W0011 |
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Object Description
Interview no. | W-0011 |
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 5, 2005 |
Interviewee | D. Berry, pseud. |
Interviewee DOB | 1960 |
Interviewee ethnicity | African Americans |
Interviewer | Johnson, E. Patrick, 1967- |
Abstract | D. Berry is a black, gay man from Memphis, Tennessee, born in 1960. He reflects on his childhood, and how growing up gay in Memphis led to a lot of taunting for being a sissy. He describes this time as happy, but cruel. Though his mother was a homemaker, she occasionally worked retail and as a seamstress; his father supervised a chemical factory. He does not participate much in the church. His parents instilled tolerance in him for people of different ethnicities, and he has several biracial cousins. In the summertime he and all his many cousins would reside with their grandmother out in the country, sleeping on pallets wherever there was room. As an HIV-positive man he is very careful about his sexual behavior, and discusses how he takes steps to try and reeducate others to not behave recklessly, in particular he expresses frustration with the new generation of black gay men who do not evaluate the impact HIV will have on their life and which it has definitely had on his own. He speaks about how he feels alienated from the community around him in Memphis. He recalls his attendance at Gay Pride in Atlanta and the sense of community and celebration that he enjoyed while he was there. 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 D. Berry by E. Patrick Johnson, July 20, 2005 W-0011, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. |
Description
Interview no. | W0011 |