Colin Stewart
Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern California. After his retirement from paid newspaper work in 2011, he launched the Erasing 76 Crimes news site in cooperation with members of a multi-national team of 26 LGBTI rights activists assembled by the Spirit of 76 Campaign to advocate for change during the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., in July 2012.
He is the president of the St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation (2017-present), which supports LGBTQ+ rights advocacy journalism worldwide.
Over the years, under his leadership, Erasing 76 Crimes has grown into a media network focused on LGBTQ rights, including:
- 76 Crimes en français (2014-present)
- NoStringsNG (predating Erasing 76 Crimes)
- African Human Rights Media Network and its RightsAfrica website (2018-present)
- Rainbow Caribbean on Facebook
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Erasing 76 Crimes and the St. Paul’s Foundation have provided support for:
- Project Not Alone, which has channeled readers’ donations into feeding and freeing more than 35 innocent imprisoned LGBTQ victims of African homophobia.
- Qtalk, a free counseling service for LGBTQ Nigerians that is provided via smartphone apps.
- LGBTQ rights protests in Brighton and Norwich, England (2013) and Glasgow, Scotland (2014) as well as the Amsterdam Pride March in 2017 and 2018.
- The Cameroonian Foundation for AIDS (Camfaids) at the Nairobi conference of Pan-Africa ILGA in 2014.
- Fundraising to pay for the funeral of slain Cameroonian journalist/activist Eric Lembembe in 2013.
- Unsuccessful attempts to overturn the expulsion of champion hurdler Thierry Essamba from the Cameroonian track team because of his sexual orientation (2014).
- Assistance with applications for grants, both in English and in French, for Camfaids in Cameroon and the Youth on Rock Foundation in Uganda.
- Two Intimate Conviction conferences organized by Maurice Tomlinson in the Caribbean in 2017 and 2020.
- The Nigerian human rights group Levites Initiative for Freedom & Enlightenment.
- The All African LGBTQ We Have Rights Too website and Facebook page.
Erasing 76 Crimes published an early selection of works from the website, titled “From Wrongs to Gay Rights”.
Before his retirement from paid journalism, Colin Stewart worked at The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Mass., 1973-75; MPG Communications, Plymouth, Mass., 1975-86; The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Mass. 1986-98; and the Orange County Register, Santa Ana, Calif., 1998-2011.
He earned a B.A. from Amherst College (1970), an M.A. in English from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C. (1973) and a Certificate in Economics and Business Journalism from Columbia University, New York, N.Y. (1998).
He lives in Laguna Niguel, Calif., USA, with his wife, Sue. They have three children and five grandchildren.
Contact him at colin48stewart (at) gmail.com or at info (at) 76crimes.com.