Moving the Agenda: Bridging the Gap between Gay Rights and Racial Justice 2009 Pennsylvania Political Leaders Fellow Duane Ingram joins the Board of Directors for one of the nation’s largest LGBT organizations

Recently selected to serve on the Board of Directors for National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, Pennsylvania CPL Fellow Duane Ingram is no stranger to the fight for equality.

For roughly fifteen years, Duane has worked professionally and personally in pursuit of equal rights through the fight for both gay rights and racial justice.

He has served in a variety of leadership positions including; Vice President of Programs and Planning at the Urban League of Philadelphia; a legislative aide to U.S. Senator Harris Wofford; Director of Correspondence and Constituent Affairs for the National Chairman of the Democratic National Committee; and National Field Organizer at People for the American Way, among others. In these positions Mr. Ingram has focused on government relations, education policy, civic engagement, and community outreach.

Blending a Passion for National and State-based Advocacy
As a Board Member for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, the political arm of one of the nation’s leading LGBT organizations, he will not only serve as a traditional Board Member helping fundraise and determine the strategic vision for the organization, but he’ll play a personal role in engaging communities in his home state of Pennsylvania to support an anti-discrimination bill and other LGBT issues.

“On the heels of Proposition 8 vote in California, I wanted to re-commit to staying engaged in the LGBT community from an advocacy perspective,” Duane says. “I knew that being a board member for the Task Force would be a great way to fulfill that commitment.”

Pennsylvania is one of the few states that does not currently have an anti-discrimination bill that protects gay individuals from being discriminated against in the areas of employment, housing, and healthcare. According to the Value all Families Coalition, nearly 80 percent of Pennsylvania’s residents live or work in communities that do not provide these protections. As the only Board Member in Pennsylvania, Duane hopes to mobilize the state to make sure that an anti discrimination bill is passed. In a conservative state such as Pennsylvania, an anti-discrimination bill to protect gays and lesbians would be a great victory for progressive politics, and would also open the door to laws protecting gays from hate crimes in the future..

“[Without a bill], gays in Pennsylvania can be fired without justified cause and can be denied housing, and it allows for open hatred and exclusion,” he says. “Those are the kinds of things I’d like to bring national resources to local communities to affect change here and to advocate for the policies we want to see come to fruition.”

Bringing Together Two Progressive Issues

During his time in Washington DC, Duane first started working on behalf of the LGBT community, and now as a new board member of the Task Force, he also wants to work on bridging the gap between the African American and LGBT communities.

Duane hopes to begin a healthy dialogue between the two communities that will emphasize the shared struggles for equality and open the doors to work more collaboratively on social justice issues such as gay marriage. When Proposition 8 passed in California last year, many gay rights activists pointed to African American support of the bill, though the numbers of voters were not as high as many were led to believe. There are many factors as to why some African Americans are against same sex marriage—religious beliefs being one of them—Duane believes that creating a dialogue would lead to greater acceptance of homosexuality in the long run.

“It’s very troubling to me that the African American and LGBT communities are not recognizing how much we have in common,” he says. “Instead, we argue about who is most marginalized or the most discriminated against.”

Duane is proud of the diversity reflected in the Task Force’s Board, and hopes that the presence of LGBT people of color will help facilitate the dialogue that he has worked tirelessly to create in Pennsylvania.

A Passionate CPL Alumni

In beginning the CPL Political Leaders Fellowship, Duane was excited to meet other progressives in such a conservative state as Pennsylvania.

CPL gave him a chance to engage with like-minded people who wanted to see the state become a better place.

“I wanted to expand my network in Pennsylvania since I was in DC for such a long time,” he says. “The training taught me that there are so many wonderful people in the commonwealth who have a social responsibility to make Pennsylvania the place that they can be proud to live in. I’ll value the relationships I’ve created for the rest of my life.”

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Duane was a member of the 2009 Pennsylvania Political Leaders Fellowship.