Oct 14, 2005  |  By: ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG and EARTHA JANE MELZE | COMMENTS     

[UPDATED Oct. 15, 10:58 PM]

Black gay activist Keith Boykin was stopped from addressing the Millions More Movement rally in Washington, D.C., Saturday morning.

Boykin said that Rev. Barbara Skinner, the event's program manager, refused to admit him to the stage area and said he was not listed on the program.

Boykin claimed that Skinner walked over to Rev. Willie Wilson, the executive director of the event, to ask about Boykin. Wilson smirked as he told Skinner that Boykin would not be speaking at the rally, according to Boykin and Donna Payne, NBJC vice president and a Human Rights Campaign organizer, who was also present.

Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, the founder of the Millions More event, asked Boykin, board president of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), on Wednesday to speak at the rally. The invitation was extended at a last-minute meeting with Farrakhan’s family, Rev. Willie Wilson and other NBJC officials present.

Wilson, a D.C. minister and executive director of the Millions More Movement, offended many with his anti-gay sermon, delivered in July, which accused lesbians of taking over. H. Alexander Robinson, NBJC executive director, said that they had a "frank and open discussion" on Wednesday about the sermon but were not able to go into depth about it during the meeting.

In prepared remarks that Boykin intended to deliver at the rally, he said, "We cannot separate ourselves from the larger black family because we are an integral part of the black family. We raise our families, we send money to our nephews, and, yes, we sing in the choir as well."

He called for unity and courage to heal the wounds that have divided the black community and noted that "when black people were forced to sit in the back of the bus, black gay people were forced to ride in the back of the bus."

Cleo Manago, the founder of the Black Men’s Xchange, known as BMX, did speak to the rally. BMX claimed earlier in the week that it had been invited to speak at the rally as the sole representative of the gay community.

BMX is a controversial, all-male organization whose members don’t identify as gay but rather as “same gender loving.” BMX views the term “gay” as an identification created by and for white gays.

Manago told the crowd, "I'm here to bring the perspective of a black man who is a same gender loving black man."

He called for "healing opportunities particular to the black experience that explicitly acknowledge our diversity which would include same gender loving brothers and sisters …

"That I'm up here indicates that [Minister Farrakhan] was very serious about us all coming together," said Manago. "I, too, am often called a black nationalist, particularly by the white gay community because I don't identify with their way of framing us in this world."

The decision to ask a representative from BMX to speak rankled many black gay and lesbian advocates.

For Michael Saint-Andrees, a D.C.-based gay rights activist and retired public health educator, Farrakhan's selection of BMX showed that the minister does not want gay men and lesbians at the table as equals.

"It speaks to the fact that he isn't interested in us having a true voice," he said. "Once again he's using his celebrity and tremendous influence to benefit him."

Manago told the Blade earlier this week that his organization has been involved with the Nation of Islam since the 1990s, making BMX a “natural selection.”

“Other organizations have done everything from inside a gay box,” Manago said.

“Our work is out of a black community box while affirming and raising issues relevant to same-gender loving people,” he said.

“So-called homophobia and so-called heterosexism are not the real estate of just one group,” he said. “It’s in the culture. There are lots of homosexuals who are homophobic.”

Homophobia and heterosexism, he said, are “white terms.”

The decision to invite an openly gay speaker comes after eight months of lobbying by members of the National Black Justice Coalition and the D.C. Coalition, a local black gay group, to encourage Farrakhan to include black gays in this weekend’s commemoration of the Million Man March. D.C. gay rights activist Phil Pannell, who said he had only heard that BMX would be represented, was disturbed that BMX had no contact with the gay and lesbian organizers who have been lobbying Farrakhan.

"It's somewhat disempowering," he said. "Minister Farrakhan chose who our spokespersons are — it's paternalistic and patronizing."

Ten years ago, at the original march, gays were marginalized. This time around, activists demanded a visible and acknowledged presence.

Gay activists wanted ...