Vernita Gray: Local Action Hero
Kathryn Taylor, HRC Family Project, Oct. 16, 2007
Vernita Gray, a Chicago native, has been active “since before we had the letters GLBT.” She has been intimately involved in the struggle for GLBT equality on all fronts, whether it is politics, non-profit work, or education.
From a young age Vernita has been surrounded by activism. In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., moved into her Lawndale community. “He was not very popular,” she recalled. “He was considered a trouble maker and an outside agitator.” Nevertheless, he was her hero. “His passion for civil rights is what inspired me to be so passionate about gay rights. I have always wanted to be judged by the content of my character and not the color of my skin or my sexuality.” She was also motivated by two African-American women, Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan, whom she admired as strong and eloquent politicians. “It was a time when the job choices for women were either no job or to be a teacher,” she said. “They were incredible role models.”
Vernita came out as a lesbian and an activist in the fall of 1969. She began to create change using her personal resources, organizing a hotline in her home to provide support for people who had been victims of violence or those simply seeking out social support and community. Additionally, she transformed her house into a safe haven for youth kicked out of their own homes due to their sexual orientation. “In the sixties and seventies few services were available for GLBT people,” she explained. “What was available was out of people’s homes.”
In 1971, Vernita along with a collective of other lesbians including Margaret Sloan started Lavender Woman newspaper, Chicago's first openly lesbian newspaper. It featured community activities, poetry, and short stories. In 1973, she became involved with “Gay Horizons,” a community center for GLBT people. Having an independent community center was pivotal, “It gave people a place to go and get out of homes.” In addition to being a community center, Gay Horizons offered violence prevention and counselors for gays and lesbians victims of hate crimes. Vernita worked closely with many of the counselors, assisting victims of hate crimes and domestic violence to obtain protective orders. In 1999, Horizon’s awarded her with the Human First Award, given to those who created something in the community that was not there before, despite risk to themselves or their loved ones. From 2000 to 2003 she served on the board for Horizon’s, renamed “Center on Halsted.” In 2003, she was forced to leave the board to battle breast cancer. Once recovered, she continued to be involved in the center, now in her fifteenth year as part of their anti-violence project.
Currently, Vernita is the GLBT Liaison and Hate Crime Specialist at the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, a position she has had for the past 14 years. She visits elementary, middle and high- schools challenging young people to think of a world without violence. In her talks, she emphasizes tolerance. “We must remember gay, straight, black, or white, we all are humans first,” she says. “If we are all going to live in America we have to learn to get along.” She believes in the importance of student attitudes and behavior that accompany school policy. “Schools have to provide protection to their GLBT students of course, but youth have responsibilities to themselves and fellow students to respect each other.”
Encouraging respect between youth is only one of Vernita’s driving causes. As her life progressed, she became involved in issues relevant to her age. Now, in her fifties, she is committed to addressing the concerns of aging populations. “As I age, the issue of marriage is very serious for me. One of the things that has happened to people in my age group, people who have been partnered for two, ten, twenty-two years, is that our social security and pensions can not and do not go to our partners,” she explained. “If a husband died, his wife would get to have a pension and insurance for the rest of her life. While my partner would only receive a lump sum check from my pension—meaning no benefits for the rest of her life and my social security would go to support someone else! Social security is not a gift from the government, I have paid into it.”
Vernita fights for rights of same-sex partners while serving on the board of Equality Illinois, a political organization that strives to secure civil rights of GLBT people in Illinois. Equality Illinois was instrumental in getting the anti-discrimination bill passed in 2005, which protected against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Equality Illinois is now working to strengthen support for House Bill 1826, which would create civil unions for same-sex and opposite-sex partners, The legislation extends basic legal protections to gay and lesbians couples in Illinois, affording all the protections and responsibilities of marriage to recognized civil unions.
Aside from other activities, Vernita is involved in addressing problems faced by GLBT seniors. She serves on the Task Force on Aging, the GLBT advisory committee to the AARP. The Task Force, according to her, “Challenges the various institutions around us to be open to GLBT seniors. It is an issue of how we are going to be treated. Chicago has lots of services for people who are aging, and many GLBT people don’t feel comfortable accessing them.” She also works for equal treatment of GLBT seniors as a board member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. In March 2007 she participated in the Aging Symposium held by NGLTF in Washington, DC to discuss aging issues on a national level. In February 2008 she plans to continue those conversations at the “Creating Change” Conference sponsored by NGLTF in Detroit, Michigan.
In the future, Vernita would like to do more mentoring, possibly at the Center on Halsted. Additionally she hopes to continue her work advancing equality for GLBT seniors. On a larger scale, she would like to help get more GLBT candidates elected to office. “[House Representative] Barney Frank is a pioneer. He has done a fabulous job but he doesn’t need to be solo,” she said. “We need more people representing our families and our communities.”