Renae Ogletree
Co-founder of Chicago Black Lesbians and Gays
Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame Inductee 2000
Renae Ogletree has
been a community activist for over 15 years and was the
co-founder of Chicago Black Lesbians and Gays. She is currently
the Mayor’s Project Director for the Youth Services Division in
the Department of Human Services and manages a budget in excess
of $25 million.
She emphasized that community-based
organizations and neighborhood constituencies, as well as top
city leaders, need to be involved in shaping the vision and
building out-of-school opportunities. Ogletree underscored the
risk of undermining existing community-based delivery systems
when top-down or outside-in mandates fail to recognize existing
community strengths. Ogletree, urged schools and public
officials to look to community-based providers for expertise in
supporting young people's development.
Feisty black lesbian Renae
Ogletree, argues that "the gay environment and its politics
are very controlled by white, gay men and it would be a
compliment to say they're even mildly interested in issues of
concern to black folk. They're interested in gay marriage, we're
interested in housing and employment. We not only have to fight
to be at the table, we have to make sure we get the same damn
food, or that they haven't co-opted one of us, or that they
haven't had the real meeting beforehand." Ogletree points
out that the Rocks, the annual black lesbian and gay festival
held on Gay Pride Sunday at Belmont Harborm, which draws 20,000
people and is regularly frequented by black politicians, there
is no recruiting by any white-led gay organizations ("They're
intimidated," she chuckles).
Self-described
as “a bridge person between groups and individuals,”
Renae Ogletree has engaged in wide-ranging volunteer and
professional activities that have brought people together around
issues of diversity, development, and health care within
Chicago’s gay and lesbian communities. She is recognized as a
leader who can bring together disenfranchised groups with the
goal of integrating their perspectives in those of the larger
community—a recognition that is reflected by her 1997 award from
the Chicago Commission on Human Relations.
Ogletree has demonstrated
her leadership talents by identifying, confronting, and helping
to resolve issues concerning diversity in the planning and
execution of
AIDS Walk Chicago, and she has organized educational
conferences to create opportunities for others in her role as a
board member of Yahimba, a networking organization for lesbians
of African descent. She has also participated in the National
Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum and on the Chicago Police
Department’s 23d District Gay and Lesbian Advisory Committee.
Ogletree cofounded and
co-chairs Chicago Black Lesbians and Gays, an organization that
aims to make lesbian and gay Chicagoans more visible in the
city’s African American community. She played an active part in
planning the four Unity Conferences that have been held since
the group’s inception. After recognizing a need to establish a
safe, supportive environment in which lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgendered Chicagoans could discuss issues of race and
class, she also served as a founding member of The Color
Triangle. And she has served as an organizer of the annual Pride
Sunday event at Chicago’s Belmont Rocks, where thousands of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered African Americans
gather to celebrate strength and unity.
As a health care activist,
Ogletree has confronted issues of class, race, and sexual
orientation. For example, she has brought black churches into
discussions on homophobia and HIV and AIDS. She serves on the
Lesbian Community Cancer Project
board of directors, helping to ensure a supportive
environment for lesbian health care.
Professionally, Ogletree has
more than 30 years of leadership experience in serving youth and
has done so through the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago, the
Better Boys Foundation, and Chapin Hall Center for Children. She
is now executive director of the Chicago Youth Agency
Partnership. She has helped to open a shelter for homeless
youth, consulted with the Chicago Park District on services
infrastructures, and conducted research and grants work for the
Chicago Community Trust.
Most recently, she has led a
YouthMapping project, in which gay and lesbian youth aged 14 to
23 from
Horizons Community Services’ Youth Services program join
youth from five other Chicago-area programs to canvass Chicago
neighborhoods in order to identify and document businesses,
services, and programs of value to youth. The program is a first
and will produce a database for use in city and
service-organization planning.
Source:
http://www.glhalloffame.org/html/rogletree.html
http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2002/fb041202.htm
http://www.chicago2006.org/2006/board_2006.html
http://a.g.e.home.mindspring.com/newsletter9908.1.htm
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