Papaya Mann Interview 2005
Item
- Title
- Papaya Mann Interview 2005
- Description
-
Papaya Mann is a Black lesbian womanist HIV and AIDS activist, writer, and musician who lives in Washington DC. She is interviewed by Sharon Doetsch-Kidder.
- Abstract
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Papaya Mann (she/her) is a Black lesbian womanist activist and writer and a DC native. She describes her life, focusing on her work with HIV/AIDS education and services since the early days of the AIDS epidemic when she organized information sessions for the African American community as a contractor for the Whitman-Walker Clinic. She describes her role as a founding member of several Black LGBT+ organizations and conferences, including DC Coalition of Black Gays and Lesbians, the National Coalition of Black Gays and Lesbians, and Sapphire Sapphos, a precursor to DC’s Black Lesbian Support Group. She also helped to organize the 1979 National Third World Gay and Lesbian Conference. She then describes her work with Shanti, an organization that supports people living with life-threatening or chronic illnesses, and the Horizons Foundation Board. After serving as Executive Director of the AIDS Project of the East Bay, Papaya returned to DC in 1997 and became Executive Director of the DC Care Consortium. In 2002, she became Executive Director of Africa AIDS Watch.
Papaya then focuses on her personal life, including her relationship with her family and her coming out process, her friendships and romantic relationships, the role art and spirituality have played in her life, and her life in Ghana and current partner. She talks about how she became a womanist feminist, influential thinkers in her life, the challenges she has faced in activism, and the future of activism and politics.
- Subject
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Washington DC, Ghana, Bay Area, Black women, lesbian, HIV/AIDS, activism, Whitman Walker Clinic, Shanti Project, Horizons Foundation, AIDS Project of the East Bay, DC Care Consortium, Sapphire Sapphos
- Date
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March 30, April 5, April 7, 2005
- Language
- English
- Item sets
- Papaya Mann
- Site pages
- Archive
