Walking with the Ancestors

A Spotlight Conversation with activist and storyteller Valarie Walker on organizing with love, fighting racism, keeping it real -- and sexy -- and what she learned from role model Ruby Bridges.

Nov 15, 2022

Valarie Walker, leading her Juneteenth love march. June 2021. Photo: Donna Aceto

Last week I caught up with Valarie Walker, a friend and Black activist colleague-in-the-trenches from our shared 90s time in ACT UP and the Lesbian Avengers. Our conversation was a catch-up chat that followed a long interview we did last year, comparing notes on our journeys as activists and writers.

Born and raised in New York City, Valarie headed to Vassar for college, then came home. She was a 20-something, fresh-faced, newly-minted lesbian activist, just out of college and fresh out the closet, bursting to, as she puts it, wear my gayness -- from my haircut, down to my belt buckle, down to swishing my ass—all letting you know, she raises her fingers in air quotes, “I am a les-bi-an.” She laughs as she says this, with fond memories of how she burst into her dykedom with gusto. She’s a natural performer, and cut her teeth as an actor in a slew of groundbreaking 90s lesbian productions, including her role as a frequent cohost for episodes of the pioneering cable program, Dyke TV, and as a cute, young dyke costarring with Guinevere Turner (of Go Fish lezzie fame) in director Cheryl Dunye’s 1997 indie film, The Watermelon Woman.

Valarie wears other hats, too. She’s a teacher, writer, and storyteller who has started sharing her stories in public at Moth Story Slams. She’s also discovered her nascent talent as an artist. She’s been drawing, and is developing a new adult comic book for lesbians. Pretty drawings of girls kissing, as I think of it. I’m having a lot of fun, she reports, smiling.

All along, she’s been fierce champion for the cause, including AIDS and LGBTQ rights, feminism, as well as countering racism and white supremacy and taking on the Christian right. Today the causes include working closely with Black Lives Matter colleagues to address police brutality and the resurgence of the Klan mentality among GOP Trump QAnon and neo-Nazi supporters. She’s often half-laughing, a bit incredulous, when she starts railing into someone or something that’s especially irritating her, but she’s totally serious about it, too. She tells her stories with passion and physicality, gesturing, her hands emphasizing her words. Behind her megawatt smile and sharp wit is a fierce, take-no-prisoners attitude to what she calls fools: racist fools, homophobic fools, white dumbass fools, politician fools, the po-po…the list is long. Don’t get me started on that fool, she likes to say, her eyes crinkling, as she warms up to have her say on an issue. Imma have their ass. You know what I’m saying? Imma-have-their-ass!

She’s also drawn to the fun of activism, or what she calls the sexy side of fighting back, especially when it involves getting together with like-minded women and getting into good trouble for the right reasons. One of her early favorite 90s Avenger visibility actions took place on the Staten Island ferry. It was a personal come-to-jesus moment that sealed her desire to celebrate her sexuality openly and publicly after years of suppressing it. It involved a very public game of Spin the Bottle. You can picture it, she says to me, looking back fondly at her newbie 20s dyke self: Forty women, at the back of the boat, in this giant ass circle and this little ass bottle…and then fighting over who this bottle was actually pointing to. She breaks into a big grin. It was really cute. A second later, she adds, mock fanning herself, And hot!

So, were you were actually kissing girls by then, I ask?

Oh….yass, she laughs, throwing her head back. Yass!! And it was like, ‘we can change the world! You know what I’m sayin? We can change the world! It was so dope! I just never looked back after that. That was it!

Valarie Walker grows up — and later comes out. Photos: personal collection, Valerie Walker.

Valarie and I are chatting two days after the mid-term elections. She’s still totally wiped out from a 17-hour volunteer shift with only a lunch break at a voting center close to her house in Brooklyn. She’d been wanting to volunteer to do what she calls my civic duty at the polls for years; this is the first year she was free to do so. I was a Girl Scout, she says, by way of an explanation for her sense of duty. I wasn’t surprised to learn she’d been tapped to be a poll greeter, either, because Valarie would win the scout’s hospitality award if there was one. My energy is well sorted for that, she admits. It was very multicultural; it was very interesting, she reports of her poll day experience.

Valarie’s activism stems from her coming out; the two are inseparable. In her last semester at Vassar, she took a class on HIV. The AIDS epidemic was already raging in places like New York City, and her course curriculum mirrored news headlines. One was about a female sex worker who was facing prison and a murder charge for biting a policeman. In a hot second, Valarie began making a series of falling-domino connections between that case and the risk of exposure facing Black women who might be having sex with male partners who were on the down low – sleeping with women and secretly with men – or with sex workers. It was a light bulb moment. In the course of that class, I was almost sobbing, she recalls. My mother was there in Staten Island…she was single, was very active, very sex positive…. I was like, ‘Oh my god!’

Back in New York, she was ready to explore her lesbian life, and quickly joined Act Up at the LGBTQ center. She was younger than many members, and a bit awed, feeling herself a political novice. The energy was intense. She listened, and wherever she could, she signed up. And soon, she started speaking up.

I went to ACT UP, which was incredibly white, largely male, and very, very smart, she recalls. It was a lot of conversations that I was growing from, like, ‘damn, okay….’ It was very fucking intimidating to be a Black, young woman – like young in her political operations and her activism and is desperate—like, ‘I’m coming here with a deep need’…. That need felt personal: to learn fast so she could help her mother and others in her Black community. I thought, ‘okay, let me work for white, gay male liberation, in terms of HIV, and then, when they’re good, they’re gonna help me. And I’ll help the Black community,’ Valarie adds. You know what I mean? Because we were all gay. “Liberation will free us all”-- that’s what my foolish, young ass thought. She shakes her head, smiling at her naivete. Looking back, she sees that Act Up as a white-led institution – a WMI -- wasn’t equipped to address systemic racism and the complex issues driving the epidemic among Black and Brown Americans. There were outspoken Black and Brown leaders in Act Up, but they remained a vocal minority.

At first, she hung back, feeling shy. I was very much like -- she breaks into a younger, almost queeny voice – ‘I can’t really be discussing this. Just tell me what ya’ll want me do do… Like, ‘what should the sign say?’ Like, ‘where should I vote?’ I would show up on time; I’d have the energy to take you through to the end. Like, ‘just put me in the game, coach—put me in the game!’ She’s half-joking, but not. She was being her Girl Scout self, reporting for duty. She also felt initially intimidated by the women in Act Up. I was very much in the background because I felt like, ‘Wow, these women are really doing it….’ I didn’t feel like I could add value. I was pretty young, and…kind of zany.

Valarie is very grateful for the activist training she got, including from women who led workshops on civil disobedience and the finer points of how to get arrested and stay safe. The beautiful thing about the activist community is that we took care of each other, she says. It may seem to others looking in that – tsk -- ‘they flyin by the seat of their pants’ -- but no, there is very much a sense of organization. From legal observers, down to making sure—at the time—that you have the phone number of your lawyer or legal person; that was a thing. We very much kept each other in eye; we were trained to do that.

Her lesbian roommate brought her to the Avengers, who had launched in the fall of 1992. At first, she says, the Avenger meeting room was just as daunting as Act Up, but not for long. It was initially intimidating, because the women were just as smart, she explains. But the difference is that there were enough awkward, not diva-ish people that were warm and embracing…or just the same level of desperate that I was…. She still felt shy when others asked for her opinion and encouraged her to speak up. I eventually began to trust that process, and then it became, ‘You know what? If you’re listening, I do have some shit to say….’

The heyday of the Lesbian Avengers was 1994 to 1996. Chapters sprouted around the country and globally. Valarie was all-in, and soon, her friendship circle and her activist circle were tightly connected. She was one of the young Avenger calendar poster baby dykes. She joined various actions, including one leg of the Avenger’s Civil Rights Organizing Project, a project that saw New York members traveling to Lewiston, Maine to help local LGBTQ groups fight anti-gay ballot initiatives. All along, she had great fun, kissing girls, having relationships, and honing her activist chops. Today, she retains a close bond to members of the group, many close friends.

Lesbian Avengers eating fire in Washington, D.C., 1993. Photo: Carolina Kroon.

I think when you’re an activist, you confront a lot of demons that the average person doesn’t. Like, ‘what would you do in that moment? Are you fight or flight?’ Valarie is talking about the big-picture lessons of activism, about how learning to protest shaped her. Knowing who you are in that way, she continues, of course it informs every facet of my life. She’s learned how to pick her battles, how to be strategic. I know, when it comes to it, I fight. But I’m reasonable about, ‘Uhm, I’m gonna get my ass kicked, and so it’s gonna be flight for today. But I really am about to stick it in the ground, because I come with the strength of our ancestors.’

As an activist, Valarie also focuses on how to build bridges across social and cultural divides, how and where to dialogue. But that challenge felt near-impossible after George Floyd’s murder. 2020 was a heavy time, she tells me. Her sorrow and fury at white racism and police brutality needed an outlet. She took part in Black Lives Matter marches, amazed at the power and beauty of Black resistance. But she felt the hate was growing on all sides. She thought about Ruby Bridges, her living role model, looking for strength and inspiration. Bridges famously desegregated the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana when she was just six years old. Valarie has even met Bridges, which cemented her admiration. What would Ruby do?

I was super angry when George Floyd was murdered, and traumatized by the constant replaying of the image, both on television and social media, but also behind my eyelids. I couldn’t unsee it, she stresses. I was stuck in my apartment for two weeks. It was Covid. I was taking walks outside, but totally isolated; I felt afraid to leave my apartment. One of two things were gonna happen: either somebody white was gonna accuse me of doing something and then the police would be called and -- my mouth being my black ass -- I would be shot and dead. Or I was going to lose my mind in the street because a white person did some totally normal to my life, like, microagression. Right then when everything was heightened, I was gonna strangle them and then the police would find out and I would be dead.

She’s not even joking now, talking about the feeling of emotionally imploding, of a silent scream growing in your head. Then, unexpectedly, a white pastor called to talk about Floyd, to say how sorry he was, to ask how she was doing. He was the husband of her best friend since third grade. He felt overwhelmed, uncertain what to say to his congregation. Right then, she felt an inner shift in her feelings. I was enveloped in love for him, and empathy, and I thought: ‘That’s it.’ Suddenly, in myself, so many things began to make sense. Just like I made those connections with HIV (in college): click-click-click. I was like, ‘I’m gonna have a love march. In order to stop a force from working against you, you have to meet it with equal or greater force. It’s the only thing you can do to stop it.’ I knew I couldn't hate as much as they could hate, but I could love the house down.

Things moved quickly after that. Valarie began to plan a Juneteenth ‘Break the Chains with Love’ march and reached out to OG Avenger friends and others in Black Lives Matter for help. They mobilized resources. The word flew. She gathered Hershey’s kisses and balloons to spread her message of love as an antidote to Magaland hate. It was all daunting, but she kept going. Whenever I feel full of shit, and I can’t do it, I can’t do it…then I’m like, Ruby Bridges did it at six, bitch, she says, laughing. You can get your shit together and do it now.

On Juneteenth 2020, thousands of people showed up to walk with Valarie across the Brooklyn Bridge. She didn’t have a police permit; they weren’t being issued due to Covid. She needed 50 volunteer marshals; 150 turned up to keep everyone safe, as the police watched warily. A women’s drum corps set the pace. NPR got word of the event. At the African Burial Ground blocks from the bridge, prayers were spoken, releasing the spirit of George Floyd and other Black murder victims to join the ancestors. The Juneteenth action was a resounding success.

A year later, Valarie repeated her action, and more joy flowed. The theme was now ‘Break the Chains – Love is What Justice Looks Like.’ Young people flocked to the march; families with children danced along. More OG Avengers and Act Uppers and BLM folk helped with security. The drum corps was, she says, the dopest.

It broke me and healed me at the same time, Valarie says of the love that poured forth, that filled her. At one point last year, she looked on a parade of raised hands that stretched back too far to be counted. It was thousands, and that broke me because I just felt like, the ancestors knew. You know what I’m saying? My mother knew that this moment was happening, wherever she is. Malcolm…Martin… Sojourner…Harriet… they were all in the house, representing…. It was so beautiful. I was crying then; I’m crying now. I was just dumbfounded. It was just beyond…beyond!

Valarie Walker in action. Photo: Donna Aceto.

Valarie didn’t organize a march this year. Her sense of urgency was sated and lot of other groups had taken up the mantle of Juneteenth; there were other celebrations of Black lives, Black survival, Black pride and Black joy. She joined them. She also helped organize the annual Dyke March, an Avengers legacy, and joined fellow organizer Laurie Arbeiter, an Avenger now with Rise and Resist, to erect a protest wall of anti-Trump messages in a days-long D.C. artivism action.

She’s currently taking a break from active street organizing to tend to her creative garden. She’s just finished a story about her Juneteenth actions, The Making of the March, and drew her comic book. Her story of meeting Ruby Bridges was chosen to be on the Moth Radio Hour. She also made it to the Moth Grand Slams, and came in second place. That blew me away, she says. She’s on a storytelling roll, with no plan to stop.

Looking ahead, the uncertainty of our political democracy – the fractured republic –worries her. I think what is sad, but what has been historically universal, is that the pendulum swings, and it swings both ways, Valarie says, with an eye on the 2024 elections. I’m seeing it in the Trump investigation trial. You see it in the voting and the voting mishigas before the voting. You see it in the turn of phrase, ‘they attacked the capital,’ to ‘they had a call to democracy.’ The pendulum is swinging back and I kind of feel like I’m in a waiting or holding pattern to see where it lands, because that’s my new enemy.

That said, she’s neither fight nor flight, not today, not yet. She’s taking stock. I don’t wanna shoot my load on the frontline; I wanna hit them where it’s gonna matter -- where they get crazed and scatter. So, I feel like we are coming up on some backlash. Maybe I’m wrong -- let’s hope. Because there was some ground made through BLM, and not everybody likes it.

Whatever’s ahead, if she’s not ready, she’ll get ready. She’s got her Juneteenth and Act Up and Avenger crews dialed in, and never far from her thoughts, the ancestors. She’s got her finger on the pulse of what can move the needle of social change, toward justice. You gotta bring the love, she says. That’s what activism is, right? It’s love. It’s an energy of love.

Book cover of the Ruby Bridges story, for young adults.

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