Dear Rutgers University – Newark community members,
As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising on June 28th, I write to draw your attention to Pride Month opportunities both to celebrate all that has been accomplished since that monumental moment in civil rights history and to recommit ourselves to continue the hard work of striving to achieve truly equal LGBTQ rights.
In the spirit of the late Rutgers-Newark professor Hilda Hidalgo, a pioneer in the struggle for LGBTQ rights, we are seeing groundbreaking collaborations this year between university and community to tell the untold stories of LGBTQ Newarkers past and present. For example, the Queer Newark Oral History Project (QNOHP) has teamed up with our neighbors and partners at Audible to display QNOHP’s historical exhibit, titled, “At Home in Newark: Stories from the Queer Newark Oral History Project,” in the lobby of the Audible headquarters at 1 Washington Park in Newark. The exhibit, originally created for display at the Newark Public Library, is open to the public through July 1. QNOHP members also will join Audible employees on their float in the New York City Pride Parade on Sunday, June 30, and the joint team is considering ways to partners in helping Newark schools meet new state guidelines for integrating LGBTQ history into school curricula.
Opportunities to celebrate will extend to July 11 – 14, when Newark Gay Pride activities will span from a flag raising at City Hall to a parade and festival culminating at Washington Park. You can find listings for these and other events on our Rutgers-Newark Celebrates 2019 Pride webpage.
I hope you will join your many university colleagues and Newark neighbors in the coming weeks as we celebrate, reflect upon, and reaffirm our common cause to achieve a more just community and just world.
In solidarity,
Nancy Cantor
Chancellor
