227

Joseph Beam, et al.

We are Black Lesbian and Gay Writers. 1988.

2 pages on one sheet; minor wear. No place, 24 March 1988.

This message was composed on the occasion of the Second National Black Writers Conference, held at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, NY. It notes that "the Black literary establishment systematically chooses to exclude us from the range of its activities. . . . If we are sometimes included in token numbers, it is often amid heterosexist protest and homophobic attacks. Because we function with integrity, refuse to be closeted, and address Lesbian and Gay oppression as a political issue, our lives and work are made invisible." It lists several of their predecessors from the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, and regarding the late James Baldwin, it complains of "a concerted effort to ignore the fact that he was a homosexual." 18 authors appended their names in type, including Joseph Beam, Essex Hemphill, Audre Lorde, Isaac Jackson, Assotto Saint, Pat Parker, and Barbara Smith. A bibliography of works by the authors of this message appears on verso.

None traced in OCLC or at auction, although one is held in the Audre Lorde papers at Spelman College, and the text has been anthologized in Barbara Smith's "The Truth That Never Hurts" and elsewhere.
11 x 8 1/2 in. (27.9 x 21.6 cm.)

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