“Beyond the Closet: Reinventing African American Gay History, 1963-1988”
October 25, 2013
Dr.
Kevin Mumford, Professor of History at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, delivered a
phenomenal lecture to the guests of the Marcus Orr Center for the Humanities on
the topic of a
new framework for understanding the past of African American gay men. The lecture took
place on Thursday evening, October 24, at the University of
Memphis University Center Theatre.
Dr. Mumford began by stating
that just
before the full brunt of the AIDS crisis, a creative and courageous brotherhood
of activists, writers, and artists joined together in local organizations,
churches, and clubs to make their own history. The subject of black gay men has
been shrouded in secrecy or deemed too controversial. Even today, African
American history textbooks ignore the contributions of black gay men according
to Mumford. The recent push for gay marriage has pushed sexual equality into
the center of debate, and yet LGBT scholarship continues to marginalize people
of color. How were black gay men viewed, and how did they identify? Where did
black gay men find community, and what did they experience? What did black gay
men want, and how did they achieve it?
Mumford expertly attempted to hint at possible answers to
these questions and many more throughout his lecture. He explained the struggle
through which gay black man had to go through in society during times of the
civil war. He pointed out how gay black men were forced into hiding their
identity since disclosing such information was considered taboo by society.
These people were often the subject of humor and were not granted any rights or
responsibilities which they would otherwise entail. More often, these men hid
their sexuality in order to receive the little rights African Americans had at
the time. Dr. Mumford pointed out how an African American author can go as much
as getting his work established and even published on giving more rights to gay
black men. However, if it was openly found that the author himself was gay,
suddenly the audience changed their viewpoint of his works, even though
essentially nothing has changed. Just the fact that the author identified with
the gay community was enough to shun the viewers’ minds of any positive perceptions.
Mumford claimed this is one main reason why gay black men kept their identity
hidden.
Mumford’s talk went further into discussing topics of the
gay community today and how there is still numerous injustices and prejudices
which occur as a result of the sexuality of these men. Dr. Mumford described how
conceptions of respectable masculinity influenced the emergence of black gay
identities, arguing that the sexual revolution stimulated defensiveness or
homophobia, as well as increased erotic freedom in black America. He also
looked at the lives of key, understudied activists to explore the intricate
intersections among community, politics, and identity.
