Roshelle “Darlene” Hudson is a veteran activist, mentor, and community builder. While Hudson originally founded Brothers and Sisters in Arkansas — an organization focused on social justice and HIV awareness work — she moved to Atlanta in 1998 and became involved with Atlanta Pride.
Her involvement with Pride for over the past 20 years has been on a volunteer basis, typically helping the festival and local businesses set up inside Piedmont Park. Her motto is to show up, and then when you do, there are always things to do. However, this year Hudson was selected as one of the parade’s grand marshals. She will lead more than 100,000 people in a march toward equality, justice, love and unity.
Once in Atlanta, Hudson founded the Southern Unity Movement (SUM), an organization whose purpose is to “build a more unified Black LGBT community through advocacy, education and recreation.”
ATLANTA PRIDE: See Rough Draft’s guide to events and activities
One of the major events SUM hosts is called the Rustin/ Lorde Breakfast. This breakfast started as an opportunity for hundreds of people from the Atlanta area to come together and build community while having conversations about modern issues facing the Black LGBTQ community. The breakfast first started in the Old Methodist Building in the chapel, where people would congregate prior to the Dr. Martin Luther King March under the direction of Rev. James Orange, growing bigger every year.
Hudson refers to the breakfast as “something our community refers to as a family reunion,” emphasizing the importance of intergenerationalism within the breakfast and the lessons to be learned from both the young and old.
At the breakfasts, SUM emphasizes the necessity of action. According to Hudson, the work does not end by simply having conversations about the issues facing Black LGBTQ individuals but by getting involved. Thus, the breakfasts serve as a “call to action” and a reminder of the community that supports you. All of the conversations at the breakfast are resolution-focused and carry on the legacy of protecting the people who are organizing.
Hudson notes that oftentimes Black women are overlooked. As a Black woman, she knows that “if people don’t feel like they’re being heard, we need to make them a little bit more known.” However, in this process she does not discount the need of others in the LGBTQ community to also be uplifted and showcased — seemingly building on the philosophy by Maya Angelou of, “The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”
Despite having a history that most would be largely proud of, Hudson is endearingly humble. She said she never raises her hand and volunteers for things, but instead is available when people call on her for help.
Hudson feels as though she is learning more and more every day about being a grand marshal and hopes it will be a “fun experience.” As marshal, Hudson is hoping her spirit will reveal how best she can utilize the time and opportunity to have more of an impact across the community.
