Upending the “Racial Death-Wish”: Black Gay Liberation and the Culture of Black Homophobia
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UPENDING THE “RACIAL DEATH-WISH”: BLACK GAY LIBERATION AND THE CULTURE OF BLACK HOMOPHOBIA A Thesis presented to the Faculty of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History by Kailyn Pope June 2021 © 2021 Kailyn Pope ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP TITLE: Upending the “Racial Death-Wish”: Black Gay Liberation and the Culture of Black Homophobia AUTHOR: Kailyn Pope DATE SUBMITTED: June 2021 COMMITTEE CHAIR: Andrew Morris, Ph.D. Professor of History COMMITTEE MEMBER: Kathleen Cairns, Ph.D. Lecturer Emeritus of History COMMITTEE MEMBER: Thomas Trice, Ph.D. Associate Professor of History iii ABSTRACT Upending the “Racial Death-Wish”: Black Gay Liberation and the Culture of Black Homophobia Kailyn Pope This thesis analyzes the origin and impact of Black homophobia found in activist spaces of mid- to late-twentieth-century American society. Black gay Americans were subjected to intersecting forms of systemic and cultural oppression that were exceedingly hard to escape due to both the homophobia in Black spaces and the racism in gay spaces. Black gay activists and artists thus had to create their own avenues of expression where they and others could fully embrace what it meant to be Black and gay. This work utilizes a Black feminist framework to explore the roots of Black homophobia and how this type of bigotry was able to so deeply infiltrate Black activist spaces like the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party. Black homophobia originated as a response to White supremacist domination of the Black body, and was able to spread through the community for generations through paths such as hypermasculinity, the Black church, and misogynoir. The experiences and voices of Black gay activists and artists are at the forefront of this work in an effort to shine a light on a group often overlooked by Black history and LGBTQ history alike. This thesis works to fill in one of the many gaps present in the historiography pertaining to Black gay life in America, though more contributions can and should be made in order to shift the field away from its historic focus on the White gay male. An investigation of Black gay exclusion from Black and gay activist spaces offers valuable insight into how Black gay activists and artists persevered and cultivated their own spheres of inclusion within a society that fundamentally opposed virtually every part of their identities. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I must extend my deepest gratitude toward Dr. Andrew Morris for supporting me and my research for years and giving me the confidence to believe that my ideas are worth listening to. I am also indebted to Dr. Kathleen Cairns, Dr. Thomas Trice, and Dr. Gregory Domber for the guidance and inspiration they have afforded me in the time I have had the pleasure of knowing them. This thesis would, genuinely, not have been possible without the support of my family and friends, who showed me the utmost patience and generosity during this process. Mom and Dad, thank you for always being in my corner and already knowing the answer to the question, “Why are you up at one in the morning?” without even having to ask me. I must also thank my girlfriend Lilia for sticking by me throughout the most challenging year of my life and providing me with unwavering love and reassurance. To all the heroes past who never had a chance to be their true selves anywhere but in their own hearts and minds: I know you, I see you, and I love you. This is my love letter to the Black LGBTQ community, past and present. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................. vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 An Introduction to Black Feminist Thought ......................................................................... 3 1.2 Further State of the Field .......................................................................................................... 6 1.3 Thesis Overview ..................................................................................................................... 14 2. POSTWAR GAY LIFE, ORGANIZATION, AND THE ISSUE OF BLACK PRESENCE ...................................................................................................................................... 17 2.1 Postwar Homophobia ............................................................................................................. 18 2.2 Pre-Stonewall Gay Organization .......................................................................................... 25 2.3 The Gay Liberation Front and Black Presence ................................................................... 34 3. BLACK SPACES, BLACK EXCLUSION ............................................................................... 40 3.1 Black Politics and Gay Liberation ........................................................................................ 42 3.2 Homophobia in the Civil Rights Movement ....................................................................... 46 3.3 Homophobia in the Black Panther Party ............................................................................. 52 4. BLACK HOMOPHOBIA AND THE LIMITS OF LIBERATION ...................................... 60 4.1 The Black Church and Constraints on Black Sexuality ..................................................... 63 4.2 Implications of Panther Misogynoir ..................................................................................... 67 4.3 Misogyny and Homophobia ................................................................................................. 72 4.4 Black Masculinity, Black Homophobia............................................................................... 75 5. FINDING THE WORDS ............................................................................................................... 85 5.1 Early Black Gay Artists ......................................................................................................... 89 5.2 Implications of Panther Misogynoir ..................................................................................... 91 5.3 Misogyny and Homophobia ................................................................................................. 97 6. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 101 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 105 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Ernestine Eckstein in a picket line ...............................................................................31 2. Ernestine Eckstein on the cover of The Ladder, 1966 .................................................31 3. Huey P. Newton ...........................................................................................................71 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION On February 5th, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom posthumously pardoned civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who was arrested on a “morals charge” in 1953 after police observed him engaging in consensual sex with another man. As part of a new clemency initiative, Newsom recognized that such laws had historically been used as “tools of oppression” in order to punish and terrorize LGBTQ individuals in America, and thanked those who rallied to right this “egregious wrong” against Rustin.1 Rustin suffered the consequences of being both Black and gay in the twentieth-century United States, and his life was spent with a palpable distance between himself and the very movement he helped cultivate.2 The Civil Rights era proved a tumultuous one for others who found themselves at this same crossroads, alienated from many aspects of society due to their race and sexual “habit,” a word used by many in the mid-twentieth century to underline their perception of the unnatural existence of homosexuality.3 Tensions came to a head when police raided the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village of New York City on June 28th, 1969, sparking strife among LGBTQ communities not only in New York, but across the nation. While some scholars of gay history, such as Martin Duberman, posit Stonewall as the beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement, this conclusion does 1 Phil Willon, “Newsom Grants Posthumous Pardon to Civil Rights Leader Bayard Rustin,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 5, 2020, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-05/newsom- bayard-rustin-pardon-lgbtq-people-clemency-discriminatory-laws. 2 John D’Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 5-6. 3 George W. Crane, “The Worry Clinic,” The Daily Record (Dunn, North Carolina), Apr. 14, 1953. 1 not tell the full story.4 Gay rights activism existed in the United States before Stonewall, but it was characteristically exclusive of Black gay experiences. Leaving out these previous efforts to organize from a broader narrative of gay liberation ignores the Black exclusion that occurred pre-Stonewall.5 In 1979, James Baldwin reflected on the racism within the Gay Rights Movement in an address to the New York chapter of what would become the National Association of Black and White Men Together, stating that White gays were “unable