With Black queer people under attack in the streets and in many state legislative chambers, it’s important to amplify the contributions of LGBTQ+ people.
This is especially true in spaces like the church, where queer people are either forced to shrink themselves or risk exile. While the sanctuary has served as a space of trauma and chastisement for queer people, it’s also a space where they have found their voices — in the choir. Many of them have used the Gospel sound to change the soundtracks of our nation.
So as both Pride and Black Music Appreciation Month comes to an end, the Black Joy team partnered with fellow Reckon newsletter Matter of Faith to celebrate a few of the Black queer icons who were raised on a foundation of Gospel music.
Wilmer “Little Axe” Broadnax was a Black transman whose tenor voice raised him to fame in the 1940s and 50s during the golden era of traditional Black Gospel music. Born in Houston, Broadnax started his career as a teen alongside his older brother William, who was known as “Big Axe.” During the 1930s, the brothers were in a gospel quartet group called the St. Paul Gospel Singers until the siblings moved to Southern California and onto bigger dreams in 1940. They formed their own group, Little Axe and the Golden Echoes, and became one of the first Gospel groups to sign to Specialty Records, which also recorded artists such as Little Richard and Percy Mayfield. By the 1950s, Broadnax returned to the South, where he performed with the Spirit of Memphis Quartet – one of the most impressive Gospel groups at that time. Wilmer also performed with the Fairfield Boys in Nashville, Tenn., and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a Black, queer woman who has known the sound of rock music since she started strumming the guitar at four years old. Raised by a family of religious singers and evangelists, Tharpe sung the word of God across the nation at a young age until her family settled in Chicago. Tharpe then started creating what would become the signature sound of Rock and Roll, which was a gumbo of genres: blues, jazz and, of course, Gospel. The way she invented the electric guitar sound and how she navigated both racism and misogyny in the music industry is why she has been crowned the “Godmother of Rock and Roll.” Little Richard, Elvis, Johnny Cash and other singers and musicians have all been awed by Tharpe’s musical magic. Unfortunately, she didn’t get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame until 2018, more than 40 years after her death.
Before she became a Broadway performer and television star, Nell Carter celebrated her love of music in Birmingham, Ala. She not only sung in her church choir, but she also sang all across the state – and later in life, all across the nation. She was also known to perform at lounges that, at the time, were considered unofficial gay bars. Carter left a traumatic childhood behind in Alabama to take advantage of acting opportunities in bigger cities. Her voice earned her a Tony Award in 1978 for her role in the musical “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, which sparked her popularity and led to a leading role in the sitcom “Gimme A Break” in 1982. Carter’s sexuality didn’t become known until after her death in 2003, when people learned she left everything to her partner, a woman she had been with since the mid-1990s.
