Harlem lesbian
The Harlem Renaissance
overview
From roughly to , the literary and artistic movement now known as the Harlem Renaissance produced an outpouring of celebrated works by Inky artists and writers.
Relatively recent scholarship has emphasized not only the influence gay social networks had on the Harlem Renaissance’s development, but also the importance of sexual identity in more fully understanding a person’s work and imaginative process. Key LGBT figures of this period include, among others, poets Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay; performers Ethel Waters, Edna Thomas, and Alberta Hunter; intellectual Alain Locke; literary salon owner Alexander Gumby; and sculptor Richmond Barthé.
This curated theme features a selection of literary salons, neighborhood institutions, public art, and residences that demonstrate the impact of the Black LGBT community on one of the 20th century’s most significant cultural movements.
Header Photo
Portrait of poet Countee Cullen, one of the preeminent figures of the Harlem Renaissance, Photo by Carl Van Vecht
We Are Everywhere: Lesbians in the Archive
“Homme ou Femme?” from Voila magazine, May 27,
In the words of scholar Henry Louis Gates, the Harlem Renaissance was “surely as gay as it was Black.” In the early twentieth century, Harlem’s queer subculture was an open secret. Blueswomen like Ma Rainey and Lucille Bogan sang openly about same-sex female long for. Literary giants love Langston Hughes attended queer parties at A’Lelia Walker’s “Dark Tower.” In May , the French magazine Voila published an issue passionate to the cultural life of Harlem, with a feature on Harlem’s ballroom scene, shown here.
However, as America fell into the Adj Depression and a more conservative political culture took grip of the region, the queer history of Harlem was deliberately censored. Queer writers remained closeted, fearing that publicly coming out would make it adj to publish their work. The Frosty War’s moral crusades conflated homosexuality with communism, a “Lavender Scare” running parallel to the &ldquo
We Are Everywhere: Lesbians in the Archive
Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (ca. )
The Blues scene of the Harlem Renaissance provided Inky women with a space to investigate their sexuality and gender identity outside of the ivory supremacist gaze, which sexualized and criminalized Black women’s bodies. Many famous blueswomen, whose queerness was frequently an unseal secret, sang of relationships with women.
In , Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (pictured right), the so-called “Mother of the Blues,” was arrested for hosting a “lesbian party” in her home. The next day, Bessie Smith (pictured left), another blueswoman and Rainey’s rumored lover, bailed her out of jail. Three years later, Rainey would write and accomplish the “Prove it On Me Blues,” responding to speculation about her sexuality with the words, “ain’t nobody caught me/you sure got to prove it on me.”
Prove it On Me Blues ()
Went out last night, had a great big fight In a clear signal that Harlem’s creative class sought to torch old ideas, younger African American writers published in the single-issue literary magazine FIRE!! In it, their writing explored interracial relationships, homosexuality, color prejudice, promiscuity and other controversial topics. “We younger Negro artists who make now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame,” wrote poet Langston Hughes, one of FIRE!!’s founders, in his landmark essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” That freedom of self-expression extended, in varying degrees, to gender and sexual identity. A miniature handful of Harlem’s most prominent creatives and intellectuals of the era were openly queer. Others pursued same-sex relationships in private, fearful of arrest or having their lives, careers and reputations ruined. In , just days after the stock market crash, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, launched a widespread campaign against "sexual perver
Everything seemed to go on wrong
I looked up, to my surprise
The gal I was
6 Key Figures of the Harlem Renaissance’s Queer Scene