September 2, 2020: Queering the Black Past with Kevin Quin

With instructor Kevin Quin, we are offering an informative presentation and discussion about the L.A.-based Association of Black Gays, the political life of its leader Ron Grayson, and the broader implications the group has in terms of historical and theoretical intersections between African American and LGBTQ histories.

The Association of Black Gays was one of the earliest Black-led gay activist groups that formed in Los Angeles in 1976. Though short-lived, the group’s combination of political, intellectual, and creative activities raised awareness about the issues facing L.A.’s black gay and lesbian communities and offered a critical perspective of the mainstream gay rights movement.

Kevin Quin is a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies at Cornell University with a graduate minor in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies. His research examines how changing attitudes toward gender and sexuality shaped the scope and direction of black activism in postwar urban America. Kevin has been the recipient of a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, a One Institute LGBTQ Research Fellowship, a The HistoryMakers Academic Research Fellowship, and a Mellon Urbanism Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation’s Collaborative Studies in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities. His essays and reviews have been published in the Journal of African American History, Women’s Studies, The American Historian, and Black Perspectives.

To preview Kevin Quin’s research on early Black gay activism, please read his blog post “Queer Visions of the Black Past: Black Gay and Lesbian Cultural Politics, 1970-1989”.

Thank you to our Dean’s List Sponsor(s):

Leslie Hope

Image credit: Ron Grayson and Troy Perry at an LAPD protest, c. 1975. Pat Rocco Photographs and Papers, ONE Archives at the USC Libraries.