Mabel Hampton
(1902 - 1989) U.S.A.
African American entertainer, activist
Mabel Hampton, African-American lesbian activist, dancer, former domestic worker, was a self-educated, dancer in Harlem; Lillian Foster was her partner of 40 years.
 Butches - or studs, as they were also called - dressed in male attire, held doors for their femmes, and lit their cigarettes. But "I never considered myself being a man," Mabel Hampton, said of her butch identity. "I never liked the men that much. And anything I don't like, I don't take up."
At the 1984 NYC Gay Pride Rally, Hampton said, "I have been a lesbian all my life, for eighty-two years, and I am proud of myself and my people. I would like all my people to be free in this world, my gay people and my black people."
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