Staten Island LGBTQ Pioneer Jim Smith Dies at 79
Local advocate overcame adversity to become early borough queer rights leader
BY MATT TRACY
Jim Smith, an LGBTQ pioneer from
Staten Island who spent years at the
forefront of the fi ght for queer rights in
the borough, died on June 28 — the
anniversary of the Stonewall uprising — after
suffering complications of COVID-19.
Smith, 79, co-founded the political club
Stonewall Staten Island, served as the grand
marshal in the borough’s fi rst Pride march in
2005, and was on the board of the Pride Center
of Staten Island, among other important roles.
Those leadership posts, however, came in the
face of fi erce adversity he navigated early in life.
He struggled with his sexuality at a young age,
attending Catholic School in Staten Island’s
West Brighton section in a much different era.
“My uncle was gay at a time when it was a taboo
thing,” Smith’s niece, Julie Koslowski, told
Gay City News. “Nobody talked about it.”
Smith joined the military and he would later
open up about how he connected with other gay
men on his return from the service. He developed
more friendships when he joined Lambda
Associates of Staten Island, founded in 1984.
Smith was interviewed by Gay City News in
2005 when he was grand marshal at the fi rst
Pride march on Staten Island.
“My fi rst reaction, when they asked me to do
this, was, ‘I can’t do this,” Smith, who was a
state prison counselor, said at the time. He said
he spoke to his boss, the superintendent of the
Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, to make sure
he wouldn’t be fi red for being grand marshal.
“I’m a state employee so they can’t fi re me,” he
said. “I still think it’s 1960 and people are probably
more open-minded than I think they are.”
Carol Bullock, the executive director of the
Pride Center of Staten Island, said Smith was
known as “the godfather of Pride on Staten Island”
and impacted numerous lives, including
➤ TO THE FRONT, from p.22
Move and let Black folks genuinely
lead.
We know how to develop policies
that will change how policing is
done in our communities.
We know how to organize our
people and get relevant information
to them.
We know how to start and fund
our businesses.
Your assistance is needed in
getting our work noticed, not coopting
FACEBOOK/ JIM SMITH
Jim Smith passed away on the Stonewall uprising anniversary.
her own, as he helped guide her when she was
hired to lead the organization late in 2017.
“I knew his vision was part of my vision to
help continue the fi ght for equality and acceptance
in our community,” Bullock said. “I had
numerous discussions with him, talking about
how he became involved. We lost an icon.”
Smith continued advocacy work up until the
end. He wrote an article in the Staten Island
Advance on March 1 expressing his disappointment
in the ongoing ban on LGBTQ groups
from participating in the borough’s St. Patrick’s
Day parade.
“That really was a blow to him,” Koslowski
recalled. “It was, as he said, ‘a kick in the ass.’”
Koslowski said she always knew her uncle
was gay, but it was not until he was honored at
it as your own. Share the
wealth, resources, and stage spaces
that you have occupied for far
too long.
Again, while I am not a fan of
“cancel-culture,” I’m not above it,
and I am truly getting to a point
where it seems necessary.
To my family in the Black Lives
Matter movement, I say to you that
your time of not addressing the
homophobia and transphobia that
runs rampant within toxic workspaces
is up. Your silence will not
keep your fragile masculinity safe.
REMEMBRANCE
a dinner during Pride month in 2015 that she
heard him open up more about his life journey
and explain “how torn he was.”
“He used to say he was thinking more about
what a person should be wearing at prom than
who he was going to go with,” Koslowski said. “I
know that was a very internal confl ict for him.”
In that same article he wrote earlier this year,
Smith looked back on his younger years and
conveyed the feelings of isolation that gripped
him during his youth.
“I was a senior in high school and I was
all alone,” Smith wrote. “Ten years before the
Stonewall Revolution. Could not talk to my parents,
my classmates, and I did not know anyone
else like myself. I talked to a priest and he
told me to take cold showers, to pray and the
feelings would go away. I was seeing a girl at
the time and I prayed. The only thing that went
away was the girl.”
Koslowski said Smith fi rst got sick around
Easter and continued to fi ght through his fi nal
days. Even as he became increasingly sick, he
would selfl essly remain adamant about checking
on his family members to make sure everyone
else was okay.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Smith’s
family was forced to keep their immediate funeral
proceedings small. Koslowski said there
will be a larger gathering that will be open to
the public whenever it becomes safe enough to
do so.
But in the meantime, she is remembering
her uncle — and she knows that every year,
from this point forward, the anniversary of the
Stonewall Uprising holds unique signifi cance
for her family.
“It was very fi tting that he died on the anniversary,”
for 79 years, and I’m proud to say that was the
anniversary. It always has been a special day
and now it will be even more.”
When will you realize that if one of
us remains unsafe or unheard, we
all will?
Until ALL Black Lives Matter is
articulated on this mainstream
platform, then none will matter.
You must work with your Black
LGB leaders and the Transgender
community toward inclusion and
equity. We are in this movement
toward Black liberation together,
whether you want to acknowledge
that fact or not. In these divisive
times, the persistent exclusion of
some voices while amplifying others
Koslowski said. “He lived that battle
will produce rotten fruit in the
work of liberation.
We must move as one to address
systemic racism that is amplifi ed in
the lives of our Black Trans brothers
and sisters. Lastly, to my cisgender
Black brothers, STOP KILLING
TRANS WOMEN. They have
shown up for you since the beginning,
it’s time to protect all women,
including you Trans sisters.
Sean Coleman is the founder and
executive director of Destination Tomorrow,
the Bronx LGBTQ Center.
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