Exhibit looks at Brooklyn’s gay waterfront
By Colin Mixson We’ll have a gay old time!
A Brooklyn author
will offer bi-curious
locals a glimpse into the halcyon
days of Kings County’s queer culture
at Brooklyn Historical Society
on March 5, where he will launch
his new book “When Brooklyn
was Queer,” and unveil an exhibit
of 19th-century relics from some
of the borough’s first known gay
and lesbian communities.
The new show “On the (Queer)
Waterfront” explores the lives of
Victorian-era queer individuals
through period art, photographs,
fliers, lurid true-crime tales, and
extraordinary personal documents,
including a never-before-exhibited
scrapbook revealing the life of a
gay woman living through 19thcentury
Brooklyn, said the show’s
co-curator.
“She was a lesbian from
Brooklyn, and a prodigious scrapbooker,”
said Hugh Ryan. “It’s an
incredible document, the likes of
which I’ve never seen before.”
Ryan began his history of Kings
County’s queer culture with famed
Brooklyn bard Walt Whitman,
who through poems like “Leaves
of Grass” exposed an otherwise
undocumented interest in samesex
relationships brewing along the
borough’s waterfront.
“Even though we only have
records of Whitman, because he
kept these records of other men,
we know there was a community
there, of white, working-class men
on the waterfront, who were into
the idea of sexual relationships
with other men,” said Ryan.
The new exhibit, billed as the
first to look at the borough’s gay
history, focuses on professions
that, for various reasons, drew the
interest and talent of blue-collar
queers, according to Ryan.
Some gay Brooklynites were
attracted to the migratory nature of
jobs like shipping and entertaining,
which took them to distant ports
or on cross-country tours, which
COURIER L 48 IFE, MAR, 1-7, 2019 24-7
allowed them to have their samesex
dalliances in distant locales,
while avoiding notoriety at home.
“Part of the reason actors were
more appealing is that you traveled,”
said Ryan. “People couldn’t
keep a close watch on you.”
“On the (Queer) Waterfront”
at the Brooklyn Historical Society
(128 Pierrepont St. between Clinton
and Henry streets in Brooklyn
Heights, www.brooklynhistory.org).
Opening reception March 5 at 6:30
pm. Free. Exhibit open through July
7, Wed–Sun; noon–5 pm. $10 suggested
donation.
TBy Julianne McShane hey’re keeping safe and
sounds.
A trio of local audio aficionados
will discuss their efforts to
preserve the voices of Kings County
during this weekend’s On Air Fest at
the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg.
The panelists of “Saving the Sounds
of Brooklyn” on March 2 hope that
their projects will help Brooklynites
to understand their neighbors, said
one oral historian.
“We like to say we are not giving
voice to the voiceless, we’re giving
ears to the earless,” said Zaheer Ali,
of the Brooklyn Historical Society.
Ali will review “ Muslims
in Brooklyn ,” the society’s newest
oral-history project featuring
50 Muslims from all 18 different
Brooklyn neighborhoods. That
project preserves the sounds of local
people who hail from countries
around the world, Ali said.
“All of those accents are there,
we have different languages represented
… you get a sense of the oral
diversity that exists,” he said.
He will join audio producer
Molly Schwartz of “Preserve This
Podcast,” which focuses on helping
podcasters protect their work
for future generations, and Virginia
Marshall, producer of the Brooklyn
Public Library’s upcoming podcast
“Borrowed,” debuting March
12. The forthcoming audio show
will focus on local stories, as told
through the lens of the library, said
Marshall.
“What we’re trying to do is
capture patrons’ stories, librarians’
stories, tell a little bit of the
library’s history, but also really
center the Brooklyn community,”
she said.
The panel is part of a three-day
“audio-culture festival” featuring
talks and workshops for podcast creators,
and behind-the-scenes talks
with popular podcasters. Highlights
include an interview of author
Roxanne Gay, a talk between former
Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown
and actress Amber Tamblyn, and
a reading by United States Poet
Laureate Tracy K. Smith.
“Saving the Sounds of Brooklyn”
at On Air Fest at the Wythe Hotel
(80 Wythe Ave. at N. 11th Street in
Williamsburg, www.onairfest.com).
March 2 at 11 am. Fest lasts March
2–4. $79 per day ($199 all three
days).
By Kevin Duggan It’s a somber song.
A concert of choral music
that commemorates the “Red
Summer” of 1919, when racist
violence in northern cities led to
hundreds of deaths, will ring out
through St. Ann and the Holy
Trinity Church on March 1 and
3. Grace Chorale of Brooklyn’s
“A Long Dark Shadow” will
showcase three vocal works that
relate to that violent summer 100
years ago, a pivotal time that has
been largely forgotten, said the
choral group’s director.
“Most Americans aren’t that
familiar with that summer, but
many historians argue that it
was one of the most troubling
events of American history,”
said Jason Asbury.
During the early 20th century
many African-Americans
fled Jim Crow segregation in the
south, some finding jobs in northern
cities that suffered from labor
shortages during World War I.
But when white soldiers returned
from the war, they resented the
new arrivals — and they wanted
their old jobs back.
Tensions boiled over at a segregated
Lake Michigan beach,
where a white man killed a
black teenager named Eugene
Williams for swimming in the
“wrong” area.
That murder, and the refusal
of police to arrest the man
responsible, ignited months of
racist violence in Chicago and
beyond, with white mobs roaming
northern cities, lynching
black people, and destroying
their homes and businesses.
Those deadly months galvanized
the nascent civil and voting
rights movements, according
to Asbury.
“The more I learned about
the Red Summer the more I saw
that the foundation of the civil
rights movement and the events
of the 1960s were mobilized
in 1919,” he said.
To raise awareness of this
history, the choral group commissioned
a brand new work. “A
Stone to the Head: The Death
of Eugene Williams,” composed
by Princeton Music graduates
Flannery Cunningham and
Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, which
tells the story of Williams and
connects his death to the ongoing
struggle with police violence
against communities of color,
Asbury said.
The material was tough for
many of the Grace Chorale’s
mostly white singers to process
when they started rehearsing
back in November, according to
Asbury, but that just shows how
Americans need to lean in to
their discomfort surrounding the
country’s racist legacy in order
to overcome it.
“The first rehearsal we went
through the score, I think everyone
was uncomfortable reading
this text about a white mob
lynching an African American,”
he said. “To be living with this
during the last three months has
shown that there’s no escaping
the legacy of how this country
has treated African Americans in
the last 400 years, and it’s up to
us to untangle that and to address
that legacy as individuals.”
The concert will also feature
the 1940 choral ballad “And
They Lynched Him on a Tree,”
with additional voices from the
Brooklyn College Symphonic
Choir and Conservatory Singers
and the String Orchestra of
Brooklyn, along with an excerpt
from Duke Ellington’s rarely
heard suite “The River.”
“A Long Dark Shadow” at St.
Ann and the Holy Trinity Church
147 Montague St., between
Henry and Clinton streets in
Brooklyn Heights, (917) 450–
8172, www.gracechorale.org.
March 1 at 7 pm and March 3 at
3 pm. $20.
Brooklyn bard: Poet Walt Whitman shed light on Brooklyn’s early queer communities
with poems like “Leaves of Grass.” Brooklyn Historical Society
Tense: A black veteran and a member of the Illinois state militia face off during
one of the many riots in Chicago during the Red Summer of 1919, remembered
in concerts in Brooklyn Heights on March 1 and 3. Chicago Tribune
Century’s song
COAST IS QUEER
From year to ear
Brooklyn Heights choir recalls
the ‘Red Summer’ of 1919
Listen up: Virginia Marshall, producer
of the Brooklyn Public Library’s forthcoming
“Borrowed” podcast, will discuss
her show at the On Air Fest in
Williamsburg on March 2.
Photo by Trey Pentecost
/www.brooklynhistory.org)
/www.onairfest.com
/www.gracechorale.org
/www.brooklynhistory.org
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/www.gracechorale.org