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Erica Harrison

 My name is Erica D.Harrison aka Ricky aka Ms.Erica. I was born and raised in Harlem New York.I will always cherish the sweet memories of going to the famous Apollo Theater as a child. I would see every artist from James Brown to the complete Motown Review...all for $.90! I always had an interest in the arts such as music, painting, dancing, singing, poetry and all things creative. 

My parents were from the South and they divorced when I was a toddler. I was raised by my mother but my father was always in my life. My mom was a Southern Belle with City Swag. She exposed me to the...

Darryl Rochester

 After graduating from Weequahic High School in 1971, Darryl Wayne Rochester (March 27, 1953-December 8, 2020) studied dance under the tutelage of Kay Thompson Payne, co-owner of the then well-known Thompson Dance Studio of Newark. He became one of her star pupils. One evening Kay invited Darryl to accompany her to her dance class at the Dance Theater of Harlem in New York. The experience was very intimidating and he left there feeling somewhat inadequate and less confident in his ability as a dancer.  Darryl had an urgent feeling to obtain additional training in dance from a highly skilled...

* John

 John (b.1938) grew up in North Newark, in an Irish Catholic family. As a teenager, he participated in Newark's thriving gay social world, and this interview recounts bars, movie theaters, cruising spaces, and other important sites of gay life in the 1950s and 60s, before John left Newark in the late Sixties.

 
 

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.
 

Douglas Says

 There’s an impressive résumé attached to the name Douglas Says, which includes working with a list of celebrity photographers such as; Mike Ruiz, Fadil Berisha, Alex Chatelain, Ghillian Lewin,  Marc Baptiste, Dah Len, Keith Majors, Anthony Barboza, Joe Grant, Ernest Collins, Martha Camarillo and Jerry Jack. It is often said by stylist, that Douglas Says… is one of the most important, yet under exposed designers around. Douglas is one of the undergrounds, best kept secrets! He’s a classically trained designer, with knowledge of fashions historical pass, yet firmly looking forward into tomorrow...