Mandy Carter

Mandy Carter
Mandy Carter speaking at Vanderbilt University
Born	(1948-11-02) November 2, 1948 (age 68) Albany, New York
Residence	North Carolina
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Hudson Valley Community College
Occupation	US lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activist
Years active	1968-Present
Political party	Democratic
Movement	US LGBT

Mandy Carter is an American black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activist.

Although she was first introduced to social justice activism in 1965 when the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee visited her high school in Schenectady, New York, it was the 1968 Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Poor People's Campaign that officially marked the beginning of her activism. Carter also credits Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign projects such as those associated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the former Institute for the Study of Nonviolence founded by folksinger Joan Baez, and the War Resisters League (WRL), specifically WRL-West with whom she got her first-ever paid position in the movement in 1969.

She is a former Executive Director and one of the six co-founders of the North Carolina-based Southerners On New Ground (SONG). Founded at the 1993 National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's (NGLTF) Creating Change Conference in Durham, North Carolina, SONG integrates work against homophobia into freedom struggles in the South.

Carter served as campaign manager for North Carolina's Senate Vote '90 and Mobilization '96 political action committees. She served again as campaign manager for Florida Vote/Equal Voice based in Miami - a 2000 non-partisan, statewide voter empowerment campaign, which was initiated by the African-American Ministers Leadership Council of the People, People for the American Way Foundation, and the Florida NAACP - which resulted in one of Florida's largest black voter turn out's ever. Additionally, Carter was a four-year (1996-2000) North Carolina Member-At-Large of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and a member of both the DNC Gay and Lesbian Caucus and the DNC Black Caucus. She was a delegate at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, as well as one of the four co-chairs for the daily meeting of the DNC Gay and Lesbian Caucus.