Academy Award winner and gay activist Dustin Lance Black broke down into tears when he first watched The Times of Harvey Milk, a documentary about the life and assassination of San Francisco’s first openly gay elected councillor.

On April 16, Black will talk to students at the Biscayne Bay Campus in the Mary Ann Wolfe Theatre at 6:15 p.m.

“I thought, ‘I just want to do something with this, why hasn’t anyone done something with this?’” Black said to David Lamble of the Bay Area Reporter during an interview published Feb. 21, 2008.

In February 2009, he won the Oscar at the 81st Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay for Milk, the movie he wrote inspired by Harvey Milk, the openly gay politician who rallied the gay community during the 1970s in an effort to bring equal rights to everyone regardless of sexual orientation.

The lecture, sponsored by the Biscayne Bay Campus Student Government Council Lecture Committee, Office of Campus Life & Orientation and the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services, is free for students, faculty and staff.

“I think it’s really good that he’s going to be coming,” said Daniel Anzueto, senior psychology major. “I was pleasantly surprised when the Lectures Committee chose him. I’m excited to meet him.”

Anzueto, who is also vice president of Stonewall 2 BBC, a student club and BBC Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Queer Questioning Straight Ally, also believes Black’s visit will allow Stonewall 2 BBC to pass along its message to more students.

“It will help get our message out to the FIU community and the community at large about equality,” Anzueto said. “Not a lot of people know who Harvey Milk was and part of Stonewall 2 BBC’s mission is education.”

Black, born in 1974, is an openly gay activist who grew up in San Antonio, Texas in a Mormon household.

Questioning his sexuality after finding himself attracted to a neighborhood boy when he was seven, Black said he had felt dark thoughts, was shy and at times, suicidal.

He only accepted himself after graduating high school, he said, and graduated with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles.

During his college years, Black came across the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, and sought to motivate others in a positive way, admitting to change as a whole rather than a change solely toward gay rights.

“I wanted to maybe inspire the younger generation to start becoming activists in a grassroots way,” Black said in an interview with Michelle Castillo from the UCLA Daily Bruin, published Feb. 19, 2009. “There’s a lot of stuff that still needs changing — not just gay rights.”

In 2008, Black also wrote Pedro, the documentary about the life of AIDS activist and MTV’s “The Real World: San Francisco” reality television personality Pedro Zamora, a Cuban-American openly gay activist who discovered he was HIV positive at age 17.

Since then, Zamora spread awareness about HIV and AIDS, going around the country to speak about his life, and teach others about the virus,

Zamora died in 1994 at age 22 from HIV complications.

Part of the funding for the lecture also comes from the Miami-Dade Community Foundation, which supplied a portion of the $5,000 in grant money to help bring Black to BBC.

“With the Oscars just recently occurring, and Dustin Lance Black having one of the finest award acceptance speeches, we just thought that he would be of great interest to a lot of people,” said Brittany Brewster, SGC-BBC Lecture Committee chair. “It’s just a great story.”

The lecture is also open to the general public with a suggested donation of $20 to benefit the BBC Excellence Fund, a foundation commonly used to fund University needs, including leadership activities and

scholarships.

After the lecture, Milk will be shown in the theater and attendees who have not seen the film will have the chance to do so.

Freshman journalism major Mauricio Diocis said he will be in the audience on April 16.

“I can’t wait. For someone so young, he has achieved so much in such a brief period of time,” Diocis said. “I stand behind him 100 percent.”

For more information on this event, call the Office of Campus Life & Orientation at (305) 919-5804.