For the next two weeks, Queer Liberaction moves its Milk Box forum to Fort Worth.
On Sunday, July 5, the group will meet in Sundance Square on the corner of Houston and Third Streets. The following week they will gather at the Tarrant County Courthouse.
Group organizer Blake Wilkinson said, "The central theme of this Milk Box will deal with the police raid which occurred at the Rainbow Lounge on June 28."
Milk Box is named for slain San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and is meant as a community forum. Standing on a milk crate, speakers engage passersby. They use rainbow flags and signs to attract attention as they discuss issues relating to homophobia and civil rights.
"Particularly disturbing is the violence used by TABC agents while arresting Chad Gibson, a man who has been described as a small man that would weigh 150 pounds soaking wet," Wilkinson said.
While Queer Liberaction’s Milk box events have become a common sight around Oak Lawn and Uptown, Wilkinson said the group has been anxious to bring their message to a wider audience.
The following week, the group plans to return to Fort Worth for a second Milk box event.
On July 12, they will assemble in front of the Tarrant County Courthouse at 100 E. Weatherford St. This may be part of a larger rally depending on progress in an investigation and statements by the Fort Worth Police Department and the mayor over the next week.
Wilkinson encouraged people to attend, saying, "LGBT people should be indignant about how the Fort Worth Police Department and the TABC has so brazenly trampled upon the rights of LGBT Americans. We demand accountability and explanations, and we demand them now."
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition July 3, 2009.