The QUEER ICON exhibition is Dedicated to Community Organizer and Black Proletarian Feminist
Nikeeta Slade

We celebrate a brilliant sister, dear friend, comrade, haiku poet, and Lisa’s only baby—Nikeeta A.T. Slade.

Nikeeta was our hilarious self-proclaimed curmudgeon, a Black woman in the trades, Texas-raised organizer, worker of and for the world, and proud proletarian Black feminist.

She was a lover of Luther Vandross, Fleetwood Mac, Dolly Parton, and Bruce Springsteen.
She was a tía, beloved girlfriend, and original Black Lives Matter Syracuse member.

She was one of the machetes. She was all of these things and so much more. She is deeply loved and always missed.

—Montiniquë McEachern, Vani Kannan, SeQuoia Kemp, Fabiola Ortiz Valdez, Yanira Rodríguez, and Laura Jaffee