Bayard Rustin, a leader in the civil-rights movement of the 1960s and a close advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. , was one of the 20th century’s most prominent African-American LGBT figures. He is also now the centerpiece of a new exhibit at the William Way LGBT Community Center, which details the progression of the black LGBT community in Philadelphia.
“Beyond Bayard: Stories from the Black Gay & Lesbian Community” is the latest in a series of quarterly archival exhibits on display at the center, 1315 Spruce St., which opens April 22.
The center launched the series in January with the first installment, “Into the Streets,” which detailed the history of LGBT activism in the local area and beyond.
Candice Thompson, director of center services, said the exhibit seeks to highlight the myriad communities that have contributed to the rich history of the local LGBT population, and noted that the black community has played an important role in that growth.
Bob Skiba, center archivist and the primary researcher for “Beyond Bayard,” said the exhibit is especially important because it tells the stories of people who often feel they have little voice in the community.
“What I saw from reading through the papers and speeches for this by black leaders, one of the biggest problems with the black community is that they feel invisible and unlistened to, so we thought it would definitely be important to bring attention to this,” he said.
The exhibit is divided into four sections — black organizations, leaders, publications and social life — centering on the local area.
The figurehead of the exhibit, Rustin, was a native of West Chester, which Skiba said made his place in the display even more relevant.
“He was probably one of the most visible activists, and he crossed that line of both straight activism, in his work for black civil rights, and gay activism,” Skiba said.
The exhibit, compiled with assistance from curator Rick Bluhm and student intern John Jackson, will feature personal photographs, magazine clippings and other documents from the center’s John J. Wilcox Jr. Library and Archive, and will incorporate contributions from other community groups and members.
“Right from the get go, we sought to include people from the organizations we were highlighting, so we got in touch with Men of All Colors Together and Jeff Haskins from the Black Gay Men’s Leadership Council, and each organization pretty much wrote the script for what we featured in the exhibit on them,” Thompson said. Local figures such as authors Joe Beam and Anita Blackwell will also be profiled, and Skiba noted many of the leaders included in the exhibit often used writing to communicate the attitudes of their communities.
“In this show, many of the earliest black LGBT activists happened to be writers and poets. There was this renaissance in the ’70s where people in this community turned to writing because they needed a voice.”
But the black LGBT community was mobilizing long before the 1970s, Skiba said, as he found a mention of a social group serving this community from a newspaper printed in 1937.
The conversation on black LGBT issues that has evolved over the past century will continue not only with “Beyond Bayard,” but also with a series of supplemental events at the center.
Skiba will host a community discussion on the exhibit and the intersection of the black- and LGBT-rights movements at 11 a.m. May 1 at the center. The following week, the center will host a screening of a film by local African-American filmmaker Tiona McClodden, “black./womyn.: Conversations with lesbians of African descent,” at 6:30 p.m. May 8. Both events are free, and Thompson said more programs are expected this summer.
There will be an opening reception for “Beyond Bayard” from 6-8 p.m. April 22, with the exhibit will be on display through June.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].