Potential Sources - African American LGBT community

  • Juan Battle, and Colin Ashley. “Intersectionality, Heteronormativity, and Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Families.” Black Women, Gender Families 2.1 (2008): 1–24. JSTOR. Web.
  • Thorsson, Courtney. “James Baldwin and Black Women's Fiction.” African American Review 46.4 (2013): 615–631. JSTOR. Web.
  • Johnson, E. Patrick, and Mae G. Henderson. Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. N.p.: Duke U Press, 2005. Google Scholar. Web.
  • Boggs, Nicholas. “Queer Black Studies: An Annotated Bibliography, 1994-1999.” Callaloo 23.1 (2000): 479–494
  • Hobson, Janell. Are All the Women Still White?: Rethinking Race, Expanding Feminisms. SUNY Press, 2016. Google Books. Web.
  • Clay, A. "Like an Old Soul Record: Black Feminism, Queer Sexuality, and the Hip-Hop Generation." Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 8.1 (2007): 53-73. Project MUSE.

National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays

Potential Sources

  • McCoy, Renee, et al. “NCBLG.” Off Our Backs, vol. 18, no. 1, 1988, pp. 23–23., www.jstor.org/stable/25796094.

Original: In contrast to other Washington, D.C.-based gay rights organizations' opposition to the march, NCBG's support for the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights smoothed the way for the event in Washington.

Rewrite: While many Washington, D.C.-based gay rights organizations opposed the 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, NCBG's support for the march helped smooth the way for the event.

Original: The National Coalition of Black Gays (NCBG) was organized by ABilly S. Jones, Darlene Garner and Delores P. Berry in Columbia, Maryland in the spring of 1978 to provide a national advocacy forum for African American gay men and lesbians at a time when no other organization existed to express their views. The organizers were motivated in part by the belief that existing gay and lesbian organizations did not represent the views and experience of African Americans. Jones served as logistical director of the organizing committee for the march until the month before the event when he turned his attention to organizing the Third World Conference.

Rewrite: In the spring of 1978, ABilly S. Jones, Darlene Garner and Delores P. Berry organized the National Coalition of Black Gays (NCBG) in Columbia, Maryland, to provide a national advocacy forum for African American gay men and lesbians at a time when no other organization existed to express their views. The organizers were also motivated by a belief that existing gay and lesbian organizations did not represent the views and experiences of African Americans.

Original: NCBG added Lesbian to its name in the 1980s to become the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays. The organization's headquarters moved to Detroit, Michigan briefly in the mid-1980s.

Rewrite: NCBG added Lesbian to its name in 1984 to become the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays.

History

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Founding

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In 1978, ABilly S. Jones, Darlene Garner, and Delores P. Berry organized the National Coalition of Black Gays (NCBG) in Columbia, Maryland, to provide a national advocacy forum for African American gay men and lesbians at a time when no other organization existed to express their views. The organizers, also including Louis Hughes, Gil Gerald, Rev. Renee McCoy, and John Gee,[1] were motivated by a belief that existing gay and lesbian organizations did not represent the views and experiences of African Americans. In 1984, NCBG added Lesbian to its name in the 1980s to become the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays. The organization's headquarters moved to Detroit, Michigan briefly in the mid-1980s.

Operation

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NCBLG chapters existed in cities such as Philadelphia, New York, Norfolk, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Atlanta, Chicago, Portland, St. Louis, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston, Richmond, and others.[2]

Dissolution

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NCBG added Lesbian to its name in 1984 to become the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, but by 1986, several key leaders left the organization, and eventually the group (without any official announcement) faded out of existence. By 1990, formal operations ended for the organization.[1]

Advocacy

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The organization was noted for its advocacy of LGBT parental rights, and Jones specifically organized groups to support gay and lesbian parents in Washington D.C.[3]

NCBLG was one of the first organizations to initiate HIV/AIDS prevention efforts in the black community, including pamphlets that used coded terms familiar in the black community with men who would never identify with the gay community. In 1986 NCBLG organized a specific event, "AIDS in the Black Community," as what was the "first national conference on AIDS geared toward Black people."[1]

National Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference

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NCBLG sponsored two National Third World Lesbian and Gay Conferences and published a news magazine, Black/Out, which offered funding and support for the organization. The first National Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference took place in Washington D.C in 1979. The event took place in conjunction with the 1979 national March on Washington, and spurred more black LGBT people in the community to organize. The creation of Howard University's Lambda Student Alliance, the first openly LGBT organization at an HBCU, is one example of the event's influence. LGBT people of color from the United States, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean participated in the conference.[4] It garnered more attendees than the second conference, held two years later in Chicago, although the 1981 conference was noted for its more diverse participants. The conference was held

Black/Out

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Black/Out was a quarterly magazine first published by NCBLG in 1986 that offered funding and support for the organization. With Joseph Beam as its editor, the magazine considered itself to be "the voice of a new movement of Black Lesbians and Gays" and a "revolutionary publication" in the face of discrimination.[5] It primarily focused on highlighting the erasure of black people from LGBT spaces, as well as offering discourse for race and sexual identity. The newsletter Habari-Habari predicated Black/OUT as a bimonthly publication beginning in 1980.[1]

Notable Members

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  1. ^ a b c d Alexander, Jonathan; Rhodes, Jacqueline (2015). Sexual Rhetoric: Methods, Identities, Publics. Routledge. p. 161.
  2. ^ Stewart, Charles (2014). Proud Heritage: People, Issues, and Documents of the LGBT Experience. ABC-CLIO. p. 18.
  3. ^ Rivers, Daniel Winunwe (2013). Radical Relations: Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and Their Children in the United States since World War II. UNC Press Books. p. 136.
  4. ^ Beemyn, Genny (2014). A Queer Capital: A History of Gay Life in Washington, Part 3. Routledge. p. 207.
  5. ^ "Black/Out Magazine" (PDF).