Black gay life in the 1920s
16 queer Black trailblazers who made history
From 1960s civil rights activist Bayard Rustin to Chicago's first womxn loving womxn mayor, Lori Lightfoot, Ebony LGBTQ Americans have prolonged made history with innumerable contributions to politics, art, medicine and a host of other fields.
“As drawn-out as there have been Black people, there contain been Black LGBTQ and same-gender-loving people,” David J. Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, told NBC News. “Racism combined with the forces of stigma, phobia, discrimination and bias connected with gender and sexuality have too often erased the contributions of members of our community."
Gladys Bentley (1907-1960)
Bentley was a gender-bending performer during the Harlem Renaissance. Donning a uppermost hat and tuxedo, Bentley would sing the blues in Harlem establishments enjoy the Clam House and the Ubangi Club. According to a belated obituary published in 2019, The New York Times said Bentley, who died in 1960 at the age of 52, was "Harlem's most famous lesbian" in the 1930s and "among the best-known Black entertainers in the United States."
Bayard Rustin (1912-1987)
Rustin was an LGBTQ and civil rights activist best known f
How Gay Culture Blossomed During the Roaring Twenties
On a Friday night in February 1926, a crowd of some 1,500 packed the Renaissance Casino in Fresh York City’s Harlem neighborhood for the 58th masquerade and civil ball of Hamilton Lodge.
Nearly half of those attending the event, reported the New York Age, appeared to be “men of the class generally known as ‘fairies,’ and many Bohemians from the Greenwich Village section who...in their gorgeous evening gowns, wigs and powdered faces were hard to distinguish from many of the women.”
The tradition of masquerade and civil balls, more commonly known as drag balls, had begun back in 1869 within Hamilton Lodge, a ebony fraternal organization in Harlem. By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibition era, they were attracting as many as 7,000 people of various races and social classes—gay, lesbian, attracted to both genders, transgender and vertical alike.
Stonewall (1969) is often considered the beginning of forward progress in the gay rights movement. But more than 50 years earlier, Harlem’s famous queenly balls were part of a flourishing, highly visible LGBTQ nightlife and tradition that would be integrated into mainstream American life i
Along with the inspiring, hopeful history of resistance, this chronology sometimes includes extremely offensive, racist language because documenting oppression (as successfully as resistance) is vital to the work of remembering the past, empathetic the present, and creating a free future. Notice also Timeline: African American LGBTQ+ U.S. History, 1912-2009 and Queering African American History: A Bibliography, by Kevin J. Mumford.
1600
1646-06-25: New Netherland: Jan Creoli executed
Jonathan [Ned] Katz, "1646: New Netherland Colony; Jan Creoli, 'Condemned of God . . . and an abomination'." Jonathan [Ned] Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (Harper & Row, 1976), pp. 22-23. Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (Harper and Row, 1983), p. 90.
1700
1700-11-27: Pennsylvania: “Sodomy” law
“Pennsylvania legislators provided for the death penalty for Blacks guilty of buggery (bestiality and sodomy), murder, burglary, and the rape of a white woman”, Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (Harper and Row, 1983), p. p. 120, 122-123
1706-01-12: Pennsylvania: “Sodomy” and “buggery” law A lavender marriage is a union that conceals any "immoral" activity or gay relationships from the public. Same-sex relationships, while illegal, there was a significant number of the LGBTQIA community in the United States. In the 1920s, there were changes in music, literature, and visual art. The Harlem Renaissance was a significant leap forward for LGBTQIA nightlife. Events were held often. Drag Balls or Civil Balls became popular; for the LGBTQIA community and their allies, the gay nightlife scene thrived–in special places. The Harlem Renaissance was a time when the LGBTQIA found a nightlife scene that was unique to Harlem. Jazz artists and the LGBTQIA community belonged to an alternative lifestyle that mainstream society rejected. This common trait would bring the two worlds together. Jazz was the preferred music for Harlem Drag Balls, and many who performed would move on to have widespread careers. The two communities grew together and supported each other. Fig. 1 - A drag ball during the 1920s- Many LGBTQIA artists and writers left the Merged States fo While watching a evaluating of Paris is Burning hosted by the Smithsonian Latino Center, I was entranced by the dazzling participants as they competed, fiercely owning the floor in their glamorous gowns. Twenty-five years ago, this famous cult documentary captured the lives and culture of African American, Latino, gay, and gender nonconforming communities involved in New York Capital drag balls. The motion picture captured a slice of the 1980s unknown to many, with roots in a fascinating culture. In 1869, within Harlem's Hamilton Lodge, queenly balls began. As the secret of the balls spread within the queer community, they became a safe place for gay men to congregate. Despite their growing popularity, drag balls were deemed illegal and immoral by mainstream society. A moral reform organization recognizable as the Committee of Fourteen periodically investigated the balls. In 1916, the committee released a report detailing the scandalous behavior they witnessed. The notify described a scene filled with "phenomenal" "male perverts" in expensive frocks and wigs, looking enjoy women. The committee later released 130 reports describing its visits, demanding that such perversion must des
(provision referring to “negroes,” Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay
Homosexuality in the 1920s
LGBTQIA and the Harlem Renaissance
LGBTQIA and the Arts in the 1920s