Ari Moore
The story of the perseverance of Buffalo’s Queer community is incomplete without including Ari Moore. The activist, artist, and archivist has been integral to Buffalo’s LGBTQ+ movement since the 1970s. After serving twenty-five “closeted” years on the Buffalo police force, Ari co-founded Spectrum, the first trans-rights advocacy group in Buffalo, and later formed the African American Queens in the early 1990s.
Alongside Moore’s political influence and voice, her decades-long artistic practice has served as an imaginative and powerful platform for LGBTQ+ advocacy.
Buffalo Black and Latino Pride
Alongside celebrating the beauty and culture of the Black and Brown LGBTQ+ community, Buffalo-based Upstate New York Black And Latino Pride’s mission is to bring “intersectionality and visibility to the forefront” of the conversation. Over the years, the advocacy group has worked tirelessly to fight discrimination, as well as strengthen and support individuals by organizing job and health fairs, creating public programming, and providing a voice to the marginalized within the legislative process.