Mar 25, 2005  |  By: RHONDA SMITH  | COMMENTS     

People who knew Wanda Alston — gay, straight, rich, poor, black and white — are vowing to keep the human rights activist’s socially conscious, politically progressive legacy alive.

It is a legacy rooted in giving a voice to the voiceless, they said, whether they are poverty stricken, addicted to drugs, people of color, or gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered residents of Washington, D.C.

“We all loved Wanda because she got it done for the cause of civil rights,” D.C. congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton said Monday at Alston’s funeral.

Alston was stabbed to death in her home on March 16. A neighbor was later arrested and charged with her murder. Police said they have ruled out anti-gay bias as a motive.

Alston, who was born in Newport News, Va., on April 7, 1959, believed civil rights were indivisible, Norton said. When it came to equal rights, it was all or nothing — for everybody — not for any one particular group.

Those familiar with Alston’s work and life said she understood deeply the challenges posed by being an African American, a woman, a former cocaine addict, and a lesbian. After becoming clean and sober, she remained active in the recovery movement nationwide and reached out to help others who needed her, friends said.

In 2001, Alston recorded her oral history for the Rainbow History Project, an ongoing effort to document gay and lesbian history in Washington, D.C.

“I can’t stop fighting racism because no matter how old I get, I’m still going to be black,” she said. “I can’t stop fighting [sexism] because no matter how old I get, I’m still going to be a woman.

“I can’t stop fighting some of the other ‘isms’ I see because I can’t change those things,” Alston said. “I’m going to change the culture, and begin to work with people who want to change the culture.”

Political life began in 1992
Officially, Alston’s political career began in 1992, when a friend, D.C. resident Marquita Sykes, introduced her to the National Organization for Women.

Unofficially, Alston’s political career started before that, according to Valerie Papaya Mann, who said she remembers when a youthful Alston would attend Sapphire Sapphos meetings and sit quietly and listen. The now-defunct organization was geared toward supporting black lesbians in the D.C. area.

“She was coming to those events as one of the kids,” Mann said. “And then she grew up, and took the movement forward.”

Mann, an international consultant on HIV/AIDS issues, described Alston as strong, feisty and opinionated and said she possessed self-taught political savvy.

“I saw her up there with the big boys, attending meetings, setting policy,” Mann said. “She took the steps that a lot of us weren’t willing to take. Or we were willing, but just tired.”

At NOW, from 1992 to 1996, Alston worked as then-President Patricia Ireland’s executive assistant and as a special projects director. Her first major project at NOW involved helping organize its 1992 March for Women’s Lives. Alston also helped NOW organize other national marches on Washington and while there served as the staff liaison to Rev. Jesse Jackson’s National Rainbow Coalition.

“It wasn’t until I got to NOW and I started reading the case studies and I started listening to what the work was about that I said, ‘Yeah, I was a victim … I was victimized all my life behind this bullshit called racism, sexism and homophobia,’” Alston told the Rainbow History Project.

“I put names on my pain. I had not done that. If there was anything that changed my life more than my sexuality, it was understanding that there was a place to take my pain. I wasn’t alone, and that was a beautiful thing about being at NOW.”

At Alston’s funeral Monday, March 21, Ireland said that while at NOW Alston learned how to “harness her energy.”

“Along the way, I watched Wanda blossom … into one of the most determined, courageous and best people I know,” Ireland said.

Alice Cohan, the current political director of the Feminist Majority, who also worked with Alston at NOW, echoed this sentiment when she spoke Saturday at another public gathering to mourn the loss of her friend.

“Wanda was an organizer par excellence,” Cohan said. “She could convince and cajole. There wasn’t an action she didn’t ...