This year’s breakfast marks a departure from the event’s long-time affiliation with the San Diego LGBT Community Center
By Benny Cartwright
Editor’s Note: At press time, we learned that Dustin Lance Black (writer of Big Love, Milk, Pedro, Rustin, etc.) will attend the Breakfast as a guest speaker, but it was too late to get it into the print edition.
Legendary national civil rights icon Dolores Huerta will receive the “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the 16th annual San Diego Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast, scheduled for Friday, May 24, from 7:30 am to 10 am at the San Diego Marriott Mission Valley.
The breakfast, which has been held in San Diego since 2009, has become a local tradition along with other breakfasts that honor civil rights leaders, such as the Martin Luther King Jr. All People’s Breakfast, and the César Chávez Commemorative Breakfast.
Huerta, 93, is considered to be one of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century, and a leader of the Chicano civil rights movement, according to the National Women’s History Museum.
Beginning her activist career in 1955, Huerta co-founded the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO), which led voter registration drives and fought for economic improvements for Hispanics. She also founded the Agricultural Workers Association.
According to the museum, it was through a CSO associate that Huerta met activist César Chávez, with whom she shared an interest in organizing farm workers. In 1962, Huerta and Chávez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), the predecessor of the United Farm Workers’ Union (UFW), which formed three years later. Huerta served as UFW vice president until 1999.
Huerta has spent her life working to get greater protections for workers, and to elect more women and Latinos to office, among her many accomplishments. She received the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award in 1998 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
As of 2015, Huerta was a board member of the Feminist Majority Foundation, the secretary-treasurer emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, and the president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. Breakfast organizers are thrilled that Huerta will be in attendance to accept her award.
Additionally, San Diego civil rights advocate and social justice leader Rabbi Devorah Marcus will be honored with the Harvey Milk Equality Award.
It has been a tradition at the San Diego Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast since its founding in 2009, to present honors to local and international community members who are making a difference. The breakfast was established by Nicole Murray Ramirez, Robert Gleason, and Dr. Delores Jacobs and was “designed to bring together diverse San Diegans – business, labor, Democrats, Republicans, all communities, all ages, all San Diegans who support equality and justice – to celebrate the memory of this influential civil rights activist, Milk.”
Since its inception and with the oversight of the Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast committee, the breakfast has been produced by the San Diego LGBT Community Center, with proceeds in recent years benefitting the organization’s programs and services.
This year, however, organizers of the breakfast have parted ways with The Center as producer and benefactor of the event, and it is now being sponsored and organized by the Harvey Milk Foundation and the GLBTQ Historic Task Force of San Diego.
This year’s event co-chairs are civic leader Laurie Black, attorney Bruce Abrams, and City Commissioner Rickie Brown. Event organizers say that for the first time this year, the breakfast committee will sponsor 50 LGBTQA+ high school students to attend the breakfast.
Organizers also said they have lowered the ticket price for this year’s event to $85 per person, in an effort to make it more inclusive.
Proceeds from this year’s Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast will benefit the Harvey Milk Foundation, the San Diego AIDS Memorial, the San Diego GLBTQ Historic Task Force, and the Hillcrest LGBTQA+ Pride Banner Campaign.
Individual tickets, tables for groups, and sponsorships are available at www.HarveyMilkDiversityBreakfast.org. San Diego Marriott Mission Valley is located at 8757 Rio San Diego Drive. For additional information, contact Murray Ramirez at 619-241-5672.
–Benny Cartwright is a longtime activist and community leader. Reach him at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram @BennyC80.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article and hope you will also consider supporting our independent news organization. LGBTQ San Diego County News is one of California’s last LGBTQ print newspapers. But we are in danger of going out of print. During times of crisis, celebration, and mourning, crucial information about our community comes from local reporters and writers. LGBTQ San Diego County News needs your help and support in order to continue printing.
Please consider supporting LGBTQ+ San Diego County News. We are one of just five California based LGBTQ+ newspapers that are still in print. Donate. Subscribe. And if you have a business that’s able to, advertise with us. Your support is critical to sustaining the dedicated journalists serving our communities.
Our local LGBTQ+ newspaper helps keep us safer. We keep an eye on city hall, on corruption, and shady business practices. Together we can ensure our local news is covered for years to come.
-Eddie Reynoso, Publisher
