Mandy Carter

Mandy Carter, born in 1948, speaks from her fifty-five years of activism as a Southern, African American, lesbian activist, organizing for social and racial justice. Carter highlights the importance of allies, and she spreads a message of hope that is deeply important in our lives today. Raised in two orphanages and a foster home for her first eighteen years, she attributes the influences of the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee, the former Institute for the Study of Nonviolence, and the pacifist-based, War Resisters League for her sustained multiracial and multi-issue, intersectional organizing.

Mandy Carter cofounded Southerners on New Ground (SONG) in 1993 with five of her friends, also Southern lesbian activists.

Mandy Carter was inducted in 2012 into the International Federation of Black Pride’s Black LGBT Hall of Fame. In 2008, she served as one of five national cochairs of Obama LGBT Pride, the historic LGBT initiative of Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.

Mandy Carter coedited We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st Century America (2012).  Mandy Carter is one of nine elders whose oral history is part of Jane Fleishman’s award-winning book, The Stonewall Generation: LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging.