Summer, summer, summertime (almost)! And that means it’s time for the annual Philly Black Pride/Penn Relays Celebration. For 17 years, PBP weekend has been a time for black LGBTs and allies to celebrate, network and build awareness. With an estimated 3,500-5,000 local and tri-state attendees, it’s the largest mobilization of LGBT individuals of color in the region.
The four-day event starts on my birthday, April 28 (hello, fellow Tauruses!), and covers a wide variety of events: everything from meetings and workshops on health, economic and racial equality to cultural events like the Unbothered Symposium, a narrative program featuring artists like Nikki Powerhouse, Twiggy Pucci Garcon and The Tenth Zine. The stage play “Christian,” a book reading by Nikki Harmon and an exhibit of photographs from Barbara Kigozi are other cultural events not to be missed. The fabulous K. Brent Hill will be getting bodies in shape with a spin class, and David Grimes and the underwear models from Armour will show you how to dress them.
All together, there are more than 30 events to choose from. And of course, there are plenty of parties at which to mix and mingle, including day parties, happy-hour events and nightlife parties that have become legendary.
Speaking of legendary, one of the highlight events will be the Society Lights Awards, which pays tribute to leaders in the LGBT of color community who have “created unique narratives of progression.” I am honored to say that I’m being given the 2016 award in arts/media and this week I’m profiling one of my fellow awardees, humanitarian and social-change agent Deborah Johnson.
PGN: So, where do you hail from?
DJ: I was born in Manhattan and raised in North Jersey — Hillside, right outside of Newark.
PGN: Tell me about the family.
DJ: I’m the oldest of three. I have two wonderful sisters and two nieces and one nephew; they’re all in North Jersey.
PGN: What’s a family adventure with three girls in the house?
DJ: Everyone in the bathroom trying to get dressed at the same time! My mother had us in increments so we’re all 10 years apart from each other. I’m kind of like their mom and the middle sister is like the mom to the youngest. So we each wanted to claim space as the elder. But we’re pretty close; if we argue, we argue on the phone together.
PGN: A conference call for consternation?
DJ: Absolutely, it must be all of us. One calls to tell me what the other one’s done and then the other one calls in and we fuss and argue for hours at a time.
PGN: What did the parents do?
DJ: My mom was a school administrator, my father … I’m not quite sure. He was from Trinidad and I think he was ducking deportation so he changed his name and did different work, mostly office administration. But my mother was the central figure, the matriarch. She worked at the school and we knew each September that by October there would be some kid who was neglected or needed help living at our house. She would just take them and they stayed with us for the school year.
PGN: What were you like as a kid?
DJ: Wonderful! Actually, I was really quiet. For the first 10 years of my life I was by myself. I didn’t require a lot. I loved to read and preferred to be on my own. My mother used to have to make me go outside. I was a good kid. I went to Catholic school, so there you have it.
PGN: What was your favorite book as a kid?
DJ: “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison. That was the book that had the most influence on me as a young person.
PGN: Who was your favorite teacher?
DJ: Oh, Mrs. Lambkin. She was my first-grade teacher and I had a big crush on her! I didn’t really realize it until I was an adult, but she was my first crush. I remember she drove a small imported car.
PGN: Where did you go to school?
DJ: After Catholic school, I went to a performing-arts school and then I went to Caldwell, an all-girl Catholic college in Essex Fells.
PGN: What was it like being a budding lesbian at an all-girl school?
DJ: It was a great experience. My sexuality wasn’t an issue for my mother; she was more concerned with me becoming a successful woman. So my years at Caldwell College were quite interesting. I remember one of the nuns, Sister Carol, was dating one of my classmates, which was pretty startling. I also had my first full-time girlfriend there. She would come on the weekends to visit me and it was fine, nobody cared. My college years were good.
PGN: When did you come out and how did you meet that first girlfriend?
DJ: I came out in high school. Because Arts High was an arts and music school, coming out wasn’t a problem at all; in fact, it was celebrated. I met the girlfriend through my college roommate, who was Venezuelan. She had folks in New York who she would visit on the weekends and sometimes I’d go with her. We’d hang out in Washington Square and that’s how I met my first girlfriend.
PGN: What were you pursuing in art school?
DJ: Music, vocals.
PGN: So you sing?
DJ: [Laughs] Uh, I wouldn’t go that far. Just enough to get into the school.
PGN: What did you study at Caldwell?
DJ: Sociology.
PGN: What made you want to go into that field?
DJ: Probably the kids who came and lived with us over the years: children who did not have what I had. Wanting to understand why they were in those circumstances and wanting to save the world one child at a time. The other part was that I had a lot of family members who ended up in the justice system so I figured it was better to try to save them at the beginning rather than having to save them at the end.
PGN: What was it that you had that they didn’t?
DJ: My mother was born and raised in New York and from a young age I was exposed to a really wide variety of different cultures. We would go to the Apollo on Sundays and then go into Manhattan and eat at Lucille Ball’s restaurant in Times Square. We’d see shows and museums and we also traveled. One year, my mom took us to Montreal. She exposed us to all sorts of things and she really poured a cultural identity into me. I remember listening to Miriam Makeba and Sarah Vaughn in the house on Saturdays. Just the fact that I had a house and my own room and good food every night … I came to recognize that not everybody had that and wanted to know why. I wanted to know so I could make things better in my little way.
PGN: Did you practice social work?
DJ: I never did! Well, just for a second and then I realized that it wasn’t going to be for me. I was young and they gave me an internship at a children’s shelter and it was too much for me. So I left and went back to New York to FIT [Fashion Institute of Technology] to study merchandising for a semester or two. Then at age 23, I met a woman from Philly and moved here, bought a house, opened up a boutique at 36th and Lancaster called “Between Us” and started a life with her that lasted eight years. Two years ago, I went back to school to get my master’s. In between, I worked at the museum — back then it was the Afro American Historical and Cultural Museum — then did nonprofit health care with the Heart Association and Liver Foundation and realized that was not for me … ended up at the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and doing other social-service work. Now I’m back at the museum, which is now called the African American Museum in Philadelphia.
PGN: What were you doing with the various nonprofits?
DJ: Development.
PGN: And that’s what you’re doing now?
PGN: [Laughs] No! I’m the facility usage director at the museum.
PGN: I remember going to some pretty wild parties at the museum back in the day. Do you still have those type of events?
DJ: I think that’s part of why they brought me in, to tone things down a bit. I have had a few I’ve had to shut down. I have found people asleep in the ballroom or knocked out in parts of the museum where you wonder how they got there, but that’s rare. It’s different now. You should come in. We have a lot of new things happening.
PGN: What are some recent exhibits?
DJ: We did “Legendary: Inside the House Ballroom Scene,” which was about the exuberant world of the underground house scene. It was a bit of a fight for me and the exhibition director, Leslie, to get that in. I really enjoyed doing that exhibition. The “Africans in India” exhibit was great and the one that just left, “Drapetomanía,” about Afro-Cuban arts, was very interesting. It’s been a real culturally enriching experience being back. The exhibits have been thought-provoking and we’re about to do one based on Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf” entitled “The God in Me.” I think and hope that my presence there allows some of those kind of opportunities to present themselves.
PGN: What are some of the other organizations that you’ve worked with over the years?
DJ: I was on the board of COLOURS during its early years, back when Michael Hinson was the executive director. I did six years with Philadelphia Black Gay Pride and I was a board member of the Jubilee Day School, which was a little private school up at 42nd and Chester. I currently sit on the Community Advisory Council for the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, and I’ve been a judge for the Philly Pride Parade for the last four years.
PGN: And this year you’re being honored with the prestigious Society Lights award.
DJ: Along with “The Suzi Nash!”
PGN: Indeed! So what does the award mean to you?
DJ: It’s extremely humbling. I am honored because I do what I do because I love it. I can’t imagine not being in service to the community, so to be honored for it is exceptional and humbling. And to be recognized during Philly Black Pride is really special. I remember the days when right before the festival we’d be up 24 hours straight. We would have our yearly fight but, by the end of the weekend, it was satisfying to see that we’d accomplished all of our goals. And hopefully the community was better for it. So to be honored by an organization that I gave and worked so much for is kind of surreal. I’m usually helping giving out the awards, not receiving them.
PGN: Well, it’s about time. And now, it’s time for some off-the-cuff questions.
DJ: OK, go.
PGN: Ever spend the night at the museum and, if so, did anything come to life?
DJ: I have spent the night at the museum and I truly do believe that things come alive. I know that there’s a spirit in the museum. Randomly, some of the exhibitions will start to talk and the elevator will go up and down. We know that there are spirits in there because we hold people’s collections. I’m sure some of them are living there who we don’t see.
PGN: Explain what you mean by exhibits talking.
DJ: Like in gallery two, it’s called the Conversations Gallery and we have an exhibit where you push a button and you hear a narration about the exhibit. Well, they are turned off at six o’clock but late, late at night, the video monitors will turn on themselves and start to talk. We just look at each other and say, “There they go … ” or the elevators will go up and down and there’s no one on the subsequent floors. We’re kind of used to having the ancestors around by now.
PGN: If you could pick an artist, alive or dead, to be a guest at the museum, whom would you choose?
DJ: One of my all-time favorite painters is Gauguin. I also love Georgia O’Keefe but since neither of them are African-American and we are the African American Museum, my second picks would be Audre Lorde or Jacob Lawrence.
PGN: Lake, ocean or river?
DJ: Ocean.
PGN: Best piece of advice?
DJ: Know what you don’t know.
PGN: Favorite piece of clothing?
DJ: That would be my Jane Jetson dress. It’s very futuristic; it sticks straight out. That’s my favorite right now.
PGN: Favorite genre of books to read?
DJ: Sci-fi. Especially futuristic African-American sci-fi like Octavia Butler.
PGN: My hidden talent is …
DJ: House repairs. I can paint and put down flooring, all that type of stuff.
PGN: I’m impressed. Something stupid you’ve done for love?
DJ: Oh God, I drove 1,222 miles for love. Yes, I did.
PGN: Single or partnered?
DJ: Single. Please put that in large letters! SINGLE. And I’m finally the person that I want to be. I’m in a good place. I would marry me!
PGN: Most unusual job?
DJ: When I was at FIT, I worked for Burlington Industries as a patternist. That’s someone who takes the patterns and adds colors in the exact spots on each piece. So if you see a pattern in red, blue and green, someone actually imported those colors into each piece using a press. Well, it’s probably automated these days.
PGN: Favorite color?
DJ: Right now it’s lemon yellow. I’m ready for the spring.
PGN: Motto?
DJ: “Love is work made physical,” by Khalil Gibran. True words.
For more information on Philadelphia Black Pride, visit www.phillyblackpride.com. For more information on the African American Museum in Philadelphia, visit www.aampmuseum.org.
To suggest a community member for Family Portrait, email [email protected].