FAREWELL TO ARTISTS AND ACTVISTS
LEE MENTLEY
an Francisco activist Lee Mentley was known as “the princess of Castro Street” — which became the title of his 2016 memoir — and the godfather of the rainbow flag. He died January 20 of congestive heart failure at his home in Sonora, Calif.; he was 72. A native of Los Angeles, he moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and. In 1983, Mentley moved to Hawaii, where he worked with AIDS organizations and advocated for marriage equality. In 2000 he moved to Los Angeles, where he became AIDS history curator for ONE Archive at the University of Southern California and worked for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
