Being Black And Gay In Los Angeles

"There was a time, my uncle Syl [a retired actor in Black Gay Hollywood] once told me, when gay men in Los Angeles lived as much, if not more, on the margins as black folks. But if things got too hot, white gays always had the option to go back into the closet, back to passing themselves off as masters of the universe. Not so their black counterparts, who at the end of the day were still black, still on the outside looking in."--LAPD detective Charlotte Justice (fictional character), from Inner City Blues by Paula L. Woods (W.W. Norton, 1999), Page 269.

I am always amazed that black women writers like Paula L. Woods and Gloria Naylor are more open to including black gay and lesbian characters in their fiction than many of their black male peers.

Essex Hemphill, A Remembrance

I encountered the poet Essex Hemphill's writing in 1983. That was when I read his essay, "I am a Homosexual" in the November Men's Issue of Essence, a black women's magazine. (I later reprinted this piece in Fighting Words: Essays by Black Gay Men, an anthology I edited that was published in 1999 by Avon Books/HarperCollins.) I was very impressed  and moved by his straightforward and unapologetic stance on being a black  gay man. I immediately wrote to him at the address that appeared at the end of the essay. I requested an interview, possibly for publication in the New York Native, a weekly gay newspaper. Essex wrote back and included in the package two issues of the black culture magazine Nethula Journal, which he no longer co- published, and two limited-edition boxed chapbooks (Diamonds Was in the Kitty and Plums). Each chapbook came with a certificate of authenticity, signed and numbered by Essex.

Although I never got to do the interview, I did get the opportunity to publish his poetry a short time  later, along with the work of four other poets, in a special black gay supplement in the Native called "Celebrating Ourselves." (The title was suggested by Melvin Dixon, one of the other poets in it.) The rest of the supplement consisted of essays by Joseph Beam, David Frechette, Craig G. Harris, and others, most of whom are now deceased. 

I also got the chance to hear Essex read his poetry in the flesh at Hunter College in New York and at the Friends Center in Philadelphia. At the New York reading (which I think he shared with the lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde), he went on stage after leaving a nearby men's room where he vomited up a tainted tuna sandwich he bought at the train station in D.C. A real trouper,  Essex gave, as always, a marvelous performance. 

At the Philadelphia reading in 1985, he shared the program with the black lesbian poet Pat Parker. As Essex read his poetry, he stood barefoot at the podium before a gathering of attentive, admiring listeners. His barefoot performance brought to mind those members of my mother's Pentecostal church in Harlem, who, feeling right at home, would walk around the church and among the pews in their stockinged feet. Another fond memory that night was his reading of "Black Beans," a celebration of romantic black gay love.

After the Philadelphia reading, which Joe Beam had invited me to, he led a group of us to a restaurant in nearby Chinatown. Those at the table were Joe; Colin Robinson, a New York writer of Trinidadian heritage; Essex; two other men; and myself. Later we went to a bar/disco called the Smart Place, which primarily catered to a black gay clientele. At the club Joe asked if I wanted to dance. I told him no. From there, the four of us went back to Joe's tiny apartment in the Center City section of Philadelphia. Joe told us that the area was called The Merry-Go-Round because of the constant gay cruising that went on at night. At the apartment, Essex, Colin, and I stayed overnight. Essex and Joe slept on one side of the room, Colin and I on the other.

The next day Essex and Colin left Philly for D.C. and New York respectively. I stayed in town a little while longer. That gave Joe enough time to introduce me to the owner of Giovanni's Room, the gay bookstore where he worked and discovered my writing in the pages of the New York Native. (The bookstore sold the Native each week.) When we got back to his apartment, he let me leaf through the manuscript of In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology, to which I had contributed an article about the Harlem Renaissance writer and artist Richard Bruce Nugent. I remember Joe, who was the book's editor, asking me before letting me touch the manuscript, "Are your hands clean?"

Before Essex and Colin left Philly, we ate at a nearby black-run restaurant. I had scrambled eggs and hash brown potatoes, which Colin paid for. I clearly remember Essex, upon hearing one of the women behind the counter singing, say appreciatively, "Go on and sing it, sister!" As we left the restaurant, Essex gave me a copy of his third chapbook Earth Life. I still have it. Alas, I neglected to have him sign it. But its importance to me has not been diminished.

 In the years since Essex's death in 1995, his name has popped up in several books. One of those books is a Felice Picano novel called The Book of Lies. It's loosely based on the members of the Violet Quill, a real-life white gay literary group that included Picano. In the novel, a character recalled the time in the 1980s when "Essex Hemphill had come up from DC" to do a reading at the Gay Community Center in New York. The character also stated that at the reading "Essex was still doing his fire and brimstone act." Picano's characterization does Essex's memory a disservice. It makes Essex sound like a demagogue, an approach that would have turned off many black gay men. Instead, his eloquent, healing words boosted the morale and self-esteem of black gay men, thereby making him the foremost black gay poet in America, whose work has been widely anthologized and celebrated.

Note: I wrote this essay for Art Mugs the Reaper, an unpublished anthology of literary and visual work by gay men who had died of AIDS. Each individual's work was to be accompanied by a biographical essay. Unfortunately, the editor of the collection, Jeffrey Lilly, a gay San Francisco poet, who had battled health challenges over the years, died in 2019.

This essay, written in December 2000, appears here with several changes to the original text.

A Harlem Renaissance Novel Becomes A Musical

One of the many books from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s that I need to read is George Schuyler's Black No More. It is described as a satirical novel in which, writes historian David Levering Lewis in When Harlem Was in Vogue (Vintage Books, 1982), "Dr. Junius Crookman, an Afro-American scientist, invents a process--'by electrical nutrition and glandular control'--which turns dark skin white and crinkly hair straight."

The book was recently adapted into an off-Broadway musical, complete with choreography by the renowned Bill T. Jones.

Schuyler, a black conservative, and his white wife, were the parents of a biracial child, Philippa, who became a piano prodigy. Joseph Mitchell of the New Yorker magazine wrote two lengthy profiles of Philippa in the 1940s when she was still a child. In 1967, covering the Vietnam War as a photojournalist, she was killed in a helicopter crash.

For a time there was talk of turning her life story into a feature-length movie, with singer Alicia Keys, herself a piano prodigy, portraying Philippa.

Remembering Archivist Thomas Wirth (1938-2014)

I recently read on science fiction writer Samuel Delany's Facebook page that Thomas Wirth, who was an independent scholar, book collector, and publisher, had died. His death occurred in October 2014, at the age of 76.

The first and only time I ever saw Wirth in person was in 1990 when he did a talk at the now-defunct Home to Harlem gift shop on 125th Street in Harlem. It was run by Kevin  McGruder, who later became an author as well as a historian and professor.

Wirth's talk focused on Fire!!, a short-lived magazine that Richard Bruce Nugent collaborated on with fellow writers Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman in 1926, and which Wirth reprinted. (Wirth became friends with Nugent and later was appointed the executor of Nugent's literary estate.)

I mentioned this bit of Harlem Renaissance history in my article about Nugent for In the Life, the 1986 anthology edited by Joseph Beam.

Wirth, it should be noted, is responsible for editing a collection of Nugent's writings called Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance (Duke University Press, 2002) and for the publication of Gentleman Jigger, Nugent's novel, written during the days of the Harlem Renaissance (Da Capo Press, 2008).

From Wirth's online obituary, I learned that he "selected historian Kevin McGruder to assume ownership and administration of The Fire!! Press."

In the seven years since Wirth's death, I haven't seen or heard anything about publications from this press. Let's hope there will be very soon.

Mislabeling Richard Wright's Bigger Thomas

Here is how Claudia Roth Pierpont described Richard Wright's Native Son protagonist, the ill-fated Bigger Thomas, in an essay on James Baldwin--"A Negro rapist and murderer" who "raped and murdered a white woman." (The essay appears in her book, American Rhapsody: Writers, Musicians, Movie Stars, and One Great Building (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2016.)

Anyone who has ever read Native Son knows that Bigger Thomas murdered but did not rape the daughter of his white employer. (He also killed his girlfriend.) In fact, the murder of the daughter was unintentional, caused by fear rather than malice. (He later incinerates the body to cover up the killing.)

I would advise Ms. Pierpont to re-read the book.

Remembering Novelist/Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison

Earlier this week, Toni Morrison died at age 88. My longtime friend, Armando Alleyne, an artist who lives in Brooklyn, sent me a text message regarding her passing:

"A great great sister scholar professor and Pulitzer Prize winner has moved on [.] Toni Morrison I pray that she's in the angel wings in the great great palace [.]"

(Sent @ 04:54 AM, 08/07/2019)

I responded:

"I heard the sad news of Toni Morrison's passing. I have three of her books [Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved]. Maybe we should honor her by reading one of her books."

(Sent @ 03:12 PM, 08/07/2019)


R.I.P. Toni Morrison (1931-2019).

Commemorating James Baldwin's Birthday

Yesterday, August 2nd, as I walked near the world-famous Apollo Theatre, its electronic marquee reminded me that it was James Baldwin's birthday. The fiery novelist/essayist, a son of Harlem, would have been 95 years old this year.

If Baldwin were still alive, no doubt his voice and pen would be highly critical of the Trump administration as well as the white supremacist alt-right movement, who are among Trump's avid supporters. And no doubt Trump would be on Twitter criticizing, perhaps ridiculing, Baldwin's comments. But Trump would be no match for Baldwin's eloquence and penetrating intellect.

The Return of "Native Son" (On Screen)

Another screen version of Richard Wright's 1940 best seller, Native Son, is scheduled for release, per Entertainment Weekly ( Fall Movie Preview, Special Double Issue, August 17/24, 2018). It stars newcomer KiKi Layne, who presumably plays Bigger Thomas's girlfriend Bessie and Ashton Sanders (Moonlight), who presumably plays Bigger. No other information about the production was provided.

Previous versions came out in 1986 and 1950. The latter version starred Richard Wright himself as Bigger Thomas. (Clips from that film appeared in a public television documentary about Wright.)

Of the 1986 version, Leonard Maltin's 2006 Movie Guide called it "an OK melodrama" and criticized its "deliberate alterations and softening of some of the novel's key plot points and themes." (Oprah Winfrey appears as Bigger's mother.)

The new film will probably be more graphic in its depiction of Bigger's accidental killing of Mary Dalton, the daughter of his white employer and the subsequent disposal of her body in the basement furnace.

James Baldwin's "Beale Street" Novel Slated For The Big Screen

At the 56th New York Film Festival (September 28-October 14), to be held at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, there will be a screening of If Beale Street Could Talk, director Barry Jenkins's film adaptation of James Baldwin's novel of the same name. (Jenkins's last film was Moonlight, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 2017.)

The film, reported amNew York (August 8, 2018), is about "a young African-American man in 1970s Harlem who is arrested and convicted for a crime he didn't commit." (Could this be another Oscar contender in the fall?)

I've never read the book and may have a copy of it. If I do, it's probably buried among the hundreds of books I own. I may just buy a copy and read it before the film is released nationwide. It's slated for release on November 30.

A Misused Word In A Book About Poet Gwendolyn Brooks

A few days ago I started reading A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: The Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks by Angela Jackson (Beacon Press, 2017). It's an absorbing read. The prose style seems geared toward a young adult audience but it's a good place to introduce oneself to the life and work of Gwendolyn Brooks.

Having been a proofreader and a copy editor, I spotted a misused word on page 36. Ms. Jackson, a Chicago-based poet, playwright, and novelist, states that "The publication of A Street in Bronzeville would indicate that Gwendolyn had served a solid and extended apprenticeship in the pages of the Chicago Defender and other publications, but she had proven her meddle [italics mine] in the strenuous and continuous Inez Cunningham Stark workshop, the group of Visionaries. The workshop had edged her into an increased sophistication of intellect and technique, providing an environment of frank,constructive criticism and bold, new ideas."

The correct word should have been "mettle," not "meddle"---"...she had proven her mettle...." My Random House College Dictionary defines "meddle" as "to interest oneself in what is not one's concern: interfere without right or propriety." "Mettle" is defined as "staying  quality: STAMINA."

Somehow the copy editors and proofreaders at Beacon Press overlooked this error.

Farewell To Novelist John A. Williams

RIP John A. Williams, the African-American novelist, who wrote The Man Who Cried I Am; Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light; The Junior Bachelor Society (later made into a TV miniseries called The Sophisticated Gents), among other books. He died July 3, 2015 at the age of 89. The headline on his New York Times obituary called him an "Underrated Novelist."

An Early Biography Of James Baldwin

James Baldwin is one of my all-time favorite writers. I can never read enough by or about him. So I was delighted to find sitting on a public library shelf a copy of The Furious Passage of James Baldwin by Fern Marja Eckman. The book was originally published in 1966. It has been referred to in later biographies of Baldwin but I was never able to obtain a copy until now. The new edition was published in 2014.

The back jacket copy states that Eckman, who at the time was a reporter for the then liberal New York Post, "based this book on hours and hours of taped interviews with Baldwin and with the people who are significant in his story" and is "a profile told largely in his own words."

Because this biography was the first one written on Baldwin, his later years, covered in subsequent books, are missing. But nevertheless it gives readers an insight into Baldwin's early life, writing career, and personality. (The first few pages of the biography seem to be psychoanalyzing Baldwin and his rocky relationship with his stepfather.) At this writing, I am still reading the book which is riveting, although it reads more like a memoir than a standard biography.

Maya Angelou, Renaissance Woman

"Singer, actor, activist, reporter, poet, author, screenwriter, director, songwriter, teacher, producer, lecturer, entrepreneur--she's a woman with many hats, and wears them all with style, always looking for a new one to try on."--from Maya Angelou: A Glorious Celebration by Marcia Ann Gillespie, Rosa Johnson Butler, and Richard A. Long (Doubleday, 2008).

Today is the birthday of renaissance woman Maya Angelou (1928-2014). She would have been 87 years old. In Maya Angelou: A Glorious Celebration, her inspiring life story is told via text, photographs, correspondence, press interviews, and excerpts from her writings.

A Literary Voice That's Gone, But Not Forgotten

This year would have marked Joseph Beam's 60th birthday. Sadly, in 1988, we lost one of the most eloquent and powerful literary voices, not only in the gay community but also in the black community.

Touring Across The Soviet Union

"[Maya Angelou] won a role in a touring production of  Porgy and Bess and performed in 22 countries from 1954 to 1955," writes Elaine Woo in her Los Angeles Times obituary (May 28, 2014) of the world-renowned poet and memoirist.

That sentence brought to mind Truman Capote's 1958 nonfiction book, And the Muses Were Heard, in which he chronicled the activities of a troupe of African American actors traveling across the Soviet Union by train to perform Porgy and Bess. I'm certain that Maya Angelou, not mentioned by name, was one of the actors on that trip. The timeline seems to fit.

James Baldwin's 90th Birthday

This year will mark what would have been James Baldwin's 90th birthday. I wish he was still with us.

James Baldwin, Author And Intellectual

In 1975, I took a 15-week magazine writing course at Hunter College's Midtown Branch, located on Lexington Avenue in the East 50s, in Manhattan. The instructor was an elderly woman named Camille Davied (pronounced Dah-vee-ay), whose late husband had been an editor at Reader's Digest. (I was the only person of color in the class.) My memory is a bit hazy about how James Baldwin's name got mentioned. Perhaps I wrote a class assignment that referenced him. Anyway, I do remember saying to her that Baldwin was an intellectual. She immediately and emphatically denied that he was. It was probably hard for her, a white person, to acknowledge that a black man could be that cerebral. Maybe the things that he wrote and said about American race relations touched a nerve, making her uncomfortable and self-conscious.

Had I known as much about Baldwin then as I do now, I would have pointed out to her that if Baldwin had not been an intellectual, his essays would never have appeared in Partisan Review, Commentary, and other intellectual journals in the 1950s.

Mrs. Ralph Ellison's Gay Blind Spot

In Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray (The Modern Library, 2000), I came across this startling passage in a memo from Fanny McConnell, Ralph Ellison's wife, to Albert Murray*, dated June 9, 1952:

"We caught a glimpse of [filmmaker/anthropologist Maya] Deren Friday evening strolling along a [Greenwich] Village street with five men. I use the word 'men' euphemistically."

No doubt the five men she referred to were gay and probably effeminate. In 1950s America such homophobic statements could be uttered without the fear of censure or ostracism. Today, in our more enlightened (we hope) times, such language would be frowned at.

Ellison's wife was probably a very nice person but in this one area she had a blind spot.


*NOTE: Albert Murray, an essayist and a novelist, died in his Manhattan home on August 18, 2013, at the age of 97. Ralph Ellison, also an essayist and a novelist, died in 1994.

Blacks With AIDS

Black gay men with AIDS are invisible as far as most of the black press is concerned. Fortunately, Essence magazine doesn't see it that way. In the August 1985 issue, there is a beautifully written, although disturbing, article by Marie Blackwell which details the psychological and physical deterioration of her 36-year-old brother Chet, who eventually died a little over a year after being hospitalized when it was suspected that he had the dreaded disease.

Any African-American who believes, after all this time, that AIDS is a white man's disease, should be required to read this piece, entitled "AIDS in the Family." Blackwell writes that shortly before Chet's death, his body, which had once been "tall, lean, and muscular," had gone down to 98 pounds and "contorted itself into a fetal position--he couldn't straighten his limbs. His eyes were bulging with fear, and he kept the covers over his head the entire time" she visited him in the hospital.

Blackwell confesses that she was "almost totally ignorant about the extent of AIDS contagiousness." If her family had been readers of the Native, a lot of their fear and ignorance after Chet's release from the hospital would have been dispelled. But Chet was fortunate to have a family that loved him enough to be there when he needed them, whether at home or in the hospital.

The family, admits Blackwell, "were angry at him" for being gay because his "choice" of lifestyle had such a profound "impact on all of us." But, "whatever Chet's sexual preference, he was still our big, silly, lovable brother" who, among other things, "cheered us up when we were on punishment."

Jill Nelson's sidebar, "The Facts About AIDS," excellently capsulizes statistical and medical data in nontechnical language. She makes one interesting parenthetical  comment: The discovery of AIDS in Africa "coincided with its discovery in the United States." In other words, there's some doubt in her mind about the African connection.

I wish that Native writer Craig Harris's short story, "Cut Off From Among Their People," which appears in the black gay literary magazine Blackheart 3: The Telling of Us, had been reprinted in the same issue of Essence. It would have given a gay perspective on the disease.

Harris's superb story is about Jeff, a grief-stricken black gay man who attends his lover's funeral and is given the cold shoulder by the family of the deceased. Although Jeff was faithful to his lover, "spending endless hours by his side, covering hospital bills, always keeping [the family] abreast of his condition" while the lover was hospitalized, the family disregarded these acts of love by not asking Jeff for his assistance in making funeral arrangements.


This article was originally published in the New York Native (August 11-25, 1985). It was an item in a "Media Watch" column I wrote for the paper.

Pointing Out Glaring Errors In An Author's Biography

Edward Margolies, Professor Emeritus
c/o English & American Studies Dept.
The College of Staten Island of the City University of
New York
2800 Victory Boulevard
Staten Island, NY 10314
December 31, 1999

Dear Professor Margolies:

In The Several Lives of Chester Himes (University Press of Mississippi, 1997), which you co-authored with the French scholar Michel Fabre, I spotted four glaring factual errors in an otherwise enjoyable and informative book.

The errors are the following:

1. Joseph Levin, the film producer. Pp. 124 and 125. CORRECTION: Joseph E. Levine.
2. Rosa Meta's beauty parlor. Pg. 125. CORRECTION: Rose Morgan's beauty parlor.
3. "Lewis Micheaux's famous bookstore across the street from the Theresa Hotel,...." Pg. 125. CORRECTION: the bookstore was located down the street, at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue.
4. Ishmael Reed's novel, Yellow Black Radio Broke Down. Pg. 149. CORRECTION: Yellow Back Radio Broke Down. The incorrect title also appears in the index.

Maybe in a future edition of the book these errors can be corrected.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

Note: There was no response to this letter.