Barbara May Cameron
Born May 22, 1954 in Fort Yates, North Dakota, Barbara May Cameron (Hunkpapa Lakota) was raised on the Standing Rock Reservation by her grandparents. According to her partner, Lynda Boyd, at age 9 she read an article about San Francisco and told her grandmother that one day she would live there "and save the world, too." She did her best to fulfill her promise.
After two years in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she attended the American Indian Art Institute, majoring in photography and film after high school, she moved to San Francisco. There, in 1975, just a few years after the Stonewall riots in New York, she co-founded Gay American Indians with activist Randy Burns. The reason for founding GAI, according to Cameron, was that Native American gay people had different needs and struggles than the gay white community. From 1980 to 1985, Cameron participated in organizing the Lesbian Gay Freedom Day Parade and Celebration and in 1981, she contributed to This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, which was edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. Her article, Gee, You Don't Seem Like an Indian from the Reservation, analyzed topics like racism and homophobia from both inside and outside the Native American community. In 1983 she contributed to the landmark collection A Gathering of Spirit: A Collection of Writing and Art by North American Indian Women. The anthology, edited by Beth Brant, included works by twelve Native lesbians.Moreover, there was in general a lack of support for people of color within the Gay and Lesbian community.
At the time, "it was just about impossible to stand up and say who you were. If you had a job you'd get fired. Your family might disown you. You certainly would be ridiculed," recalled Maurice Kenny in "Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America."
Cameron's refusal to be queer in one corner of her life, and native in another, is as radical and transformative now, as it was then. In an interview with The Gully, Chrystos, a Native American poet and activist, and long-time friend of Cameron, credits her with "giving me a sense of dignity about my place in the world, and my right to be in that place."
Being both gay and Native American put Cameron in conflict almost everywhere she was. In "Gee, You Don't Seem Like an Indian From the Reservation," Cameron wrote, "We not only must struggle with the racism and homophobia of straight white America, but must often struggle with the homophobia that exists within our third-world communities."
Even in gay communities of color she sometimes felt on the outside as a Native American. "We form alliances loosely based on the fact that we have a common oppressor, yet we do not have a commitment to talk about our own fears and misconceptions about each other."
Cameron, committed to breaking the silence, still managed to be "very respectful of other people even when she disagreed with them," as Chrystos remembered. That gracefulness in the face of disagreement made her a successful organizer and bridge-builder on a number of fronts, from San Francisco's Lesbian Gay Freedom Day Parade and Celebration to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, on whose behalf she was a delegate to the 1988 Democratic National Convention.
She was mayoral appointee to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women, and supported the efforts of women working to improve life in Nicaragua, as well as the international indigenous AIDS network.
Barbara Cameron died at home in San Francisco on February 12, 2002, and was brought to her final rest at Wakpala, South Dakota. She is survived by Linda Boyd, her partner of 20 years, their son, Rhys, and a large network of family and friends.
Source: http://www.thegully.com/essays/gaymundo/020313_barbara_cameron.html