turney, for the plaques, three-foot by three-foot in size to match the existing sidewalk.[6][14][38] Each plaque will contain: the honoree's name; birth and death dates; their signature, and a brief description of contributions.[22] An LGBTQ historian drafts the likely final text which is also vetted by the
GLBT Historical Society.[2]
An independent
blind jury of "curators from San Francisco's leading cultural institutions", LGBTQ community leaders, and a representative of
San Francisco Arts Commission's (SFAC) Civic Design Committee determined four finalists.[11][38] Tom DeCaigny, Director of Cultural Affairs for the SFAC, said
"The Rainbow Honor Walk will not only be an inspiring educational tool for future generations, but an important, ongoing and permanent part of San Francisco's cultural landscape."[38]
The RHW board chose a design by architect Carlos Casuso of
Madrid, Spain, who was given a $1000
honorarium.[6][38] The design proposed a
bronze plaque cut into quarters, with each honoree's photo "digitally treated so it can be easily engraved in the bronze".[39] The engraved image fills the entirety of the plaque, while "one quarter is reserved for the honoree's biographical information".[39] The contest was overseen,[14] and design reviewed by the SFAC—which must approve all structures built on public property—and the
Department of Public Works.[39] The images are
acid etched in the bronze plaque which is an inch thick.[40] About a dozen images from the finished inaugural group can be seen
on this article.
The finished pieces are treated with a slip-resistant coating, which is also protective from shoe scuffing, and the plaques are bolted to the concrete.[2][40] The protective coating is re-applied every five years.[2] The city administers ongoing maintenance in partnership with the RHW, while insurance costs are built into the fundraising for each round of plaques.[2][14] Additionally the "composition, make, and design of the plaques have been carefully evaluated to ensure endurance and durability"; plus they are extremely heavy so theft would entail industrial equipment.[14]
Mussi Artworks Foundry, a
foundry in
Berkeley, California, manufactures the plaques.[6] The process was overseen by Lawrence Noble, head of the sculpture department at
SF Academy of Art University.[41] The initial per-plaque cost was around $5,600 including production and insurance;[14] for the second round the cost is about $7000 each.
"...it's not just educating about the past. It's educating about the present and the future. We still do not have equal rights.[40]
A conscious decision to not include
Harvey Milk in the inaugural round was made as he already had a handful of places named after him;[42][b] as well as two historical markers outside his old camera shop on Castro Street.[47]
The installation was coordinated to be a part of the Castro Street Streetscape Project, an extensive $10 million reimagining of Castro Street's 400 and 500 blocks: including the intersection with 18th Street;[4][8] and improvements to Jane Warner Plaza at Castro and 17th streets, the
F Market & Wharves outbound terminus of the
heritage streetcars.[48] The light-posts were updated with rainbow lighting, street-friendly trees—
Ginkgos and
King Palms—installed, sidewalk ‘throughways’ widened,
rainbow crosswalks installed, and walks and streets repaved.[4][49]
Inaugural dedication
The plaques were unveiled September 2, 2014, and feature twenty "civil rights activists, writers, poets, artists, and musicians".[1] The opening ceremony took place at
Harvey Milk Plaza, at the intersection of Castro and Market streets, with remarks from Perry and LGBTQ politicians.[11]Openly gay California Senator
Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) said, "not unlike slaves, [our communities] have been denied our heroes and our history."[2] He added, "People who have changed the history of the course of our planet come from our community."[2]
The inaugural plaques were installed in alphabetical order starting at the plaza: following Castro to 19th Street; 19th to Collingwood Street; and then on the other side of the street returning.[11] The dedication proceeded to each plaque where LGBTQ leaders and RHW board members unveiled them in a cascading ceremony.[11]
The non-profit raised $100,000–$112,000 for the first round of plaques.[14][50] They each cost approximately $5,600–$6,000.[5][14] The funds came from private sources. Two
Indiegogo online fundraisers for
Sylvester, and
Alan Turing each raised $10,000.[11] Additionally, thousands were raised by the sale of souvenirs at the Castro outlet of the
Human Rights Campaign's Action Center.[6]
Two of the installed plaques were later seen to have
typos: Oscar Wilde's said he had a "bitting wit" rather than "biting wit"; and Christine Jorgensen's spelled transgender without the "s”.[51] They were replaced by the manufacturer and both plaques with errors were to be auctioned: Wilde's to raise funds for the RHW; Jorgensen's to benefit the
Transgender Law Center.[52] They were replaced a month later;[53] free of any costs.[2]
The first eight plaques of this round were unveiled in June 2018; and installed, on both sides of Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November of that year.[54] On the north side of Market Street are the plaques for Fereydoun Farakzah, Barbara Jordan, Kiyoshi Kuromiya, and Sally Ride.[54] On the south side is Glenn Burke, Jose Sarria, Rikki Streicher, and We'Wha.[54] These cost $48,437, while the project has $31,000 raised for the next plaques.[54]
The second eight's designs were unveiled at a June 2019
Pride month RHW fundraiser at Google which raised over $3300.[22] The plaques themselves were installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets including: Chavela Vargas, Marie Equi; Josephine Baker, Freddie Mercury; Alvin Ailey, W.H. Auden, Gerry Studds, and Lou Sullivan.[9][22]
The third group of this round includes: Gladys Bentley, Audre Lorde, Divine, Sylvia Rivera, Leonard Matlovich, Vito Russo, Quentin Crisp, and Maurice Sendak.[22] They are planned to be installed by October 11, 2019, the annual observance of
National Coming Out Day.[22]
Third round of honorees (2020)
Perry confirmed the third round of honorees should be announced in 2020.[22] The plaques were installed in 2022 on Market Street between 16th and 15th streets as part of the Upper Market Street Safety Project.[55]
Honorees
A
Jane Addams was a pioneering lesbian who is recognized as the founder of the field of social work in the United States.[56] She was an American
settlement activist, reformer, social worker,[57][58]sociologist,[59]public administrator,[60][61] and author. She was also a notable figure in
women's suffrage in the United States and an advocate for
world peace.[62] She co-founded Chicago's
Hull House, one of America's most notable
settlement houses. In 1920, she co-founded the
ACLU.[63] In 1931, Addams was the first American woman to be awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize.[56] She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the
American pragmatist school of philosophy, and is known by many as the first woman "public philosopher in the history of the United States".[64] Addams is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[1]
Alvin Ailey was an African-American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, one of the most successful dance companies in the world. He created AAADT and its affiliated Ailey School as havens for nurturing black artists and expressing the universality of the African-American experience through dance. His work fused theatre, modern dance, ballet, and jazz with black vernacular, creating hope-fueled choreography that continues to spread global awareness of black life in America. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece Revelations is recognized as one of the most popular and most performed ballets in the world.[65][66][67] On July 15, 2008, the
United States Congress passed a resolution designating AAADT a "vital American Cultural Ambassador to the World."[68][69] That same year, in recognition of AAADT's 50th anniversary, then Mayor
Michael Bloomberg declared December 4 "Alvin Ailey Day" in New York City while then Governor
David Paterson honoured the organization on behalf of New York State.[70] Though Ailey was gay, he kept his romantic affairs
in the closet. Following the death of his friend Joyce Trisler, a failed relationship, and bouts of heavy drinking and cocaine use, he suffered a mental breakdown in 1980. He was diagnosed as manic depressive, known today as
bi-polar disorder. Ailey was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.[22]
W. H. Auden was an English-American poet whose work was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content. He is best known for love poems such as "
Funeral Blues"; poems on political and social themes such as "September 1, 1939" and "
The Shield of Achilles"; poems on cultural and psychological themes such as The Age of Anxiety; and poems on religious themes such as "
For the Time Being" and "
Horae Canonicae".[71][72][73] After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British public schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys. In 1939 he moved to the U.S. becoming an
American citizen in 1946. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with
Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. He won the
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era.[74] From 1956 to 1961 he was
Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand. Auden and Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual friendship from around 1927 to 1939, while both had briefer but more intense relations with other men.[74] In 1939, Auden fell in love with
Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. They also collaborated on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by
Igor Stravinsky. After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media. Auden was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.[22]
B
Josephine Baker was a bisexual American-born French entertainer, activist, and
French Resistance agent. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. During her early career she was renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the
Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in Paris. Her costume, consisting of only a girdle of artificial bananas, became her most iconic image and a symbol of the
Jazz Age and the 1920s. Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Baker was the first African-American to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and
Henri Étiévant.[75] Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the U.S. and is noted for her contributions to the
Civil Rights Movement. In 1968 she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by
Coretta Scott King, following
Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children.[76][77] She was also known for aiding the
French Resistance during World War II.[78] After the war, she was awarded the
Croix de guerre by the
French military, and was named a
Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General
Charles de Gaulle.[79] Baker was
bisexual.[80] While she had four marriages to men, Jean-Claude Baker writes that Josephine also had several relationships with women.[80] Baker was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.[22]
James Baldwin was a gay African-American novelist, playwright, and activist. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century North America.[81] Some of Baldwin's essays are book-length, including The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976). An unfinished manuscript, Remember This House, was expanded and adapted for cinema as the documentary film I Am Not Your Negro (2017), which featured historic footage of Baldwin and was nominated for an Academy Award.[82] One of his novels, If Beale Street Could Talk, was adapted as a
dramatic film of the same name, released in 2018, which won an Academy Award. Baldwin's novels and plays explore fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid the complex social and psychological pressures that thwart the equitable integration of not only African Americans, but also gay and bisexual men. He also depicts some internalized obstacles to such individuals' quests for acceptance. Such dynamics are prominent in Baldwin's second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956), published well before the
gay liberation movement of the later twentieth century.[83] He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[50]
Glenn Burke was a
Major League Baseball (MLB) player for the
Los Angeles Dodgers and
Oakland Athletics from 1976 to 1979. He was the first MLB player to
come out as gay to teammates and team owners during his professional career and the first to publicly acknowledge it,[84][85][86] stating, "They can't ever say now that a gay man can't play in the majors, because I'm a gay man and I made it."[87][88] In October 1977, Burke ran onto the field to congratulate his Dodgers teammate
Dusty Baker after Baker hit his 30th home run; Burke raised his hand over his head and Baker slapped it. They are widely credited with inventing the
high five. Burke kept active in sports after retiring from baseball. He competed in the 1982
Gay Olympics, now renamed Gay Games, in track, and in 1986 in basketball. He played for many years in the San Francisco Gay Softball League. He died from AIDS-related causes in 1995.[89][90] In August 2013, Burke was among the first class of inductees into the
National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame. Burke was inducted into the
Baseball Reliquary's
Shrine of the Eternals in 2015. His plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.[54]
C
George Choy was a gay Asian-American LGBTQ and
HIV/AIDS activist who fought for human rights for LGBTQ Asian and
Pacific Islanders.[91] He grew up in San Francisco's
Chinatown, where he witnessed the minority's struggles for rights.[91] He "came out" after high school and became an early member of San Francisco's
Gay Asian Pacific Alliance.[91] In the spring of 1990, Choy led GAPA's Project 10 effort to get approval for paid counseling for San Francisco's LGBTQ public school students; despite the claims that no Asian queer people existed, it passed.[91] The next year he was GAPA's point person assisting a lawsuit against the city government of Tokyo, Japan, to gain approval for a queer group, OCCUR, to use its youth center. He organized supporting activities in both San Francisco and Tokyo, and also in
Osaka.[91] Choy was a health worker and an activist with both GAPA and
ACT-UP.[91] He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[50]
E
Marie Equi was an early American
medical doctor in the American West devoted to providing care to working-class and poor patients. She regularly provided
birth control information and
abortions at a time when both were illegal. She became a political activist and advocated civic and economic reforms, including women's right to vote and an eight-hour workday. After being clubbed by a policeman in a 1913 workers' strike, Equi aligned herself with
anarchists and the radical labor movement. Equi was a lesbian who maintained a primary relationship with Harriet Frances Speckart (1883 – May 15, 1927) for more than a decade. The two women adopted an infant and raised the child in an early example, for the United States, of a same-sex alternative family. For her radical politics and same-sex relations, Equi battled discrimination and harassment. In 1918, Equi was convicted under the Sedition Act for speaking against U.S. involvement in
World War I. She was sentenced to a three-year term at
San Quentin State Prison. She was the only known lesbian and radical to be incarcerated at the prison. Equi was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.[22]
F
Fereydoun Farrokhzad was a gay Iranian singer, actor, poet, TV and radio host, writer, and political opposition figure.[92] He is best known for his variety TV show "Mikhak-e Noghrei" (The Silver Carnation). He was the brother of the acclaimed Persian poets
Forough Farrokhzad and
Pooran Farrokhzad. Farrokhzad was forced into exile after the
Islamic Revolution in 1979, and after relocating to Germany was the victim of an
unsolved murder. The murder is widely believed to be the work of the
Islamic Republic government of Iran, as part of the
chain murders in 1988–98.[93] Farrokhzad remains a significant Iranian cultural icon whose popular music and television programs continue to be circulated through various media platforms. His murder—possibly, a political assassination of a celebrity activist entertainer—is a well known and oft-cited event amongst Iranians. His plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.[54]
Allen Ginsberg was a gay American poet, philosopher and writer. He is considered to be one of the leading figures of both the
Beat Generation during the 1950s and the
counterculture of the following decade. He vigorously opposed
militarism,
economic materialism, and
sexual repression, and was known to embody various aspects of this counterculture, such as his views on drugs, hostility to
bureaucracy, and openness to
Eastern religions.[100] He was one of many influential American writers of his time who were associated with the Beat Generation. He is best known for his poem "
Howl", in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of
capitalism and
conformity in the United States.[101][102][103] In 1957, his poem attracted widespread publicity as the subject of an obscenity trial; it described homosexual sex at a time when
sodomy laws made homosexual acts a crime in every U.S. state. "Howl" reflected Ginsberg's own sexuality and his relationships with a number of men, including
Peter Orlovsky, his
lifelong partner.[104] Ginsberg took part in decades of
non-violent political protest against the
Vietnam War and the
War on drugs.[105] His collection The Fall of America was one of two books honored in 1974 by the annual U.S.
National Book Award for Poetry.[106] In 1979, he received the
National Arts Club gold medal and was inducted into the
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.[107] Ginsberg was a
Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992.[108] He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[1]
H
Keith Haring was a gay American
pop artist whose
graffiti-like work developed from the New York City street culture of the 1980s: he addressed political and social themes—especially homosexuality and
AIDS—through his own iconography and sexual allusions. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[50]
Harry Hay was a gay American who was involved in some of the earliest gay rights organizations, including the
Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States. In addition, he co-founded the
Radical Faeries, an international, loosely affiliated gay spiritual movement. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[50]
Christine Jorgensen was an American
transsexual who was the first person to become widely known in the U.S. for having
sex reassignment surgery in her twenties. Jorgensen grew up in the
Bronx, New York City. Shortly after graduating from high school in 1945, she was drafted as a male into the
U.S. Army for
World War II. After her service, she attended several schools, and worked. Around this time she heard about sex reassignment surgery. She traveled to Europe. In
Copenhagen,
Denmark, she obtained special permission to undergo a series of operations for reassignment, starting in 1951.[114] She returned to the United States in the early 1950s, where her
transition was the subject of a New York Daily News front-page story. Jorgenson became an instant celebrity, and used this platform to advocate for
transgender people; she became known for her directness and polished wit. She worked as an actress and nightclub entertainer, and recorded several songs. She is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014. (Her plaque had a typo and was replaced at no cost to the project.[115] The original was auctioned off with the proceeds donated to the
Transgender Law Center.)[50]
K
Frida Kahlo was a bisexual Mexican artist.[116][117][118] She was a painter known for her many portraits,
self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by
the country's popular culture, she used a
naïvefolk art style to explore questions of identity,
postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society.[119] In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a
surrealist or
magical realist.[120] By the early 1990s, she was a recognized figure in art history, and was also regarded as an icon for
Chicanos, the
feminism movement, and the
LGBTQ movement. Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and
indigenous traditions, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.[121] She is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[1]
Harvey Milk was a gay American activist who was
the first openly-gay elected official in California, where he was elected to the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was the most pro-
LGBTQ politician in the United States at the time. Milk and Mayor
George Moscone were
assassinated in city hall; the
White Night riots broke out in protest. Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in the city and a
martyr of the gay community.[c] In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significantly open
LGBT official ever elected in the United States". He was posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. The walk passes in front of Milk's former camera shop, which is now a
Human Rights Campaign headquarters.[1] Milk is not technically part of the walk, since he already had an existing sidewalk plaque in front of his former office.[1]
Yukio Mishima was a gay Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, film director,
nationalist, and founder of the
Tatenokai. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968[131][132] A fierce critic of Marxist ideologies and considered anti-Marxist by the Soviet Union's
KGB,[133] Mishima formed the Tatenokai. This was an unarmed civilian militia to defend the
Japanese Emperor in the event of a revolution by Japanese communists. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took the commandant hostage, and attempted to inspire the
Japan Self-Defense Forces to overturn Japan's
1947 Constitution. When this was unsuccessful, Mishima committed suicide by seppuku. He is among the inaugural twenty people honored in 2014.[50]
R
Sally Ride was a lesbian
astronaut and
physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined
NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in
space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall.[d] Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32.[134][135] After flying twice on the Orbiter
Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. Ride was married 5 years to fellow astronaut
Steven Hawley. She worked for two years at
Stanford University's
Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the
University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching
nonlinear optics and
Thomson scattering. After her death, her obituary revealed that her partner of 27 years was
Tam O'Shaughnessy, a
professor emerita of
school psychology at
San Diego State University and childhood friend, who met her when both were aspiring tennis players.[136][137] O'Shaughnessy was also a science writer and, later, the co-founder of
Sally Ride Science (SRS).[138][139] O'Shaughnessy served as the CEO and Chair of the Board of SRS.[140] They wrote six acclaimed children's science books together.[141] Their relationship was revealed by the company and confirmed by her sister, who said she chose to keep her personal life private, including her sickness and treatments.[142][143] She is the first known
LGBTQ astronaut.[144][145] Her plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.[54]
José Sarria better known as Absolute Empress I de San Francisco, the Widow Norton was a gay community organizer and political activist who became the first
openly gay candidate for public office in the U.S. in 1961. She performed for years as a live-singing
drag queen doing
parodies of operas at the
Black Cat Bar, and declaring herself Empress Norton, founded the
Imperial Court System, one of the oldest and largest LGBTQ organizations in the world, with chapters throughout North America. Her plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.[54]
Gertrude Stein was a lesbian American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Oakland, she moved to Paris in 1903 as a young woman, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. There she hosted a
salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art would meet.[146] In 1933, Stein published a quasi-memoir of her Paris years, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, written in the voice of
Alice B. Toklas, her
life partner. The book became a literary bestseller and vaulted Stein from the relative obscurity of high modernist literature into the limelight of mainstream attention.[147] Two quotes from her works have become widely known: "
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose",[148] and "
there is no there there", with the latter often believed to refer to her childhood home of
Oakland, California. Her books include Q.E.D.(1903), about a lesbian romantic affair involving several of Stein's friends; Fernhurst, a novel bout a
love triangle; Three Lives (1905–06), and The Making of Americans (1902–1911). In Tender Buttons (1914), Stein explored lesbian sexuality.[149] She is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[1]
Rikki Streicher was a leader in
San Francisco's LGBTQ movement. In the 1960s, she had an active leadership role in the
Society for Individual Rights, an organization that promoted equal rights for gays and lesbians. In 1966 she opened and ran
Maud's, a year prior to the
San Francisco's Summer of Love; it stayed open for 23 years, at that time the longest continuously running lesbian-owned
lesbian bar in the country. She opened a second bar, Amelia's, in 1978 in the city's
Mission district, with both venues serving as makeshift community centers for lesbians who had very few accepting socializing options. In the early 1980s, she was a co-founder of the international
Gay Olympics, later called Gay Games, she helped to create the
Federation of Gay Games and served on the board of directors. In 1994, she received the
Dr. Tom Waddell Award for her contribution to Gay Athletics. The Rikki Streicher Field, an athletic field and recreation center in San Francisco's
Castro District, was named after her. Her plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.[54]
Gerry Studds was an American
DemocraticCongressman from
Massachusetts who served from 1973 until 1997. He was
the firstopenly gay member of Congress. In 1983, he was
censured by the
House of Representatives after he admitted to a consensual relationship with a 17-year-old
page. Studds was re-elected to the House six more times after the 1983 censure. He fought for many issues, including environmental and
maritime issues,
same-sex marriage, AIDS funding, and
civil rights, particularly for gays and lesbians. Studds was an outspoken opponent of the
Strategic Defense Initiativemissile defense system, which he considered wasteful and ineffective, and he criticized the United States government's secretive support for the
Contra fighters in
Nicaragua.[150] Studds was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.[22]
Lou Sullivan was an American author and activist known for his work on behalf of
trans men. He was perhaps the first transgender man to publicly identify as gay,[151] and is largely responsible for the modern understanding of
sexual orientation and
gender identity as distinct, unrelated concepts.[152] Sullivan was a pioneer of the grassroots female-to-male (FTM) movement and was instrumental in helping individuals obtain peer-support, counselling, endocrinological services, and reconstructive surgery outside of gender dysphoria clinics. He founded FTM International, one of the first organizations specifically for FTM individuals, and his activism and community work was a significant contributor to the rapid growth of the FTM community during the late 1980s.[153] Sullivan was in the second group among the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.[22]
Sylvester was a gay African-American singer-songwriter, who was primarily active in the genres of
disco,
rhythm and blues, and
soul. He was known for his flamboyant and androgynous appearance,
falsetto singing voice, and hit disco singles in the late 1970s and 1980s. Moving to San Francisco in 1970 at the age of 22, Sylvester embraced the
counterculture. He joined the avant-garde
drag troupe
The Cockettes, producing solo segments of their shows that were strongly influenced by such female
blues and
jazz singers as
Billie Holiday and
Josephine Baker. With his second solo album Step II (1978), he released the singles "
You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" and "
Dance (Disco Heat)", both of which were hits in the U.S. and Europe. As an openly gay man throughout his career, Sylvester became a spokesman for the gay community.[154] An activist who campaigned against
HIV/AIDS, Sylvester died from complications arising from the virus in 1988. He bequeathed all future royalties from his work to San Francisco-based HIV/AIDS charities. During the late 1970s, Sylvester gained the moniker of the "
Queen of Disco" and was awarded the
key to the city of San Francisco. In 2005, he was posthumously inducted into the
Dance Music Hall of Fame. He has been the subject of a biography, film documentary, and a musical. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014;[1] the only musician honored in the first round.[155][e]
Chavela Vargas was a lesbian Costa Rican-born
Mexican singer. She was especially known for her rendition of Mexican
rancheras, but she is also recognized for her contribution to other genres of popular Latin American music. She was an influential interpreter in the Americas and Europe, muse to figures such as
Pedro Almodóvar, hailed for her haunting performances, and called "la voz áspera de la ternura", the rough voice of tenderness.[164] In her youth, she dressed as a man, smoked cigars, drank heavily, carried a gun, and was known for her characteristic red
jorongo, which she donned in performances until old. Vargas sang the
canción ranchera, which she performed in her own peculiar style. For years Vargas refused to change the genders in her songs. In "Paloma Negra" ("Black Dove"), Vargas accuses a woman of partying all night long and breaking her heart. The typical ranchera, as represented by
José Alfredo Jiménez, was a masculine but emotional song about love and its mishaps, usually mediated by alcohol, since in a
macho culture, the display of feelings by men is allowed only to the drunk. At age 81, she publicly
came out as a lesbian in her 2002 autobiography Y si quieres saber de mi pasado [And if you want to know about my past]. Vargas debuted at
Carnegie Hall in 2003 at age 83[165] at the behest and promotion of Spanish director
Pedro Almodóvar, an admirer and friend. The Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, presented her with a Latin GRAMMY Statuette in 2007 after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of that organization. She was among the second group in the second round of honorees installed in August 2019 on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets.[22]
W
Tom Waddell was a gay American athlete and competitor at the
1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, where he placed sixth in the
decathlon. He broke five of his own personal records in the ten events. He became a physician. In 1982 he founded the
Gay Olympics in San Francisco. The international sporting event was later renamed as the Gay Games after the
United States Olympic Committee (USOC) sued Waddell for using the word "Olympic" in the original name. The Gay Games are held every four years. Waddell established his private medical practice in the
Castro neighborhood of San Francisco in 1974. As a doctor, he also worked internationally, becoming the team physician for the Saudi Arabian Olympic team at the
1976 Montreal Olympics.[166] In the 1980s, Waddell was employed at the City Clinic in San Francisco's Civic Center area. After his death, it was renamed for him. He was among the inaugural twenty people honored in 2014.[50]
We'wha was a
Zuni Native American from New Mexico, and the most famous lhamana on record. In traditional Zuni culture, the lhamana are assigned-male-at-birth people who take on the social and ceremonial roles usually performed by cis women in their culture. They wear a mixture of women's and men's clothing and much of their work is in the areas usually occupied by Zuni women. They are also known to serve as mediators. Some contemporary lhamana participate in the pan-Indian
two-spirit community. In 1886, We'wha was part of the Zuni delegation to Washington D.C., and hosted by anthropologist
Matilda Coxe Stevenson, during that visit, We'wha met President
Grover Cleveland. While We'wha is historically known mainly as a lhamana, We'wha was also a prominent cultural ambassador for Native Americans in general, and the Zuni in particular. During this era, We'wha came in contact with many European-American settlers, teachers, soldiers, missionaries, and anthropologists. In particular, We'wha's friendship with Matilda Coxe Stevenson would lead to much material on the Zuni being published. Stevenson wrote down her observations of We'wha, such as, "She performs masculine religious and judicial functions at the same time that she performs feminine duties, tending to laundry and the garden."[167] Her plaque was installed on Market Street between Castro and Noe streets, in November 2018.[54]
Oscar Wilde was a gay Anglo-Irish poet and playwright best remembered for his
epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of imprisonment for homosexuality in England. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of
aestheticism. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he published a book of poems, and lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and interior decoration. After his return to London, he published prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known public figures of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde wrote and produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, becoming one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London. He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[1][g]
Tennessee Williams was a gay American playwright considered among the foremost three of 20th-century American drama.[168][h] After years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of his The Glass Menagerie(1944) on Broadway. He drew from his own family background for this play. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). Streetcar is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century.[168] Much of his work has been adapted for the cinema. In 1979, Williams was inducted into the
American Theater Hall of Fame.[169] He is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[1]
Virginia Woolf was a bisexual English writer, considered one of the most important
modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of
stream of consciousness as a
narrative device.[170] Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by mental illness, believed to have been
bipolar disorder, for which there was no effective intervention during her lifetime. She married
Leonard Woolf, with whom she set up a small printing press. She also had a sexual relationship with "the lovely gifted aristocratic
Vita Sackville-West", a writer and gardener.[171][172] The relationship reached its peak between 1925 and 1928, evolving into more of a friendship through the 1930s.[173] Woolf was also inclined to brag of her affairs with other women within her intimate circle, such as
Sibyl Colefax and
Comtesse de Polignac.[174] Sackville-West transformed Wolf's view to see her writing as healing her symptoms. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), which features a gender-shifting protagonist. She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own (1929), in which she wrote the much-quoted
dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of
feminist criticism, and her works have garnered much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring
feminism." She is among the inaugural twenty honored in 2014.[1]
Castro Street History Walk
A separate sidewalk installation, the
Castro Street History Walk (CSHW), is a series of twenty historical fact plaques about the neighborhood—ten from pre-1776 to the 1960s before the Castro became known as a
gay neighborhood, and ten "significant events associated with the
queer community in the Castro"—contained within the 400 and 500 blocks of the street between 19th and Market streets.[8] They were installed at the same time as the inaugural twenty RHW plaques. The CSHW goes in chronological order starting at
Harvey Milk Plaza at Market Street, up to 19th Street, and returning on the opposite side of Castro Street.[8] The $10,000 CSHW was paid for by the Castro Business District (CBD) which "convened a group of local residents and historians to work with Nicholas Perry, a planner and urban designer at the
San Francisco Planning Department who worked on the sidewalk-widening project and lives in the Castro" to develop the facts.[175] Each fact was required to be about the neighborhood or the surrounding
Eureka Valley.[8] The facts are limited to 230 characters, and were installed in pairs along with a single graphic reminiscent of the historic
Castro Theater.[8]
^The Harvey Milk Recreational Arts Center is headquarters for the drama and performing arts programs for the city's youth.[43] Douglass Elementary in the Castro District was renamed the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy in 1996;[44] and the Eureka Valley Branch of the
San Francisco Public Library was renamed in his honor in 1981. It is located at 1
José Sarria Court, named for the first openly gay man to run for public office in the United States.[45] On what would have been Milk's 78th birthday, a bust of his likeness was unveiled in
San Francisco City Hall at the top of the grand staircase. On June 2, 2008, a bust of Harvey Milk was accepted into the Civic Art Collection during a meeting of the Full Commission. Designed by the
Eugene Daub, Firmin, Hendrickson Sculpture Group with
Eugene Daub the principal sculptor. The work was unveiled during a gala party at San Francisco's City Hall on May 22, 2008, what would have been Milk's 78th birthday. Engraved in the pedestal is a quotation from one of the audiotapes Milk recorded in the event of his assassination, which he openly predicted several times before his death. "I ask for the movement to continue because my election gave young people out there hope. You gotta give 'em hope."[46]
^Milk was described as a martyr by news outlets as early as 1979, by biographer Randy Shilts in 1982,[127] and University of San Francisco professor Peter Novak in 2003.[128][129][130]
^His original plaque had a typo so was replaced at no cost to the project.[115]
^A number of sources state that
Winston Churchill said that Turing made the single biggest contribution to
Allied victory in the war against
Nazi Germany. Both
The Churchill Centre and Turing's biographer
Andrew Hodges have said they know of no documentary evidence to support this claim, nor of the date or context in which Churchill supposedly said it. The Churchill Centre lists it among their Churchill 'Myths'.[161][162] A
BBC News profile piece that repeated the Churchill claim has been amended to say there is no evidence for it.[163]
^Wilde's original plaque had a
typo noting his "biting" humor as "bitting"; the plaque was replaced by the manufacturer with the original auctioned off to raise more funds for the project.[115]
^
abcFinkelman, Paul (2009). Encyclopedia of African American History 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-First Century. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 59–61.
ISBN978-0-19-516779-5.
^Franklin, D. (1986). "Mary Richmond and Jane Addams: From Moral Certainty to Rational Inquiry in Social Work Practice", Social Service Review , 504–525.
^Chambers, C. (1986). "Women in the Creation of the Profession of Social Work". Social Service Review , 60 (1), 1–33.
^Deegan, M. J. (1988). Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892 – 1918. New Brunswick, NJ, USA: Transaction Books.
^Shields, Patricia M. (2017). "Jane Addams: Pioneer in American Sociology, Social Work and Public Administration". In, P. Shields Editor, Jane Addams: Progressive Pioneer of Peace, Philosophy, Sociology, Social Work and Public Administration pp. 43–68.
ISBN978-3-319-50646-3
^Stivers, C. (2009). "A Civic Machinery for Democratic Expression: Jane Addams on Public Administration". In M. Fischer, C. Nackenoff, & W. Chielewski, Jane Addams and the Practice of Democracy (pp. 87–97). Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
^Shields, Patricia M. (2017). "Jane Addams: Peace Activist and Peace Theorist" In, P. Shields Editor, Jane Addams: Progressive Pioneer of Peace, Philosophy, Sociology, Social Work and Public Administration pp. 31–42.
ISBN978-3-319-50646-3
^Maurice Hamington, "Jane Addams" in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010) portrays her as a radical pragmatist and the first woman 'public philosopher" in United States history".
^The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED (2008 revision) is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England (or Britain) and America."
"Oxford English Dictionary (access by subscription)". Retrieved May 25, 2009. See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary. 1969. p. 45. See also the definition "an American, especially a citizen of the United States, of English origin or descent" in Merriam Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition. 1969. p. 103. See also the definition "a native or descendant of a native of England who has settled in or become a citizen of America, esp. of the United States" from The Random House Dictionary, 2009, available online at
"Dictionary.com". Retrieved May 25, 2009.
^Gounardoo, Joseph J. Rodgers, Jean-François (1992). The Racial Problem in the Works of Richard Wright and James Baldwin. Greenwood Press. pp. 158, 148–200.
^Kramer, Jane (1968), Allen Ginsberg in America. New York: Random House, pp. 43–46, on Ginsberg's first meeting with Orlovsky and the conditions of their marriage. Also see,
Miles, pp. 178–79, on Ginsberg's description of sex with Orlovsky as "one of the first times that I felt open with a boy."
^Ginsberg, Allen Deliberate Prose, the foreword by Edward Sanders, p. xxi.
^"Barbara Jordan". Humanities Texas. Retrieved February 18, 2016. [...] When she died, in 1996, her burial in the Texas State Cemetery marked yet another first: she was the first black woman interred there. [...]
^Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 24267). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition
^Lindauer, Margaret A. (2011). Devouring Frida: the Art History and Popular Celebrity of Frida Kahlo. Wesleyan University Press.
ISBN9780819563477.
OCLC767498280.
^Delgado, Marina. The Female Grotesque in the Works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabelle Allende, and Frida Kahlo. The University of Texas at Dallas, ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing, 2010.
^"2. Freddie Mercury". Readers Pick the Best Lead Singers of All Time. April 12, 2011. Archived from
the original on April 15, 2011. Retrieved March 9, 2014.
^"Dance: Deux the fandango". Archived from the original on June 15, 2011. Retrieved November 15, 2008.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (
link)
^"Kennedy Space Center FAQ". NASA/Kennedy Space Center External Relations and Business Development Directorate.
Archived from the original on July 5, 2012. Retrieved July 23, 2012.
^"Books". Sally Ride Science. Archived from
the original on December 16, 2013. Retrieved December 26, 2012. Mission: Planet Earth is two books, making the total five.
^Susan Stryker (1999). "Portrait of a Transfag Drag Hag as a Young Man: The Activist Career of Louis G. Sullivan," in Kate More and Stephen Whittle (eds). Reclaiming Gender: Transsexual Grammars at the Fin de Siecle, pp. 62–82. Cassells,
ISBN978-0-304-33776-7
^Spencer, Clare (September 11, 2009).
"Profile: Alan Turing". BBC News. Update 13 February 2015
^Boccanera, Jorge, Entrelineas: Dialogos con Jorge Boccanera, ed. Mario José Grabivker (Buenos Aires: Ediciones instituto movilizador fondos cooperativos C.L., 1999)
^Vargas, Chavela. (2006) Chavela at Carnegie Hall, CD recording, Tommy Boy
^Suzanne Bost, Mulattas and Mestizas: Representing Mixed Identities in the Americas, 1850–2000, (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2003, pg.139
Shilts, Randy (1982). The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life & Times of Harvey Milk (First ed.). New York.
ISBN0312523300.
OCLC7948538.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
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Sipser, Michael (2006). Introduction to the Theory of Computation. PWS Publishing.
ISBN978-0-534-95097-2.