In 2000, I wrote an introduction for a new edition of Essex Hemphill’s magnificent collection "Ceremonies." I pointed out what I believed to be that work’s purpose: remembrance as the only way to begin the process of healing the wound that white supremacy, poverty, homophobia, heterosexism, and most recently HIV/AIDS had inflicted upon us as Black Gay Men. (Cover image of Essex Hemphill by Barbara N. Kigozi, June 1994)

On Essex Hemphill's birthday on April 16, 2020 CNP hosted a virtual reading of the artist’s work. Since the founding of CNP, we have honored the life and legacy of Essex. Our organization is a love letter to him. (Cover photo of Essex Hemphill by Dr. Ron Simmons © Ron Simmons TA2019.38.1.1.1.8)

Considered a brilliant organizer with an aptitude for detail, he’s the exacting architect of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, an unprecedented demand for civil rights which drew a quarter of a million people to the National Mall -- and catapulted Martin Luther King Jr. into national prominence.

Each February, via Black History Month,  our nation has the opportunity and privilege to reflect on the legacy of Black Americans. From Google Doodles to corporate banks to federal proclamations, reaching far beyond slavery, observing Black History Month allows us to celebrate the substantial contributions that African Americans have made to The United States of America’s history, culture, vibrancy, and soul.

On this episode of The Reckoning, we dive into the multifaceted legacy of civil rights icon Bayard Rustin, who was the visionary and chief organizer of the famed 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

On this episode Charles Stephens chats with Dr. Damian Denson about his personal journey to self through 2000’s Atlanta nightlife.

Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs joined us to discuss her connection to Audre Lorde. Dr. Gumbs is currently writing a biography of Lorde called "The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde."

Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs joined us to discuss her connection to Audre Lorde. Dr. Gumbs is currently writing a biography of Lorde called "The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde." During this conversation Dr. Gumbs discusses Lorde's connection to Joseph Beam and Essex Hemphill. She also discusses Melvin Dixon's 1992 keynote at the OutWrite Conference "I'll Be Somewhere Listening For My Name."

CNP hosted our annual CNP Summit on March 17th and March 18th, 2021. The Summit will be virtual. The theme was: "Lessons Learned from Bayard Rustin."

This session is entitled "Bayard Rustin: Brother of Omega Psi Phi."

CNP hosted our annual CNP Summit on March 17th and March 18th, 2021. The Summit will be virtual. The theme was: "Lessons Learned from Bayard Rustin."

This session is entitled "Influencing a King: Bayard Rustin & Coretta Scott King's LGBTQ+ Activism."

Baldwin’s Atlanta explores James Baldwin's relationship with Atlanta, particularly through his masterpiece "The Evidence of Things Not Seen."

This conversation was taped onAug 2, 2021.

For decades, Black queer creatives have used the art of storytelling to empower themselves and others by telling boldly unique stories created specifically for the Black LBGTQ+ community. However, not very long ago, there was a dire need for Black queer representation, even more so than it is today. In response to that void, pioneering San Francisco based Black gay theater troupe the Postmodern African American Homosexuals (affectionately referred to as Pomo Afro Homos) dominated stages during the early 1990s with their mix of humor, heart, and transparency in the wake of the burgeoning HIV epidemic and ongoing racial disparities.

This April will mark the 26th anniversary of the death of R. Leigh Johnson, or Tré, as he was affectionately called by his family and those in Atlanta’s burgeoning Black gay community of the early ‘90s. A talented poet, singer, and activist, Tré (as I will refer to him going forward) was a creative force whose light was dimmed entirely too soon. Having moved to Atlanta in 2006, a decade after his passing, I’d never heard his name mentioned in activist circles, or read any of his poetry. I didn’t know that he’d once walked the same streets as I did and made it possible for me to experience the liberation and freedom that I now enjoy as an out Black gay man.

Between December 2019 and May 2020, Joshua Henry Jenkins, co-creator of “Black, Gay, stuck at home,” lost two of his closest Black queer friends—Dr. Louis F. Graham, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Policy at The University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Marcus R. White, an Assistant Professor of Dance at Arizona State University. The sudden loss was incomprehensible and rippled throughout the marginalized and artistic communities in which their work was rooted, specifically, but not limited to the cities of Chapel Hill and Greensboro, where Jenkins first encountered the former romantic partners as undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill during the early stages of creating KuchuQwanzaa—a 7-day celebration and expression of Black LGBTQ+ cultural principles, values, and ideals that expands on the more widely known Kwanzaa celebration from December 26, to January 1.

“The idea of interrogating or flipping Kwanzaa on its head to be Black and queer meant that Louis [Graham] and Marcus [White] wanted to also interject those ideologies into the name,” Jenkins says.

Before the digital explosion of Black gay blogs and social media in the mid-2000s, “CLIK,” a glossy full-color monthly magazine created specifically for the Black gay community dominated as the publication of choice for a decade. Co-founded by Lewis Nicholson, who served as the first editor-in-chief, and Dwight Powell, initially a publisher and graphic designer who assumed the role as editor-in-chief after Nicholson’s departure; ultimately becoming the magazine’s longest-running editor and the personality most widely associated with the magazine, which quickly became a Black LGBTQ+ staple.

Norris Bumstead Herndon grew up in a shadow as broad as Georgia. Yet he could only live up to his father and society’s expectations by shrinking himself.

“Norris was a young man coming of age and struggling with his homosexual identity,” historian Carole Merritt wrote in her 2002 biography, “The Herndons: An Atlanta Family.”

“With a father who insisted upon a straight and narrow course and in an early 20th-century society that had no tolerance for what it considered deviant, Norris would have to deny himself. He would assume a compromised selfhood, his sexuality arrested, denied, or expressed in secret.”