Six names will be added to the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the historic Stonewall Inn.
The 2024 class of honorees, awarded posthumously, are Cecilia Gentili, David Mixner, Sakia Gunn, ABilly S. Jones-Hennin, Charles Cochrane and Larry Baza.
In existence for six years, the Wall of Honor is a collaboration by the International Imperial Court Council and the National LGBTQ Task Force. Honorees are selected based on their “tremendous impact” to the LGBTQ movement.
“I strongly believe more than ever that any community, indeed any civil rights movement, that doesn’t know where it came from and whose shoulders it stands on, doesn’t really know where it’s going,” said Nicole Murray Ramirez, founder of the Wall of Honor and a LGBTQ activist for over 55 years.
A ceremony is planned for June 27 at the iconic gay bar in New York, where riots over police raids erupted in 1969 and led to the gay liberation movement. Today, the Greenwich Village site is a National Monument and popular tourist attraction.
Around at the time of the riots, Cochrane was the first openly gay police officer at the NYPD, coming out in the fall of 1981 while holding the rank of sergeant. Gentili was an Argentine American who advocated for the rights of transgender people and sex workers.
Mixner was a staunchly anti-war political activist who played a key role in defeating Proposition 6 in California, which sought to bar gays and lesbians from being schoolteachers. Gunn, a Black lesbian, was just 15 when she was murdered in a senseless act of violence that would galvanize the Newark, N.J. queer community.
Jones-Hennin was a Washington, D.C. HIV/AIDS activist, who helped organize the first March on Washington for gay and lesbian rights in 1979. Baza championed many causes in the San Diego Latino arts and culture community.
Task Force Executive Director Kierra Johnson said this year’s group is a reminder that “courage is the lifeblood of our movement.”
