THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994 TAG: 9406270037
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARK MOBLEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940626 LENGTH: NEW YORK
Vincent Lacey and Jacob Lloyd Kimbro are planning the march and rally marking the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The 1969 clash between police and bar patrons is recognized as the signal event in the gay civil rights movement. The week of commemorative events culminates today in a march from the United Nations to a rally on the Great Lawn of Central Park.
{REST} As march coordinator, Lacey is helping to ensure that the expected hundreds of thousands of marchers move smoothly through the city. The march starts at 11 a.m.; the Virginia contingent steps off at 1 p.m.
Kimbro is assistant rally chair, working to schedule the six-hour roster of performers, speakers and interpreters. The bill ranges from Liza Minnelli and Gregory Hines to activists from six continents.
Neither Lacey nor Kimbro has slept much this week. Kimbro said he hasn't eaten in five days. Their offices are crammed with staffers frantically working the phones.
The reward will come today.
``I believe the rally can change people's lives that day,'' Kimbro said. ``I believe there will be somebody out there from Croatia or Mississippi who, if they come to New York, will see an overwhelming number of people and realize they are not alone.''
Kimbro, 28, grew up in Ocean View and went to Norview High. Though he dated girls in high school, he came out to family and friends during his freshman year at Virginia Commonwealth University. He moved to Manhattan after graduation to pursue an acting career.
Kimbro's vote for Bill Clinton was the first vote he ever cast, but since 1992 he has become politically active. He writes letters for Amnesty International in support of jailed and tortured gays abroad.
Lacey, who is in his 30s, was raised in Norfolk's Huntersville neighborhood. He worked at the Omni Waterside until 1988, when he transferred to New York's Omni Berkshire.
``I'm an elegant black male, and in order for me to prosper and grow I need an environment in which I can do that,'' Lacey says. In Norfolk, he didn't feel he fit in. ``One of the things that attracted me to the march was, it's cosmopolitan. It's universal. So there's space for an elegant black male.''
Both Lacey and Kimbro attended the 1993 March on Washington. Kimbro was deeply moved. Lacey was impressed by the turnout but disappointed by the rally's content.
``It was a good experience, but there was something lacking,'' Lacey said. ``Zest, and I should say purpose. I was vain enough to think I could provide the finale to go on top of an event of this proportion.''
Kimbro also thought he had talents he could lend to the movement. ``The idea of merging the artistic and the political really interested me,'' Kimbro said. So he called the Stonewall 25 office last September. An official gave him a bundle of information on the 1969 riots.
The packet told how patrons of a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, got tired of being harassed by the police and decided to fight back. The three-day rebellion of drag queens and club kids mushroomed into such seminal groups as the Gay Activists Alliance and the Gay Liberation Front.
``Growing up in Ocean View there was nothing for a gay youth to look up to,'' Kimbro said. ``The history of Stonewall wasn't taught at Norview High. Once I did read about it, it made me feel good.
``We will feel happy if we just get everyone on the field and talk about the issues. If we can see just what we all look like. This is like wake-up time. It really is.''
Lacey's inspiration is the march organizers' 13-part list of demands on the United Nations. This platform calls for the United Nations to extend its Universal Declaration of Human Rights to gay, lesbian, drag and transgender people, as well as those infected with HIV. It also calls for an International Year of Gay and Lesbian People and recognition of gay, lesbian, drag and transgender families in the 1994 Year of the Family.
The weekend's political volatility is evinced by reports of counterdemonstrations and other rallies. The city did not grant Stonewall 25 organizers the use of Fifth Avenue, the traditional parade route; instead the march will wind from First Avenue across 57th Street to Sixth Avenue and into Central Park. But the AIDS protest group ACT-UP is reportedly planning to march up Fifth Avenue anyway.
On Sunday morning, Kimbro will have finished three days of setting up the rally site in Central Park. Lacey will be handing out signs to gay and lesbian teens and twentysomethings representing the nations of the world.
``My vision is to see as many as 125 kids, or maybe 200 kids, carrying the flags of their own countries,'' Lacey said. ``It is very empowering. We are everywhere.'' by CNB