Jody Renaldo, the founder of Equality
Mississippi, says the 2000 murder of Jamie Ray Tolbert inspired him
and many others to push for gay rights in the state.
In a videotaped op-ed, Renaldo said the
murder of his friend dramatically changed his life.
Tolbert was kidnapped outside of a gay
bar in Biloxi, Mississippi. His body, having been beaten and
strangled, was found weeks later by Alabama police. While two men
were eventually convicted of the murder, the case was not tried as a
hate crime.
“It only made sense,” Renaldo says
in the video produced by CNN. “I mean you're a gay man at a gay
bar and these two people show up at a gay bar when they could have
showed up anywhere. They may have not targeted you [Tolbert], you
just may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But you're
the one that's gone.”
“You would probably be surprised that
I even started a gay rights organization in Mississippi considering I
was the quiet, lonely person sitting in the corner by himself.”
“But you're the reason people know we
exist. Because of what happened to you, I was propelled to quit just
sitting around fussing about the way I was being held down. … You
inspired a lot of people to do something about it.”
In 2008, the group closed its doors due
to lack of support.
“It makes it seem almost as if your
death was in vain, but I know better than that,” an emotional
Renaldo adds. (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)