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| Image from biography.com |
Growing up, I learned about the civil rights movement of the 1960s in every history class I ever took. My parents were children during that time, and I’ve heard firsthand stories from many people of their generation about their experiences with segregation, integration, and the fight for equality for African-Americans. (By the way, I realize that this is somewhat specific to the United States, so I apologize to those of you reading from other parts of the world – I can only speak to my own experience, so I’m not sure how well this applies to the areas where you live. But I hope that my ultimate message still makes sense, no matter where you are from!) I have come to realize that the “gay rights movement” is our generation’s civil rights movement. We are living in a time of great change and progress. The fight for marriage equality has taken center stage here in the U.S. in recent years, and more and more states are legalizing gay marriage. Legal cases involving gay rights have become both more numerous and more publicized. This is clearly the top priority social issue in this country today. It is the most hotly debated, the most talked about, and the issue on which the most people have an opinion (and everyone’s opinions are strong, at that). Looking back at what I’ve been taught about the civil rights movement, I see so many parallels and similarities between that and today’s push for equality for the LGBTQ community. The same types of publicity, high-profile legal battles, and the same struggles, and the same noticeable shift from minority to majority approval and generally positive national consensus.
As we move toward our goal of equality for LGBTQ individuals in today’s society, let’s stop and think about what we can learn from Nelson Mandela. One of Mandela’s more famous quotes is, “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” He was lucky enough to live to see his dream come to fruition in his country with the end of apartheid in the 1990s. But taking a closer look at what he says here, we can see just how applicable it is to our own current fight for equality. It is so important whenever one is fighting for a cause, to take a step back and remember that what we really want is EQUALITY. We do not seek a society dominated by ANY group, as Mandela so wisely cautioned. We want all people to be equal, and in order for that to happen, we need to fight against domination by any one contingent of humanity, including our own. The “ideal” Mandela spoke of, of a society in which all people are truly treated as equals, is still a dream. It does not yet exist, at least in the United States. We are moving slowly in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go.
Nelson Mandela was a figurehead of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, in much the same way that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a figurehead of the civil rights movement in the United States. It remains to be seen if such a figurehead will emerge for the current gay rights movement, but whether or not we end up with one person as the “face” of our fight, we can all take inspiration from these leaders of the recent past and each contribute what we can to the great cause of equality. In the coming years, as our struggle presses forward, as we celebrate each small battle victory along the road to the victory of the war, let us all remember Nelson Mandela’s legacy, and how we can apply the lessons learned from his life to our own fight, until one day, hopefully, we will all be champions of human rights and equality for all. Mandela’s dream is our own, and just as he did, I, for one, hope to live to see the achievement of his universal ideal.
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