David Belongs to All of Us Now

David Kato

The Law, Gender & Sexuality Research Project at the Makerere University School of Law in Uganda is putting together a book on the life, work and legacy of David Kisule Kato. David was murdered in his home in January and is considered a founder of Uganda's LGBTI human rights movement. The project is calling for submissions of essays, fiction, poetry, web blogs, art, crafts, photographs, film, documentaries, speeches, diaries, letters and other correspondence, music, academic publications, etc. that reflect any aspect of the life and work of David Kato.

Submissions on the life and times of Ugandan activist

This is a call for materials for a biographical book on the life, work and legacy of David Kisule Kato – the deceased Ugandan human rights defender for sexual (and other) minorities.  The biography is being developed and written by researchers in the Law, Gender and Sexuality Research Project of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University – Kampala.

We are interested in a range of materials including essays, fiction, poetry, web blogs, art, crafts, photographs, film, documentaries, speeches, diaries, letters and other correspondence, music, academic publications, etc. that reflect any aspect of the life and work of David Kato. We invite materials from family, friends, lovers, partners, colleagues, allies, students, other human rights defenders and advocates, social justice activists, sexual minorities, academics, clerics, parliamentarians, journalists and anyone else with something (whether positive or negative) to say about David Kato’s life, work and legacy. Materials about the different commemoration activities and memorial events held after David’s death are also welcome.

The materials will be collected alongside interviews and focus group discussions conducted in rural and urban Uganda among those who knew David Kato. Although the main language of the biography will be English, relevant materials written in Luganda, Kiswahili, French, Portugese, Spanish and any other African tongue will be translated for inclusion. The deadline for submission is 16th December 2011. All received materials will be duly acknowledged.

Please send material to:

Stella Nyanzi,
Law, Gender and Sexuality Research Project,
Faculty of Law,
P. O. Box 7062, Kampala – Uganda.
Email: snyanzi@law.mak.ac.ug or stellanyanzibah@googlemail.com

The Law, Gender & Sexuality Research Project at the Makerere University School of Law was founded by Dr. Sylvia R. Tamale. Dr. Tamale just published African Sexualities: A Reader with Pambazuka Press. African Sexualities: A Reader looks at African sexualities through the lens of history, feminism, law, sociology, anthropology, spirituality, poetry, fiction, life stories, rhetoric, song, art, and public health. The volume is written by a large group of authors who live their own sexualities across the diverse possibilities of desire, attraction, family creation, political activism and identity in 16 of Africa's 54 countries. African Sexualities adopts a feminist approach that analyses sexuality within patriarchal structures of oppression while also highlighting its emancipatory potential.

Following the murder David Kato, Ugandan poet Musa Okwonga dedicated his poem "My Love" to David Kato and Eudy Simelane. Nigerian author Wole Soyinka, the winner of The Nobel Prize in Literature 1986, was one of the African writers and academics to sign a petition condemning homophobia and the murder of David Kato. Activists around the world held vigils in David's honor.

David belongs to all of us now.