INTRODUCTION
MY HEROES WERE HIDDEN FROM ME.
In school, I was forced to learn about this country’s “forefathers.” You know, the famous guys who came before us and supposedly built this country. There was George Washington, known as the most popular general of the American Revolution and first president of the United States. And there was Abraham Lincoln, famously known for “freeing the slaves” with the Emancipation Proclamation. The list goes on: Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and don’t even get me started on Thomas Jefferson.
As a kid, I saw Abraham Lincoln as a hero, my savior for ending American slavery, which ultimately allowed me to be in school alongside my white classmates 130 years later. But those lessons about the forefathers were just an indoctrination process. Textbooks, teachers, curriculums wanted us to think that our history was shaped only by white, heterosexual men who should be viewed (specifically by non-white kids) as our saviors. It wasn’t.
Despite seeing so few stories about people like me in our history, I still loved to learn and loved to read. So I soaked in all that I could at school, and at times I used the library to find knowledge that I couldn’t get in class or at home. My yearning to learn about my own Blackness was often unrelenting. Even back then, I think I knew that my ancestors were going to be part of my salvation and my purpose in adult life.
Which is likely why I was always so excited whenever Black History Month rolled around. That glorious month allowed me to immerse myself in my culture and learn the stories of people who shared my skin color. These were the stories of people who were alive alongside my grandparents and great-grandparents. These histories connected my present to the past. Black History Month introduced me to heroes I could easily connect to. Or did it?
Of course, we always talked about Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and other pillars of Black history. But there were also times—though not as often—when we got to learn about less famous heroes like Josephine Baker, Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin. Perhaps that’s because there is something very different about the first four people versus the later four. A difference that could have made all the difference to me: being Black and queer.
I often say that it is hard for someone to look in the mirror and see a reflection when they can’t see any reflections of themselves out in the world. That was my experience growing up. By the age of five, I knew I was different from all the other little boys in my class. My flamboyant mannerisms and my point of view just weren’t in line with the way society wants boys to act, talk, and dress. And with little access to the stories of Black queer people who came before me, I felt alone and unseen.
As a Black queer child, I had the right to know that Black queer people existed before me. I had the right to know that the things I was feeling and experiencing had been felt and lived by millions of others. They paved the road for me to walk on. Yet that road was hidden from me and so many others, obscured by a society that deemed any identity outside of heterosexuality to be nefarious. As a result, I felt unacceptable in society.
And society is still trying to block, hide, and steal our Black and queer stories. My debut young-adult memoir, All Boys Aren’t Blue, is currently one of the most banned and challenged books in the United States. It has been removed from library shelves in many school districts. It is not by chance but by design that Black queer stories are still being attacked and hidden away today.
Only in my late teens and well into my adulthood did I come to find out the truth about many of the people profiled in this book. And as I continue to look into the past, I’m discovering more and more people who were Black queer pioneers in a myriad of ways. Black queer people have always permeated every facet of life. Even when they were “closeted”—that is, even when they didn’t publicly share their full identity—they made a cultural impact during their lifetime that continues to be felt.
So many people try to say that queerness is some new phenomenon. The reality, however, is that queerness is as old as heterosexuality. And Blackness is inherently queer. You can’t have one that isn’t inclusive of the other. I like to operate under the Ghanaian principle of sankofa, which translates to “to go back and get it.” It’s a process of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present in order to make positive progress. That is what this book is. We can’t make positive progress as Black queer folks if we don’t tell the stories of Black queer folks before us—especially if those stories have been suppressed or told inaccurately.
I chose to write about the Harlem Renaissance because it has always been seen as one of the queerest historical periods. The Harlem Renaissance was a time when the Black community took great risks in the arts. Many icons of the Harlem Renaissance became worldwide phenoms, even if they never fully received their flowers here in the United States. Others, though, never got to see their names in bright lights or on book covers, despite changing the world for so many of us. This book celebrates their differences with the excitement and attention they have always deserved.
May the flamboyant Black and queer ancestors of the past be remembered for the light they shone during a time that forced them to live in the dark. Our Black and queer icons of the past should be hidden no more.
LANGSTON HUGHES
BORN: FEBRUARY 1, 1901, JOPLIN, MISSOURI
DIED: MAY 22, 1967, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
POET, PLAYWRIGHT, ACTIVIST, NOVELIST
I LOVE WRITING. I think I always knew that I would be a writer, or at minimum would one day have a story to tell. Writing is one of those things that can come in many different forms. Poems, music, essays, letters—each has a special ability to convey my feelings and opinions. When I think about Langston Hughes, a person who wrote in many different forms and styles, I think about what inspired me to uphold his legacy with this book. A book that honors him and other Black queer creatives from one of the most pivotal times in history.
Even with the minimal information I got at school during Black History Month, certain figures have always stayed in my memory bank. Langston was one of those figures, because I always felt connected to his poetry. It felt poignant but secretive at the same time. There was a softness and vulnerability to his writing, which always made me wonder if there was more to his story. More to the lens through which he saw the world. Maybe in looking at him, I wondered if he and I saw the world through the same set of lenses—Black and queer.
But before we get into it, I think it’s important to address some scrutiny around Langston’s identity. There has been much debate about his sexuality. Most scholars believe that he was, in fact, queer. Although no partner, man or woman, has ever been linked to him, his writing often alluded to homosexuality and some of his experiences within it. Many of his friends, who were also prominent folks of that time, were indeed queer.
Langston’s life speaks evidently to the history of Black queerness. I know what it feels like to be a closeted queer person, or non-public about my sexuality and identity. Being closeted often meant sacrificing my true happiness in order to survive and stay safe. Until I was about twenty-seven years old, I didn’t publicly identify as gay. I finally did so in an article I wrote.
James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in 1901 to James Hughes and Caroline Mercer Langston—hence his name, which he shortened to just Langston Hughes. After separating from his mother, his father moved to Mexico, stating he was tired of the racism he faced in America. Langston’s mother would often leave him for long periods in order to work, so he was primarily raised by his grandmother, Mary Patterson Langston.
It’s interesting how relatable this piece of his story is for me and many others. Although I had both parents at home, my parents worked a lot, too. So my grandmother, whom I called Nanny, was my main caregiver for many years. And just like Nanny, I love how it is said that Langston’s grandmother instilled in him the power of oral traditions—the passing down of history, art, culture, and storytelling from generation to generation through vocal communication. She also taught him how important it is to help your community, take pride in being Black, and always support those who have less than you. In reading about Langston’s life, I felt like a damn mirror was being held up to my face and my own experiences. I was taught the same values he was taught.
A rift developed between Langston and his father after his father left the United States. However, Langston found his love of writing during this time. He began writing poetry in junior high and high school. It is said that while he attended Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio, his teacher Helen Maria Chesnutt pushed him to be a writer. He wrote for his high school paper, and even began writing plays and poetry.
When it came time for Langston to go to college, he was met with an ultimatum. James Hughes was a lawyer and believed that Langston should go to school for engineering, despite his gifts as a writer. He agreed to pay for college, but only if Langston studied engineering.
I can relate to this, as I think many teenagers can. My father wasn’t as bad as Langston’s. For starters, he was around and showed his love for me in many ways. But he did want me to go to a local community college instead of leaving town. Sometimes parents think they know what is best; many times they do, but not always. Despite my father’s wishes, I got my way. And so did Langston—sort of. He agreed to study engineering, but only if he could go to Columbia University.
Langston started his engineering studies at Columbia in 1921, but he continued writing under a pen name. The following year, he left school due to the immense racism he was receiving from classmates. He was also not allowed to live on campus. After he left Columbia, he found solace in the nearby neighborhood of Harlem, where he felt at home within its Blackness and culture.
Although the Harlem Renaissance is seen as one of the queerest periods in Black History, especially in the United States, it doesn’t mean that said queerness was accepted. I think grudging tolerance better describes what queer people experienced during that time. I can only imagine that Langston, who became a leader in the Harlem Renaissance, never felt the space or security to be publicly queer. There were reasons—both internal and external—informing his decision to obscure his sexuality.
Despite this, he carved a pathway for Black thought, ideas, and creativity. Langston was a college professor, mentor, activist, bestselling poetry writer, playwright, and cultural thought leader. One of my favorite poems by him is “Let America Be America Again.” It is an amazing dual-point-of-view poem about the founding ideology of America versus the reality of the American experience for several groups of people. It’s an especially interesting poem for our era because of its contrasting ideas to former president Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” The question is, Great for whom?
You see, America has been great for neither Black folks, nor queer folks (and not always great for immigrants, especially non-white ones), and has fooled impoverished whites into thinking people of other races or ethnic origins are their enemies. So when I hear the slogan “Make America Great Again,” I have to ask what period of American history it is referencing. The period where land was taken from Indigenous people? The periods of slavery and Jim Crow? Our time of extreme anti-LGBTQIA+ bias and hatred?
And here we have Langston Hughes, criticizing these very notions way back in 1936 for Esquire magazine, where the poem was published during the Great Depression. But that’s who he was. Poignant and honest. And I could sit here and probably write a whole book analyzing his work, but this book is about introducing him to you with the hope that you will go out and learn more about him and others of his time. I hope he will inspire you to write more. Speak more. Do more.
Throughout history, people have fought against the truth, trying to hide it or erase it from history. Some people have tried to deny and rewrite the history of slavery in the United States. Others are Holocaust deniers, who, from the moment it happened to this very day, have tried to lie about what the Nazis did.
These lies are self-serving and hurt us all. The rewriting of our history denies our humanity. It severs our links to the past and allows people in power to deny how those events play a role in every system of oppression we face today. It’s why we must remain vigilant in telling the truth and, even more so, correcting the lies of the past in an effort to change our futures.
My favorite piece that Langston ever wrote is an essay titled “Spectacles in Color” from his first autobiography, The Big Sea. I was an adult when I first read the essay. It discussed a ball he attended during the 1920s “where the men dress[ed] as women and the women dress[ed] as men.” He noted how people paid money to come and watch the “spectacle”—that it was more celebrated as a part of culture than shunned.
This blew my mind. I was introduced to Ballroom culture around 2006, through a college friend. We would go to watch the “Houses”—family-style groups with “mothers,” “fathers,” and “kids.” The Houses are typically named after iconic fashion houses, like Gucci or Balenciaga. But it wasn’t until 2014 that I became more involved with Ballroom, helping to put on balls, befriending many in the community, and pitching in with their advocacy efforts. And now I am a member of the House of Comme des Garçons.
I watched the documentary Paris Is Burning, which covers many of the House leaders of the late 1980s and early ’90s. In 2018, the award-winning show Pose debuted, giving us an even deeper look into the world of Ballroom in New York City during that same period. A few years later, the show Legendary aired, which depicts what the current Ballroom competitions look like. And the award-winning documentary KiKi highlighted a growing part of the Ballroom scene in the 2000s until today.
So when I learned that Ballroom dated back to the late 1800s, I was inspired to carry the baton, to tell readers more about our legacy and culture. There is something beautiful about Langston Hughes capturing a firsthand experience of Black queerness and making sure it was recorded. Specifically, because of him, we know more about our truth.
And that’s the saddest part about our history whether it be Black history, queer history, or Black queer history. Approximately ten million Black people were enslaved in this country, yet we have fewer than six thousand recorded accounts of their lives. I often wonder how many of those accounts were from a Black queer perspective. We know only the stories we know. We know some stories only because people like Langston spoke up about the truth in the face of criticism. This is the same work that Black storytellers are doing today. This is why our books continue to be banned. Truth-telling has never been safe for us. But it has always been necessary.
When I wrote my debut memoir, All Boys Aren’t Blue, I had the ability to write my truth with the full color and texture that many of my ancestors and heroes were denied. I documented my Blackness and my queerness and their intersection in my own words. I think of Flamboyants as an expansion not only of Langston’s essay “Spectacles in Color” but also of his entire life’s work. And one day, someone else’s work will be the expansion of mine. To me, that is spiritual and ancestral work. Living through one another’s time.
That’s how oral and written traditions operate. They’ve been one of our greatest tools for liberation.
Whenever I need affirmation, I return to “Dreams,” one of Langston’s most quoted poems.
It speaks so perfectly about life in the imaginative. For me, imagination is where Black freedom resides. In the space of our imagination, we get to create worlds for ourselves outside our oppression. We get to play out our dreams before manifesting them in the real world. Dreams keep us alive.
Langston was a true dreamer. It’s reflected throughout all of his work. His poems and essays on love and queerness showcase what the world could be without societal constraints. His criticisms of the time he lived in were a challenge to the oppressor. And his contributions to the arts inspire us to use our words, create our own dreams, and build an America where one day we can all live freely.
COUNTEE CULLEN
BORN: MAY 30, 1903, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
DIED: JANUARY 9, 1946, NEW YORK CITY
WRITER FOR CHILDREN, POET, NOVELIST, PLAYWRIGHT
“MY GOD TODAY,” as the kids would say. Countee Cullen most certainly lived an interesting life. Where to begin? I could start with how I fell in love with his poetic style. Or even how the interconnectedness of Black culture would eventually lead Countee to becoming a teacher for a young James Baldwin, another Black queer icon in his own right. Or I could start with the one story that continues to gag us all. Did you really marry that woman knowing you were a gay man in front of folks who also knew your business?
I’ll start with the basics. Countee (who pronounced his name as Coun-tay) had many talents, including being a poet, novelist, and playwright. He was one of the most well-known writers during the Harlem Renaissance. Folks who knew him personally said he was extremely intelligent, having graduated from New York University and been selected as one of eleven members for Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest honor society in the United States. He went on to receive a master’s degree from Harvard University. All these accomplishments made him an example of “Black excellence,” a concept that will come into play later.
His work was part of the Negritude movement, which focused on discovering Black values and raising Black people’s awareness of their place in society—and which was a driving force for many writers during the Harlem Renaissance. In reading his work, I found it interesting how he believed race relations between whites and Blacks needed to improve but placed some of that burden on Black folks—as if to say our assimilation into American identity was as important or more important than owning our Negro identity. I don’t believe the oppressed are responsible for fixing relations with their oppressor. We are not the creators of racism, nor do we have power within racist structures. We shouldn’t be expected to extend an olive branch to fix it.
That said, I do love his most well-known work, “The Ballad of the Brown Girl.” It won him several awards and deservedly so. In the fifty stanzas of the poem, he painted an entire movie. I can see why W. E. B. Du Bois loved his writing, too. It spoke to an elite space that some Blacks occupied. It was opulent and jubilant. However, folks like Langston Hughes had very real concerns about affluent Black leaders like Countee Cullen and W. E. B. Du Bois focusing their art only on the opulence of Blackness, and pushing others to do the same. Langston was like me in wanting Black art to be encompassing of the entire Black experience—the good, bad, and in between.
Part of that in between was Countee’s sexuality. Outside of literary debates, he was dealing with his own identity crisis. And because Countee was part of the Black elites of his day, he had to process questions about his sexuality while also being a leader in a heteronormative society.
Fortunately for him, friendship and support were found in one of the greatest Black philosophers of that time, Alain Locke. I talk more about him later in this book, but that’s the beauty of the Harlem Renaissance: how connected everyone was during that period.
It is said that Alain was like a mentor to Countee, helping him recognize who he truly was early in life. He supported Countee through the process of accepting his love for men. This isn’t to say that Countee didn’t also have a love for women—only that the societal pressure of heterosexuality and his love of women didn’t negate his feelings toward men. The juxtaposition of Black excellence against his identity influenced him throughout his life.
Text copyright © 2024 by George M. Johnson
Art copyright © 2024 by Charly Palmer
