How do young activists, specifically young queer people of color, reconcile multiple intersecting identities in their approach to racial justice work? This is one of the central questions that Out for Equity’s Queer and Trans Youth Leadership Program and the Multicultural Resource Center seek to explore tonight through their community event, From Bayard to #BlackLivesMatter: Queer Leaders in the Black Power Movement.

The free event, which will be held this evening (Monday, Feb. 23) from 6 to 9pm at the Multicultural Resource Center (located in the Washington Technology Magnet School, 1495 Rice Street, St. Paul), will consist of a screening of the documentary Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin followed by a panel of young, black, LGBTQ-identified organizers from the Twin Cities Black Lives Matter movement.

The event will focus not only on black power movements themselves, but also on the experience of being black and queer and/or trans in spaces where LGBTQ identities may not be central to the discussion.

Jobi Adams, a 20-year-old black queer trans man and one of the event’s four panelists, explains that tonight, he will speak to “how to comfortably and unapologetically bring your whole self into movements when, throughout history, people like me, queer trans people who have been on the front lines of movements, are erased from that history.”

For example, “A lot of people don’t know about [Bayard Rustin] because he was a gay man and a gay activist, and he was erased from history,” explains Adams. “I just don’t want that to happen to the rest of us out here.”

For more info on From Bayard to #BlackLivesMatter: Queer Leaders in the Black Power Movement, visit the event’s Facebook page.