Richard Burns '77, executive director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community Center in New York City, will present a lecture, “LGBTQ Rights: Past, Present and Future” on Wednesday, May 1, at 5 p.m., in the Red Pit, KJ. Burns will discuss how he connected his passion for social justice to a career and what he sees as the past, present and future of the LGBTQ rights movement. The lecture is free, open to the public and sponsored by the Days-Massolo Center.
Burns has served as executive director of the LGBT Community Center since December 1986. The Center provides mental health and social services, cultural programs, public policy and recreational programming and meeting space to more than 6,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people each week. Burns previously worked as managing editor and later served as president of the board of directors for the Gay Community News in Massachusetts. In 1994, he co-founded CenterLink, an association that serves as the national voice for nearly 150 LGBT community centers across the country.
Burns serves on the steering committee of the National LGBT Executive Directors Leadership Institute and is a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s National Policy Roundtable. He is the founder of the New York State LGBT Health and Human Services Network and is a member of the Citizen’s Advisory Committee of New York City’s Human Resources Administration.
