Black History Month: Focus on: LGBTQ+
Resources and Reading for Black History Month
LGBTQ+
Books
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Miss Major Speaks by
ISBN: 9781839763342Publication Date: 2023-05-16The future of Black, queer, and trans liberation explored by a legendary transgender elder and activist. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a transgender elder and activist who survived Bellevue psychiatric hospital, New York's jail system, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. -
Journal of a Black Queer Nurse by
ISBN: 9781942173779Publication Date: 2023-05-09Britney Daniels is a Black, masculine-presenting, tattooed lesbian from a working-class background. For the last five years, she has been working as an emergency-room nurse. She began Journal of a Black Queer Nurse as a personal diary, a tool to heal from the day-to-day traumas of seeing too much and caring too much. Hilarious, gut-wrenching, and infuriating by turns, these stories are told from the perspective of a deeply empathetic, no-nonsense young nurse, who highlights the way race, inequality, and a profit-driven healthcare system make the hospital a place where systemic racism is lived. -
Better Living Through Birding by
ISBN: 9780593242384Publication Date: 2023-06-13Christian Cooper is a self-described Blerd (Black nerd), an avid comics fan, and an expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City. When birdwatching in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old. But when a routine encounter with a dog-walker escalates age old racial tensions, Cooper's viral video of the incident would send shockwaves through the nation. -
This Is the Honey by
ISBN: 9780316417525Publication Date: 2024-01-30In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology, bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary anthems at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring throughout. Featuring work from well-loved poets such as Rita Dove, Jericho Brown, Warsan Shire, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Terrance Hayes, Morgan Parker, and Nikki Giovanni, This Is the Honey is a rich and abundant offering of language from the poets giving voice to generations of resilient joy, -
Freedom in This Village by
ISBN: 9780786713875Publication Date: 2004-12-06A ground-breaking achievement, Freedom in the Village charts the innovative course of black gay male literature from 1979 forward. Starting with the publication of James Baldwin's final novel, Just Above My Head - the book that marked the end of the pre-Stonewall era of black literature - then on to the breakthrough works of the 1990s and up to the present day, editor E. Lynn Harris collects forty-seven works -
We See Each Other by
ISBN: 9781368081733Publication Date: 2023-05-09We See Each Other is a personal history of trans visibility since the beginning of moving images. A literary reckoning, it unearths a transcestry that's long existed in plain sight and in the shadows of history's annals, and further contextualizes our present moment of increased representation. The films and television shows that Tre'vell covers include: Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, Psycho, Holiday Heart, Boys Don't Cry, America's Next Top Model, Some Like It Hot, Survivor, Tangerine, Pose, RuPaul's Drag Race, and many more
Videos
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Oscar-winner for Best Picture, Moonlight is a moving and transcendent look at three defining chapters in the life of Chiron, a young man growing up in Miami. His epic journey to adulthood, as a shy outsider dealing with difficult circumstances, is guided by support, empathy and love from the most unexpected places.
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The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was the biggest protest America had ever seen. It culminated in Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr's iconic 'I Have A Dream' speech. But the man who made it all possible, chief organiser Bayard Rustin, was almost written out of history not because he was black, but because he was gay.
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Straight Up on the Down LowIn a new book called 'Straight Up,' Michael Stevens, Sr., a Black preacher, takes a hard line stance on what has come to be known as the down-low phenomenon: Black men in a secret society who have sex with other men, but deny they are homosexual. Stevens feels that the leadership of the Black church and the Black family are now in danger because of homosexuality.
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Black Is... Black Ain't is an exploration and comprehensive commentary of the Black experience in America. Riggs establishes that there is no singular definition of what it means "to be Black." The very form and content illustrate Blackness in its multiplicities. The film presents a plethora of black identities disallowing for generalization or stereotyping of the larger Black community. Riggs explores a diverse range of topics including the history, and rise of African American, patriarchal structure and its effects on the perception of Black families, men and women today.