BGSQDBureau of General Services—Queer Division
BGSQD
Join longtime activist, scholar of African American studies, and friend of the Bureau James Wright and guest speakers for a discussion of gay artists of the Negro Renaissance.
Featuring a historic overview of Harlem, the Negro Renaissance, and biographical information on several gay artists of the period, including Countee Cullen, Wallace Thurman, Alain Locke, and Bruce Nugent.
We will screen Brother to Brother (2005, written and directed by Rodney Evans, 90 minutes), a dramatic film about the life and times of Bruce Nugent.
James Wright has organized events at the Bureau exploring the lives and works of James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, as well as an event focused on Bruce Nugent and the first and only issue of the black literary journal FIRE!!, which Nugent created with Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas, Gwendolyn Bennett, and John P. Davis in 1926.
About the image: In 1926, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett, and John P. Davis created the first and only issue of the black literary journal FIRE!!, which included Nugent’s explicitly gay poem “Smoke, Lilies and Jade.”