Black Queerness In America: A Brief History (Patreon)

Happy Valentines Day! In the spirit of love I decided to revive a formerly broken thread on black queerness in America. I also re-filmed one of the videos originally in the thread, 'Queer Love During the Harlem Renaissance'. Enjoy!

Queer Identities in Pre-Colonial Africa

Despite what you may think, Europeans did not bring queerness to Africa- though they did bring the name Africa. The continent was filled with a variety of cultures and people with different languages, religions, and ways of life... and not all of them shared Europeans views on sexuality and gender. European missionaries left behind various observations of queerness in Africa, and they were usually tinged with disapproval. This only drove European belief that all African people needed Christianity to be cleaned up their savage sinful ways. There is an entire book that traces various instances of same sex cultures and queer identities in Africa. But here are a few examples. In Angola, Europeans were shocked to discover same sex relationships between an older male and a younger male. Similar to greek pederasty up to the 20th century, farmers in modern day Gabon and Cameroon believed homosexual sex was a medicine for wealth. A group in Ghana, a highly homophobic country in the present day, allowed adult men to marry each other. Among groups in what is now modern day Uganda biological males could live their lives as women and marry men if they so desired. Various parts of Africa not only had queer people but tolerated queer people. It was not a European import nor behavior later beaten into slaves or their descendants. Acting like queerness in black people as a result of white supremacy is blatantly ignoring history. Now that you’ve got basic knowledge about the complexity of sexuality & gender in pre-colonial Africa, let's turn our attention to the US. 

Where's The Queer Black History?

After the many victories of the gay liberation movement from 1969-1974 and the ongoing LGBT rights movement, America’s attitude towards the LGBT community has become more tolerant, meaning more LGBT ppl feel less obligated to hide in the shadows. But what about how black queers have been represented in history? Numerous documentaries, movies, and shows document the white queer experience, but many narratives have erased black LGBT completely… And because past black leaders/ and innovators who were LGBT existed in private or had their stories sanitized, its almost like black queerness didn’t exist prior to recent modern history. This leads too many in our community to believe that black queers have never been common & that their recent prevalence is from a gay agenda.

Queerness During the Harlem Renaissance

To believe in a gay agenda conspiracy theory is to ignore a history of black queerness against the backdrop of American racism. Queerness has been here, and black musicians have been crooning and/or complaining about queer love since the inception of jazz and blues. Lyrics, in addition to being heavy on heterosexual innuendos, mentioned bull dykers & sissies, or butch lesbians & fem men.  White America was disgusted with jazz's blatant lustiness (not just the homosexual allusions), reprimanding it as a sinful nigger creation. 

The Harlem Renaissance began flourishing in the 1920s, bringing forth a lively LGBT scene, something never mentioned in your textbooks.

[Watch Above Video]

Civil Rights Movement Backlash

Though they existed in surprising prevalence, black queer people became targets of the early civil rights movement, for two major reasons: 

1. Black ppl had a duty to procreate & strengthen the black race 

2. Leaders preached respectability politics for racial progress

Black leaders saw queerness as a conscious choice against black solidarity to indulge one's selfish individuality. Being perceived to choose sexuality or gender over race meant betrayal. Plus, black people already had a reputation for sexual deviance that civil rights leaders wished to bleach away for integration purposes. Despite early homophobia, black drag balls continued, even garnering coverage in Ebony & local black papers in Detroit, Chi, & NOLA. (Read more about those here). Queerness had an odd existence in black communities, noted by James Baldwin & later bell hooks, who said most animosity came from whites. 

This would change as leaders made it clear that respectability politics meant advancing the black race. The black family was “broken”. In 1939, E Franklin Frazier asserted that city life had ruined black families and made black men less masculine. It would take some time for the notion of broken black families producing emasculated men to be more widespread to regular black folk though. In fact, queerness was busy prospering in an unlikely arena: The Black Church, with ostentatious figures like Prophet Jones and Sweet Daddy Grace, who both were trailed with accusations of homosexual relationships. In 1951 Adam Clayton Powell Jr called out Prophet Jones. His disgust was echoed by a community increasingly concerned w/ assimilation. When negative revelations were made about these queer church leaders, homophobia in the black church intensified’’. The Detroit Tribune reported that Prophet Jones signified to whites that black people were under the guidance of a “sex deviate.” Because the black church was a pillar for the community and civil rights (aka respectability central), homophobia thickened in its walls.

During the height of the communist red scare, homosexuals began to be perceived not only as insults to the nuclear family, but as potential security threats. Find more information about the Lavender Scare in this episode of Lets Talk About Sex History. 

A 1961 film conflated homosexuality with pedophilia, and definitely contributed to even more fear. In 1952, former popular Harlem drag king Gladys Bentley revealed that she had been “cured” of her sinful gender bending affliction. 

In the article Gladys implied that “strange sexual leanings” weren’t only betrayals to God, but to the community. Again gender & sex took back seats to race. Sound familiar? Newspapers & mags reported on queer culture with a negative bias, or stopped altogether. Thus, their existence was vilified or erased. Promoting the normal and healthy nuclear black family became a prominent theme from black leaders & media outlets. Southern Christian Leadership Conference leader Bayard Rustin, who had been exposed as gay in 1953, was forced to resign in 1960. Why? Adam Clayton Powell Jr threatened to publicly accuse him and Martin Luther King Jr of being lovers, which terrified MLK, the face of the movement. MLK (who met with J. Baldwin in Atlanta & often cheated on his wife) knew creating a traditional heteronormative black culture was key. As the respectable preacher trying to bridge the civil rights gap, being falsely accused of homosexuality would ruin him and he knew it. Despite this, there were some brave Black Americans who dared to exist openly queer, like James Baldwin. His 1956 book Giovanni’s Room, written on a self imposed exile to Paris, explored homosexuality. 13 years before the white-dominated gay liberation movement. 

And now we’ve come full circle.

So What Does This Mean?

The hostility and prevalence of modern black homo/transphobia is the product of racism and a desire for assimilating into white America. You think you’re being pro-black by denying black queers the right to exist, but you’re not. You’re regurgitating white respectability politics. Black queers always been here. They’ll continue to be here. They are not harming the black community. Poverty, divisiveness, & racism are. Politely shove the "gay agenda" and homophobia arguments up your ass so we can focus on progressing as a unit. Thanks :)

Resources

Boy Wives and Female Husbands (Stephen O Murray and Will Roscoe)

The Color of Discipline: Civil Rights and Black Sexuality (Thaddeus Russell)

The Gay Lovers of Countee Cullen

The idea that African homosexuality was a colonial import is a myth

Singing The Lesbian Blues in 1920’s Harlem