Imagine being a black, gay drag queen in the 1800s after being born into enslavement AND having the style and cachè to throw soirées that the girls had to come to! That’s why I don’t want to hear this “we’re not our ancestors stuff.” You’re right!
From The Very Black Project Page- William Dorsey Swann was a gay liberation activist. Born into slavery in 1858, he was the first person in the United States to lead a queer resistance group and the first known person to self-identify as a “queen of drag”. Imagine the queenery of this icon.
He was a slave in Hancock, Maryland and was freed by Union soldiers after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. During the 1880s and 1890s, he organized a series of balls in Washington, D.C. He called himself the “queen of drag”. Most of the attendees his gatherings were men who were former slaves, and were gathering to dance in their satin and silk dresses. William was arrested in police raids numerous times,including in the first documented case of arrests for female impersonation in the United States, on April 12, 1888. In 1896, he was falsely convicted and sentenced to 10 months in jail for “keeping a disorderly house” (running a brothel). After his sentencing, he requested a pardon from President Grover Cleveland. This request was denied, but but he was the first American on record who pursued legal and political action to defend the LGBTQ community’s right to gather.
He was known to have been close with Pierce Lafayette and Felix Hall, two men who had also both been slaves and who formed the first known male same-sex relationship between enslaved Americans.
When William stopped organizing and participating in drag events, his brother continued to make costumes for the drag community. Two of his brothers had also been active participants in his drag balls.
Imagine how intelligent and ambitious this man had to be to come up with drag balls in the 1800s! Imagine how many terrible concepts he had to unlearn by himself to be a confident gay black man who does drag in the 1800s! Imagine how courageous he had to be to fight for lgbt people as a former slave in America in the 1800s!
William Dorsey Swann is the original queen, the original drag mother, the original activist. Tell his story!
I assume these have been posted, but friends, you HAVE to see some more photos from this shoot:
you never know what someone is going through. for instance i didnt know i was going through anything until about 2 years later. i thought i was just chilling
most important thing to remember about being a woman is if youre married you have to go under the covers with your husband and laugh cutely and play wrestle so when you die to progress the narrative he can remember it in slow motion montages
why do i have to explain to grown ass adults that human rights r called human rights bc every single human is entitled to them bc they r human, n they should never b taken away no matter who they are or what they did. and that advocating for the removal of human rights, nomatter who the target of it is, is not only incredibly cruel but will eventually spiral and lead to oppression. didnt we learn that shit in like 5th grade.
“well you see taking away THIS group’s human rights will fix ever-” no it wont!! it wont!!!!! and it never will!!!!
i think makeup can be artistic expression i also think sometimes people are lying about it being about artistic expression and would in fact be a lot happier if they had never been told they had to wear it
it’s the hunger games renaissance so i just want to remind everyone that donald sutherland (who played president snow) was on a cia watchlist for anti-war activities. he fully understood the role and message of the books and in an interview literally said “he runs a totalitarian state, he’s an oligarch- we have them here” during an interview.
okay okay I know the point of this is “White people need to put as much effort into learning how to pronounce Black people’s names as they do foreign European names” and 100% I totally agree, absolutely good point
but this tweet becomes hilarious in the context of this clip:
anyways, absolutely put effort into learning how people pronounce their names. just don’t feel bad if it takes you some time to get it right 😅
(also in case you didn’t watch the video it’s “N-SHOO-tee” not “SHOO-tee”)
