W0034 |
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Object Description
Interview no. | W-0034 |
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 | January 22, 2005 |
Interviewee | Stanley. |
Interviewee occupation | Professors |
Interviewee DOB | 1950 |
Interviewee ethnicity | African Americans |
Interviewer | Johnson, E. Patrick, 1967- |
Abstract | Stanley is a black gay man from Port Arthur, Texas. His childhood was strongly influenced by his mother, stepfather, and his maternal aunt, with whom he lived for a while before starting school. At an early age he moved with his mother to Eunice, Louisiana, where she married his stepfather. He attended the only school for blacks in Eunice from grades 1-12. Eunice was racially segregated by railroad tracks, but Stanley had a number of both black and white friends. He never realized that they were poor growing up because his parents managed their money very carefully. Though he did not enjoy sermons, he was very involved in church choirs. He did not talk about his sexuality with anyone until he was an adult, and did not even understand the mechanics of sex until he was 22. He attributes a lot of his experience of feeling repressed to the strong sense of religion and the values of the community he grew up in. It was not until his undergraduate that he became sexually active, and even so he was not out, though there was a cadre of openly gay men. A female student of his helped him to come to terms with his sexuality and eventually he found a partner with whom he is very happy, but before that he got into trouble time and time again as a result of cruising. He describes his relief that he did not contract STIs during his more promiscuous, less openly gay period of his life, and talks about how happy being in a monogamous relationship has made him. 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 Stanley by E. Patrick Johnson, January 22, 2005 W-0034, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. |
Description
Interview no. | W0034 |