The latter part of the 20th century has seen the emergence of radical black lesbian
feminists and gay men who have begun to address the forces within black culture and
the culture at large that have rendered their experiences and sensibilities silent.
Theorizing from margin to center, individuals such as Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith,
Essex Hemphill, and Joseph Beam, among others, have undertaken the hard work of
creating language and theoretical paradigms, building literal communities, and
excavating black history as a means of validating their humanity and longstanding
contributions to black cultural formation. In light of this recent artistic and intellectual
renaissance, the Black Queer Studies in the Millennium Conference, held at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from April 7-9, 2000, marked a moment
of profound historical reflection and cultural recalibration. Building upon a legacy of
work generated by black transgendered, lesbian, gay and bisexual writers and
intellectuals, those black queers who assembled at The University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill determined to rethink and recalibrate the essential meanings of
blackness and queerness from their own particular subject positions. Recalling
DuBois’s notion of the problematic black subject at the turn of the 20th century, this
conference foregrounded black same-sexual identity politics, homosexual desire and
transgressive, non-heterosexist bodies as essential axiomatic problems to be considered
by a Black and Queer Studies committed to addressing the needs of the new
millennium.
The skillful and generous organizers of the conference, Professors E. Patrick
Johnson and Mae G. Henderson, described the conference as one intent upon examining
how black queer theorists, in particular, can critically intervene in the formation
of Queer Studies as a disciplinary project. To clarify the particular nature of this
intervention, the organizers outlined a set of postulatory questions that provided the
infrastructure and focus of the conference’s five panel discussions and keynote
address: What are the implications of queer theory for the study of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgendered people of color? Does queer as a term actually fulfill its
promise of inclusivity as it is deployed in queer theory? How do those of us who teach
queer theory effectively integrate the categories of race, class and materiality? How
do we who are activists reconcile queer theory with political praxis? What is the
impact of queer theory on the reception and analysis of black gay literature and
cultural performance?African and African Diaspora Studie
