ISSUE 28
C E L E B R AT I N G
VOLUME 49
47 YEARS
F R I D AY
IN
J U LY 9 , 2 0 2 1
PRINT S E AT T L E ’ S L G B T Q I A + N E W S & E N T E R TA I N M E N T W E E K LY S I N C E 19 74
LUMBER YARD ABLAZE White Center’s oldest Gay bar victim of Monday morning fire by Carter Hemion SGN Contributing Writer The Lumber Yard bar suffered extensive damage from a fire that began early Monday morning. No injuries were reported, though the fire spread through other businesses, including Rat City Tattoo, Nuggi, La Típica Oaxaqueña, and the Boxing Gym Westside.
see LUMBER YARD page 6
Photo by Eric Autry
Summer Taylor: Rest in power
Vigil held for a local nonbinary activist hero”
Bill Cosby: The release of a decimated legacy Photo by Mark Makela / Reuters
Photo by Renee Raketty
by Renee Raketty SGN Contributing Writer The family, friends, and local activists fighting against Black oppression gathered outside the Seattle Public Theater at Green Lake on Sunday, July 4, for a vigil to remember the life of Summer Taylor, who died one year prior, from injuries sustained while participating in the Black Femme March on Interstate 5.
“Summer season all year,” said Tru, a protest leader, who led the assembled crowd of approximately 75 people in a chant. The saying has become a rallying cry for protests in Seattle organized in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a police officer on May 25, 2020. “Summer was the absolute life of the party,” said Marilyn Manslam, who danced
see SUMMER TAYLOR page 7
by Janice Athill SGN Contributing Writer On Wednesday June 30, 2021, comedian Bill Cosby was released from prison after serving more than two years of a three-toten-year sentence. Cosby, considered a comedy legend by most of the American public since the 1960s, was convicted on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault. He
drugged and molested ex-basketball player Andrea Constand in 2004, who had knowingly accepted pills from Cosby that were intended to help her relax. The allegations and his conviction came as a shock and a hurtful blow to the Black community. How could the man who brought us Fat Albert (an animated series where Black characters had facial features proportionate
see COSBY page 19