Shoulders to Stand On

Search Past Issues of the Empty Closet Online!

You can now search issues of the Empty Closet from its very beginning - January 1971 - to as current as April 2010 at the University of Rochester's website:  www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=4800.

A special thanks to Evelyn Bailey, Project Manager, Shoulders to Stand On, and Melissa Mead, Director, Digital Project Research Center, University of Rochester Libraries, for making this happen.

MOCHA's Evolution

By Evelyn Bailey

In September the new Executive Director of MOCHA, Bruce E. Smail, was officially welcomed by the Rochester community. The list of MOCHA’s Executive Directors benchmark the organization’s achievements in fighting HIV/AIDS in communities of color in the Rochester and Buffalo areas. Every organization has a beginning. For MOCHA that beginning took place 15 years ago.

In 1996 Gary English, a young gay Black man who was an Americorp worker at the Rochester Center for Independent Living (RCIL), expressed concern and dismay over the lack of attention to and services for gay African American men in the community. He felt that this demographic had needs, issues and unique concerns that were specific to their life experiences as men of color living with HIV/AIDS.