While Black queer authors have often been erased from history and literary classrooms, they have always existed. As novelists, poets or academics, all of the authors in this list challenged racism, homophobia and sexism through their work and activism. Their works are a celebration of Black heritage and have been significant to the development of Black consciousness, especially by tearing down social constructs and fighting against oppression.
Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935)
“It’s punishment to be compelled to do what one doesn’t wish.”—Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson, born this day in 1875 pic.twitter.com/ofLNQEQjvd
— Feminist Press (@FeministPress) July 19, 2019
Our first notable Black queer author is Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson. She was part of the first generation of born free African Americans in the South and is a pioneer of the Harlem Renaissance. Through her poems and short novels, Nelson addresses African American women’s experiences in the South.
Active in the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), she fought against lynching and Jim Crow Laws, and for better healthcare and education. Also engaging in the women’s rights movement, she created the Equal Suffrage Study Club in 1914 and founded the first newspaper for and by African American women, The Women’s Era (1894-1897). Violets and Other Tales and The Goodness of St. Roque and Other Stories are two of her most notable works.
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
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Langston Hughes was an American poet, novelist, social activist and playwright. Using queer coding in his poems, he was believed to be gay, however closeted. His work consisted of portraying the life of working-class Black people in America. A pioneer in innovating jazz poetry, his texts are written on jazz-like rhythms, and create feelings of improvisation. His works blend struggles with joy, music, and laughter.
Hughes’s approach to race consciousness in his work made him a trailblazer of the Harlem Renaissance. One of his notable texts Not Without Laughter (1930), portrays the life of Sandy in Kansas in the 1910s, her awakening on Black life and the influences of class and religion. The Ways of White Folks (1934) and his anthology The Weary Blues are other examples of his amazing works.
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
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You’ve probably heard of pioneering American writer and activist James Baldwin. He was one of the first Black queer authors to openly include queerness in fiction. Being bisexual himself, his work raised awareness of sexual and racial oppression.
Baldwin played a key role in the Civil Rights Movement, whether it was in his writings or public debates and speeches alongside Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. He also contributed significantly to the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movements.
Through his work and political activism, he interconnected race, sexuality, and social status, and challenged racial injustice, homophobia, and discrimination in America. To this day, his work represents a legacy for the LGBTQ+ community and social movements such as Black Lives Matter. Giovanni’s Room, a classic of queer literature, needs to be on your reading list. Some other of his notable novels are Go Tell It on the Mountain and The Fire Next Time.
Audre Lorde (1934-1992)
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American poet and essayist Audre Lorde contributed to feminist criticism by asserting that feminism focused mainly on the experiences of white, heterosexual women. That led her to advocate for the rights of lesbians and women of colour. Throughout her work she shared her experiences of racism, sexism, and violence, portraying her journey as a Black lesbian woman.
Lorde’s life and work were dedicated to fighting for civil rights and women’s rights, as well as against social injustice and war. She is a pioneer of the Black Arts Movements and Black Studies, women’s studies, and queer theory. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is one of her many major works, exploring intersectional identities and her various experiences of oppression.
Nikki Giovanni (1943-present)
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Professor Nikki Giovanni is an American poet, writer and activist. She shaped Black culture and poetry in the ’60s and ’70s as part of the Black Arts Movements. Her work explores race, gender, sexuality, and the African American family. Giovanni’s notable collections of poems are Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Black Judgement (1968), and Re: Creation (1970).
Through her revolutionary content, she explores Black consciousness and expresses her anger towards African Americans’ positions in society. The poem ‘Ego-Tripping (there must be a reason why)’ explores what it means to be an African American woman and celebrates Black heritage. Other than Giovanni’s literary work, she plays a key role in her community, organising the first Black Arts Festival of Cincinnati in 1967 and editing and publishing Night Comes Softly, an anthology of poetry written by only Black women.
Pat Parker (1944-1989)
LGBTQIA+ authors for #PrideMonth (3/30): Pat Parker
Parker was a African-American lesbian feminist, poet, and political activist. She organized with the Black Panther Party and advocated on behalf of gay and lesbian communities and against domestic violence. (1/4) pic.twitter.com/qk4rxipiqB
— Georgetown English Department (@GU_ENGL) June 3, 2022
Pat Parker was a lesbian author and activist in the civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights movements. She performed her writings orally, following the spoken word traditions. Her texts reflect radical politics blended with her own autobiographical experiences. Parker’s work deals mainly with violence against women, sexual assault, and women’s health issues. Women Slaughter, one of her anthologies and titled poem is about her sister being murdered by her husband, who only served one year of jail time.
In her poems, Parker embraces her traumatising experiences and turns her pain into words. After she came out, she started writing about queer experiences and the tenderness and love she found with other women. Some of her other notable works are Child of Myself, Pit Stop and Movement in Black. Parker also built a community around lesbian poetry to organise talks between queer women. As a strong activist, she directed the Feminist Women’s Health Centre in Oakland and founded the Black Women’s Revolutionary Council and the Women’s Press Collective.
Angela Davis (1944-present)
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Professor Angela Davis is a well-known author and activist. From an early age, she joined the Black Panther for a period, then the Communist Party. Davis is a pioneer author for racial justice, criminal reform, and women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. She helped found numerous organisations, such as the Sisters Inside and Critical Resistance and the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
Davis’ radical views advocate for social justice and equality. Since she came out in the ’90s, Davis enhanced her fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Today, Davis gives numerous lectures about prison reforms and is still an influential figure in social movements. Her notable works are Women, Race, and Class, Women, Culture and Politics, and Are Prisons Obsolete?
April Sinclair (1953-present)
SGRHO💙💛 Black History Day 17
Soror April Sinclair
Oakland-based best-selling author known for her books about young black women coming of age
Best known as the author of the novels Coffee Will Make You Black and I Left My Back Door Open: A Novel etc.. #SGRHO #BHM pic.twitter.com/zuzsUOcHaQ— Mu Zeta Poodles 💙💛🐩 (@CommercePoodles) February 17, 2023
April Sinclair, an American Black queer author and activist, took part in the Black Power Movements and Civil Rights Movements. As a pioneer member of her community, she carries out various service programs, teaching inner-city youth writing and reading and directing hunger coalitions.
One of her most notable works is the novel Coffee will make you black, inspired by her own experiences. The novel portrays Jean ‘Stevie’ Stevenson, a young Black woman in Chicago at the end of the ’60s. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, she decides to confront Black prejudice. In the follow-up novel, Ain’t Gonna be the Same Fool Twice, Sinclair focuses on Stevie being split between traditional Chicago and liberating San Francisco, where she embraces her sexuality and faces the challenges associated with her coming out to her mother.
Essex Hemphill (1957-1995)
LGBTQIA+ authors for #PrideMonth (7/30): Essex Hemphill
Hemphill was a gay, Black poet and essayist active in the Washington, D.C. art scene. His poetry centered on gay, Black men and the idea of loneliness in an alienating, white, and straight world. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/v46qhSqcbL
— Georgetown English Department (@GU_ENGL) June 7, 2022
Essex Hemphill was an American poet, editor, essayist and activist. He was openly gay and voiced issues concerning the African American gay community in the ’80s. Hemphill was a leading HIV and AIDS activist, breaking the shame and stigma around being HIV positive. In his writings and spoken performances, he criticised the lack of attention given to the LGBTQ+ and Black communities during the HIV and AIDS epidemic. He stressed the need for support, action and resources.
Hemphill’s writing is provocative and edgy, always bringing in a touch of humour and passion. He self-published his first five anthologies, including Conditions and Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry, both focusing on AIDS and the Black gay community. He underlines the complex dynamics of Black culture and gay Black men’s experiences in the white LGBTQ+ community. Hemphill was a voice to his community through his art and also by publishing anthologies only written by gay Black men such as Brother to Brother: New Writing by Black Gay Men and In the Life.
James Earl Hardy (1966-present)
#TakeMeBackTuesday
25 years ago with Lorenza Coleman, @ (now closed) A Different Light bookstore in Chelsea/NYC. Yup, that’s us leading the couples montage in #BBoyBluesTheFilm ☺️. Wishing one of the sweetest gents I’ve ever known a better than jood 🎂! 🥰 u lots, Bo! 🥳🎈👑✊🏽 pic.twitter.com/ohhiXktNpq— JamesEarlHardy (@JamesEarlHardy) December 27, 2023
James Earl Hardy, an American novelist, playwright and journalist, is one of the first Black queer authors to depict queer romance within the hip-hop community. Through his B-Boy Blues series of seven books, Hardy explores African American LGBTQ+ experiences.
The series tells the love story of Mitchell, a 27-year-old journalist, and Raheim, a 21-year-old b-boy in New York City. The first novel of the series was written in 1994, as the hip-hop genre gained popularity and was known to be a masculine and homophobic space. Hardy’s work gave a new and empowering perspective on gay Black love stories, tearing down the stereotypes associated with them.
Nicole Dennis-Benn (1982-present)
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Jamaican novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn moved to New York City when she was only 17. Her work focuses on her own experiences in Jamaica, challenging homophobia, racism, socio-economic disparities and the sexualisation of young girls.
Both of her most notable novels, Here Comes the Sun and Patsy, explore Jamaican culture, accurately portraying controversial issues outside the touristic construct. On the other side, she balances those issues with the development of identity, sense of belonging and love of the main characters. Here Comes the Sun depicts tourist politics and the national economy, exposing the hard reality of queer individuals in Jamaica.
Shola von Reinhold (present)
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Shola von Reinhold is a queer Scottish writer. They question the removal of major Black figures from history and stress the loss of queerness and Blackness throughout time.
Reinhold’s first and only novel to this date, LOTE was published in 2020. The novel is a historical revisionism following a queer Black archivist, Mathilda. She is transfixed by a picture of Hermia Druitt, a Black modernist and poet, which leads her to rewrite the history of this forgotten figure.
Akwaeke Emezi (1987-present)
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Akwaeke Emezi is a Nigerian writer and poet, mainly writing speculative queer fiction novels. They moved to the US in 2010 to attend college. Their first novel Freshwater is a semi-autobiographical fiction book, following the story of Ada. Ada is born in Nigeria with multiple evil spirits (ogbanje) inside them. The journey of Ada is about the evolution of their self-acceptance, sexuality and gender identity, while also addressing the role of trauma.
Their other novels also explore themes of gender identity and homosexuality in Nigeria. Emezi is a versatile writer, they wrote various books of fiction amd non-fiction, like their work Dear Senthuran-A Black Spirit Memoir.
Look into the work of these amazing Black queer authors to diversify your bookshelf!
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