REMEMBRANCE
Alan Fleishman, Longtime Brooklyn Activist, Dead at 62
Democratic reformer 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 Brooklyn’s
Canarsie neighborhood, 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
Alan Fleishman at the 2015 inauguration of State Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, with whom he had
earlier worked as fellow Democratic district leaders in Brooklyn.
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 by a year due to a lawsuit
that sought to overturn the structure
of city government, Steve Di-
Brienza, 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
ASSEMBLYMEMBER JO ANNE SIMON
certainly was the election of
Steve DiBrienza,” said Klein who
also headed LID for a time. “When
Steve was elected, it was the beginning
of the old guard leaving.”
Andy Humm, who is a contributor
to Gay City News and was in
the leadership of the Coalition for
Lesbian and Gay Rights, the group
that won passage of the anti-discrimination
legislation in 1986,
said that Fleishman played a central
role in that event.
“He was part of the movement
that was organizing clubs in
Brooklyn,” Humm said. “Brooklyn
produced a lot of votes and
Alan certainly played a key role in
that.”
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 could also be biting
in his critiques. In 2005, Brian Ellner,
a gay Democrat, endorsed Republican
Michael Bloomberg in his
re-election campaign for New York
City’s mayor and went to work for
that campaign and the Bloomberg
administration later.
“It’s dismaying that there’s no
party loyalty left in a Democratic
town like New York,” Fleishman
said then. “I don’t look favorably on
anyone endorsing Republicans…
but that’s a problem we have in
the party here in the city. There’s
no discipline among Democrats. I
also understand that people need
to work and to feed themselves, but
that’s no excuse. But clearly they
have plenty of cover from other
Democratic elected offi cials and
Democrats working for the mayor.”
Fleishman’s advocacy has left behind
many concrete achievements
and a great deal of good will.
“He was incredibly brave and
fearless in his support for the candidates
and the issues he believed
in,” said Jo Anne Simon, a Democrat
who represents several Brooklyn
neighborhoods in the State
Assembly, in the LID statement.
“Horace Mann once said that we
should ‘be ashamed to die until we
have won some victory for humanity.’
If victories for humanity is the
measure of a life well-lived, Alan
Fleishman lived exceedingly well.”
Fleishman is survived by his
mother, Sally, a brother, Sheldon,
his sister, Beth, two nephews and
a niece, and many friends.
August 29 - September 11, 12 2019 | GayCityNews.com
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