Morehouse to Offer Course in Black LGBT History, Culture

The course will help bring to light LGBT figures who have been overlooked.

Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.

Read Full Bio

Trudy Ring

December 20 2012 10:06 PM EST

November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST

trudestress

Sorry to interrupt...
But we wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading. Your support makes original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Help us hold Trump accountable.

One-time Monthly

$19.67 $50 Other

$5 $19.67 $50

Morehouse College, a historically African-American school, will offer a course in black LGBT history and culture beginning in the spring semester.

Yale University professor Jafari S. Allen will teach the class via Skype, reports The Maroon Tiger, Atlanta-based Morehouse's student newspaper. "He's very interested in gender nonconformity among people of color, and I'm interested in that as well," said Marcus Lee, special project and events coordinator for SafeSpace, Morehouse's gay-straight alliance, who brought Allen into the project.

Allen told the paper, "What you call 'human rights advocacy' is for me just trying to be a responsible person in the world to point out and perhaps, in some cases, also to attempt to help to fix injustices. While this may be controversial in some academic settings where there is the pretension of a kind of nonpolitical educational project, this has never been the case for Morehouse or for any historically black institution. So it is essential for Morehouse students, faculty, administrators, and alumni to engage [in] this conversation."

SafeSpace public relations director Ja'Mal Lewis said the course will bring visibility to black LGBT leaders who have been overlooked. "Many influential LGBT leaders have gone unrecorded due to their sexuality, and they made many of the movements that changed and shaped our history," he said.