The Salsa Soul Sisters, today known as the African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change, is the oldest black lesbian organization in the United States.[1] Operating from 1974 to 1993, the Salsa Soul Sisters identified as lesbians, womanists and women of color, based in New York City[2] Arguments within the Salsa Soul Sisters resulted in the disbanding of the Salsa Soul Sisters into two groups, Las Buenas Amigas (Good Friends) made for Latinas, and African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change made for African-diaspora lesbians.[3]
In the aftermath of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, the Gay Liberation Front was formed in New York City. In the same year, members split to form the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). In 1971, GAA members internally formed the Black Lesbian Caucus. Caucus member and local minister Rev. Dolores Jackson saw a need to particularly focus on issues of racism impacting lesbians of color within the GAA. While a great deal of organizing and activism related to LGBTQ+ rights was beginning throughout the 1970s, queer and trans women of color were often excluded from these efforts and frequently faced sexism, racism, and exclusion from queer spaces and communities. The initial Salsa Soul Sisters group was intended to create a safe space for women of color to focus on their needs and directly address the sociopolitical issues affecting their community.[4]
In 1974 the Black Lesbian Caucus reformulated itself as Salsa Soul Sisters, Third World Wimmin Inc, an autonomous group of Black and Latina lesbians offering its members a social and political alternative to the lesbian and gay bars, which had "historically exploited and discriminated against lesbians of color".[5] [6] They originally called themselves the Third World Gay Women's Association, with the informal moniker "Salsa-Soul Sisters".[7] The original group was led by Rev. Dolores Jackson, Harriet Alston, Sonia Bailey, Luvenia Pinson, Candice Boyce, and Maua Flowers.
The group held weekly meetings to discuss social and political issues. Meeting spaces included a fire house in Manhattan (1974-1976), Washington Square United Methodist Church (1976-1987), and the LGBTQ Community Center (1987). Informal meetings often took place in members' homes. From 1977 to 1983, Salsa Soul Sisters published their own magazine, Azalea: A Magazine by Third World Lesbian, and developed a newsletter, Salsa Soul Gazette, in 1982.
The group was active in protests, demonstrations, and community organizing in New York City, and organization leaders frequently invited speakers to their events, including Betty Powell, Audre Lorde, Pat Parker, Jewel Gomez, and Barbara Smith. Through their activism and advocacy work, members risked their lives and livelihoods; it was common for queer women to be fired or socially ostracized for openly demonstrating and identifying as queer.
Throughout its 19 year existence, the group's membership grew to 200 women of all ages, identities and backgrounds. In 1993, the group split into two separate organizations, including the African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change (for African diaspora lesbians) and Las Buenas Amigas, or The Good Friends, for Latina lesbians.
The group's impact spans decades and generations, and Salsa Soul Sisters continues to be recognized as a historically significant and successful community of LGBTQ activists who paved the way for many queer women of color. In November 2019, the Center for Women's History at the New York Historical Society Museum and Library celebrated Salsa Soul Sisters with a panel featuring Cassandra Grant, Imani Rashid, Roberta Oloyade Stokes, and Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, who discussed the organization's history, victories, and on-going struggles. At the event, ceremony speaker and First Lady of the City of New York Chirlane McCray shared her experience as a Salsa Soul Sister member, stating:
"The Sisters were so beautiful, and there were so many of them...these Sisters, they became family for me...my first New York family, and they fed my soul, they helped me see and navigate the world...We protected each other from a world that just refused to see us, let alone embrace us.[8] "
The Salsa Soul Sisters was one of the first lesbian organizations created by and for women of color. The Salsa Soul Sisters was born out the need for an inclusive space for lesbian women of color to discuss the problems and concerns they face based on sex and race. Early collective member and activist Candice Boyce said that, at the time of the group's founding, "there was no other place for women of color to go and sit down and talk about what it means to be a black lesbian in America".[9] The founders hoped to create "an organization that is helpful and inspiring to third world gay women" and to "share in the strengthening and productivity of the whole gay community."
"Salsa Soul Sisters" particularly focused on inclusion for Black and Latina women, and ultimately expanded to include Asian American and Indigenous women, and women who identified as gay, bisexual, and same-gender loving. The organization also chose to define their goals as "womanist," rather than feminist, to specify that their organizing goals were geared towards issues affecting women of color, and centering the experiences and contributions of Black feminists.
The group was comprised equally of African-American and Latina American women and went under the name "Salsa Soul Sisters" to reference their membership identity. The group's activities ranged from "vocational workshops and seminars on handicrafts, art crafts and martial arts for street protection".[10] The Salsa Soul Sisters provided a space for a cooperative babysitting venture where mothers could come to weekly meetings and bring their children and benefit from other mothers in the club.
Cofounding member Luvenia Pinson said that the "Salsa Soul Sisters provide geographic and psychological space for women to meet other Third World gay women. It gives a place to ventilate; a place to come and share ideas and experiences and meet people who might clean up their own personal interest."
The Jemima Writers Collective was formed by members of the Salsa Soul Sisters to "meet the need for creative/artistic expression and to create a supportive atmosphere in which Black women could share their work and begin to eradicate negative self images."[11]
Salsa Soul Sisters published several quarterly magazines, including (1977-1983), and Salsa Soul Gayzette, (1982).[12] [13]
The African Ancestral Lesbians United for Social Change (AALUSC) is newer name for the organization.[14] The name change resulted from the group's shift from majority African-American and Latina women to include women of Asian and Native-American descent as well.[15] The group is "committed to the spiritual, cultural, educational, economic and social empowerment of African Ancestral womyn".[16] The AALUSC provides a space for all lesbians of the African Diaspora, regardless of language, culture, or class to become educated and empowered with the use of educational tools and resources and social opportunities for women such as dances, theater, cultural events, and conferences.[16] [17]
New York History Society "We Are Never in it Alone" (2020)