A New Friend

Do you ever meet or talk with someone and realize instantly that this is someone that you definitely want to be friends with for a long time? I do, and I just had this experience. One of the benefits of working with Little Rock Capital Pride is coming across some amazing people and Carolyn Wagner certainly fits the bill. I just want to share some information from her site for Families United Against Hate (http://www.fuah.org)

A Very Short History of Families United Against Hate by Gabi Clayton
My son Bill committed suicide after a hate crime in 1995. I posted Bill's Story on my website and Carolyn Wagner found the story in 1996, after her son William was assaulted in a similar hate crime. (A 1999 article about the Wagner family is posted on my site here.)
We started an email correspondence and an amazing friendship began. In the fall of 1997 Carolyn, William and I met in person for the first time. Then in February 2000 we were in El Paso, TX for the opening celebration of the Lambda GLBT Community Center with William and his dad Bill, and with Dorothy Hajdys-Holman, the mother of Petty Officer Allen R. Schindler Jr., who was murdered in Japan in 1992 by a navy shipmate.
Carolyn and I realized that we, and too many others, had become unfortunate “experts” on what it is like for survivors and their families to cope with a hate incident and its aftermath. We talked about what we needed, and all the ways this had affected us – the emotions, the legal issues, dealing with the media, etc.
Neither of us wanted all we had learned (and continue to learn) to be wasted. Although we were already attracting others who were coping with this issue, we dreamed about finding a better way to share, and of building a coalition to support victims and their families as they cope with hate.
We are now creating FUAH's structure as a work in progress.