1970s
Angela Raine
Angela Raine was born and raised in Newark, after her parents moved up from the South. The last of six children, she attended Central High School and worked in various agencies in Newark doing HIV prevention and establishing transgender support groups. She continues to do transgender outreach work, and volunteers at the Newark LGBTQ Community Center. Married to writer T.T. Wardell since 1998, she has published Newark’s first transgender-owned and –edited magazine La’Raine since 2006.Tracey Africa Norman
In 2017 the name Tracey Africa Norman has become synonymous with terms like “full circle and comeback kid”. Tracey's modeling career got started, all because she was in the wrong place, at the right time. She'd accidencely wandered into a model casting for the European designer Basile, as luck would have it, Tracey got the booking. Along with several other NYC top models, such as Peggy Dillard, Jennifer Price, Pita Greene and Romney Russo each were featured in this Basile fashion layout, photographed by Mr. Irving Penn, for Italian Vogue.No doubt we've all heard of the "IT"...
Janyce Jackson Jones
Reverend Janyce Jackson Jones, a prominent and respected leader in the community retired after 21 years of dedicated service to her church and to social justice in the city of Newark.Janyce L. Jackson Jones served as Co-Pastor of Unity Fellowship Church located in Newark, NJ. UFC Newark, is a member of the non-denominational Unity Fellowship Church Movement, a Social Justice Ministry that seeks to minister to all people, regardless of race, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
Prior to Co-Pastoring at UFC Newark, Reverend Jackson served...
Marc Sir Dane
Marc Sir Dane - MSD is one of the most exciting and sensational live performers on the music (“Real Music”) trip today! He has been the opening act for such musical artists as Stephanie Mills, The Times and more. The real essence of his musical genius is his powerful vocals – strong, sexy, and soulful. He is like no other male artist on the scene today.Sir Dane was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia. He was nurtured by creative individuals with talents in music, dance, theatre, fashion design, lighting design, and set concepts. As a young musical director for the local...
Peter Savastano
Peter Savastano was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey where he lived and worked for most of his adult life. He holds a Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Drew University. An anthropologist of religion, consciousness, sexuality and gender, Dr. Savastano is academically and personally interested in the role that religion and/or spirituality plays both for better and for worse in the formation of queer identity, subjectivity and practice. He is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Seton Hall University.
Both photos taken at Rutgers-Newark...
Arnie Kantrowitz
Arnold (Arnie) Kantrowitz, a 1961 B.A. alum of Rutgers University-Newark, was a pioneering activist for LGBT equality in the United States. He served as vice president of New York City's influential Gay Activists Alliance, founded in 1970 in the wake of the Stonewall uprising, and in 1985 co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in response to antigay coverage of the AIDS crisis by New York City tabloids. GLAAD, still today the leading advocate for fair and accurate representation of LGBT people in the media, counts among its early successes an effort to persuade New York...James Credle
James Warren Credle (1945-2023) is a retired American academic administrator, counselor, and Veterans and LGBT rights activist. Born in Mesic, North Carolina, he was one of 14 children born during the time of Jim Crow. His mother was a dayworker and his father worked part-time as a carpenter. Credle and his siblings worked through high school to supplement the family income. He worked in fields picking cotton, potatoes, corn, and cabbage. He later worked in a crab factory. His family were members of Mount Olive Baptist Church where he sang in the choir. James graduated from the all-black...