Imagine, if you will, 2,500 African
American teenagers surrounding a one-story building at 11 a.m.
Now imagine 2,500 African American gay teenagers wearing rainbow colors everywhere they can bead, braid, paint, weave, stitch, and sew them.
Now imagine that the 2,500 African American teenagers are 90% lesbian between 14 and 16, and mourning the death of one of their gay girl sisters.
This should give you some notion of the scene at the Perry Funeral Home on Mercer Street in Newark on Friday, May 16 when the public viewing and funeral of Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old African American AG––slang for butch lesbian––who was murdered five days before while waiting for a bus in the early morning hours.
Sakia and four friends had returned from a Saturday night at the foot of Christopher Street, a safe place to “party” with all the other kids of color who come to be free with kids like themselves, at the end of the street Stonewall made indelible in the imaginations of unknown numbers of teens. These were the kids that the new West Village class of co-op owners and trendy shopkeepers and a clean-up action committee called RID targeted when they attempted to clear the area of those who are “unwelcome.” These five teenage gay girls from Newark were the kind of kids that FIERCE, the LGBT youth group, defended when they held street rallies and dance-a-thons at the end of Christopher Street to protect a new generation of youth at risk for HIV.
Arriving at the funeral home, I flashed back to the actual night of Stonewall when the runaway, underage street drags queens who hung out in the Sheridan Square Park on the other end of Christopher Street moved to the front of the tacky bar that would not let them in and egged on the passing woman who had escaped from the police car. She heaved her heavy, mannish body against the empty cop car nearly rocking it onto its side to the street queens’ cheers.
No cheers in Newark this morning. Rather the kids were waiting to go inside and say good-bye to the butch cherub who had come to the defense of her friend when a couple of black men drove by and made a pass, one refusing to be rebuffed. Like any good AG, Sakia read the dude, told him they were not interested because they were gay. When he persisted, according to one witness, grabbing her by the neck, she did what any good 15-year-old butch would do: she swung at him despite the fact of how much larger and stronger he was. Stung by wounded male pride, the man produced a knife and plunged it into Sakia’s heart, killing her.
Another dead black child who would have been mourned only by her parents and brothers had she not been a member of a black, female, rainbow high school family networked through cell phones and emails, who wore the rainbow colors to signal each other, proclaim their love, and defy the closet in ways only teens could devise.
So here we were, 2,500 gay teens, a smattering of black adults, and eight white people, all gathered to honor, remember, and demand no more murders in the teenage rainbow family of Newark.
My white skin making me invisible to security, I went inside, down a narrow staircase past a reception room with three white news reporters and two white photographers, passed the two large Perry Funeral home employees standing guard at the entrance to a small room holding five rows of five chairs and there I found Sakia. The tiny young woman was laid out in her favorite running suit in a casket surrounded by flowers. I looked at her all innocent and childlike, and I immediately flashed on Sylvia Rivera laid out at Reddens funeral home. Sylvia had lived the life that Sakia would never know. Both, in death, became symbols of courage and survival.
I touched her hands. Looking at this brave, feisty black child, who, in death, was so clearly a black child killed for doing what Audre Lorde or Malcolm X on any member of the early 70s Third World Gay Revolution would have whispered in her ear: love and defend your people.
I slipped outside as easily as I had gone in. I stood alongside a black father who had brought his 16-year-old son to Perry’s to say good-bye to his high school friend and told me he had came to make sure there was no trouble. I asked this father why the community leaders like Amira Baraka were not present? Why the African American clergy were not present? Quietly, he responded that it was because they could not deal with what we were witnessing: teenagers out about who they are and whom they love.
The funeral home organized two long lines to take the kids individually downstairs to say good-bye to Sakia. I began to see the clergy collars on a number of women wearing purple or African colors. Except for one anti-violence pastor, the male clergy were absent, but the women clergy of color and the rainbow were there unobtrusively weaving through the crowd offering their arms and their shoulders to cry on. When the kids emerged from the viewing, the grief they had held through two days of vigils at Sakia’s murder site––and a march the day before on City Hall where Mayor Sharpe James failed to appear––suddenly was not controllable. Here is when the rainbow clergywomen interceded.
The chapel was full of family, with a row of chairs near Sakia’s casket seating Sakia’s mother and father and two brothers. The crowd was a large extended family of grandmothers holding babies, aunts, uncles, and dozens of cousins sat in the chapel’s chairs. Lining the sides of the room were Sakia’s rainbow friends, mostly in identifiable couples.
A trio of young women who read poems was followed by a woman who reminded the room that Sakia was god’s child and that though there was no understandable explanation why god had called her home so soon; she was with him now. This message seemed to soothe many of the older mourners. After a musical interlude of organ gospel songs, Sakia’s uncle, Anthony Hall, a minister, gave a fire and brimstone eulogy full of heart. He was the first to say out loud the word gay––and he said it repeatedly. Anthony was angry with politicians who had promised police protection where Sakia was shot and called upon the assembled to remember Sakia the next time their votes were courted.
Newark’s mayor arrived just after the casket was moved from the basement to a chapel room that could hold 200 people. When he saw the mayor, Anthony asked him to come up and say a few words. The mayor did not move. The organ began to play again and Anthony went outside as he softly said, “Need some air.’
As the service was about to end, Anthony returned, shouting loudly that he had made a mistake and repeatedly offered apologies to the mayor. James stood up and Anthony again asked him again if he would like to say a few words.
The mayor announced that he would take personal responsibility to see that, in the memory of Sakia, Newark would have a gay and lesbian teen center with a hot line for youth in need. The room filled with applause and the woman who opened the service rose and shouted out, “Thanks be to God, Hallelujah.” Anthony thanked the mayor and turning directly to Toni Gunn, the death girl’s mother, said, “Sakia did not die in vain. Sad that it is only in death will the needs of our gay children be recognized. Sakia has done that. God bless Sakia.”
The mayor stood outside, seemingly bewildered by the size of the crowd. Some rushed to him, asking about the absence of police at the spot where Sakia died. More than one person said loudly “Mr. Mayor where are the grief counselors for our children?” Another voice shouted, “This is day four and all they have been given is judgmental words from the high school principal and the day off for the funeral.”
The mayor knew he had to take some kind of action. He asked for a cell phone and a hand reached up from the crowd and gave him one. He spent a good 30 minutes trying to get hold of someone to bring grief counselors to the Perry Funeral home.
Outside, the local rainbow activists and clergy led a procession down the street to a college gym that the mayor had opened up for grief counseling. Many in the crowd carried last week’s issue of Gay City News over their heads as they joined the march.
The last words I heard as I left the Perry Funeral home were shouted at me from the organizer of the local HIV program that serves gay male teens, “Don’t forget about Sakia. Don’t forget about us.”
A day after her alleged killer walked into a Newark police station and surrendered, Sakia Gunn, 15, the lesbian victim of a hate crime, was laid to rest in Newark on a bright spring day that brought thousands of mourners to her funeral.
In a private downstairs ceremony at Perry’s Funeral Home, an open casket sat at the head of the room. Sakia lay in folds of white bunting, wearing a white jump suit. An emblem of the rainbow colors was pinned to the open lid of the coffin.
Dolores Sharple, a cousin, visited the funeral parlor the night before to arrange Sakia’s hair. LaTona (Toni) Gunn, Sakia’s mother, wearing a white dress, sat before the casket, reaching up to embrace mourners as they filed past. The mothers of Sakia’s friends, including Toni Nickerson and Gail Bailey, embraced Toni lovingly, indicative of the close-knit neighborhood in which Sakia was raised.
Annie Laurie Williamson, Sakia’s grandaunt, known affectionately as Bluda, was heard saying to a relative, “The whole West Side. I told them the whole school would be here. West Side.”
Frank Spencer, 75, Sakia’s granduncle, reflected on bearing witness to the civil rights struggle only to find himself sitting at the funeral of a murdered African American teenager.
“Well, in this day and time, particularly in Newark, we’ve seen so many of them. As you live, in this life, and these things transpire, it seems like it’s just like the flow of things changing and you adapt yourself to different situations. This is a tragedy that happens in all big cities around the nation. It’s a shame that people just kill people,” said Spencer, tears choking off further comment.
On May 10, the night before her early-morning killing, Sakia and her friends had been in Greenwich Village. The young women rode the Path train to Newark’s Penn Station, then walked the four blocks to Broad Street for the bus home to the Vailsburg section of Newark. The group arrived at the bus stop shortly before 3:30 a.m.
While they waited for the 4:00 a.m. bus to arrive, a white station wagon drove up with two men inside, including the suspect who would later turn himself in on a murder warrant, Richard McCullough, 29, of Newark.
The young women later stated that the men made overtures to them, which they rebuffed, declaring that they were “gay” and not interested. McCullough allegedly approached the group and, after choking one of the young women, set upon Sakia, who had intervened on her friend’s behalf, refusing his command that she approach him. After placing a knife against Sakia’s throat, according to witnesses, McCullough struggled with her as she freed herself and swung her fist at McCullough. As she squared back to swing again, McCullough allegedly plunged a knife into her chest, and then fled in the white station wagon.
Sakia’s rapid loss of blood proved fatal. Her friends flagged down a passing car, whose driver drove the group of young women to nearby University Hospital. Sakia died in the emergency room despite doctors undertaking extraordinary measures to save her life.
Lieutenant Derek Glenn, a Newark Police spokesperson confirmed that McCullough surrendered voluntarily on May 15.
“He was in contact with us since his picture appeared in the media,” Glenn said. “He turned himself in to the Newark Police in the company of his attorney.”
McCullough has been arraigned on murder, weapons and bias charges, entering a not-guilty plea before Superior Court Judge Harold Fullilove, who set bail at $500,000.
The day following McCullough’s surrender, as Newark paused to officially mourn Sakia, the funeral parlor’s directors, as well as the Gunn family, were clearly overwhelmed by the turnout of mourners, who could not all be accommodated in one sitting. Hundreds of young people milled about on the leafy, quiet street bordering the funeral home and adjacent church.
The friends who had mourned together all week arrived to console each other––Ashley Jackson, Spanky Ross, Chantell Woodbridge, and Valencia Bailey.
As the morning wore on, the tension mounted outside the funeral parlor as mourners waited a considerable time even to enter the building. Many of the grieving were young lesbians. Once the private family service began inside Perry’s, the line of entering mourners was halted, only lending to the sense of outrage among the swelling crowd of teenagers.
Meanwhile, after filing past the casket inside, mourners were exiting the funeral home through a set of double doors thrown open to ease the overcrowding inside.
That exit opened onto a grassy slope that descended to the sidewalk. Many of the teens started to collapse onto the grass, shuddering with sobs.
A young man began screaming at a photographer, “Get outta her face!” as onlookers and a police officer rushed over to assist the mourners.
The otherwise still, tree-lined residential street outside the funeral home now echoed with sudden outbursts of keening, piercing cries of young women, one shouting repeatedly in her frustration and outrage simply, “Why? Why? Why ?”
Leah McElrath, a psychotherapist and lesbian, was present outside Perry’s, having arrived to pay her respects to Sakia.
“I didn’t go to the funeral expecting to exercise my professional services,” she said. “Most of these kids had shown up without any adult support. Many appeared to be overwhelmed with grief and their trauma stemmed from the realization that it could have been them who was killed.”
Members of the clergy, particularly the LGBT-affirming congregations in the Newark area, as well as the leaders of the city’s LGBT and HIV/AIDS organizations, all private sector, non-profit entities, rushed to assist the grieving students and assert an element of calm in what was fast becoming a volatile, tense atmosphere outside the funeral.
Rev. Jacqueline Holland and Rev. Kevin Taylor, of the Unity and Fellowship Congregations, as well as their colleague Deacon Debbie Summers, consoled scores of youth, again, mostly young lesbians, crouching down to assist several young women who had collapsed onto the street while calls were placed on cell phones for emergency medical assistance.
Adolph St. Arromand, the project manager of Project WOW, a Newark-based HIV prevention group, had accompanied various clients of his to funeral. St. Arromand assisted in consoling the many of the young mourners and expressed shock at the lack of social service intervention that had not been deployed by the city.
“This is indicative of how the city of Newark interfaces with gay youth,” he said. “Maybe it took the death of Sakia for the world to see the truth.”
“There’s not much out here for gay youth,” said Darren Crawford, 17, a gay youth.
Rev. Rose Hardy, of the Liberation in Truth Congregation, who is also a certified social worker, performed interventions and assisted in consoling the young people.
Around 1:30 pm, as the funeral service inside Perry’s wound down, Mayor Sharpe James appeared at the exit of the funeral home at the crest of the grassy slope. Before addressing the family inside, James had been booed.
When confronted by the ad hoc committee of adult LGBT leaders, James phoned various officials in his administration to establish a crisis intervention unit on the street outside Perry’s.
“We need to get some counseling here,” James admitted. “This is why these kids go to New York.”
Over the next half hour, James made a series of calls, which resulted in the appearance of a score of police officials and workers from the Newark Department of Health. Rocco Malanga, deputy police director, and Anthony F. Ambrose, chief of police, arrived as well as Cathy Cuomo-Cacere, the city’s health and human services director.
Shortly thereafter, a phalanx of police officers, including a dozen motorcycle officers arrived. Several ambulances rolled up as well as a fire truck, whose personnel began administering oxygen to a young woman and tending to some of the more grief-stricken mourners.
Cuomo-Cacere, meanwhile, had checked in with officials in her department, establishing a grief-consoling site at Essex County Community College, a short distance away.
“It is important that the young people have a place to go off the street especially after the casket has been taken to the cemetery,” Cuomo-Cacere said.
As the Gunn family followed the casket out of Perry’s, the clergy mingled with the thousands of youth lining the street, announcing that a peaceful memorial march would soon commence that would lead the mourners to Essex Community.
Rev. Hardy, the social worker, announced in a clear, commanding voice, “Family, when Sakia comes out, we are going to pay our respects and not rush the casket. Family, it is hard to keep our composure when we feel such grief, but we will accomplish this, because it is what Sakia would expect of us and we are proud of who we are.”
A police motorcade, lights flashing and riders gunning their motorcycles, led the funeral procession to nearby Fairmont Cemetery.
Laquetta Nelson, a Newark resident and the former president of New Jersey Stonewall Democrats, stood amidst the youth awaiting word from the police that the memorial march would begin.
“Never, in all my years of activism, have I ever witnessed anything as astounding as this,” she said. “These elected officials need to wake up.”
Altirik Harper, 20, a gay man who did not know Sakia, said, “I am here to show my support to the family and to show that just because we’re gay don’t mean we’re going to break apart and not come together when times like this happen. I feel hurt because a friend passed and Sharpe James isn’t doing anything.”
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) sent a delegation to the funeral. In a follow-up interview this week, GLAAD’s Michael Young, said, “Our role at the funeral was different than what we anticipated. For the adults, we had to take care of the kids and see that city officials did something.”
After the motorcade passed, the ministers and adults led the youth behind the mayor as police cars sped ahead to seal off intersections and clear a path for the march to Essex Community College.
As the youth filed into a gymnasium on the campus, health department officials awaited them. Plastic bottles of water were distributed. Mental health professionals from the college began setting up chairs in the rear of the gymnasium to begin counseling students.
Mayor Sharpe James briefly addressed the throngs of young people as they filed up onto the bleachers of the gymnasium. Rev. Taylor and Rev. Hardy spoke, as did Cuomo-Cacere, who acknowledged the tremendous amount of grief that had poured forth and who asked for a moment of silence.
U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), who represents Newark in Congress, assured the crowd that he will push for hate crime legislation in the nation’s capital.
James then took the mike once again. He announced that at his behest refreshments would be served from concession trucks that were driving up to the rear of the building. He promised to establish a “gay and lesbian counseling center in Sakia Gunn’s name” and continued speaking. However, large groups of youth rose and departed en masse from the gymnasium. Only a handful of mourners, including the adult LGBT leaders, remained.
In a heated confrontation with several leaders of the LGBT community, James denied he had ignored pleas on the night before to address demonstrators on the steps of City Hall, citing a medical emergency. He denied being insensitive to the needs of Newark’s gay and lesbian youth, again promising to establish a center so that the young people “need not go to New York to feel safe and open.”
Joy Black, 25, a lesbian activist who works for New Community, a community-based organization, confronted the mayor with complaints that students at West Side High School had brought to her attention.
“The principal of West Side, Fernand Williams, has refused to declare a moment of silence for Sakia,” said Black. “Students have told me that he has said, ‘If someone chooses to live a certain lifestyle, they must pay a certain price.’”
James promised to investigate whether the school was maintaining an environment hostile to gay and lesbian youth. Calls made to the spokesperson for the Newark schools have not been returned.
“I’m from here,” James told the crowd. “I taught at West Side, at Essex. My own son has been the victim of a shooting, five times in the chest.”
A young woman, who refused to be identified, confronted James with concerns that police officers were not manning the police booth at the intersection of Broad and Market Streets the night Sakia was stabbed. The mayor claimed that police statistics had demonstrated that a police presence was not needed between the hours of 1 a.m. and six a.m.
James obtained the names of LGBT leaders willing to meet with him and Cuomo-Cacere in order to address the needs of Newark’s LGBT community.
Black confirmed on May 22 that she had been contacted by City Hall and that a meeting has been scheduled for next week.
Later, Juli Garcia, 21, spoke of his decision to walk out on the mayor.
“It’s like a way of showing your blessings, your prayers,” he said. “Sakia was from the ‘hood. She was a person. Sometimes it feels like she’s still here, that we can see her everyday and say hi. And then she hears what we are saying.”