communities of silence that reared black gay
men, silence’s accountability for the AIDS epi-
demic among blacks, and the misconstrued rep-
resentation of black homosexuals by the media
led Hemphill to publish a generous anthology as
an offering to others like him. He dedicates the
anthology to his lover, Joseph Fairchild Beam,
editor of In the Life, who died from an AIDS-
related illness in 1988. In Hemphill’s poem to
Beam, “When My Brother Fell,” his speaker says,
“it’s too soon to make monuments” for sons of
AIDS (111). Brother to Brother is greater than any
monument. The poems, short stories, interviews,
and essays are testimonies of love, strength, and
courage and give a powerful representation of
the black gay male amid self-discovery and the
development of a collective consciousness often
chastised by silence and deadly change.
“When I Think of Home,” Section I of the an-
thology, opens with “Sacrifice,” a metaphorical
birth of homosexuality in the black American race.
The title of Adrian Stanford’s poem alone is reso-
nant of the black man’s self-sacrifice to America
and all that is owing to his own loss of identity.
The poem is powerfully imagistic in its sense of
duality. The effeminate identity of the son could
be the father’s second sacrifice. The question is,
can the father choose to eliminate his gay son? Or
is the title’s image of sacrifice a forecast for the so-
cially imposed silence on the gay black son? Is a
strong sense of community possible for the black
homosexual?
Family is community for many African Ameri-
cans, who may not have a clear national identity.
Coming out represents an even greater challenge
for the African-American male, as he admittedly
sacrifices the very foundation that birthed and
strengthened his fortitude for becoming a man.
A touching story, “The Jazz Singer,” by Charles
Henry Fuller, illustrates the lonely awkwardness
of an adolescent discovering his homosexuality.
By personifying the jazz singers his parents listen
to, singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith, Billie
Holliday, Lena Horne, and Sarah Vaughn, the boy
adheres to the music of his family, yet he stands
in opposition to his father’s sense of masculinity.
The father does soften to his discovery of his son
dressed up in women’s clothing, but he sternly
warns his son that there are things in this world a
black man simply cannot be (6).
“Daddy Lied,” a somber poem by Rory Bu-
chanan, reconciles the silence and its irrational
sensibilities as belonging to the past. Buchanan’s
father raised him as his father’s father had done:
according to a silent code of manhood. Silence
serves as a refrain in the African-American com-
munity. Like music, the sustained pause is a som-
ber unspoken embrace. “Letter to Gregory” by Alan
Miller broadens the notion of community and its
quiet embrace in a moving eulogy for a young man
killed in “the unyielding appetite of the harshest /
light.. .” by a drive-by shooter (29). Miller’s use
of photographs offers an intimate remembrance
of Gregory and an emotive mourning over the de-
cline of the African-American community to vio-
lence and infighting.
Essex Hemphill challenges notions and repre-
sentations of family in his poem “Commitments.”
Like Miller, Hemphill uses photographs to show
the quiet legacy of the homosexual youth as he
stands among his relatives, seated beside them at
the picnic table and at holiday dinners. Hemphill
uses the poem to challenge his community, his
family, regarding their “conditional” commitment
to the child represented in those family photo-
graphs. He says, essentially, that the homosexual
has always been there among his family, but where,
father, mother, aunt, and uncle, have you been?
Self-empowerment finally seems to reign for the
gay black man in “At 36,” a story by Charles Harpe.
Here, Harpe is at the age he had always found cap-
tivating and secure in a homosexual. Homosexual-
ity is no longer an issue for him, yet he is in a place
of forgiveness (53). The lack of love, the desire to
be loved, and low self-esteem are common traits in
the otherwise diverse community of gay men. The
desperate need for love continues “At 36,” as long
as a lack of understanding and stability in the Afri-
can-American community in general persists.
“Baby, I’m for Real,” Section II, chronicles the
voices of lovers and the development of a gay black
community. “Comfort,” a poem by Don Charles,
addresses the warmth of things familiar, the com-
fort of likeness, of history, and shared experience.76 Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men