The LGBTQ Experience

The (Gay) Harlem Renaissance- The History You Didn’t Learn video

Guiding Question: How did the intersection of sociocultural events in the Roaring Twenties allow the LGBTQ community to flourish in Harlem? Why does Fitzgerald omit the Harlem Renaissance and LGBTQ people from The Great Gatsby?

Access Recommendation: The teacher should play the video for the whole class to view and discuss together. Depending on the classroom environment established by the teacher, it may be necessary to remind students about respecting people from all backgrounds, gender identities, and sexualities. The teacher should be prepared for questions about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Annotation: This 5-min video explains how the modern LGBTQ Rights movement has its origins in the Harlem Renaissance, some fifty years earlier than the Stonewall Uprising which is oft-credited as the origin of the LGBTQ Rights movement. It references the Great Migration, an important historical event in which southern Black people moved north and west to large cities where they were able to find both work and lesser forms of discrimination. The video goes on to explain how the discrimination, segregation and lack of civil services that Black people faced which caused them to move to Harlem, allowed for this “paradoxical form of freedom that is based out of legal, economic and political disenfranchisement.” Lesbian, gay and transgender people, as well as some white people were attracted to the area because of the lack of police oversight, particularly during the Prohibition era. All of these factors coalesced to create a unique time period in American history that allowed a sense of freedom of expression that soon came to an end as the Great Depression neared and cultural conservatism reigned.