Affinity Community Services (Affinity) celebrated its 30th anniversary with a Sneaker Soiree: We’re On the Move event Oct. 18 at the Charles A. Hayes Center in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.
The theme Affinity (which serves Black LGBTQ+ Chicagoans) chose for this year is “Honoring Our Past, Creating Our Futures” to show their appreciation for the organization’s “history and the strong foundation our founders and founding board members established, as well as our unwavering commitment to advancing Affinity into bolder and newer horizons.”
Beverly Arts Center Executive Director and poet C.C. Carter and Center on Halsted CEO and LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS advocate Joli Robinson served as the event co-emcees.
Carter said when she lived in New York City she always wanted to go to the World Trade Center but “kept putting it off until one day it wasn’t there.” She added that she moved to Arkansas for eight years and it struck her that “you don’t know what you have till it’s gone. What we have in Chicago, we take for granted sometimes.” Carter pointed out the many organizations like Affinity and Center on Halsted that are available in Chicago that “don’t exist in other cities.”
Robinson discussed the archives display that was on view that evening. She spoke about the importance of the Black queer women in attendance whose decades-long work enabled her to be in her leadership position today. Robinson praised “the staying power of our community” and “the staying power of our Blackness to say we aren’t going anywhere. We’re staying planted ten toes down … rooted exactly where we are ,so we can get to where we are going to get to together.”
Affinity Interim Board President Kebra Ross said she found a home at Affinity as a Chicago transplant. She put out a call for new board members to help Affinity chart their future. Ross also lauded her predecessor, Aisha Davis, for all her years of service.
Affinity Co-Founder and former Board President and Illinois Department of Human Rights Institute of Training and Development Director Christina Smith said, “Being human is a given, maintaining our humanity is a choice. We only have to look at the national landscape of political peddlers of cruelty and hate to be reminded of the necessity of Affinity’s liberatory vision for all of whom and what we love.”
Below, media mentions. Photos by Carrie Maxwell
Smith spoke about the “transforming power of what it means when we see us. For more 13 years, I organized alongside extraordinarily brave and courageous women without a blueprint” to create programs within Affinity to support the Black queer women community in Chicago. She said, “Our Blackness has always stood in opposition to white supremacy and tyranny. By reshaping social, cultural and political norms to add many forms of resistance, Affinity, and all of the institution movements that are continually led by Black queer folks are even more critical in this moment.”
Smith added that it is important to push through the fear of difference and said the “fierce urgency is now” to fight erasure.
Affinity Co-Founder and former Board Member Rev. Ted Dobbins shared some of the milestones of the early years of the organization which included their participation in the Queer Nation Anti-Violence Rally in 1996, which put the organization on the map. Dobbins added that over the next few years new sub-groups were formed within Affinity to address specific people’s needs, they hosted book signings, the first annual lesbian of color film festival and conferences. She also spoke about Affinity’s various awards and being inducted into Chicago’s LGBT Hall of Fame in 2002.
Affinity’s newest Board Member and intergenerational community builder Josie Lewis spoke about her journey to the organization to find connection and community which happened the moment she attended her first big Affinity event for the 20-somethings in the group. She lauded the work the peer leads do to foster community within their memberships.
Lewis said her focus now is keeping Affinity going for the next 30 years—a big part of which is planning more events. She said they are in the process of hiring a program’s director to make this come to fruition.
Lewis said, “We are keenly aware of the times that we find ourselves in, of the fascism that is knocking at our door. Affinity wants to ensure that our community knows that we are here for them. We are renewing our commitment to social justice and civic engagement” to address this.
E3 Radio and The Qube App Founder and Owner and former Affinity Board Member Anna DeShawn said Affinity is one of only a “handful of organizations that continue to serve Black queer women period.” She added that “we are living in hell … this feels difficult to me. And when hell is all around us, we have to find times where we see bright lights. We turn inward and are more about the folks that look and believe like us than we ever did before. If that isn’t Affinity, I don’t know what is.”
Carter and Robinson also presented past board members and peer leads with Certificates of Recognition and Appreciation.
Additionally, Carter and Robinson honored Kim Hunt specifically for her years of work at Affinity which included her designation as the organization’s first executive director, a position she held until 2015.
The event also featured a live performance by the Ken Chris Band and DJ Dreea who spun tunes to open and close out the night.
