My husband and I met 32 years ago in the Deep South. As a gay, interracial couple in Alabama, we fell in love while learning how to navigate stares, slights and silences.
We carefully edited how we moved in public. Although we attend a wonderful, affirming church in Birmingham, even the act of holding hands felt uncomfortable when out in public.
But everything changed when we discovered Chicago.
What began as brief visits gradually turned into a second home in Evanston. We found a home where we could hold hands over a dinner table without fear. We visited a church where the pastor not only welcomed us but called us by name. Chicago and the surrounding area became not just a getaway — it became a place where our love didn’t need armor. It became our refuge. Our reset.
This is what brings me to write this opinion piece — not just to describe our story but to issue a warning. Because the freedom we feel in Chicago should not be exceptional.
But in today’s America, freedom is becoming regional and alarmingly so. Although affirming neighborhoods exist in places like Birmingham, they are like islands of acceptance in a sea of homophobia.
In my classroom, I teach the history of struggle and resistance: Frederick Douglass and James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. I write about what slavery did not destroy and what Black authors reclaimed. My novel, One Hundred Pearls, gives voice to an enslaved Alabama woman who pens her own truth.
But lately, I find myself wondering: Am I still teaching history? Or am I witnessing it repeat?
In Alabama, the pressures are escalating for LGBTQ+ people. I now carefully weigh what I assign, what I say, even how I say it. Will a student report me for teaching a “divisive concept”?
Alabama’s LGBTQ+ community will not simply roll over. However, many of our people face a cruel choice: protect our peace by ignoring the full brunt of the threat posed by homophobic extremism, continue with our lives as though the American system of checks and balances will invariably prevail, or confront the homophobic threats facing us by forging camaraderie with the LGBTQ+ community beyond the state’s borders.
Birmingham’s beautiful Pride parade is a testament to endurance, hard work and the power of authentic expression. But by itself, this will not save us. It’s so easy to think that places like Alabama are too remote to matter, but we do. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “Injustice anywhere [is eventually] a threat to justice everywhere.”
In Chicago, we’re reminded that a city can choose to lean toward justice. That communities can affirm families like ours without controversy. Working together, we can intercept the dangerous rhetoric spewed by politicians and radical preachers.
That is why this message belongs in the Sun-Times.
Because this city —and many of this newspaper’s readers — understand something vital: Freedom isn’t self-sustaining. It must be protected. It must be extended.
From the marches in Grant Park to the sermons on the South Side, from Harold Washington to Barack Obama, this city has long stood as a testing ground for American democracy. The Sun-Times’ own tradition of watchdog journalism has challenged power and uplifted stories of everyday people resisting injustice.
We are entering a new era of segregation — this time by ideology. A map is forming in which books are banned in some states and celebrated in others (as an author of a controversial book, I’m painfully aware of this fact); where churches offer either sanctuary or condemnation; where families like ours are either protected or erased. Project 2025 and similar movements will hit Red-state LGBTQ+ communities with red-hot fury.
Chicagoans, your sanctuary is not the end of this story. It can be the beginning. What’s possible in Evanston must be possible in Birmingham. What’s normal in Rogers Park must be normal in Tuscaloosa. And that requires more than pride. It requires action.
Speak out. Support national protections for marriage, education and freedom of expression. Insist that truth be taught in schools — not edited for political comfort. And demand that every family, not just those in select ZIP codes, can live with dignity.
You’ve built a geography of safety here in Chicago. Although this city is not a utopia, it is unburdened by systemic injustice that assaults marginalized communities in other areas of the country. Help us build it everywhere, including places like Alabama.
Barry M. Cole is an English professor at the University of Alabama.