The American LGBTQ+ Museum

Salsa Soul Sisters

Fifty years ago in New York City, Salsa Soul Sisters (Salsa) created a revolutionary safe space and supportive community for lesbians of color to explore and speak their truths. As the oldest organization by and for BIPOC lesbians in the US, Salsa was founded in 1974 at a time when the racist practices of lesbian bars often prevented women of color from being admitted unless they were accompanied by someone white. When the bars would host a Sunday brunch, they would put the food away when a group of women of color showed up.

As the queer community began to create its own organizations, lesbians of color didn’t feel these groups welcomed them, spoke to their needs or reflected their cultures.

As on of the founding members Luvenia Pinson wrote in Salsa’s magazine Gayzette in a piece titled, Our Herstory: The Case for Organizing, “We have had to define ourselves, articulate our concerns, and identify our resources. Salsa Soul Sisters was born of this need.”

Cassandra Grant, one of the group’s founders, stated that the younger women who were present at the organization’s founding “began to create a new culture of poetry, dance, and music.” She said that over the years the group became a family.

“Women brought and raised their children through Salsa Soul Sisters,” she said.

Salsa supported women seeking jobs in non-traditional professions and provided information about a variety of health-related issues. Arts and culture was a particular hallmark of Salsa’s activities. A number of  well known poets and writers, including Cheryl Clarke, Alexis DeVeau, Hattie Gossett, and Barbara Smith, were featured at Salsa’s many arts events.

Many of the group’s members went on to become notable in their fields, including Grant, who was the first early childhood director of New York State; Marjorie Hill, who led Gay Men’s Health Crisis; and Chirlane McCray, former first lady of New York City, who served as editor of the Gayzette.

To mark the 50th anniversary, the NYC LGBT Center hosted a celebration on August 28. “The room was full of elder sisters in their seventies and eighties,” said Grant, “and even two in their nineties.”

The event featured a Drumming Procession and Ancestral Tribute, a panel presentation, and a screening of an episode of the Lesbian Bar Project, which features members of Salsa Soul Sisters talking about the founding of the group and how it provided a safe and joyous space for black and brown lesbians. The episode can be streamed here.