“A Black Queer History” with C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost

If you have not read A Black Queer History of the United States yet, you are so lucky to have this fantastic book in your future! And lucky for me that this is also an excellent opportunity to speak to two dream guests: C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost speak about gender trouble in the Black queer archives, how Black and queer histories need to be thought together and why grounding oneself in community is part of what it means to survive.  

References:
C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost’s A Black Queer History of the United States (2026)
C. Riley Snorton’s Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (U of Minnesota Press, 2014)
C. Riley Snorton’s Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (U of Minnesota Press, 2017)
Darius Bost’s Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence (U of Chicago Press, 2019)
Cathy J. Cohen “Deviance as Resistance: A New Research Agenda for the Study of Black Politics” (2014)
William Cathay/Cathay Williams
Phil Black
The Funmakers Ball
Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman
Erica R. Edwards
Marsha P. Johnson
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR)
Combahee River Collective
National Black Justice Coalition
“Black Lesbian Thought” with Briona Simone Jones
@c.rileysnorton
dbost@uic.edu
@windycitybq
Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s Neptune Frost
Jellicle Ball
Essex Hemphill’s Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry      

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.      Why do Black and queer history need to be thought of together? How are they sometimes separated?
2.      Darius speaks about the book having two parts. What is each about?
3.      Riley speaks about gender and sexual deviance as forms of survival or escape. What does this mean? Can you name an example?
4.      What does Darius say about the relationship between civil rights ideology and non-normative gender?
5.      Why is it important to speak about collectives as well as individuals when engaging with Black queer history?