Today In Black LGBTQ+ History: DR. WALTER CHARLES LAW

TODAY IN BLACK LGBTQ+ HISTORY, we celebrate Dr. Walter Charles Law, who’s story cannot fully be told without recognizing his active role in both Houston’s LGBTQ history and the city’s history. Known as Charles Law to most, the local activist and gay community leader had a reputation for his remarkable intelligence and inspiring ability to put words into action. He earned his doctorate in education from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and was employed by Texas Southern University (TSU), a historically Black university where he served as a university archivist, published the first bibliography of university documents, and proposed and pioneered an archival system that TSU still uses to this day to house their official records. 
 
Law was also the chairman and founding force of the Houston Committee, a social and political organization for Black gay men in the 1970s. The organization, under Law’s leadership, held annual conclaves that featured Black LGBTQ representation from all over the country. He was also an integral part of planning the historic 1978 Town Meeting I where, as executive committee co-chair of the meeting, he had a hand in the initial efforts to establish the same sustainable institutions that developed protections and services for Houston’s LGBTQ community—some that continue to serve the community to this day. 
 
Though Law’s impact affected Houston and its surrounding areas, it did not stop there. In 1979, Law delivered a profoundly inspiring speech at the very first National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights. Sharing the stage with other queer heroes like Audre Lorde, Leonard Matlovich, Kate Millet, and Allen Ginsberg, he spoke in front of what is estimated to be between 75,000 and 125,000 LGBTQ people and allies from all over the country, marching together to demand equal rights and to urge protection under the law for a community that was being oppressed and dehumanized on a national level. Law’s speech called for the community to unify, to take initiative, and to have unyielding hope, in order to achieve the kind of future for which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Harvey Milk fought and died. You can listen to his speeches with a simple online search.