The Audre Lorde Project is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color center for community organizing, focusing on the New York City area.
Mission
The Audre Lorde Project is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming People of Color center for community organizing, focusing on the New York City area. Through mobilization, education and capacity-building, we work for community wellness and progressive social and economic justice. Committed to struggling across differences, we seek to responsibly reflect, represent and serve our various communities.
History
The Audre Lorde Project (ALP) is a Community Organizing Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming (LGBTSTGNC) People of Color Communities. Initiated as an organizing effort by a coalition of LGBTSTGNC People of Color, The Audre Lorde Project was first brought together by Advocates for Gay Men of Color (a multi-racial network of gay men of color HIV policy advocates) in 1994. The vision for ALP grew out of the expressed need for innovative and unified community strategies to address the multiple issues impacting LGBTSTGNC People of Color communities. ALP secured and moved into its Fort Greene home, in the parish house of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, during the summer of 1996.
Guiding Principles
The principles guiding the work and development of The Audre Lorde Project as a progressive organization seeking social justice are as follows:
Recognizing the full diversity of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming (LGBTSTGNC) people of color, and our collective histories of struggle against discrimination and other forms of oppression, the Audre Lorde Project has been established to serve as a home base that LGBTST peoples of African / Black/ Caribbean, Arab, Asian & Pacific Islander, Latina/o, and Native/Indigenous descent can use to organize, support, and advocate for our diverse communities.
As such, ALP seeks to work with LGBTSTGNC people of color organizations and communities across differences of race/ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, and life experiences (e.g. class, immigration status, HIV serostatus, health status, etc.) in order to develop and implement culturally specific and effective programs and services reflecting the needs of our communities.
Understanding that services and organizing efforts are most successful when they involve the communities served, ALP is committed to creating and supporting decision-making/ organizational structures that are representative of our communities.
Believing that competent skills and expertise in LGBTSTGNC people of color communities exist and are often underutilized, ALP seeks to support and promote the work of existing and emerging LGBTST people of color organizations, as well as the efforts of LGBTSTGNC people of color cultural workers and activists.
Understanding the historic role of sexism that has negatively impacted all of our communities, and recognizing that women’s leadership continues to be de-valued and discouraged in broader LGBTSTGNC organizations/communities, ALP strives to use anti-sexist practice while supporting and promoting the active participation, leadership and perspectives of women throughout its structure and work.
Finally, as an organization seeking social and economic justice for all peoples, ALP is committed to promoting multi-racial coalition-building, advocacy and community organizing activities among LGBTSTGNC people of color, and with allies in struggles for equality and liberation.
The purpose of the Project emerged from "the expressed need for innovative and unified community strategies to address the multiple issues impacting LGBT People of Color communities."[1]
In 1996, the organization moved into its permanent home in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, parish house of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church.[1]
The Project was begun to "serve as a home base" for LGBT peoples of African/Black/Caribbean, Arab, Asian and Pacific Islander, Latina/o and Native/Indigenous descent can work to further a collective history of struggle against discrimination and other forms of oppression.[1] At the time of its founding, it was the only organization in New York dedicated to people with an intersection of those identities.[2]
Radical politics and nonviolence
The Project's decision-making structure seeks to be "representative of our communities" and acts to promote existing LGBT people of color organizations, cultural workers and activists. The organization also acts in an explicitly feminist, anti-sexist practice because it believes women's leadership "continues to be de-valued and discouraged in broader LGBTST organizations/communities." In the public arena, it often engages in nonviolent civil disobedience.[1]
Campaigns and Working Groups
Safe OUTside the System: the SOS Collective
The Collective is an anti-violence organization focusing on homophobic and transphobic violence targeting people of color, in particular in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.[3] The Collective organizes outside of the existing judicial/policing system, declaring that "strategies that increase the police presence and the criminalization of our communities do not create safety."[4]
Originally called the Working Group on Police and State Violence, it began in 1997 in response to a rise in street violence and police harassment the organization believed was connected to the "quality of life" policies of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.[4]
The group helped to found the and soon after the killings by police officers of unarmed men of color Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima, as well as annual , focusing on the appeals of families of color who suffered violence by the New York City Police Department.[4]
As part of a broader anti-violence and anti-oppression approach, the Collective has collaborated with other progressive organizations, including the Rashawn Brazell Memorial Fund, the , , Al-Fatiha Foundation and the American Friends Service Committee, following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The Collective's "war against terror meetings" focused on how homophobia and transphobia are a part of the policies of the United States' war on terror.[5] Following the start of the Iraq War in 2003, SOS helped to coordinate , civil disobedience protesting the war.[6]
TransJustice
TransJustice is an advocacy organization created by and for trans and gender non-conforming people of color. The group focuses on trans-related policies in jobs, housing and health care, including job training programs, resisting transphobic violence, HIV services and trans-sensitive medical services.[7]
Working Group on Immigrant Rights
The Working Group on Immigrant Rights consists of volunteers who are LGBT people of color born outside of the United States (including Puerto Rico). The working group seeks in particular to build the leadership of undocumented immigrants, low-wage workers and trans, two-spirit and gender non-conforming immigrants. Every campaign is required to be relevant to these "priority communities".[8]
The group also places itself within the global justice and peace movements, and acts in solidarity with liberation struggles throughout the world. The working group's members "reject the us/them divide of citizens and foreigners, and are working toward a US foreign policy rooted in nonviolence, fair distribution of resources, and equity. We also recognize that the War on Terrorism is both a war abroad and a war at home, oppressing our communities in many places at once."[8]
The organization went on record in 2006 as opposing the three-tier "path to legalization" legislation (the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act) and guest worker programs, declaring that "full legalization is a nonnegotiable demand."[9]
The group seeks to increase understanding of transphobia and homophobia within immigrants rights and social justice movements and immigrant communities within New York City.
In 2004, the working group published a report, "Communities at a Crossroads: U.S. Right Wing Policies and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit and Transgender Immigrants of Color in New York City."
Facilities Program
The Audre Lorde Project acts to "build capacity and support the organizational development" of LGBT people of color organizations by making available the Project's meeting space, office infrastructure and training as well as offering technical assistance, networking and coalition-building opportunities.[10]
Awards
In 2000, then-executive director was awarded the from the Fund for the City of New York. In its award, the fund declared the Audre Lorde Project to be "an important cultural and information center in New York City."[11]
BROOKLYN, NY 11217-1607 | Tax-exempt since June 1998
EIN: 06-1502452
Classification (NTEE) Nerve, Muscle, Bone Research (Medical Research)
Nonprofit Tax Code Designation: 501(c)(3) Defined as: Organizations for any of the following purposes: religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition (as long as it doesn’t provide athletic facilities or equipment), or the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.
Donations to this organization are tax deductible.
Our mission is to protect LGBTQ youth from the harm of homelessness, and support them in becoming safe and independent as they move from adolescence to adulthood.
Feminist Founded. With a commitment to racial and economic justice and our community’s most vulnerable, NCLR advances civil and human rights for LGBTQ individuals and their families through impact litigation, public policy and public education.
