UNITY (SF Chapter of Black Lbian and Gay Learship Fom) — Calisphere

Contents:

• THE NATNAL COALN OF BLACK LBIANS AND GAYS: THE ULTIMATE GUI!
• NATNAL BLACK LBIAN AND GAY LEARSHIP FOM SUBSERI, 1992-1999
• NATNAL BLACK GAY AND LBIAN LEARSHIP FOM FLYER

THE NATNAL COALN OF BLACK LBIANS AND GAYS: THE ULTIMATE GUI!

The Miscellaneo llectns ver productive perds for the Black LGBT movement, documentg the "Black gay and lbian renaissance" for the 1980s, as well as the 1990s and 2000s. A Renaissance In Harlem (1920s-30s)In 1926 Bce Nugent wrote a homoerotic say for the premier issue of a ntroversial Harlem publitn lled FIRE!! Alongsi articl by Langston Hugh and Zora Neale Hurston, Nugent’s piece – wrten unr the psdonym Richard Bce – scribed a male homosexual relatnship.

Although the article and the publitn provoked cricism om some blacks for the ntroversial topics explored, marked an important tone for blacks the gay leadg figur of the Harlem Renaissance were known to be homosexual or bisexual. As a black gay man, he worked the shadow of Ellgton, wh whom he veloped a close workg relatnship. In 1956 Jam Baldw, a black gay man, published the novel Gvanni’s Room, his first homosexual love story.

NATNAL BLACK LBIAN AND GAY LEARSHIP FOM SUBSERI, 1992-1999

A year later the young playwright Lorrae Hansberry, a black lbian, wrote a letter to The Ladr, an early lbian publitn, where she suggted that “homosexual persecutn and nmnatn has at s roots not only social ignorance, but a philosophilly active anti-femist dogma. Durg the 1950s and 1960s, a number of black lbians and gay men participated the Civil Rights Movement the South and the North, but none was so well known as Bayard Rt.

Their relatnship was straed when Kg, unr prsure om nservative elements the Southern Christian Learship Conference, agreed to distance himself om the openly homosexual Rt.

NATNAL BLACK GAY AND LBIAN LEARSHIP FOM FLYER

But Rt, as a known homosexual, had to fight for this role agast the objectn of Natnal Associatn for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) executive secretary Roy Wilks, and he was not allowed to hold the actual tle as march director. The Civil Rights Movement awakened Ameri’s nscns to the unfulfilled promis of the natn and set the stage for other movements, cludg the gay liberatn Came Stonewall (1969)On Friday, June 27, 1969, eight New York Cy police officers raid a gay bar at 57 Christopher Street Greenwich Village. Reportedly led part by black and Lato drag queens like Sylvia Rivera and others, a spontaneo rebelln epted agast the practice of police harassment of homosexuals.

As word spread the followg days, hundreds of gays and lbians, cludg Ain Amerins, showed up Sheridan Square to show their solidary. The Stonewall Rebelln, as has bee known, marked a turng pot for gays and lbians, and has sce bee the fg moment Amerin LGBT Stggle to Liberatn (1970s-80s)After Stonewall, creasg numbers of gay, lbian, bisexual, and transgenred Amerins began to emerge “out of the closet. Newton, Supreme Commanr of the Black Panther Party, published a letter the party newsletter statg, “the women’s liberatn ont and gay liberatn ont are our iends.

” In October 1979, durg the gay muny’s first natnal march on Washgton, hundreds of participants gathered at Harambee Hoe for a Third World nference on gays and lbians of lor, tled “When Will the Ignorance End? ” In 1980 black gay activist Melv Boozer helped ph the Democratic Party when he addrsed the nventn and explaed the siar pa of racism and homophobia.