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COURIER L 16 IFE, SEPT. 6-12, 2019
Longtime Brooklyn
activist dead at 62
Alan Fleishman helped build LGBTQ
political power in borough, citywide
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
Following a fi ve-year battle with cancer,
Alan Fleishman, a political organizer
and Democrat who was central to
building the LGBTQ community’s political
power in New York City, passed
away on August 27. He was 62.
“He is my good friend, my lifelong
friend,” said Scott Klein, who worked
in Brooklyn Democratic politics for
decades with Fleishman. “We worked
together on so many different campaigns…
I really can’t imagine what
my life will be like without him.”
Born and raised in Canarsie, Fleishman
was a DJ for many years before
he engaged in politics and eventually
went to work in the city comptroller’s
offi ce, where he served from 1990 until
he retired in 2013. Klein and Fleishman
were involved in Gay Friends &
Neighbors, a group in Brooklyn that
met for dinners, watching videos, and
similar events.
“It was social group, but Alan became
very political through that
group,” Klein said. “At its peak, there
were 300 people meeting every Monday
night.”
Fleishman, who for many years
lived in Park Slope, was the president
of the Lambda Independent Democrats
(LID), a Brooklyn LGBTQ political
club founded in 1978, from 1988 to
1990. He was a delegate at the Democratic
Party’s conventions in 1996 and
2000. In 2002, he became the fi rst out
gay Democratic district leader elected
in Brooklyn and he held that position
until 2010.
“At the time when many Brooklyn
elected offi cials remained opposed to
LGBT rights, his steadfast leadership
drove LID’s mission to elect allies to
offi ce,” LID said in a statement. “His
legendary work shows today, as very
few Brooklyn elected offi cials remain
opposed to LGBT rights.”
In a 2018 column in Gay City News,
Allen Roskoff, president of the Jim
Owles Liberal Democratic Club, an LGBTQ
political group, called Fleishman
the “smartest political gay in Brooklyn”
and “dogged and well informed.”
Fleishman’s political organizing
in Brooklyn was important in passing
legislation in the City Council in 1986
that added sexual orientation to New
York City’s human rights law. First introduced
in the City Council in 1971,
the legislation was kept from a vote
by Thomas Cuite, that body’s majority
leader and a conservative Democrat
who represented Windsor Terrace and
Park Slope among several Brooklyn
neighborhoods.
In 1982, after city elections were delayed
Alan Fleishman at the 2015 inauguration
of State Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon.
Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon
by a year due to a lawsuit that
sought to overturn the structure of
city government, Steve DiBrienza, a
lawyer, challenged Cuite in a district
that was transforming from one that
was predominantly conservative Irish
and Italian to one that was more liberal
with a sizable LGBTQ voting bloc.
While DiBrienza lost in 1982, Cuite —
who died in 1987 — saw the writing on
the wall and retired in 1985. DiBrienza
won the seat that year.
“One of the big events in Brooklyn
certainly was the election of Steve Di-
Brienza,” said Klein who also headed
LID for a time. “When Steve was
elected, it was the beginning of the old
guard leaving.”
Fleishman was a consistent progressive
and a reformer. He was an
early endorser of Jesse Jackson’s 1988
campaign for the Democratic nomination
for president and of David Dinkins
in his successful mayoral race in 1989.
Fleishman was not above criticizing
his fellow Democrats, sometimes with
humor.
In 2010, Harold Ford, a Democrat
who represented a Memphis district
in the House for fi ve terms beginning
in 1997, had moved to New York City
and was considering opposing Democrat
Kirsten Gillibrand for her US Senate
seat. Ford’s two votes supporting
an amendment to the US Constitution
that would defi ne marriage as between
a man and a woman made him decidedly
unpopular among LGBTQ voters.
At a Ford town hall held at the Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual & Transgender
Community Center, Fleishman told
Gay City News that he had never seen
Ford at political events or “the kind of
horrible things candidates have to do
if they want to meet the loyalists.”
Fleishman’s advocacy has left behind
many concrete achievements and
a great deal of good will.
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