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Unpacking queer politics5/30/2023 ![]() ![]() He wrote in 1927 that Harlem was “ not chiefly cabarets, it is chiefly homes.” Some feared that unconventional figures like Bentley were misrepresenting the race, doing a disservice to the cause of racial uplift and to the dignity of the Black community. Du Bois were concerned that their neighborhoods were being used by white visitors like a trip to the zoo or the circus. The visibility of overtly queer figures such as Bentley to the white slumming crowd was an embarrassment to the Black middle class. ![]() Visitors from outside the district went to imbibe bootleg alcohol and watch outrageous performances in exotic locales so they could return home and shock their neighbors with their wild uptown exploits.Ĭab Calloway leads the band at the New Year’s celebration of 1937 at the Cotton Club. Some white liberals in the Jim Crow era believed that Black people were closer to and more in touch with nature, and this desire for authenticity led white “slummers” to visit Harlem dives and seek out blues performances. Many of the clubs, like the Cotton Club and the Ubangi Club, had names that smacked of primitivism. The clubs Bentley performed in offered a form of liberation, but they weren’t entirely free of the oppression of 1920s America. ![]() By the late 1920s, she was so successful that for a while she had a Harlem club named after her, not to mention a Park Avenue apartment, servants, and a beautiful car. Incredibly talented on the piano, she soon started performing professionally. All these factors helped make Harlem the epicenter of the era, where Gladys Bentley rose to fame.īorn in 1907, Bentley relocated to New York from Philadelphia as a teenager after her parents kicked her out for being queer. This led to an explosion of Black literature, music, art, and performance often referred to as the Harlem Renaissance. And Black soldiers who had served in World War I came home with a renewed sense of racial pride. Hundreds of thousands of Southern African Americans went to these cities in search of new opportunities, in what became known as the Great Migration. The early 20th century was still a conservative time in many ways, but the banning of alcohol from 1920 to 1933 created illicit spaces in northern cities like speakeasies and rent parties, which offered temporary freedom from social norms. One reviewer wrote she “sang wicked blues in a deep contralto voice” and “bemoaned her girlfriend who had deserted her for another woman.” As Bentley sang, she went from table to table, and “much to the delight of the audience, every once in a while she’d feign recognition only to find disappointment upon closer inspection.” As for her bawdy songs, one included the lyrics, “It’s a helluva situation up at Yale / As a means of recreation / They rely on masturbation / It’s a helluva situation up at Yale.” Her performances often involved going into the audience and flirting with all the female patrons. There is a rich history of “ male impersonators” on the popular American stage going back to the 19th century, who today are often known as “drag kings.” Some of these performers actively crafted male personae, but others like Bentley used the category of male impersonator just to be their masculine selves, on and off the stage. She even married her white girlfriend in a well-publicized Atlantic City wedding ceremony. A large, masculine, Black woman-a “bulldagger,” in the language of her day-she was known for wearing a white tuxedo and top hat onstage while expertly playing the piano and singing dirty versions of popular songs to rapt “ slumming” audiences. My forthcoming book, The Famous Lady Lovers: Black Women and Queer Desire Before Stonewall, is filled with stories of women who surmounted life in the Jim Crow era to craft the relationships they desired, and Gladys Bentley was one of the boldest of them all.īentley was the most popular and infamous speakeasy performer in Prohibition-era New York. This Women’s History Month, as women and queer people in the United States face growing challenges to their bodily autonomy, it’s encouraging to turn to audacious women from the past who also lived through challenging times. ![]()
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