Queering Black History Month

If you trace back the histories of most of Toronto's black queer and feminist organizing you will find that 101 Dewson Street is the common root. One of the many initiatives born there was ZAMI, the first organized black queer group in Toronto.

Walk into the 519 Centre on a Thursday evening in 1985 and head downstairs to the Pine Room. There you would have found a group of Black and West Indian queers creating an inclusive safe space for themselves at a meeting of ZAMI.

Started in 1984, ZAMI was founded by lesbian activists: Debbie Douglas, Sylmadel Coke, and gay activists: Douglas Stewart and Deryck Glodon. They took the name Zami, a West Indian Creole word for lesbian, and it went on to became not only a support group but also the visible Black queer organization in the city. They took part in Pride Day marches, held social events, and were the black presence in lesbian and gay community events.

"We had all just met each other and we began thinking of other folks like us who didn't have a space to have this conversation and to get to know each other... we wanted a group that could speak to gay and lesbian issues in the black community and to issues of blackness and racism within the lesbian and gay community."

Over time, while women remained involved, ZAMI became a largely men's group while the women became more involved in organizing around black feminist issues, working across intersections of gender, race and sexual orientation forming the Black Women's Collective. For black gay men however, ZAMI had become one of the few spaces where they didn't have to deal with the racism of white gay spaces. Many of ZAMI's members eventually became involved in starting the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention in 1989 and ZAMI eventually ceased to exist in that same year.

This large house on Dewson Street in the west end of Toronto was owned by a lesbian couple from Jamaica, Makeda Silvera and her partner, Stephanie Martin. In 1983 they leased and transformed this house into a Caribbean feminist commune that was the starting point for black and Caribbean lesbian and gay organizing in the city.  The organizations that emerged from the house on Dewson Street were formed in response to rejection by their families and respective communities as well as feelings of alienation from the white gay and lesbian community.

"The house was traffic central, with folks dropping by to borrow a book, drop off flyers, attend late-night meetings about a protest or rally, or an editorial meeting for one of the many feminist publications at the time. We talked about how to discuss gay and lesbian issues within the Black community - very serious conversations about how to open up spaces in organization like the Congress of Black Women and other Black, women of colour, and immigrant women's organizations. Some of our politically active older folks doing Black community organizing were not open or tolerant of those of us who they saw as going against Black community values as they existed at the time."

The BQY initiative was created in 2002 after a group of Black queer youth connected with members of the Black community to approach the Supporting Our Youth (SOY) operating out of the Sherbourne Health Centre, about creating a program for Black queer and trans youth in Toronto.

Virma Benjamin and Cassandra Lord are credited as the volunteer founder facilitators of BQY; however, volunteers like Michele Clarke, Karene Browne, Trevor Gray and Ahkaji Zakiya were also instrumental in building the program in the early days of BQY. In its early incarnation, BQY was a group for “LBGTTQ youth who identified as Black, who identified with the Black diaspora and/or youth who had links or identity with Africa and the Caribbean” - Elisa Hatton.

Youth who attended the group came from all walks of life—some were street-involved or experiencing homelessness, or both, and some lived at home with families, while others lived on their own and were either working or in school.

In 2011, BQY youth curated the program’s first stage for Toronto Pride, creating a unique and much-needed space for Black queer and trans youth by Black queer and trans youth. Since then, the BQY stage has been an annual event that has grown each year, however in 2015, Pride Toronto notified BQY that they would be relocated and began a process that had BQY fighting to maintain their space as part of Pride and experiencing silencing of the voices of Black queer and trans-identified youth. Many youth from BQY decided to join Black Lives Matter Toronto in the Toronto 2016 parade, and took part in the disruption of the parade. For many of these youth,  Pride’s treatment was the spark that ignited their social activism, and served as an important reminder of the need for BQY to take up space in the LGBTQ2S community.

Today, the group is still running as a safe space for Black, multiracial, African and Caribbean youth under 29 years of age who identify as LGBTQ2S. BQY operates as an anti-oppressive, trans-inclusive, participatory, youth-centred space that is responsive to and defined by the needs of its participants.

Any QPOC who attends Toronto Pride usually knows where, when and who's performing at Blockorama. It is a space when you enter, you immediately breathe a sigh of relief as you feel that sense of belonging. For many, it's the one space in which that lingering feeling of homesickness is finally pushed back. As we document the spaces, places and initiatives that were created by queer and trans black people, Blockorama is an essential one to remind everyone of it's place in queer history.

In 1999 Blockorama made its appearance as the very first black queer space in the Toronto pride festival in a parking lot across from the Wellesley subway station. Today it is an all day dance party and stage during Pride to celebrate Black Queer and Trans history, creativity and activism.

The idea for Blockorama came from Jamea Suberi, a Trinidadian lesbian, feminist, educator and activist in 1998. Suberi felt that the Pride parade bore a resemblance to Trinidad Carnival with its vibrant colours and colourful costumes but it lacked the presence of people of colour. She reached out to her friends Angela Robertson, Camille Orridge, Junior Harrison and Douglas Stewart, with the idea to create a Carnival type section in the Toronto Pride Parade called 'Pelau'  made up of primarily queer people of colour. This idea was shelved but it was determined by the group that this would be the year that there would be a larger more visible presence of Black Queer people at Pride. Then, Suberi brought the idea of a Blockorama, an all-day party with drag, steelpan, drummers, dancers and DJs, fashioned after a Trinidad 'Panorama' event.

In 1999 they formed a coordinating committee called Blackness Yes! This committee was made up of queer activists and feminists who were active in the women’s, anti-racism and wider LGBTQ movements in Toronto. They were part of a community who had marched against racist police violence, fought racism in the women’s movement and challenged sexism and homophobia in the Black community.  The Blockorama space was a way to reinsert Black diasporic queerness into Toronto Pride. 

""As Black diasporic queers, we have always occupied multiple spaces but have often experienced these spaces as restricting, invisibilizing and undermining of our Blackness and queerness."

Blockorama is an event that exists at the crossroads of intersectionality and it's an important reminder why visibility, inclusivity and safe spaces around the black queer community are not only worthy of protecting but are intrinsic and necessary to Toronto's queer black culture.

"Blocko shows us that we are not alone, that we are resilient and [that] we know how to have fun in a [world] where we were never meant to survive".

Blockorama has grown tremendously since 1998 and throughout those years, Blackness Yes! continued to host several events that traced Black diasporic queer and trans histories that affirmed and celebrated our visibility and activism. Blockorama has not been without its struggles to keep its place in Toronto Pride as for many years the space was undervalued, underfunded and shifted further and further away from the main hub of Pride festivities. The committee and community has tirelessly fought to keep this space as part of Pride and today, Blockorama remains a declaration of Black queer fearlessness, resilience, desire and power.

Sources:

R. Cassandra Lord in conversation with Jamea Zuberi, Blackness Yes! Blockorama: Making Black Queer Diasporic Space in Toronto Pride. Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer. 2017

Patrizia Gentile, ‎Gary Kinsman, ‎L. Pauline Rankin. We Still Demand!: Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles. 2017

While Pride can be a party for some, it’s often a precarious experience for others, particularly queer and trans BIPOC folk who don’t always feel safe or included in its spaces. For many as well, there has been a search for community driven spaces that veer away from corporate sponsorship. In 2018, Brick and Glitter was formed and became more than just an alternative to Pride to the community.

Self described as a trouble of queers who believe in creativity and collectivity, in imagining together a world worth living in. Intersectional by default and critical by necessity,Bricks and Glitter is a community arts festival, celebrating Two-Spirit, trans and queer talent, ingenuity, caring, anger, and abundance. They attempt to develop capacity, whether trans, Two-Spirit and/or queer, to share skills, hold each other, let abilities shine and build living.breathing.working connections that can carry the community through the rest of the year.

Rather than complaining about the lack of inclusivity, I'd rather use resources to build sustainable events for the community, grounded in a "for us, by us" approach. Rosina Kazi

Their emphasis on community organizing makes it political, something Pride, many argue in the community believe has lost sight of. The “bricks” nod to the activists and cultural workers who have laid a civil rights foundation, pointing to a history of direct action that was often led by Black Queer and Trans folk.