What To Read This Black History Month

October is Black History Month and even though we’re over halfway through there’s still time to get stuck into some great reads by fantastic black LGBT writers. From recent Man Booker Prize Winner, Marlon James, to Alice Walker, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Colour Purple, black LGBT writers have it covered. Josh Lee provides some of his top picks to get stuck into.

 


The Autobiography
Redefining Realness:
My Path To Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
Janet Mock, 2014

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the T in LGBT exists at all. For non-trans people (or cisgender people as we’re known), the experiences of trans people have been at best an after-thought or punchline, at worse an excuse for horrendous violence. Mock knows this, and her writing is all the more strongminded for it. There’s not much more breathtaking than reading a story the world has done it’s best to silence; and even as she navigates trauma, harassment and a vulnerability that few of us could ever imagine, Mock’s resolve to thrive on her own terms continues to shine through.


The Novel
Giovanni’s Room
James Baldwin, 1956

Baldwin’s pioneering second novel follows David, a young American who, in the absence of girlfriend Hella, discovers a new kind of desire in Italian lover Giovanni. David’s longing to live a “normal life” clashes beautifully with the intense passion of his affair with Giovanni. It’s a remarkably self-aware novel, and Baldwin doesn’t shy away from documenting the way gay and bisexual men mistreat women – a point that’s still hugely relevant today.

Interestingly, David is depicted as a white man. Many critics have tried to explain this, and while some suggest that it was done to “simplify” an already complex issue of sexuality, one interpretation that I love is that David and Giovanni’s doomed relationship represents the broken relationship between white and black America.


The Poem
To FS
Langston Hughes, 1925

I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There is nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began, —
I loved my friend.

Though Hughes never publically announced his sexuality, it’s more or less agreed that the American poet was gay. The love he felt towards men in his life was often written in more subtle terms – just like in ‘To FS’, which is thought to be about Ferdinand Smith, a Jamaican sailor he met in the 1920s.

Whilst Hughes is perhaps better known for his poems that deal with race in America, this is my personal favourite because it represents the need to express love in a world that forbids it. In just 26 words it says everything about the pain of losing someone who means the world to you.  Hughes’ body of work is huge, so don’t stop here; get on Google and check out more from one of the most important black voices of the 20th century.


The Play
A Raisin In The Sun
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry, 1957

There’s no higher praise than being the inspiration for Nina Simone’s “Young, Gifted And Black”. Hansberry, the first black woman to have a play performed on Broadway, was more than deserving of those bragging rights. A Raisin In The Sun opens with the Youngers family about to receive a $10,000 life insurance payout after the death of the family patriarch, Mr Youngers. Each of the family’s adult children has a totally different idea of how to spend the money – each a way to escape poverty.

Racism is at the centre of the play, and you come away knowing that no amount of money can buy the family out of suffering at the hands at white supremacy. The Youngers can only really depend on each other – and as they experience betrayal, rejection and theft, they come to realise this for themselves. Like Langston Hughes, Hansberry was never “out”, but it’s widely believed that she was a lesbian, with secret letters providing lots of evidence to support this so much so she was posthumously inducted into the Chicago Gay And Lesbian Hall Of Fame in 1999.

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