LGBTQ Archives - Levine Museum of the New South

As Charlotte wraps up its annual Charlotte Black Pride Week festivities and gears up for its annual Charlotte Pride Festival & Parade, the Levine Museum invites you to an intimate night of storytelling spotlighting our local LGBTQIA+ community. Join us for a celebration as members of our community share their experiences through spoken word, historical insights, and personal monologues.

Light bites will be provided, and drinks are available for purchase.

Parking is free!

https://camp.nc/visit/

Registration is free, with an option for donations to be made to the Levine Museum of the New South

Additional Details

Date: Tuesday, August 8th

Time: 6 PM

Location: NoDa Company Canteen at Camp North End

1824 Statesville Ave Suite 100 Charlotte, NC 28206

Youth Voices: Don’t Stay Silent is a free workshop for high-school students to express themselves and amplify their voices. This Youth Voices program is focused on the topic of bans, censorship, and North Carolina legislation concerning LGBTQ+ folk. The workshop will be led by Shane Manier and will include a short recorded discussion. The recording of this program will be shared by the Levine Museum of the New South as a digital offering for the public.

Visit The Workshop

About Our Facilitator

Shane Manier is a Creative Coach, Visual Artist, Live Event Painter, Tedx and Key Note Speaker, Trauma Informed Care Instructor, Poetry Mentor and National Spoken Word Poet based in the Charlotte Metro Region of NC. She is the founder of The National Poetry Month Summit, an online summit that connects and supports poets across the US, and the founder of Guerilla Poets, a nonprofit art collective with branches in the US and UK.

As a poet and artist, she has been featured at many shows and venues all across the US while completing many outreach programs as an activist and is a published author with three books, three spoken word albums and has poems published in numerous anthologies.

She is currently the Spoken Word and Arts Teaching Instructor for The Harvey B. Gantt Center, Henderson High School, The Arts Empowerment Project, Playing for Others, as well as Center for Faith and the Arts Visual Artist in Residence. In 2011 she was the youngest poet to ever be inducted in the Poetry Council of North Carolina, has served on board of CCAG Arts Collective of Cornelius North Carolina in 2017, and was honored as a finalist for Poet Laureate of Charlotte NC in 2022. She has been recognized as a National Poet performing with Respect Da Mic Slam Team from 2017-2020, and Secret City Slam in 2022.

The LGBTQIA+ community has been fighting for equality for years. We see these struggles through important historical events such as the Stonewall Riots (1969), The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009), the legalization of same-sex marriage (2015), and the ban of transgender Americans joining the military (2019), later repealed by executive order (2021).
LGBTQIA+ issues are increasingly important in the national conversation about civil rights, freedom, and legislative and judiciary reform. With recent efforts to codify same-sex marriage, the introduction and passing of “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, and multiple attacks by extremist groups, the struggle for LGBTQIA+ equality is ongoing in 2022.

Our panel offers participants a chance to hear and consider what equality looks like for LGBTQIA+ individuals. What is the modern LGBTQIA+ experience? How are recent and historical events impacting the community? Join us as we address these questions in a conversation moderated by Daniel Valdez (Charlotte Pride) alongside Karen Graci (PFlag Charlotte) and Kent Brintnall (UNC-Charlotte).

Join Us In Person!

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church

1900 The Plaza, Charlotte, NC 28205

Our Panelists

Daniel Valdez is the Senior Director of External Affairs at Welcoming America. He has more than ten years in nonprofit management, working with organizations like the Hispanic Federation, Crisis Assistance Ministry, the Latin American Coalition and Carolinas CARE Partnership. He is passionate about using his talents and experience to advance the mission of organizations working on systemic changes in an effort to make the world a better place for all. Daniel was born in Acapulco, Mexico and grew up in North Carolina. He holds a B.A. in History and Latin American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke University. Daniel has served on the boards of The Charlotte Lesbian and Gay Fund, The Bruce Iron Camp Fund, and Reel Out Charlotte. Daniel serves on the Board of Directors of Charlotte Pride and served as president from 2017 to 2021.

As the first Executive Director for PFLAG Charlotte, Karen Graci (she/her) leads the organization’s efforts to strengthen families, empower LGBTQ+ allies, and elevate LGBTQ+ voices through peer support, education, and outreach. Through her role at PFLAG, Karen meets families and organizations where they are, offering peer support, leading educational programming, and collaborating with corporate and community leaders to nurture a kinder and more inclusive world. Previously, Karen worked with Deloitte in Washington, D.C., Wilton, CT, and Charlotte, NC, where her roles included Manager of National Recruiting and Chief of Staff, National Human Resources.

Kent Brintnall is an associate professor at UNC Charlotte where he is affiliated with the Religious Studies Department and the Women’s & Gender Studies Program. His research and teaching focus on gender, sexuality, sexual violence, critical theory, and religion.

Eliazar Posada serves as the Organizing Director of Equality NC, the oldest statewide organization in the country dedicated to securing rights and protections for the LGBTQ Community. He became the first openly LGBTQ Latino elected in North Carolina after winning a special election on May 17, 2022. Born in Florida and raised in the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, he has worked and lived in Carrboro, NC, since 2016.

Join us for a community dialogue about the experiences of Black LGBTQ+ men facilitated by multi-disciplinary artist and community leader Jermaine Nakia Lee!

Along with Lee, co-facilitators will be Nate Turner, owner of Your Custom Catering & Events and vocational school educator and Chandler “Chan” Robinson (Chan the Musical Mystic), CMS educator, martial artist and mystic artist.

This is the Gantt Center and the Levine Museum’s first Community of Change conversation in honor of the Men of Change exhibition. Community of Change conversations place participants at the forefront. The series will explore themes presented in Men of Change to create space for difficult conversations that both enlighten and motivate.

Inspired by Men of Change Bayard Rustin, Alvin Ailey, Kehinde Wiley, James Baldwin, and others, this conversation will explore the following questions:

How does this intersection of LGBTQ+ and Black identities influence who these men were, how they presented themselves, and their impact?
How did these Men of Change inspire their generations as well as those after them?

The conversation will move beyond the men presented in the exhibition into a wider discussion of the experiences of Black LGBTQ+ men, and how this contributes to the multi-layered Black experience. Discussion topics will include:

Complexities of what it means to be a Black man
The spectrum of identities and vulnerabilities, including Black queer experiences and perspectives, compared to other queer experiences
The difference in generational experiences of men in the intersection
The history of Charlotte Black Pride
What do true progress, celebration, and remembering look like?
What is true celebration and remembering?
What can we do on an individual level to uplift, support, learn from, and promote inclusion?

Wednesday, November 30th

6:30 pm at Harvey B. Gantt Center
551 South Tryon Street Charlotte, NC 28202

This event is FREE however, we do encourage you to register at the link below.

Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture and Levine Museum of the New South are proud to collaborate and bring the dynamic exhibition Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth. to our Charlotte community. The exhibition profiles the revolutionary men whose journeys have altered the history and culture of the country.

Men of Change was developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and made possible through the generous support of the Ford Motor Company Fund.

Free admission to the Men of Change Exhibition at the Gantt Center and Levine Museum is made possible by generous support from Wells Fargo.

Join Us In Person!

Our Panelists

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