Recalling her decision to join the Illinois marriage equality battle, Kim L. Hunt says: “It felt like if somebody was saying, ‘No, you can’t do this,’ I’m like, ‘Oh, we’re going to do this.’” Kim earned this resolve over a complex life journey to become one of Chicago’s preeminent LGBTQ+ advocates.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1962, Kim recalls her family saving pennies for weeks for a promotional prize at the local grocery store, only to have the white manager refuse to give it to them. Kim remembers her sudden awareness that her family were the only Black people in the store: “It was sort of an aha moment for me.”

Kim enrolled at Iowa State University in 1980, one of only 800 Black students out of 25,000. Alongside blatant racism, she also experienced microaggressions, such as a journalism professor asking her (the only Black student in the class) to speak on behalf of her race. When a close female friend told Kim she was in love with her, Kim withdrew, throwing herself into her studies and her relationship with her boyfriend—even moving with him to Chicago and eventually marrying him.

By 1987, Kim had an MA in Urban Planning & Policy from the University of Illinois, Chicago and went on to work at the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). When Kim’s college friend reconnected with her during this time, Kim was finally able to acknowledge that she returned the friend’s feelings, and they each left their partners to be together. While the relationship didn’t work out, Kim doesn’t regret it: “She was the gateway to me sort of owning my sexual orientation and who I am.”

Kim then met her future wife, Mary Debacker; each discovered the other was single while holding opposite ends of the CTA banner in the 1999 Pride Parade. Mary, suffering from laryngitis, had to have her assistant call Kim to ask her out. They planned to wait several weeks for a second date, but, as Kim recalls, “We wound up seeing each other the next day. And here we are 25 years later.”

After leaving the CTA, Kim entered the social justice arena as Executive Director at the Black LGBTQ organization Affinity Community Services. Alongside other advocacy positions, Kim went on to serve as Executive Director of Pride Action Tank (an LGBTQ think tank and issue convenor), as a member of the AMA LGBTQ Health Fellowship Commission, and Illinois Council on Aging.

Kim remains particularly proud of her work in the fight for marriage equality in Illinois. Alongside helping to recruit thousands of people to join the 2013 March on Springfield, she fought hard to bring diverse voices to the struggle, noting that due to the financial precariousness they often experienced, marriage could be “more beneficial to Black lesbians than white gay men.” Kim was in the gallery of the Illinois legislature when the bill was passed: “We’ll never forget that. Never, ever.”

These days, Kim is looking to the future, and to those who will inherit her struggle. “I am at a point in my life where I have seen people grow in their leadership, and it makes me feel like a proud mama,” she says. “I really want to create spaces for others to step forward.”

Bio Author: Mac Rogers