Two Black Prides: Trick Or Treat?

By Keith Boykin, in sexuality
Tuesday, July 29 2003, 12:10AM

This weekend, thousands of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people will venture out in New York City for black gay pride festivities. But this year, following a split between organizers, the public will get to choose between two separate groups putting on events. After years of working together, did something go wrong? And for those who plan to attend the events, will this be a trick or a treat for the community?

There will not be one single, unifying Black Pride this year. That much is clear. But in a series of interviews conducted over the past two weeks, the principal players in a controversy between pride organizers could hardly agree on what divided them, much less how to reconcile their differences. But there are differences.

Laurence Pinckney, executive director of Black Pride NYC and James Saunders, the chair of Black Pride, provided a somewhat different version of events from the one given by Gary English, the executive director of People of Color In Crisis (POCC), which has now taken over some of Black Pride's events.

THE FACTS

It's difficult to piece together exactly what happened, but the two sides agree on a few basic points.

For the past five summers, Black Pride NYC has held a series of local events in New York under the title of Black Gay Pride Weekend. Two years ago, organizers of Black Pride contracted with POCC, a Brooklyn-based HIV/AIDS service organization, to run an annual picnic and a beach party during Black Pride weekend.

Because Black Pride was not a government recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, POCC used its nonprofit status to serve as the "fiscal conduit" for Black Pride. Although attendance at the events last year seemed high, Black Pride organizers report that they lost money and finished the weekend in debt.

Earlier this year, officials from Black Pride and POCC met to discuss their plans for Black Pride 2003 but could not agree on what type of relationship would work. Earl Fowlkes of the International Federation of Black Prides in Washington, D.C., was called in as a mediator and met with the parties involved, but he could not get them to agree to a cooperative resolution.

When talks broke down, POCC moved forward with plans to hold a picnic, a beach party and a "ball" during black pride weekend. But Black Pride organizers would not allow POCC to use the "Black Pride" name, so POCC created the title "Pride In The City" for its events.

Faced with limited resources compared to last year, Black Pride scaled down its 2003 activities and set a more modest agenda that included community forums, a "Homo Harlem" tour, a booksigning, a candlelight vigil and a brunch. Pinckney describes it as "a much more intimate type of event."

After months of rumor and innuendo in the community, the two sides recently seemed to come together, at least for a limited purpose. With dueling websites providing conflicting information about the weekend, both sides reached an agreement last week to link their websites to one another, thus providing a more complete picture of the activities scheduled.

Those are the basic facts. That much seems to be uncontested. What is contested is why the two groups fell apart in the first place.

THE DISAGREEMENT

From Laurence Pinckney's perspective, part of the issue seems to be about respect. "In terms of Gary and POCC, I appreciate and understand that he has to do what he thinks is best for his organization. I deserve the same respect," he said. Pinckney felt that POCC essentially maneuvered its way to take over the biggest events associated with Black Pride.

"The issue that I have with the whole thing is the way it went down," Pinckney said. He said POCC took advantage of inside information it gained from serving as Black Pride's fiscal sponsor "to see that we were vulnerable and that we didn't have a lot of money."

Gary English at POCC sees it differently. "Since POCC has been involved in Black Pride, we've saved Black Pride," he said. "There would never have been a Black Pride if we didn't bring our fiscal resources to the table."

Because of Black Pride's financial difficulties, English said Pride wasn't even certain it would put on the events this year. That's when POCC stepped in to make sure that the big events took place, he said. Those events cost POCC a considerable amount of money, including $10,000 simply to rent the Roxy nightclub for Sunday night's free ball.

Pinckney acknowledges that he, himself, was not sure if he would continue on with Black Pride this year, but that was before he took his new position as executive director. Prior to that time he had been a contractor hired by Black Pride. He also said that "if things didn't turn out financially, Black Pride would not have been able to do [the beach party or the park event] this year."

The big issue was money. Black Pride organizers said they were concerned about paying off debt from last year, which Pinckney estimated recently at $28,000. "We felt that if we made the debt that we should pay the debt," he said.

Pinckney wanted POCC to use some of its "financial muscle" to help retire the previous year's debt, but English maintains that federal law prohibits his organization from spending its grant money to pay back debt. English said he offered to pay Black Pride $5,000 but balked when they came back and asked for $10,000 instead. "We can't just give out money to pay debt," English said. "That is illegal…this is not Gary's private club." At the same time, English also claims that Black Pride never produced proof of the full amount of the debt. "Show us the debt," he said.

Citing a figure of $200,000 in government money spent on pride activities, English said "this money has to be spent in a way that [we're] legally bound to spend it." He said that POCC's government contracts imposed goals and objectives to meet, and argued that some of the people at Black Pride "don't have a clue of what those goals and objectives are."

In the end, Black Pride officials asked POCC for three things for sponsorship, Pinckney said. First, they wanted POCC to give Black Pride money to help pay off their debt. Second, they asked that POCC coinsure and indemnify Black Pride for liability. Last, they asked that Black Pride be given final approval on any art work. But POCC refused, Pinckney said.

"That's a very simplistic answer," English replied. He ascribed the division between the two groups to "philosophical differences." "We have a different perspective of Pride and what Pride is supposed to do," English said. "I think it's okay if they want to be private entrepreneurs and make money," he added, but "we're not concerned about profit."

The lack of communication between the two groups seems apparent when comparing English's words with those of James Saunders. He too seems genuinely interested in using Black Pride as a community building tool rather than a profit-making venture. "Not to say that the party piece is not an excellent piece of that, but Black Pride is not supposed to be about the parties," Saunders said.

If Black Pride were primarily a profit-driven business, the choice of small events would hardly serve such a purpose when there is much more money to be made from big social functions. In fact, in interviews conducted recently, officials at Black Pride never suggested that profit making was their primary objective.

In their stated values, the two sides agree on much more than they disagree. They claim to be divided by "philosophical differences," but those differences are not necessarily obvious. "I don't know what the philosophy of Pride In The City [i]s," Pinckney said, but "POCC's objective and the people that they are trying to reach and the goals that they have are different, from my perspective, than what we're trying to do."

That may be the case. The goal of POCC's event is to test 500 black MSMs for HIV, said English, using the abbreviation for "men who have sex with men." His organization plans to set up Orasure oral fluids HIV testing facilities at the park and at the beach.

The beach party and the park picnic are two of the biggest events of the weekend. English expects 3,000 people at Fort Greene Park on Saturday, 4,000 at Riis Beach on Sunday and 6,000 at the Roxy ball that evening. Since all three events are free to the public, English is looking to integrate testing and prevention mechanisms into the largely social settings of Black Pride.

In contrast, Saunders said Black Pride is organizing events at "smaller venues" this year, and he expects about 200-500 people to attend each event. But Saunders also seemed sanguine about the possibility of confusion with POCC's big events, especially since Black Pride has always sponsored the picnic and the beach party in the past. The picnic, for example, is not an official Black Pride event this year, but Saunders said "people will look at it as being a Black Pride event, so whichever way it goes is fine at this point."

Although the two sides claim to have different goals, when asked to identify their goals, they used identical language. Saunders said Black Pride's goal is "about empowering with seminars, with visibility [and other activities] that we're here and we're not going anywhere." Remarkably, English used the exact same words in a separate interview. He said one of his group's goals is to show "that we're here and we're not going anywhere."

When both groups lay out identical goals, it's hard to understand exactly what divides them. But they are divided.

"I think it's okay for people to have different goals," English said. "That's why we split. Comparing Pride In The City's events to Black Pride's events, English said, "people are not going to come out of town to go to a Harlem homo tour or people are not going to come from California to go to a book signing party. They're not. Let's be real about this."

Although English argued that the split between the two groups is not divisive, he spoke with a sense of confidence about the potential success of his group's events. "We should let the community decide," he said.

Pinckney acknowledged that POCC's Pride In The City is "important" but felt "it should have been a stand alone." As he sees it, "We've built and spent a lot of money over the last couple of years in developing a brand." He expected POCC either to have continued as a sponsor or to have created its own activities and done it at a specific time other than Black Pride weekend.

Both sides chafed at the suggestion that the controversy might be seen by the public as a conflict between two divas in the community. "Divas run out of steam…workers work all day…we're workers here," English said. For his part, Saunders seemed to downplay the conflict. "We try not to go in that direction of speaking on that level," he said.

THE SOLUTION

Neither side is prepared to say whether the two groups will bridge their differences in time for the 2004 Black Gay Pride weekend, but they do express optimism about this year's events. Despite their disagreements, all three principals agreed on the importance of providing pride weekend activities to the community.

English said "our goal is to serve the community…the more activity the better." Pinckney added, "There is only one Black Pride and there's always only been one Black Pride. The way I look at Pride In The City is that they are having another event that they've chosen to do on the same date that Black Pride has always been."

"The positive part of what is happening is that there will be a beach party and there will be a park [event] this year," Pinckney said. Saunders also sounded a conciliatory tone. When asked for final words, he suggested that people in the community volunteer and make contributions to whatever group they support.

"Put your money where your mouth is," Saunders said. "If you want things to happen in New York, you gotta put the money up for it."

Black Pride NYC website

Pride In The City website

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