SAN DIEGO – The San Diego LGBT Community Center has announced that the ninth annual Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast will take place Friday, May 19, at the San Diego Bayfront Hilton. The event will feature human rights activist Cleve Jones, who will be presented with the Harvey Milk Lifetime Achievement Award, and Bishop Yvette A. Flunder, who will be presented with the Champion of Equality Award.
Now in its ninth year, the Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast began as the vision of Nicole Murray Ramirez, Robert Gleason, the San Diego LGBT Community Center and an amazing coalition of civic and business leaders. The event brings together more than 1,000 diverse San Diegans, business, labor, non-profits, educators, Democrats, Republicans, Decline-to-States, all communities, all ages – in fact, all San Diegans who support equality and justice – to celebrate the memory of this influential civil rights activist.
Information about the Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast is available online at http://events.thecentersd.org/
Cleve Jones
Cleve Jones is an American human rights activist, author and lecturer. Jones joined the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s. He was mentored by pioneer LGBT activist Harvey Milk and worked in Milk’s City Hall office as a student intern until Milk’s assassination in 1978.
Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983 and founded The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, one of the world’s largest community arts projects, in 1987. Harper Collins published his first book, “Stitching a Revolution,” in 2000.
Jones was portrayed by Emile Hirsch in Gus Van Sant’s Oscar-winning film, “MILK,” and was the historical consultant for the production. Jones led the 2009 National March for Equality in Washington, DC and served on the Advisory Board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which challenged California’s Proposition 8 in the US Supreme Court.
Hachette Book Group published his new memoir “When We Rise” in November 2016. ABC aired a miniseries partially inspired by his memoir, with a screenplay by Academy Award Winner Dustin Lance Black.
Jones lives today in San Francisco, California and works as an organizer for the hospitality workers’ union, UNITE HERE.
Bishop Yvette A. Flunder
Rev. Dr. Yvette A. Flunder – ordained in both the United Church of Christ and the Metropolitan Community Church – has successfully united the message of the gospel with social justice ministry and action for over 30 years. In 1991, she founded City of Refuge UCC, along with 15 charter members. In June 2003 Rev. Dr. Flunder was consecrated Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship (founded in 2000 and renamed The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries in 2011), a multi-denominational coalition of over 100 primarily African American Christian leaders and laity.
Responding to the needs of the AIDS epidemic, Bishop Flunder and her staff opened Hazard-Ashley House and Walker House in Oakland and Restoration House in San Francisco through the Ark of Refuge, Inc., a non-profit agency which provided housing, direct services, education and training for persons affected by HIV/AIDS in the Bay Area, throughout the USA and in three countries in Africa. The Ark of Refuge transitioned into the Y. A. Flunder Foundation, which continues the work of social justice exemplified through service and public advocacy.
Bishop Flunder concluded nearly a decade of service as a Trustee of Pacific School of Religion in 2014, but she continues her work as an Adjunct Professor and speaker at PSR and at numerous seminaries and universities. A much sought-after and prophetic preacher, educator, and justice advocate, Flunder is also a renowned gospel music artist. In 2012, Bishop Flunder received the Heritage OUTMUSIC Award from the LGBT Academy of Recording Arts. She is also a published author of “Where the Edge Gathers: A Theology and Homiletic of Radical Inclusion.”
In December of 2014, Bishop Flunder served as the keynote speaker for the White House observation of the 26th Anniversary of World AIDS Day. She was also named the 2015 Spiritual Hero in the January edition of the Science of Mind. True to her call, she continues to be a prophetic and progressive Christian voice and leader in the movement of justice for ALL of God’s children from the streets of Oakland to the halls of national government and international shores.
