The contributions of Black LGBTQ+ Americans to the entire country are expansive and considerable, dating back to the beginning of the country across all fields. For Black History Month, HomoCulture provides an overview of 10 queer Black icons that have changed the trajectory of history for not only Americans, but the world at large. 

Angela Davis

Angela Davis is best known as an activist for civil rights and other social justice issues. Early in her career, she was hired to teach at the University of California in Los Angeles, then subsequently fired for claims of communism. However, Davis fought the administration and was reinstated. She later co-founded Critical Resistance, an organization working to abolish prisons. In 1997, she came out as a lesbian during an interview with Out Magazine. Davis is now a professor and activist who advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, gender equity, prison abolition, and anti-racism. 

Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin was a leader in the social movements for socialism, non-violence, and gay rights, regarded by many as the leading strategist of the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 to 1968. He helped to initiate a 1947 Freedom Ride to challenge racial segregation and, alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. Rustin helped to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was also the primary organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. 

As a gay man, Rustin was attacked by opponents as well as black leaders and, as a result, he stayed mostly behind the scenes and instead acted as an influencer and strategist. In the 1980s, he became a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and in 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Barbara Jordan

Barbara Charline Jordan was an American lawyer, activist, and leader of the Civil Rights Movement. She was the first African-American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction, and first Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. Jordan made history as the first African-American woman to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention.

Among her many honors, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Jordan was never public about her sexual orientation or her relationship with life partner of 20 years Nancy Earl. Had Jordan been an out member of the LGBTQ+ community, she would have been the first lesbian known to have been elected to the United States Congress.

Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was a noted writer, feminist, and civil rights activist. Her writing, including poetry, essays, books, and social commentary that expressed outrage at civil and social discrimination. As New York State’s Poet Laureate, then-Governor Mario Cuomo said of Lorde, “Her imagination is charged by a sharp sense of racial injustice and cruelty, of sexual prejudice…She cries out against it as the voice of indignant humanity. Audre Lorde is the voice of the eloquent outsider who speaks in a language that can reach and touch people everywhere.”

Johnny Mathis

Johnny Mathis is a pop music icon, with more than 100 albums under his belt, and over 60 that have been certified gold or platinum. In 1982 he was quoted in a US Magazine article, stating, “Homosexuality is a way of life that I’ve grown accustomed to.” After receiving death threats and harassments, Mathis did not discuss his sexual orientation again until 2006. Later, Mathis said, “I come from San Francisco. It’s not unusual to be gay in San Francisco. I’ve had some girlfriends, some boyfriends, just like most people.”

James Baldwin

Baldwin was a prominent novelist, playwright, poet, and activist. Through his works, he explored the intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in the United States. He is best known for the novel Giovanni’s Room, which discusses the complex representations of homosexuality and bisexuality. At its time, it stood out because it featured only white characters. James spent a majority of his career educating others about the Black and queer experience as well as identity. Today, his writings are used to educate communities about the Black queer experience during the mid twentieth-century. 

Marsha P. Johnson 

Johnson was an outspoken activist, drag queen, performer, and survivor of abuse. As an outspoken transgender rights activist and central figure in the historic Stonewall uprising of 1969, Marsha worked closely with Sylvia Rivera in fighting for trans rights and together formed the Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (STAR).

The radical political organization provided housing to homeless queer youth and sex workers in Manhattan. Johnson was found dead on July 6, 1992 at the age of 46, but her life has been celebrated in several books and movies. Her legacy continues through the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, which protects and defends the human rights of Black transgender people.

Willi Ninja

Ninja was a dancer, choreographer, known as ‘The Grandfather of Vogue’, best known for his appearance in the documentary Paris Is Burning. The award-winning 1990 documentary chronicled the Harlem Drag Ball culture which provided Black and Latino LGBTQ+ people a space to express non-conforming gender presentations. Willi Ninja founded the House of Ninja in 1982, acting as a mother to a group of adopted gay and transgender youth in New York City.

Willi helped create the dance form of voguing that was a combination of exaggerated model poses and precision mime choreography. After appearing in Paris is Burning, Willi rose to fame as a choreographer, musician, model and modeling coach, serving as direct inspiration to several artists who immortalized the style in their videos. His legacy continues as the House of Ninja members keep voguing alive and advocate on behalf of their mother to raise HIV/AIDS awareness within the LGBTQ+ community and beyond. 

Alvin Ailey

Ailey was a dancer, choreographer, director, and activist, founding the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT). He created AAADT as safe haven for nurturing Black artists and the African-American experience through dance. His work was a fusion of theatre, modern dance, ballet, and jazz with African-American vernacular to spread global awareness of Black life in America. Ailey’s masterpiece Revelations is regarded by many as one of the most popular ballets in the world. In 2014, Ailey was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work in bringing dance to underserved communities.

Lorraine Hansberry

Hansberry was a playwright and activist best known for her groundbreaking play A Raisin in the Sun, which chronicled a struggling Black family living in Chicago’s South Side. After the play’s release, Hansberry became the first Black playwright and the youngest American to win the New York Critics’ Circle Award. A Raisin in the Sun, named after a line in Langston Hughes’ poem Harlem: A Dream Deferred, opened at New York City’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre in March 1959, becoming the first play written by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. The iconic work was soon made into a 1961 film starring Oscar winner Sidney Poitier and Tony winner Ruby Dee.

Hansberry, who never publicly acknowledged she was a lesbian,  joined lesbian rights group Daughters of Bilitis and contributed letters about feminism and homophobia to its magazine, The Ladder. Hansberry didn’t officially come out until nearly 50 years after her death when in 2014 her estate unsealed diaries that revealed her sexuality. Hansberry tragically died in 1965 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34.