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| Members of Howard University’s only gay organization, BLAGOSAH, gather at the Human Rights Campaign’s Historically Black Colleges & Universities conference. BLAGOSAH leaders say the organization is helping to eliminate homophobia on campus.
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MORE INFO
BLAGOSAH Week
Feb. 27-March 3
www.geocities.com/blagosah
Shades of Couture Fashion Show
Sunday, Feb. 26
Open Mic
Monday, Feb. 27
‘The Aggressive’ screening
Tuesday, Feb. 28
Panel discussion
Wednesday, March 1
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HOME > ENTERTAINMENT > FEATURE
By: KATHERINE VOLIN COMMENTS
 
Gay students aren’t publicly represented in large numbers at Howard University. Although nearly 11,000 students attend the local school, fewer than 40 belong to the Bisexual, Lesbian & Gay Organization of Students at Howard.
"I know that a lot of gay people feel like if you’re openly gay, by doing so you’re sacrificing being any kind of public figure on Howard’s campus," says Adam Allen, the public relations chair on BLAGOSAH’S executive board.
The sentiment is one that the members of BLAGOSAH have strived to erase since its inception in 2000.
Local activist Sterling Washington, who co-founded the group, says that BLAGOSAH’s purpose was "to let the campus know that we’re here and there is a proud LGBT voice on campus."
The group relies upon its annual anniversary week to expose and promote the gay presence at the University. Traditionally, BLAGOSAH’s big week has been around Oct. 6, when the group was founded. This year, the members of the group decided to celebrate the week of Feb. 27-March 3 instead.
"[October] has always been a logistical nightmare because the officers from the previous year are leaving," says Washington, who graduated from Howard in 2004 and now works for black gay AIDS group Us Helping Us. "I perfectly understand why they moved it."
THE WEEK’S ACTIVITIES range from a panel discussion on homosexuality to a fashion show and a movie screening. Allen says that he is particularly interested in the panel, which he has organized to include representatives from various campus organizations, including athletes, the campus’ NAACP chapter and Ubiquity, a campus group that encourages better relationships between black men and women.
"We want to show how the university feels and show how the students feel and see how much of that is really true," Allen says.
Allen says he has waited to advertise the events because of negative reactions at the beginning of the year, when some students protested that the image of two men embracing was too graphic.
"Some of our fliers get torn down, and we just have to go and put them back up," Allen says.
The group also wrote a letter to Howard’s student newspaper, the Hilltop, in response to an article about backlash over BLAGOSAH’s advertisements. BLAGOSAH member Jadé Goodridge says that the protesters were taken aback by BLAGOSAH’s response.
"We came to them on a more adult level and they weren’t ready for that," Goodridge says. "I think that when we have these responses, it shows them that we’re not simply a social or sexual group or something to be seen as less than."
Goodridge, who has been a member of BLAGOSAH for three years, says that prejudice within the black community makes BLAGOSAH’s outreach more difficult.
Washington says that although treatment of gay students at Howard isn’t perfect, it has improved significantly since BLAGOSAH was formed.
"It has become unfashionable to be openly homophobic on Howard’s campus," Washington says. Although he attributes some of the change to society, he also considers BLAGOSAH an influencing factor.
"It’s no longer a concept that there are gay people," Washington says. "You can actually see them, so it makes it a lot more difficult for someone to mistreat someone because of their sexual orientation."
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