Does your college want to conduct an Inclusive Civil Rights History Program that incorporates the expansion of America's Rights for all people; and not just one group each month?

This program would promote an inclusive approach to have students from various Academic Departments and Student Organizations learn together about the entire American Civil Rights Movement. The program teaches history by jointly exploring the different perspectives and experience of the diverse groups struggling for full equality in America. The mere interactions of everyone together is part of the goal of this program.

Through this program LGBT students who are not yet public about themselves can interact with others in a safe setting. In this way, everyone learns more about themselves and parts of history often ignored.

Being a gay German Jewish American, I feel that if I do not push to include LGBT and Jewish parts of America's Civil Rights struggle; who will? As part of this package, I will work with your college to create the program and will be the speaker to incorporate the LGBT and Jewish segments of our history.

Many people have no idea of how legal segregation and discrimination affected America's other minorities from 1896-1964, in addition to the African Americans. One Struggle--- One Fight.

• African American Studies and Organizations
  
• Latino/Hispanic Studies and Organizations
  
• Asian American Studies and Organizations
  
• Students with Disabilities Organizations
  
• Native American Studies and Organizations
  
• LGBT Studies and Organizations
  
• Sex & Gender Identity Academic Departments
  
• Holocaust & Jewish Studies Academic Programs
  
• Jewish/Muslim/Christian Student Organizations
  
• German Institutes and Departments
  
• History Departments
  
• Sociology and Psychology Departments
  

• There can be a One Day Program with workshops, Keynote Speakers or Panel discussions to promote a fuller understanding of America's Civil Rights Movements. It would be one inclusive annual program in addition to the various programs that occur throughout the year, for the various History Months.
  
  
• If there is already a course for the entirety of the American Civil Rights Movement, I can offer my ONE MAN SHOW to add the perspective of how the LGBT and Jewish Rights Movement are part of the American Civil Rights Struggle.
  
  
• The story of the how the LGBT Community and the Jewish Community's struggle for full equality can also be introduced into various other existing courses, as a guest lecture.
  
  
• There is also a ONE MAN SHOW that can be conducted separately or as part of the larger program. In addition, there is a LGBT History Tour during the warmer months.

  ONE MAN SHOW

Rick Landman: "Gay, Jewish, German, and Proud."

Rick Landman marching in Washington, D.C., 2009.

Rick Landman is a gay, Jewish son of two German Holocaust survivors. He is passionate about history and talks about many intense, even painful subjects, yet he intersperses his topics with a lot of humor. And where some might brag about their accomplishments, Landman prefaces his by noting that he is 5’2”, then goes on to say that he wants young people to know that “one little person can really make a change.” Landman has been responsible for a lot of change.

On Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 at 6:00 pm in the Kirby Ballroom, Landman will speak on “Gay, Jewish, German, and Proud: Insights from a Gay Activist Son of Holocaust Survivors” and his forthcoming book Ich Bin Ein New Yorker. This event kicks off Landman’s National Reconciliation Tour. It is sponsored by the UMD Queer and Allied Students Union; GLBT Services; UMD Center for Genocide, Holocaust and Human Rights Studies; Kirby Program Board; and Baumler-Kaplan Holocaust Commemoration Committee; and is free and open to the public.

History Lessons

Much of Landman’s humor comes from his awareness of the contradictions in his life. He grew up in Queens, New York, in the 1950s and describes his parents as “Ozzie and Harriet with a German accent.” He was Jewish in a Jewish neighborhood but, being of German ancestry, became aware that after World War II many people, and most Jews, hated Germans.

Read excerpts from Rick Landman’s upcoming book at his website www.infotrue.com

In the early 1960s, when most homosexuals were “in the closet”, Landman asked his Hebrew School teacher if there was a blessing for two men to get married. He wryly adds that this question altered his life.

In 1970, Landman started the Gay Liberation Front at his college, the University of Buffalo New York, which was one of the first Gay and Lesbian student organizations in the country. The following year, he helped to organize the First Statewide March on Albany for Gay Rights and in 1979 the First March on Washington, D.C. for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

Healing and Reconciliation

Many of Landman’s relatives were murdered in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Yet, Landman’s family story is ultimately one of survival and transcendence. His father was sent to Dachau concentration camp on Kristallnacht in November 1938. Remarkably he was able to obtain a visa and leave Europe. A few years later, Landman’s father returned as a U.S. Army soldier, helped to liberate Dachau, and was the first American soldier to enter his hometown of Augsburg, Germany.

Landman has worked to foster healing and reconciliation. In the early 1990s, Landman founded the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors. He has worked to create several monuments for Jewish and other victims of the Nazi Era, including an attempt to have all of the victims of the Nazi era memorialized at the New York City Holocaust Memorial Park.

In 2005, Landman donated a German Torah (that was given to him by his grandfather who brought it to America) to a synagogue in Munich. In 2007, he re-instated his right to be a German citizen ---- and now enjoys dual citizenship with the U.S. and Germany.

In addition to earning three Masters Degrees and a J.D., Landman was the executive director of Real Estate Development for the City of New York, the director of Real Estate Development, and adjunct professor at NYU for 20 years. Since retiring, Landman volunteers as a pro bono attorney in Housing Court, at the LeGaL Walk-In Clinic at the LGBT Community Center, and also at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in New York City.

“If We Don’t Study Our Own History, Who Will?”

Landman wants young people, both gay and straight, to know more about gay history, believing, "past atrocities will repeat unless we learn the lessons from the past." He specifically challenges LGBT students to learn more about the LGBT people who came before them. Paraphrasing Hillel, Landman asks, “if we don’t study our own history, who will?" He went to say, "we need to make sure that NEVER AGAIN includes preventing violence and discrimination against all innocent people, and we need to start now.” Landman encourages all people to embrace diversity and “to have more tolerance of individual differences.”