Issue: 18.12, June 14, 2001

Gay Activist Ralph Navarro Dies at 51

By Jamakaya

Milwaukee — Ralph F. Navarro, a prominent gay activist in Milwaukee and Wisconsin over the past 20 years, passed away on June 1 at the age of 51. Navarro died in his Milwaukee home after a battle with lymphoma.

“Ralph Navarro was a one-man powerhouse, especially in the 1980s when his name was synonymous with Milwaukee’s gay and lesbian cultural and political movement,” activst Jerry Johnson told Wisconsin IN Step. “He was deeply committed to improving the lives of gays and lesbians and worked long hours, unappreciated by many, month after month for years and years.”

Navarro was born in Chicago. His father worked in the hotel industry, so the family lived in different parts of the US over the years. He obtained a degree from Loras College in Dubuque and hoped to enter the seminary and become a priest. But his mother, Dorothy Navarro, told IN Step that “because Ralph was openly and proudly gay, there was no way church leaders would allow him to become a priest.”

Navarro worked as Director of Youth Retreats for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and Director of Adult Education for San Bernardino Cathedral. Once in Milwaukee, he worked as a brokerage manager for New England Financial Services, sold insurance, and worked as an independent financial consultant.

In 1981, Navarro started (along with Paul DeMarco and John Davis) the Cream City Business Association and served as its president for six years. The association was made up of professionals and business owners who were socially and politically active as out gay people. The group held business seminars as well as receptions and meetings with public officials.

Navarro played a pivotal role in establishing the Cream City Foundation, which emerged out of CCBA. The Cream City Foundation began raising money and then disbursing it to LGBT organizations that submitted grant proposals. Since 1983, CCF has issued almost $250,000 in grants to community groups and projects.

Mark Behar, who served on Gov. Tony Earl’s Council on Gay and Lesbian Issues in the mid-1980s, remembers meeting Navarro at that time. The Council had been alerted to insensitive treatment of gay, transgendered and HIV-positive individuals who were inmates in Wisconsin’s prisons.

“Ralph volunteered to come with me to the prisons to do in-service trainings for prison guards and personnel,” Behar told IN Step. “The idea was to educate them about HIV and also make them more sensitive to gay and transgendered prisoners. Ralph was great. He didn’t get paid for this; he just wanted to help. We sometimes faced fairly hostile audiences, but he handled himself very well.”

Political Leadership

Navarro also provided occasional guest editorials on “Tri-Cable Tonight,” a local gay show on cable in the late 1980s. “He had a real gift of oratory,” said Behar, who produced the show. “He was very articulate and very ‘right on,’ not only in his views but in how he got his message across.”

Two other groups impacted by Navarro were the Lambda Rights Network, a political action group which he co-founded, and Gay Information Services.

The Lambda Rights Network mobilized Milwaukee’s LGBT community on political and legislative issues. LRN opposed (unsuccessfully) the effort by the Rawhide Boys Ranch to be exempt from the state civil rights law prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. LRN initiated a Gay Bash Hotline to report incidents of violence against gays and lesbians and presented annual awards to LGBT and LGBT-supportive leaders and institutions.

Scott Gunkel, a colleague in LRN, cited Navarro’s hard work on a strategic planning process called “Goals: 2000,” a formal gay political agenda that was presented to politicians. Gunkel recalled that Navarro “had a real knack for identifying shortcomings or gaps in our community — areas where we needed resources or needed to change current laws or practices. He’d ID those areas, then develop mechanisms to address them.”

Navarro helped build a coalition with the state’s Jewish organizations to support a hate crimes law which would add a penalty “enhancer” to individuals found guilty of a crime motivated by hatred based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry. Wisconsin adopted that law in 1988. It has been upheld by the US Supreme Court and become a model for hate crimes laws in other states.

Navarro also founded and operated Gay Information Services from a telephone in his own home until his death. Over the years, hundreds of people who found the listing in the book called for information on gay groups, AIDS information and more. But the hotline was somewhat controversial. Navarro complained to the gay press that CCF would not support the information line. Officials at CCF told IN Step that Navarro never submitted the proper paperwork, including financial statements, required for eligibility. Some community leaders cited what they perceived as lack of proper oversight of the line.

Mrs. Navarro had a different take on it. “I never knew anyone who cared about the underdog more than Ralph did. I’d visit him here in Milwaukee and he’d be getting calls at 1 and 2 in the morning. I told him that I couldn’t sleep! But he always answered that phone and helped people with whatever they needed.”

Work with the MPD

In the wake of the Jeffrey Dahmer serial murder case in 1991, Navarro submitted an affidavit in support of the wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee by the family of Dahmer victim Konerak Sinthasomphone. Police officers had returned the drugged and dazed boy into Dahmer’s custody, enabling Dahmer to murder Konerak.

Navarro’s affidavit is a stinging indictment of the failure of the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) to support diversity training through word or deed. Navarro spoke from his own experience of presenting a “cultural awareness” seminar on gays and lesbians for police cadets from 1984-91. Navarro wrote that the “fatal deficiency” of the program was that “it was not directed to the in-line officers and supervisory staff of the MPD,” nor was it “supported by a clearly stated policy of the MPD that it would not tolerate discriminatory conduct based on race, gender or sexual orientation.”

Like just about anyone who has stuck his or her neck out and taken a leadership position in the LGBT community, Navarro had his detractors as well as his admirers. Some cited what they perceived as his penchant for “total control” of the groups he became involved with.

But Jerry Johnson, with whom Navarro locked horns on several occasions, offered this assessment of Navarro: “History will record his considerable achievements in helping bring our community into the 21st century and will minimize his aggressive approach. Perhaps that is the way it should be.”

Navarro is survived by his mother, his sisters, Susan Navarro-Marchi and Cecilia Coombes, and his brother, Steven Navarro.

A funeral Mass is scheduled for Saturday, June 16 at 11:30 a.m. at Holy Rosary Church, 2011 N. Oakland Ave., with a reception to follow.