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Object Description
Interview no. | W-0039 |
Restrictions | In-library use only. Access through the Southern Historical Collection. |
Project | W.2. LGBTQ Life in the South: Sweet Tea Interviews by E. Patrick Johnson |
Project description | Interviews, 2003-2006, conducted by E. Patrick Johnson with black gay men from the South including men from many Southern states regarding their experience of growing up gay in the South with particular focus on such topics as the influence of the church in upbringing, coming out experiences, gay vernacular, college and career in the South, gay life in small towns, segregation, gay social life, and whether the South is hospitable to gays. These interviews form the basis for Johnson's book, “Sweet Tea: Black Gay men of the South,” published in 2008 by University of North Carolina Press. |
Date | July 20, 2003 |
Interviewee | Tony. |
Interviewee occupation |
Actors Professors |
Interviewee DOB | 1961 |
Interviewee ethnicity | African Americans |
Interviewer | Johnson, E. Patrick, 1967- |
Abstract | Tony is a black gay man from Memphis, Tennessee, born in 1961. Growing up, Tony and his mother were very close and his father worked very hard to bring their family into the middle class. His maternal grandmother grew up middle class even during the depression and his mother did as well. His parents provided him the opportunity to attend an art academy, music lessons, and Tony attended a white Catholic school, which resulted in him having two worlds to navigate. He switched from the Catholic high school to the public high school in the area, where he ended up not being challenged at all and so he spent much of his time playing hooky. He was a boy scout growing up and witnessed his fellow scouts shouting racist slurs at black girls outside of their bus on one trip. The Children's Theater in Memphis was what he considered a utopia of racial harmony. He had girlfriends but around tenth grade he decided that he had to get out of Memphis to explore his identity, and so he applied for and attended an arts school, where he came to understand himself. He studied musical theater and dance at college in California. He discusses his involvement in the art community in Memphis, and how he considers Memphis his physical home but that he considers California his spiritual home. He discusses how AIDs was a racially divided issue in the 1980s and the progression of gay rights in America. He attends a church some people in Memphis call the “gay church” even though only one or two men there are gay. He is grateful for the beauty of the South and but looks back on the racial tensions in his high school. Many of his earlier decisions in life were made out of fear and shame, but now he has come to embrace himself. Tony is proud to be a black gay man, but he says it is “just hard”. This interview is part of the E. Patrick Johnson collection and was conducted for Johnson's book, “Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South.” |
Citation | Interview with Tony by E. Patrick Johnson, July 20, 2003 W-0039, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. |
Description
Interview no. | W0039 |