And Castro for All’s Inclusion Campaign aspires to ensure that everyone within the LGBT community feels safe and welcomed in all of our vibrant community spaces—from bookstores to restaurants to bars to non-profit centers. AC4A’s inclusion campaign was born during the October 1, 2004 March to “Speak Out Against Racism and Discrimination and Stand Up for Inclusion”, co-sponsored by 40 of the Bay Area’s most prominent LGBT and LGBT-friendly organizations. In the days leading up to and following the march, AC4A and our allies distributed dozens of “Racism and Discrimination Stop Here” signs to Castro and Upper Market businesses AC4A and our allies express our sincerest gratitude to all of the businesses and organizations that we hope continue to speak up for inclusion.
Today, And Castro for All undertakes three sets of activity within its Inclusion Campaign:
- Business Outreach: This Winter and Spring, AC4A Inclusion Campaign volunteers are working with local businesses, community organizations, and others whose activities and institutions shape our day-to-day experiences to encourage civil rights compliance and implementation of “best practices” with respect to employee hiring and management, patron accommodation, outreach, and more. For the latest news about the Inclusion Campaign’s Outreach activities, please click here.
- “Oral History” Project: Over the course of the past few months, And Castro for All has had the opportunity to speak with many in our community – elders who long ago celebrated our community’s incredible diversity and advocated for greater inclusion; new arrivals to the Bay Area who have struggled to find safe harbors; and many, many others. In fact, many, if not all, of us have in our memories and our hearts stories of welcoming and inclusion, as well as exclusion and discrimination, within LGBT businesses, organizations, and other “spaces,” stories that, together, begin to form a complete and complex picture of our community – warts and all; stories that, if not shared and properly recorded, disappear from our collective memory of the Castro and in the larger SF LGBT Community. In an effort to begin to capture this mosaic of informal experiences and stories, And Castro for All periodically will invite your responses to questions, conduct surveys, and more – all with the goal of building a more complete and complex portrait of our diverse community, its history, its present day, and its future. We invite you to share a piece of your own SF experience by clicking here.
- Monitoring/Anti-Discrimination Hotline: In December 2004, AC4A launched the LGBT community Anti-Discrimination Hotline, distributing cards with the hotline’s info to enthusiastic local merchants. If you visit a business that has run out of cards, please let us know and we will gladly replenish them. And for more about the AC4A Anti-Discrimination Hotline, please visit here.