Brian Williamson

Brian Williamson (4 September 1945 – 9 June 2004) was a Jamaican gay rights activist who co-founded the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG).

He was known for being one of the earliest openly gay men in Jamaican society and one of its best known gay rights activists.

Born to an upper-middle-class family in Saint Ann Parish, Williamson initially considered a life in the Roman Catholic clergy before deciding to devote himself to the cause of gay rights in Jamaica.

In 1979, he began to devote himself to the cause of gay rights in Jamaica, becoming the first individual to do so in such a public manner.

Jamaica had a reputation for its widespread anti-gay prejudice, an attitude that pervaded public discourse at all levels of society, with a number of popular Jamaican musicians inciting violence against gay men in their lyrics.

Initially, Williamson offered his apartment in Kingston as a space in which gay Jamaicans could meet roughly every fortnight.

In the 1990s, he purchased an apartment building in the New Kingston area of Kingston, in which he established a gay nightclub, which remained open for two years despite opposition from police.

In the early 1990s he purchased a large property on New Kingston's gentrified Haughton Street, converting part of this building into a gay nightclub that he called Entourage.

Many of those who attended the club worked in the city's foreign embassies.

Although the police tried to close it down, the club remained open for two years until Williamson was attacked by a patron carrying a knife, which was used to slash Williamson's arm.

Although same-sex sexual relations between men were and remain illegal in Jamaica, Williamson was openly gay.

They also kept a record of anti-LGBT hate crimes including assaults, home invasions, and the corrective rape of lesbians, further recording the murder of 30 gay men between 1997 and 2004.

From the time of the group's foundation, its members were subjected to repeated death threats.

Williamson became the public face of the group, appearing on radio talk shows and television shows such as Perspective and Nationwide in which he argued against homophobia and called for greater government investment to tackle the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Unlike most other LGBT rights activists in Jamaica, Williamson did not seek to protect himself by using a pseudonym, disguising his voice, or hiding his appearance.

In 1998, he co-founded J-FLAG with other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights activists, soon becoming the public face of the organisation.

As J-FLAG's representative, he argued in favour of LGBT rights during appearances on Jamaican television and radio programs.

This attracted great hostility within Jamaica – a country with particularly high rates of anti-gay prejudice – with J-FLAG members receiving death threats and Williamson surviving a knife attack.

Williamson and other members of Jamaica's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community decided to form an organisation to campaign for their rights, resulting in the establishment of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All Sexuals, and Gays (J-FLAG) in December 1998.

J-FLAG sought to enhance LGBT rights through advocacy and encouraging legal reform, as well as through educational and social service programs.

For a time he left Jamaica, living in Canada and England for several years, before returning to Kingston in 2002.

Facing hostility and threats of violence, Williamson left Jamaica and moved to Canada and then England, before returning to the island in 2002.

There, he moved into an apartment in his Haughton Street compound and decided to take a renewed role within Jamaica's LGBT rights movement.

He lived in one room of his apartment block and rented out a number of others.

Financially affluent, Williamson would often offer money or odd jobs to his acquaintances in the LGBT community.

Among those whom Williamson befriended was Dwight Hayden, a closeted gay man in his mid-20s who had been a user of crack cocaine prior to 2002 and who was known locally as "Dog" and "Swong".

They met in New Kingston and Williamson helped Hayden out by purchasing newspapers which he could then sell on the streets.

According to one of Williamson's flatmates, Desmond Chambers, "I have seen [Hayden] here about six times (and) anything him want, Brian give him. Brian give him money, Brian give him food and help him to purchase (newspaper) to sell on the road."

In June 2004, Williamson was murdered in his apartment by an acquaintance, Dwight Hayden, whom he had been aiding with financial handouts.

Police believed that Hayden's motive was robbery, although J-FLAG also suggested that homophobia may have played a part in the killing.

Hayden was subsequently sentenced to life in prison.

Upon learning of the murder, a crowd assembled in New Kingston to celebrate Williamson's death, chanting homophobic slogans and lyrics.

Conversely, the Jamaican LGBT community held a secret memorial for him, while protests against the killing were held by LGBT rights groups in the United Kingdom.

Williamson was born to an upper-middle-class family in the rural Saint Ann Parish.

He initially considered joining the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, studying for this position in Montego Bay, but eventually decided against this.

On 7 June 2004 Hayden arrived at Williamson's flat with another man, with Williamson welcoming them in and offering them bottles of Guinness.

Hayden asked for money from Williamson, who agreed he would give it to him later in the evening.

At this, Hayden attacked Williamson, stabbing him roughly seventy times.

Williamson's body was discovered by Chambers at approximately 11.15am.

Chambers noticed that the air conditioning had been left on, something that Williamson was unlikely to have done, and then realised that Williamson's bedroom door had been left ajar.