Event Write Up

Event Title: "Going Home Ain't Always Easy: Southern (Dis)Comfort and the Politics of Performing History”: A Lecture by Professor E. Patrick Johnson, Northwestern University
Date: Sept. 28, 4:30-6 pm, Weyerhauser Boardroom, Macalester College
Sponsor: The Mahmoud El-Kati Distinguished Lectureship in American Studies

The El-Kati lectureship was established to honor Professor El-Kati's career as a lecturer, writer and commentator on the African American experience, and E. Patrick Johnson spoke about an often silenced African American experience: that of black gay men in the Southern United States. His lecture was mainly about the process of writing his book, “Sweet Tea”, which is an oral history of black gay men in the South.
He interviewed 70 men for the project, and traveled all over the Southern region of the U.S., speaking with men who were out, men who were in marriages with women, men who ranged in occupation from preacher to drag queen, men who ranged in age from 19-93, and many more. He addressed the topic of oral history methodology and the importance of understanding your positionality and having a clearly defined ethics when working with living people (as opposed to archives).
Interviewing these men, many of whom were not out to their communities, put them at risk and he had to be thoughtful about what he included in his book and how he maintained the privacy of the men. Being a black gay male Southerner himself, he reflected on the access this gave him to the population he wanted to interview, but also how this challenged him personally. He told an anecdote about going to his hometown of Hickory, North Carolina to interview a MTF transgender person named Chas/Chastity, who lived Mon-Sat as a woman and then dressed as a man on Sundays in order to sing in the church choir. Walking around publicly with Chastity, he found himself uncomfortable to be seen with her, and wondered what that would mean for his own reputation in the town. This incident allowed him to reflect on biases he wasn’t aware he had, and to approach the work with even greater sensitivity and awareness.
The real joy of Johnson’s lecture was that he is also an amazing theatrical performer, and has turned the book into a one-man show where he performs some of the men’s interviews as monologues. He performed Chastity’s story for us in the middle of his lecture. He visited my American Studies class the next day, so I heard two more men’s stories as well. His ability to capture the men’s voices and characters was remarkable. Chastity’s story was about self-acceptance and love, and what it means to live life as you were truly meant to live it. The audience in Weyerhauser was captivated, and it was clear that the men’s stories are powerful both in the book and on stage. He told us that his reason for writing was to create an archive of voices that have been silenced, to help homophobic people understand the humanity of queer people, and to provide an affirmation and community for gay black men who are struggling with their identities. His lecture and performance were revealing and powerful.