Star of stage and screen Sheryl Lee Ralph is no stranger from using her voice to stand for equality and inclusion.
The devout ally and activist for the LGBTQ community has been named Advocate of the Year and graces the cover of the latest issue of The Advocate.
The Emmy Award-winning actress who currently stars in ABC’s Abbott Elementary, has most recently used her platform to, “school ‘people of a certain age’ about respecting preferred pronouns.”
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“Some of the things you used to do and say when you were young, they’re not going to work right now, OK?” Ralph said in a video on The Black Media‘s Instagram.
“These children right about now, they want to be called by their name. They want to be respected with their pronouns.”
This is just one example from Ralph’s decades long work as an ally to the LGBTQ community. “In my lifetime … I’ve been colored, Negro, Black, African American,” Ralph told The Advocate about why she is so committed to LGBTQ people. “I mean, there have been so many names to try to figure out what to call people (who are descendants) from the African continent in America and around the world that I understood it in many ways — how young people are saying, ‘Look, things are changing once again.’ And so what if they don’t look like what you think they should look like? Just try and call people by their name, nobody likes being called out of their name.”
Photo Courtesy The Advocate – Photographer: Easton Schirra @eastonschirra
Ralph’s work goes back to the onset of the AIDS crisis in the 80s where she found herself deeply disappointed by Christian’s response to the epidemic. “When I saw people’s inhumanity to people, maybe I was naïve, it was just shocking to me.
Especially when some of them were avowed Christians, avowed spiritual people, higher-thinking people, I just thought it was just such base behavior. And then as the crisis was growing and starting to come together within the community, how racism played a part in it, how people were so quick to ignore the plight of dark people,” she told The Advocate.
From there, her work began. In 1990 she founded the DIVA Foundation, an organization that raises funds for HIV causes, especially ones focused on the Black community and women and children. Since its launch, Ralph’s Foundation has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations like Women Alive, Caring for Babies With AIDS, Minority AIDS Project, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the Black AIDS Institute.
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On top of this incredible work, in 2022, Ralph coproduced a documentary called Unexpected, which put a spotlight on the lived experiences of young Black women affected by HIV in the South. The film was nominated for two Daytime Emmys.
Every year, The Advocate honors an Advocate of the Year, to honor those most committed to defending the LGBTQ community. Last year’s honoree was actress Jamie Lee Curtis.
Read more about Ralph’s incredible work and legacy in The Advocate’s cover story here, by Desiree Guerrero.