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Black, Queer, and Blessed: Toward a Biblically Based Black, Queer Narrative of Leadership

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Black, Queer, and Blessed: Toward a Biblically Based Black, Queer Narrative of Leadership University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2017 Black, Queer, and Blessed: Toward a Biblically Based Black, Queer Narrative of Leadership Arthur Leon Tredwell University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the African American Studies Commons, Biblical Studies Commons, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons Recommended Citation Tredwell, Arthur Leon, "Black, Queer, and Blessed: Toward a Biblically Based Black, Queer Narrative of Leadership" (2017). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1363. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1363 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. Black, Queer, and Blessed: Toward a Biblically Based Black, Queer Narrative of Leadership A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology Joint PhD Program University of Denver In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Arthur Leon Tredwell November 2017 Advisor: Dr. Arthur Jones Author: Arthur Leon Tredwell Title: Black, Queer, and Blessed: Toward a Biblically Based Black, Queer Narrative of Leadership Advisor: Dr. Arthur Jones Degree Date: November 2017 Abstract This dissertation focuses on the evolution of traditional African-American religious leadership as it evolved during the first half of the twentieth century. It traces the two primary models of Black religious leadership that emerged from White, cis, benevolent and dominating models of patriarchy. This task is accomplished primarily through a survey of the ministries of Adam Clayton Powell Sr. and Jr. (1908–1970) and their consecutive sixty years of ministry at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Harlem, New York. It intentionally engages the issue of homophobia, demonstrating how it operates in Black churches generationally. Determining these historical patriarchal models of leadership to be inadequate, the dissertation proposes a new model of leadership: Black, queer, inspired leadership. It constructs this new model of leadership by identifying six major attributes. These attributes are self-knowledge, discernment, agency, creativity, liminality, and power tempered by compassion. These six attributes surface through a juxtaposition of the leadership qualities of two queer males of African descent, Bayard Rustin of the Civil Rights Movement (1954–1968) and Ebed-Melech, servant to King Zedekiah at the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, two men whose lived experiences are separated by more than twenty-five hundred years. Each man, in his own social orbit, experiences the impact of “othering” in response to his ethnicity and sexual expression. ii Both men are Black and queer. Yet, despite the negative hegemonic forces that each encounters, each man attains an undeniably high degree of self-actualization. Given their empowerment, each man moves to exercise his individual agency toward an act of appreciable social change, acts that they determined or felt they were uniquely positioned to fulfill. The biblical exposition of Ebed-Melech, his rescue of the prophet Jeremiah, and his blessing from the divine disrupts the negative biblical stance toward queer people and suggests that, in fact, they are a blessed people. This points us toward a biblically based Black, queer narrative of leadership. It may, at some future point, bring us to a Black, queer theology, but that is not the purpose of this project. Our focus is to disrupt the viability of the two dominating leadership models by proposing a third. To the extent that Western biblical interpretation has prejudiciously minimalized the significance of Ebed- Melech’s contributions, this dissertation seeks to serve as a corrective. iii Table of Contents Black, Queer, and Blessed: Toward a Biblically Based Black, Queer Narrative of Leadership ..................................... i Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Black, Queer, and Blessed: Toward a Biblically Based Black, Queer Narrative of Leadership .................................... 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Summarizing Black Heterosexual Love ................................................................. 2 Homophobia in the Historical Black Church and the Black Community ............... 5 Social Location and Autobiographical Sketch ........................................................ 7 Hermeneutics and Theorists .................................................................................. 11 The Black Hermeneutic ............................................................................ 11 Postcolonial Hermeneutic ......................................................................... 14 Chapter 1: Of the Adam Clayton Powell Dynasty and Homophobia in High Places ....... 15 Dynastic Overview................................................................................................ 17 Biographical Sketch of Adam Clayton Powell Sr................................................. 18 Toward a Contextual Overview of Powell Sr.’s Times ........................................ 21 Black Bodies, Male and Female Sites for Violence and Terror ............... 24 Tensions of Migration ............................................................................... 27 New York and Harlem: Blackness and Class ........................................... 34 Blues Women ............................................................................................ 35 The Homosexual Blues ............................................................................. 37 From Father to Son ............................................................................................... 44 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement ....................... 54 A Public Statement ................................................................................... 57 In Summary ........................................................................................................... 59 Analysis..................................................................................................... 61 Chapter 2: Of Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King, and Initiating Social Change ........... 64 Early Protests, Incarcerations, and Lessons Learned ............................................ 64 Rustin, the Montgomery Movement, and Advising Dr. King .............................. 69 Rustin and King on the Down Low ...................................................................... 77 Returning to the Rustin/King Bromance............................................................... 80 Separating the Inseparable .................................................................................... 93 The March on Washington.................................................................................... 97 Chapter 3: Of Ebed-Melech, the Prophet, and the King ................................................... 99 Subjugated Religious Textual History .................................................................. 99 Grappling for a Contextual Framework .............................................................. 101 Self-Love............................................................................................................. 104 iv Ebed-Melech’s Agency ....................................................................................... 109 Defining the Queer .............................................................................................. 115 Advising the King ............................................................................................... 118 Admonishing the Princes .................................................................................... 122 Advancing Liberation ......................................................................................... 124 Attaining the Boon and the Blessing .................................................................. 127 Yahweh and Ebed-Melech on the Down Low .................................................... 131 Of Ebed-Melech .................................................................................................. 134 Six Attributes of Black, Queer, Inspired Leadership .......................................... 135 Self-knowledge ....................................................................................... 135 Discernment ............................................................................................ 136 Agency .................................................................................................... 137 Creativity................................................................................................. 139 Liminality ................................................................................................ 140 Power Tempered by Compassion ........................................................... 141 Analysis............................................................................................................... 141 Chapter 4: Of Appreciable Social
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