Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, holds profound significance for our nation and should be honored and celebrated by everyone, including LGBTQ+ people — and in particular, by LGBTQ+ Christians. Here’s why. For starters, Juneteenth for me as a Christian is
Women’s History Month doesn’t do enough to lift up black lesbians. Fifty years ago in Boston, several lesbian and feminist women of African descent founded the Combahee River Collective. As a sisterhood, they understood that their acts of protest were shouldered by and because of
Every Black History Month, there is always a tribute to the Black church and its gospel music. The contribution of LGBTQ+ singers to the canon of gospel music, however, is never front and center in celebration of its history. Every churchgoer — straight and gay
This past Valentine’s Day, I pay homage to W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1924 novel Dark Princess because it highlights the least talked-about subject then and now: Black love. Two activities converged for me during COVID-19: When not officiating funerals, I read romance novels and
Whether it’s National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, World AIDS Day or any other day set aside for us to confront this epidemic, one sad fact remains startlingly true: HIV/ADS remains an overwhelmingly Black disease in the United States. I remember reading a report this time
In the pantheon of slain Americans who have furthered civil rights gains of a marginalized group, Rita Hester, an African-American transgender woman, is among them. There had been several transgender murders prior to Rita’s — including that of Chanelle Pickett in Watertown, Mass., in 1995,
bell hooks died on December 15, 2021, at 69 in Kentucky. As a Black Appalachian, she was inarguably one of the nation’s prominent feminist scholars and authors and a friend to everyone she met. Last year, Time‘s “100 Women of the Year” called our sister-friend
Welcome to the 21st century, an era where evolving consciousness, transformation, and being woke are the trending terms, book titles, and social media memes. And while there is nothing wrong with that, many of us are missing the deeper calling of the deeper questions: What
The long-awaited justice for R. Kelly’s survivors finally came last month when a New York federal jury found him guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking. For nearly 30 years, underage black girls and their families have tried to bring Kelly to justice. Now the question
Take all the colors of the rainbow, mix them together, and what do you get? You get a very dark shade of brown you might as well call Black. This is metaphorical as well as literal when it comes to explaining the place of Black