One more time Allison and I have fun talking and hamming it up.  Enjoy the fun of per pride day.

Lesbian teen dies in hate stabbing

Lesbian youth, in droves, turn out to mourn

By Mick Meenan

By late afternoon on Tuesday, it is already dark under the scaffolded roofing on the corner of sidewalk where Sakia Gunn and four friends waited in the early morning hours Sunday for the bus that the 15-year-old expected would bring her home to her grandmother.

Sakia never made it.

Now, two days later, a large, makeshift shrine, constructed between two upright girders, stretches from the sidewalk clear up to the planks of wood above. The shrine is festooned with balloons, and emblazoned with ribbons of the rainbow colors, the insignia of gay and lesbian freedom, and scores of Sakia�s friends, classmates, and even passing strangers, most of them adolescent African American lesbians, have etched their names and their good-byes in the cramped spaces on the green oak tag paper taped to the wall.

A basketball, autographed by her friends, lies next to bunches of flowers and a ceramic crucifix. The phalanx of candles has been lit and tended to since shortly after hundreds of Newark�s lesbian and gay youth learned of the death of their schoolmate and lesbian sister, Sakia Gunn.

For residents of hardscrabble neighborhoods, such memorials are ubiquitous. Unlike most other memorials, however, this one has been constructed by lesbians, young African American women, nearly all of whom are high school students. Some attend West Side High School, where Sakia was completing her sophomore year. They hail as well from Bloomfield Tech, Columbia, Weequahic, and Barringer High Schools.

Valencia Bailey, 15, one of Sakia�s friends and a fellow West Side High School student, accompanied Sakia into New York City on Saturday night, then back to Newark. She was waiting with Sakia and her three other friends when a white vehicle with two men in it pulled up to the curb.

Valencia described what next transpired.

Yo, shorty, come here, one of them said. We told them, No, weâ��re, okay. Weâ��re not like that. Weâ��re gay.  They kept at it and one of the girls started to give him some lip.

Sakia�s killer emerged from the car.

Shortly before, Chantell Woodridge,17, another lesbian among the group returning from New York, had just said goodnight to her friends and was walking down Market Street, when she heard a ruckus behind her.

She quickly returned to find her sister, Kahmya, being choked by one of the men.

My sister was foaming at the mouth, Chantell recalled. He had her by the neck. He told Sakia, Come here. She said, No, you�re not my father. Me and Valencia was fighting him. He grabbed Sakia by the neck and put a knife there. She started fighting him and got away. She swung once at him. When she tried to swing again, he stabbed her.

Sakia�s killer jumped into the white vehicle and it sped away.

Valencia raced to a car that had stopped for a red light.

Please, mister, please, I said as I was banging on his window. Can you please take us to the hospital?

The young women were acutely aware that Sakia was bleeding profusely.

The anonymous Good Samaritan took all five young women in his car to University Hospital, a short distance away. However, Sakia�s massive blood loss spelled the impossible for doctors who tried to keep her alive.

She died in my arms in the emergency, said Valencia. They rolled her into the back and tried to save her. But they couldn�t.

On Tuesday evening, a large contingent of young women congregated and reminisced, switching, as is their adolescent wont, from excited banter to heart-felt sobs, muffled against the shoulders of the young friends who consoled them.

The square of sidewalk concrete still stained by Sakia;s blood has been converted into another shrine foot-high votive candles cordoning off the steps of pedestrians. In crayon and chalk, more messages are written.

We love you always, one says. R.I.P.