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By the mid-forties, most of Bronzeville’s former queer-friendly nightclubs had become exclusively African-American gay clubs (example: The Kitty Kat Club).ĭuring the Civil Rights movement, Bronzeville’s Black queer residents also became politically active in a range of activities that expanded queer culture beyond entertainment settings. The migration of queer people to Chicago gave rise to an increase of North Side gay bars from which Blacks were often excluded. Guests of the ball only paid twenty-five cents to attend.Ī Black Queer Subculture Emerges, Faces Anti-Queer Media Campaignįollowing the Second World War a few years later, a segregated African-American queer subculture emerged in Bronzeville. The most famous of these Drag Balls were the first Finnie's balls, the first of which occurred in 1935 and were organized by a Black gay street hustler and gambler named Alfred Finnie, in the basement of a tavern on the corner of 38th street and Michigan Avenue. The first Chicago balls were also racially integrated, a fact frequently remarked upon by those who attended or wrote about them. The official “approval” was made possible by the fact that the events regularly took place on those holidays, and thus for official purposes, were able to pass as conventional masquerade balls. In “ Sissy Man Blues,” a traditional tune recorded by numerous male blues singers, the singer demanded, “If you can't bring a woman, bring me a sissy man.” The blues reflected a culture that accepted sexuality, including queer acts and identities, as a natural part of life.įemale impersonators (a term widely used in the 1930s-1950s to describe Drag performers) also enjoyed a great popularity due to the “Drag Balls” organized every Halloween and New Year's Eve.
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Blues singers, such as Gladys Bentley, Alberta Hunter, and 'Ma' Rainey, often performed in Chicago and had recorded numerous sexually explicit songs that included descriptions of queer acts. In search of a place of residence more receptive to his music and sexual orientation, the musician migrated to Chicago in 1908.Īlong with several other gay blues singers, queer female blues singers also enjoyed a great popularity in Bronzeville's cabarets in the twenties and thirties. Despite his great popularity as a musician, Jackson often complained about the tough queer life in New Orleans.
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Born in New Orleans in 1876, Jackson spent his youth in saloons, gambling halls, and brothels in the Black neighborhood of Storyville. Blues pianist Antony Jackson was one of the many queer migrants who left their native South to take advantage of Chicago's freedom. In an environment of relative sexual freedom, African Americans in Bronzeville could establish relationships with members of the same sex. On the streets, working-class queer African Americans (drag entertainers, for example) were respected because of their relatively well-paying jobs, which often enabled them to provide for their families’ needs.ĭuring the Great Migration, Bronzeville's queer population grew rapidly. Evans) and its most famous musicians (Tony Jackson, Rudy Richardson, Sippie Wallace, Frankie “Half-Pint” Jaxon, and George Hannah) were queer. From State Street to Cottage Grove Avenue, along 43rd and 47th Street, Bronzeville’s commercialized and jazz-influenced urban culture offered African-American queers several venues where individuals interacted across the color line (the Plantation Café, the Pleasure Inn, the Cabin Inn, Club DeLisa and Joe's Deluxe), attended yearly popular Halloween “Drag Balls” popularized by Black gay hustler Alfred Finnie, visited semi-safe locations (the Wabash YMCA, The First Church of Deliverance, Washington Park, Jackson Park), and patronized a “vice district.” Bronzeville's most powerful inhabitants (Reverend Clarence Cobb and Reverend Mary G. Bronzeville is often thought of as one of Chicago’s most prominent, African-American neighborhoods, but it was also home to a vibrant, well-accepted queer culture that emerged in the 1920s.