Brian Williamson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Brian Williamson
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Williamson in an undated photograph
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| Born |
Brian Bernard Ribton Williamson
4 September 1945 Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica
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| Died | 9 June 2004 (aged 58) Kingston, Jamaica
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| Occupation | LGBT rights activist |
Brian Williamson (4 September 1945 – 9 June 2004) was a Jamaican gay rights activist. He was known for being one of the earliest openly gay men in Jamaican society and one of its best known gay rights activists.
Born to an upper-middle-class family in Saint Ann Parish, Williamson initially considered a life in the Roman Catholic clergy before deciding to devote himself to the cause of gay rights in Jamaica. In the 1990s, he purchased an apartment building in the New Kingston area of Kingston, in which he established a gay nightclub, which remained open for two years despite opposition from police. In 1998, he co-founded J-FLAG with other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights activists, soon becoming the public face of the organisation. As J-FLAG's representative, he argued in favour of LGBT rights during appearances on Jamaican television and radio programs. This attracted great hostility within Jamaica – a country with particularly high rates of anti-gay prejudice – with J-FLAG members receiving death threats and Williamson surviving a knife attack. For a time he left Jamaica, living in Canada and England for several years, before returning to Kingston in 2002.
In June 2004, Williamson was murdered in his apartment by an acquaintance, Dwight Hayden, whom he had been aiding with financial handouts. Police believed that Hayden's motive was robbery. Hayden was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. The Jamaican LGBT community held a secret memorial for him, while protests against the killing were held by LGBT rights groups in the United Kingdom.
Biography
Williamson was born to an upper-middle-class family in the rural Saint Ann Parish. He initially considered joining the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, studying for this position in Montego Bay, but eventually decided against this. In 1979, he began to devote himself to the cause of gay rights in Jamaica, becoming the first individual to do so in such a public manner. Jamaica had a reputation for its widespread anti-gay prejudice, an attitude that pervaded public discourse at all levels of society, with a number of popular Jamaican musicians inciting violence against gay men in their lyrics.
Initially, Williamson offered his apartment in Kingston as a space in which gay Jamaicans could meet roughly every fortnight. In the early 1990s he purchased a large property on New Kingston's gentrified Haughton Street, converting part of this building into a gay nightclub that he called Entourage. Many of those who attended the club worked in the city's foreign embassies. Although the police tried to close it down, the club remained open for two years until Williamson was attacked by a patron carrying a knife, which was used to slash Williamson's arm.
After his death, the Jamaica Observer described Williamson as "Jamaica's most prominent gay rights activist", while both the BBC and The Independent called him the country's "best-known gay rights activist", and Gary Younge of The Guardian termed him "the public face of gay rights in the country".
Tony Hadn, a volunteer for J-FLAG, stated that Williamson was "so courageous. He never stopped to think, 'oh, I might get in trouble for this,' so in that sense he was very selfless." He was succeeded as J-FLAG's leader by Gareth Williams, who informed press that Williamson "was the only out gay person in Jamaica who had the courage to put his face on television, I was very close to him... His murder was really a traumatic loss for our community." One member of J-FLAG stated that "Brian Williamson is our Martin Luther King". Four days later, J-FLAG held a memorial devoted to Williamson, which was attended by almost two hundred people; the memorial involved personal tributes, poetry slams, and lip synching to Whitney Houston songs.
See also
- LGBT rights in Jamaica
- Lenford Harvey
- Murder of Dwayne Jones
