Don Slater

Don Slater

Don Slater was a leader among the gay men who, in 1953, founded ONE magazine. Slater saw that act as essential to the effort to secure rights for gay men and lesbians. A social movement has to have a voice beyond its own members,” he said. For the first time, ONE gave...
Randy Shilts

Randy Shilts

The name Randy Shilts is inextricably linked with the modern AIDS epidemic. As a reporter for The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle and as the author of the 1987 book “And the Band Played On,” Randy spent the bulk of his career covering the disease that, sadly,...
Sarah Pettit

Sarah Pettit

Sarah Pettit’s life was cut short in 2003 by lymphoma, but her work as a senior editor at Newsweek and a pioneer in gay media had a lasting impact. Pettit’s emergence as a groundbreaking journalist began in 1989, when she became the arts editor for the...
Thomas Morgan III

Thomas Morgan III

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) was not particularly welcoming to its lesbian and gay members before Thomas Morgan III was elected as the association’s president in 1989. Many doubted that they existed — sometimes openly referring to...
Leroy F. Aarons

Leroy F. Aarons

By the time a 56-year-old Leroy Aarons outed himself in an emotional address at the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) conference in 1990, he’d already had a remarkable journalism career as a longtime Washington Post scribe, co-founder of the Maynard...