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Life“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” centers a very real & very queer Black woman
The film is based on a fictional play. But the titular character – and her bisexuality – was real.
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CommentaryThe Harlem Renaissance was as Queer as it was Black
Beginning a century ago, Black LGBTQ entertainers & writers expressed their identities freely. We have them to thank for much of our present society.
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LGBTQ HistoryThis gender non-conforming blues singer was a Harlem Renaissance super star
She was famous for her bawdy performances and a chorus line of eight effeminate male dancers.
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LGBTQ HistoryThis out bisexual singer reigned as Empress of the Blues in the 1920’s
She sold more than 2 million records in the first ten months after she was signed by Columbia Records and performed on Broadway – and then the Great Depression hit.
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News (USA)In 1928, the ‘Mother of the Blues’ recorded an amazing lesbian anthem
She was singing about how she could “talk to the gals just like any old man” over 40 years before Stonewall.
