Can we talk bout how the 60s were gay ASF and most of the black leaders we look up to were queer???? A Thread:

1: Bayard Rustin the openly gay Civil Rights Activist, who taught and was the right-hand man MLK Jr., and organized the March on Washington...almost written out of history and the movement because of him being openly gay

2: Malcolm X, now this may hit hard but my man was a Bi Black King! Very little is known bout his bisexuality he wasn’t out bout it, a US liberation icon but black history (even among ourselves) erases that from us

3: Angela Davis, the iconic political activist, came out in 1997. A pillar in the Black Feminist movement and to this day, she brings to the world what men couldn’t or wouldn’t

4: Lorraine Hansberry, the phenomenal playwright, was a HUGE advocate for LGBT and sexual advocacy rights, she never came out and was married, but many black readers and digesters of her works think she may have been closeted

5: Billy Strayhorn, a !genius! and gifted composer who was openly gay which led to him not gettin his flowers when he was alive

6: Barbara Jordan, the first Black person to be elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction, first Southern Black Woman to be elected to the US House of Representatives, and many more. Never came out and never spoke of her 20 year relationships with partner Nancy Earl

7: Audre Lorde, the self-described, “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” and GENIUS was a woman who spoke about classism, sexism, homophobia, racism, you name it! And gave us ourstandin books like The Black Unicorn, The Cancer Journals, Uses of the Erotic, etc

8: James Baldwin, YES HE WAS GAY! He was to simply put, like all the people in this thread....a genius and I can’t stress it enough. A writer, an amazing orator, a great debater. He gave us books like Giovanni’s Room, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Another Country, and MORE!

9: Alvin Ailey, the man who bought Black American life into dance! His technique involved and infused black livelihood and culture into every inch of his performances which had whites upset! He was a game changer

10: Marsha P. Johnson, one of the central figures and leaders of the Stonewall Riots, she helped start the movement alongside other women of color to start and push the LGBT movement. She and Sylvia Rivera created STAR for young trans women and drag queens

11: Josephine Baker, was a civil rights activist, French Resistance agent, and a world entertainer. Leavin America for Europe, she said she didn’t want to live in a place where she was “afraid to be her black”, spoke out about Jim Crow and segregation, and is a world activist!