A Tribute to E. Lynn Harris

From Donna Payne, HRC's associate director of diversity and Vice Chairwoman, NBJC.

I just learned that E. Lynn Harris, our most well known African American gay author is gone. My heart is breaking just like many of us across the nation. The first time I heard of him was around 1992 - in the beauty shop! A lot of black women were talking about this book - Invisible Life. They were whispering and I had to listen quietly to hear what was being said.

Someone just handed me the book since I was about to fall out from under the dryer. I read 2 pages and I was hooked. It was all about this man living

the college life -- studying, hanging with the other black men on campus, going to the black fraternity parties, and meeting the young women -- no men, no women on campus!!! LOL! He was really meeting the football player on campus. What a book! It caught the essence of LGBT blacks struggling over our sexuality and the invisible life we lived.

I was hooked. Once I had that book, I never stopped reading an E. Lynn Harris book!

A few years later, I was helping out the now defunct Black Gay Leadership Forum (a previous LGBT organization) and the leadership had invited Mr. Harris to speak at a fundraiser. He came. I was taken by his humbleness. I still remember sitting in the backyard of the fundraiser waiting on the event to start when he walked in and sat down beside me. He simply smiled and said he understood why everyone was sitting down (it was really hot). There was no Big Introduction, and no champagne flowing for him. There was only a man that was willing to help his community.

He talked about how he wanted to help his people to get through this life  being comfortable about who they really are inside. He said he wasn't an activist. He just wanted to share his world with others in hopes that others would see themselves in the story, too. He helped that night by donating money to the cause, and he helped us

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A Meal and a Prayer Saturday

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