It will stand strong–long after Trump is sentenced to a legacy of infamy– and teach future generations where the fight for LGBTQ+ Equality began.

(The next, proud generation of the Villano Family at the site of the Stonewall Rebellion for LGBTQ+ equality.)

When we took our three granddaughters to visit New York City three years ago, our oldest granddaughter, now almost 16 years old, wanted to see the Stonewall National Monument.

She is a remarkable human being, incredibly intelligent and compassionate, and acutely aware of what’s going on in the world around her. An out and very proud Lesbian, our oldest granddaughter is already a strong, clear voice for equality, human rights, and personal honesty. She has taken her father’s mantra, “putting humanity first,” to heart, and it guides every single thing she does.

I thought I already knew a lot about the LGBTQ+ community, having been part of it for many years, and having raised tens of millions of dollars for HIV/AIDS education, treatment and care, and secured a few billion dollars of pro-bono TV time to fight anti-HIV stigma and discrimination and violence against the entire community. My decade as CEO of Cable Positive —theAIDS action organization of the Cable Television industry—introduced me to every sexuality and gender under our big, welcoming umbrella of love.

Then, my granddaughter began educating me.

She meticulously drew every multi-colored flag representing each segment of the Queer community. Her father, who welcomes diversity with a Pride Progress flag proudly flapping in the breeze in front of his house, was delighted to hang her hand-done flags as a valance over the patio doors in his kitchen. My granddaughter never tired of explaining the difference to me between each flag, and each community.

Patiently she told me about some of the definitions describing the newer nuances of gender, and she never once tired of her “boomer” Grampy asking question after question. If only every family could have a caring, nurturing teacher like my sweet Sage I thought; the world would be a far, far better place.

I sent my granddaughter an Instagram photo of this weekend’s demonstration at the Stonewall Monument, protesting the mean-spirited Trump Administration’s removal of the “T” from the National Parks Monument to Stonewall, on Christopher Street in NYC. Driven by the shrivel-souled Fundamentalist religious fanatics behind Project 2025, on a jihad against “Transgender ideology,” Trump signed an Executive Order demanding that any reference to “trans” or “gender” be scrubbed from all national sites, websites, and documents.

The National Women’s Law Center has been sounding the alarm about these totalitarian actions, which, are ripped right from the playbook of Nazi Party in 1930’s Germany:

“For the architects of Project 2025, few things are more terrifying than LGBTQI+ people.. . . on page after page, they weaponize that fear to try to demonize, dehumanize, and destroy LGBTQI+ people.

Right out of the gate, Project 2025 bemoans “transgender ideology”—a phrase that suggests that trans people are not actual humans as much as embodiments of malignant propaganda. For Project 2025’s authors, the “ideology” of trans existence and LGBTQI+ equality has seeped into every crevice of the federal government, and it’s their mission to eradicate it.

For starters, Project 2025 calls for removing the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” This erasure isn’t symbolic—it’s part of a systematic effort to strip LGBTQI+ people of all legal protection from persecution, discrimination, and violence.”

The fact that it was Barack Obama in 2016 who designated that a National Monument be built at the site of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion—the first LGBTQIA+ visitors center within the National Parks System—must have given Trump a sick sense of joy when he signed his flagrantly prejudiced fatwa into effect.

I went to the National Parks Website, for the Stonewall Monument, and discovered that the “T” had indeed been torn down by the troglodytes, with the National Park site identified as an historic site for the “LGB” community. How lame.

Fortunately, on the website of the Stonewall National Visitor Center—a NYC visitor’s center on the location of the original Christopher Street uprising—the full LGBTQIA+ designation waves proudly in almost each paragraph. And, nothing prevents the City or State of New York from building a massive monument honoring the Transgender community on City property smack in front of the National Park sign.

I thought of the small, gnarly and gnome-like worldview of the people who wrote Project 2025, and of Trump, Russell Vought, Stephen Miller and the sewer full of red-fanged rat-faced functionaries who take delight in cruelty to one individual or to a group of people.

Then, I thought of my beautiful, loving granddaughter, and her full, bright smile and wonderful, unbridled laugh, and knew that no amount of smallness or meanness or narrow-minded fear, could ever hold back the world that she and her contemporaries are demanding for themselves, with all of us who love them standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them fighting for equality and a better life.

Abe Lincoln initially wanted to ship the Black population to another country, until he saw how they sacrificed their lives to save the American union from Apartheid. THIS is no time to whine.

(From the Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama. Photo by Steve Villano)

Yes, Abe Lincoln freed the slaves.

But, as un-whitewashed history teaches us, not without giving far more progressive abolitionists, and Black folks, lots of aggravation and agita. Lincoln spent much of his life advocating an even more extreme White Supremacist view of the United States than present day dunces of the Confederacy, Donald Trump and Elon Musk—two wealthy, spoiled white boys who made their careers spewing racist and exclusionary bile—are pedaling right now.

If you’re tired of Lincoln’s legend being sanitized, or the story of Black Americans being bleached by a coordinated campaign to ban Black History in schools, pull down references to Black History Month on Google, or rip down “End Racism” signs at the NFL’s Superbowl, than it’s time to turn to the brilliant 1619 Project: A New Origin Story created by Nikole Hannah Jones for the New York Times & Random House (copyright 2021, New York Times Publishing Company).

In her watershed work, the truth-telling journalist Jones points us toward the insightful writings of Frederick Douglass, a powerful voice for equality who knew Lincoln well, and understood what crumbs of freedom White American public officials would risk offering to millions of Black Americans, who were enslaved. Lincoln, much as we would like to believe otherwise, was no exception.

Douglass, a former slave, ardent abolitionist, great orator, and one of the most consequential writers, thinkers and leaders in American History — wrote three separate autobiographies from 1845 through 1892. He is the Douglass whose name should be immediately paired with Lincoln’s, rather than that of US Senator Stephen Douglas, who debated Lincoln about slavery, beat him for the Illinois Senate seat in 1858, and tried to broker a wishy-washy State sovereignty deal on slavery to avert Civil War.

In the 1619 Project, the Lincoln/Frederick Douglass story is meticulously told. I have excerpted some key portions of that story here:

“In our national story, we crown Lincoln the Great Emancipator, the president who ended slavery, demolished the racist South, and ushered in the free nation our founders set forth.

But this narrative, like so many others, requires more nuance. Frederick Douglass would never forget that the president initially suggested that the only solution, after abolishing enslavement that had lasted for centuries, was for Black Americans to leave the country they helped to build.”

Yes, you read that correctly. Abe Lincoln, considered by many to be the greatest of all American presidents, first favored the deportation of all Black Americans. It was a position he had favored for years.

More than a decade after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Douglass was asked to eulogize the assassinated President.

“ The abolitionist (Frederick Douglass), whose mother had been sold away from him when he was a young child, had met Lincoln a few times during his presidency and had repeatedly prodded Lincoln in his writings and speeches to emancipate the enslaved.”

“At first, Douglass praised Lincoln as “a great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and imitation long after his departure to the solemn shades, the silent continents of eternity.”

But, as Jones writes in 1619 Project, Douglass was determined to make clear that he hadn’t simply come to praise Lincoln and “promote the narrative of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator who set his people free.”

Frederick Douglass: “Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man, or our model…He was preeminently the white man’s president, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of white people in this country. YOU are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are, at best, only his step-children; children by adoption, children by forces of circumstances and necessity.”

Douglass was not just referring to Lincoln’s longstanding advocacy of Colonization — relocating American Blacks to either the West Indies or to Africa. He was directly referencing the North’s necessity of freeing the slaves in order to defeat the Confederacy and preserve the union. Whether by design or default, freeing the slaves had become an essential military tactic for the North to win the War. Following the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, thousands of freed black, enslaved persons left Southern plantations, and reinforced battered Union troops.

Historian Bruce Levine, in his book The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South (Random House, NY, 2013), drove home the crucial role newly freed slaves had in the Union’s victory over the South:

“By early 1864, the steady erosion of slavery throughout the loyal border states was as difficult to miss as it was in Union-occupied portions of the confederacy…By mid-September 1864, the Union had enlisted 14,000 Black soldiers (from border states, with another six thousand expected by the end of October…General Lorenzo Thomas praised the new Black regiments as filling up with “the very best class of men.”

What became clearer each succeeding day, was that while Lincoln “freed the slaves,” the newly freed Black men, fighting alongside Union Troops, were critically important in the Union’s victory over the Confederacy in the Civil War. Once freed, former enslaved people fought fiercely to preserve — and extend — their liberty. There was no going back.

In his eulogy, “Douglass launched into a breathtaking litany of Lincoln’s shortcomings, referring in part to their White House meeting with Black leaders in August 1862, just a little over four months before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued:

“Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost…when he strangely told us that we were the cause of the war; when he still more strangely told us that we were to leave the land in which we were born.”

However, as Jones writes in The 1619 Project, “though the Union was worth more to Lincoln than enslaved people’s freedoms, Douglass said: ‘under his wise and beneficent rule we saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood.”

“Douglass understood that Lincoln’s ideas about Black people changed during the course of the War. The president had been deeply moved by the valor of the Black men who’d help save the Union, and had been influenced by Black men such as Douglass, whom he held in high esteem. Though the first version of his Emancipation Proclamation advocated Colonization (resettlements of the Black population), by the end of the Civil War, Lincoln had abandoned these efforts and advocated for the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. In his final speech before his assassination, Lincoln expressed an openness to enfranchising a limited number of Black men — particularly educated men and those who’d fought in the War.”

Historian Christopher James Bonner, author of Remaking the Republic: Black Politics and the Creation of American Citizenship, offered his perspective to The 1619 Project:

“ That last speech calling for partial inclusion of Black Americans, that’s an evolution, and among the many tragedies of Lincoln’s death is that he did change so much in such a short period of time,” Bonner said. “Still, the final stage of Lincoln is still a person who only believes in partial Black inclusion and who is only advocating for certain Black people on certain terms. It’s valid to expect that he would have continued to evolve, but what we do know is that in the unfortunately short period of his presidency, Lincoln wasn’t an advocate for full equality.”

Formerly enslaved Black Americans were not interested in any half-way solutions. Jones writes in The 1619 Project, that when the Civil War ended “suddenly freeing four million Black Americans, few were interested in leaving the country.

“Instead, most would have fervently supported the sentiment of a resolution against Black colonization put forward at a convention of Black leaders in New York, some decades before:

“This is our home, and this our country. Beneath its sod lie the bones of our fathers…Here we were born, and here we will die.”

Racial hatred across continents and generations can have sinister, cruel and inhuman consequences when coupled with money, power and lack of conscience.

(“Below the Bread Line,No. 4”, photo by Ernest Cole, taken in 1960, during South African Apartheid).

“Make Apartheid Great Again,”

Musk murmured in Trump’s ear;

Our mass murder of Blacks backfired—

So, let’s try it again, right here.”

Musk pointed to a map,

Circling nations, primarily Black;

“Let’s starve them; kill them by disease.

Our rich, white friends will be so pleased.”

“I like the sound of that,” burped Trump,

Who’d locked “those” people out of his dumps.

“Ignoring the law’s so effective, a low blow,

It’s a lesson Roy Cohn taught me long ago.”

“Make Apartheid Great Again,”

Musk belted out his song,

From Africa to Mississippi,

No one will ever think anything’s wrong.

Trump beamed, Musk preened—

Mushy white gut bulging out;

“We’ll keep those Darkies on the run,

They’ll have no breath left to shout.”

Musk raised his arm in sharp salute,

Sure to arouse a furor;

“We are the masters, the very best,

There are no others purer!”

As if on cue, a balding flunker

Arose from out his psychotic bunker;

“No Citizenship! That’s the killer,”

Ranted the soulless, eyeless Stephen Miller.

“Apartheid lovers gave their lives,

Crushed by Amendment 14;

Let’s just declare it null and void,

Since we have superior genes.”

“Just wipe them out,” Elon shrieked,

“We almost did in Capetown!”

“I tried it with the Central Park 5,” said Trump,

‘Til facts and science beat me down.”

“ Let’s Make Apartheid Great Again!”

The crapulent White Men bleated,

“And once we’ve wiped away that stain,

The Palestinians can be excreted.”

Then Musk gave Trump

A belly bump; And,

Pulling his pants below his naval,

He swaggered across the Oval room,

Carving a Swastika into the Resolute table.

In what may be one of the most credible, powerfully written and delivered speeches in recent times, Caroline Kennedy calls on the US Senate to reject RFK,Jr’s nomination as HHS Secretary.

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Caroline Kennedy urging the US Senate to reject the nomination of her cousin, RFK Jr., for HHS Secretary. The link below is to her entire 6+ minute speech delivered on social media.

Time for the National Democratic Party to pick two co-chairs whose very existence shouts “Respect for the Rule of Law,” to vividly contrast it to the violent MAGA felons.

Police Officer Harry Dunn (top photo) & Police Officer Michael Fanone.

It’s past time for the National Democratic Party to stop wringing its collective hands over Trump’s election and his Gestapo-like roll-out of Project 25—which he repeatedly lied about –and pick two authentic American Heroes to be the new Co-Chairs of the Democratic Party: Capitol Police Officers Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn.

Yes, I know they are not “official” candidates, nor do they have long-standing Democratic operative “bonafides” to run the Party. That’s what makes them so freakin’ perfect.

The more the Democratic Party retreads the same old faces of pols or political cronies who have been around forever and making peoples’ eyes glaze over for just as long, the more Trump and his made-for-television MAGA-monsters will clean our clock. Now is the time for all creative, law-loving out-of-the box thinkers to come to the aid of our Country.

Just think of how the selection of Fanone and Dunn would frame the fundamental respect for the Rule of Law issues facing this country for the next four years: “Democrats Defend the Law; MAGA Mauls It.” Videos of the Violence of January 6, 2021, could be put on a permanent loop on Tik Tok and YouTube, to underscore the urgency of our time. Fanone’s and Dunn’s faces would be everywhere, and they’d be the new face of the Democratic Party.

By selecting Fanone and Dunn as National Democratic Party Co-Chairs the result would be immediate and electrifying (not like the illegal MAGA Stun Guns used against them) and could instantly change the whole national political—and legal—ballgame. Overnight, it would be toxic for a Convicted Felon in the White House to pardon convicted felons who attacked—and caused the death of—police officers.

Fanone and Dunn’s positions atop the Dem Party would scream out the message loud and clear: Democrats are the Party For the Law. Every time either one would speak in public, on TV or Social Media, or attend any event, the very sight of them would shout: “WE’RE FOR THE LAW, AND THEY ARE NOT.” Imagine their power to communicate to Police unions, Law Enforcement organizations and Veterans groups.

Just looking at Fanone & Dunn would be a constant reminder that the criminally violent January 6 MAGA attack on the US Capitol and on both of them, and their colleagues, really did happen—despite the recidivist Trump’s White House attempts to whitewash it.

So think about this Democrats, while you are in process this week of culling through the line-up of the boring, “officially” declared candidates. Yes, I know that neither Fanone nor Dunn have any “administrative” experience. Did that stop Trump and MAGA from picking Pete Hegseth to run the $800 billion Defense Department with 3 million employees? To quote, Trump’s new, wily Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, “that’s what staff is for.”

There are plenty of Democratic political operatives who’ve run party organizations before, or national campaigns, and they can handle the day-to-day operations of the National Democratic Party.

But there is only ONE Michael Fanone, and ONE Harry Dunn.

The message their selection to lead the Democratic Party—the Party For The Law– into the future would send would be clear and unmistakable. It would forcefully flip the tables on the many MAGA felons whose only connection to the men and women in Blue, is when they violently attacked them, making them black and blue, under the direction—and pardon power protection– of a Convicted Felon in Chief

Fanone and Dunn would be a constant reminder of that, forcing people to decide if they are on the side of the law, or the lawless.

Trump’s Advance Team prepared the way, 4 years ago for his return to power as a Convicted Felon.

On January 6, 2021, violent supporters of Donald Trump broke into and vandalized the U.S. Capitol Building. They smashed windows to take over the Capitol Rotunda, where they proceeded to defecate and urinate throughout the national historic site.

On January 20, 2025, Donald J. Trump will be sworn into the the office of President on the very same site where his supporters defecated and urinated 4 years earlier, preparing the way for Trump’s return to power, as convicted Felon.

Here’ s a complete video of the January 6, 2021, violent takeover of the Capitol Rotunda: