I’m reposting this from OutHistory.org, though it was sent to me by the NYU Gender & Sexuality Studies e-mail list. It’s a great resource if you don’t already subscribe, I highly suggest it for staying on top of a huge variety of critical race and gender lectures and events in the NYC area.
In addition to the recommended features listed below, be sure to search OutHistory.org for other “African American”, “Afro”, and “Black” history entries.
African American LGBTQ History Timeline: 19th Century
Bronzeville, Chicago
- Cabello, Tristan. Queer Bronzeville : An Overview
Brown, Addie, and Rebecca Primus
- Addie Brown and Rebecca Primus: “No kisses is like youres,” 1859-1868
- The love letters of two 19th-century Black women.
Clay, James
- See section on the murder of Clay in John D’Emilio: drag and street fairy life; Chicago, 1965-1970
Creoli, Jan
Equiano, Olaudah
Gunn, Sakia
- Brief biography of the a fifteen-year-old Aggressive-identified African-American from Newark, New Jersey, who was fatally stabbed on the morning of May 11th, 2003.
Hansberry, Lorraine
Harris, Sherry
- “In 1991 I made history by becoming the first openly gay African American lesbian to be elected to public office in the country.”
Hines, Florence, Male Impersonator
- Help OutHistory create a timeline and annotated bibliography on the life and career of this performer.
Holsaert, Faith S.: “Chosen Girl,” 2003
- An evocative story about a young white girl’s perception of an interracial intimacy between her mother and a Black woman friend, set in Greenwich Village in the 1950s.
“Homosexuals being punished”: Canon City, Colorado, photograph, 1900-1910
- Photoograph: Black men, in straw hats and perhaps in dresses, at the State Penitentiary in Canon City, Colorado, push wheelbarrows, each with a large rock.
Jackson, Tony
Kelly, Trent
- On Flickr take a look at “Hidden in the Open: A Photographic Essay of Afro American Male Couples”
- An amazing, wonderful collection of 146 photos of Black men together, dating from the 19th century: they’re photos about “romantic friendship”, and intimacy between men, and once in a while the gaydar goes off loud and clear.
- And on OutHistory.org see: Picturing African American Men with Men, another collection of photos.
Picturing African American Men with Men
- Photographs of Black men with men, from the collection of John Ibson. See also: Kelly, Trent.
Rainey, “Ma”
Rustin, Bayard
Sewally, Peter
Smith, Bessie
Van Dyke, Henry
Wright, Richard
- Fabre, Michel: “The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright,” 1993
- Rowley, Hazel: “Richard Wright; The Life and Times,” February 2008
- Sinclair (Seid): “Wasteland,” 1946
- Wright provides a glowing blurb for a 1946 novel about a lesbian affirming her sexuality and her brother affirming his Jewish heritage.