“This is our time. This is our moment. We are at a very critical juncture as a country and as Black people we’ve always been at a critical juncture, but at this moment I believe that things are shifting.” Devin Barrington-Ward speaks to Charles Stephens for The Reckoning.

Queer couple Ja’Mel Ware, 32, and Alphonso Mills, 29, avoided each other for months after they first met at The Vision Cathedral of Atlanta in 2018. The avoidance—a result of excitement, fear, and an internal knowing that the journey they were about to embark upon would be different than any relationship they’d ever experienced—was cemented during a recent Thanksgiving trip to Disney World. It would prove to be a full-circle moment for Ware, who until recently associated the “most magical place on earth” with one of his most painful childhood memories.

Today, December 1, 2020, is World AIDS Day. And as we reflect on the lives lost to the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic, we also celebrate the resiliency of those living and thriving with HIV. Michael Ward, 34, is one of those individuals. In a year rife with devastating loss, global financial instability, food insecurity, mental health challenges, and a lack of national leadership in response to the coronavirus pandemic, many Americans were forced to navigate life in unfamiliar ways and with varying degrees of success. Ward, whose public profile increased in 2020 is no exception. As the host of CNPs “Revolutionary Health,” a weekly Facebook Live series focused on the health of Black queer men, and as co-creator of “Black, Gay, stuck at home,” a virtual film series centering Black LGBTQ stories and filmmakers, not only is Ward’s visibility increasing, but his vulnerability and willingness to speak about his experience of being a Black gay man living with HIV is as well.

Lyrik London is not interested in being the token gay man for heterosexual consumption, nor is he interested in dimming his light, his strut, his speech, or his art to make others comfortable. To paraphrase the great Black lesbian poet Audre Lorde, he insists on defining himself for himself, rather than being crunched into other people’s fantasies and eaten alive.

For a moment on the evening of November 3, 2020, many Democratic voters feared a repeat of election night 2016, which saw former Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, the clear favorite to win the presidency, end the night in defeat. Granted, many factors ended Clinton’s historic candidacy that paved the way for the Trump era in American politics, but almost no single decision made by the Clinton Campaign came under the amount of scrutiny that the Electoral College faced following Clinton’s devastating loss.

With early voting in Georgia scheduled to end on October 30, and with more than 3.2 million Georgians having already cast their ballot as of October 27, according to data from the secretary of state’s office, early voting turnout has broken records in the state—and depending on who you ask—is an indication of a blue wave in favor of a Biden presidency or an influx of Trump supporters who are secretly casting their ballot for the incumbent. Regardless of which candidate will receive the popular vote on election night, it’s the electoral college that matters—a painful civics lesson that many Americans were forced to relearn on election night 2016. Elections have consequences. And judging by the lines that stretched for blocks and lasted for hours at many polling places throughout metro Atlanta, voters appear to be using the power of their vote in response to a litany of shortcomings from national leadership.

These days, Jericho Brown is planning his laughter. Despite living through a pandemic, the last five months in the life of this Louisiana-bred, Atlanta-based poet certainly isn’t lacking for reasons to evoke joy, after all, he is the author of “The Tradition,” which earned him the 2020 Pulitizer Prize for Poetry—a historic moment in which Brown became one of two openly queer Black men to be awarded the prestigious honor in the same year. Much like his poetry, Brown’s laughter is infectious and unrestrained, soothing and measured, jarring and familiar; delivered with the intonation and cadence of a Kat Williams stand-up routine that leaves you bellowing over in laughter only to realize that he’s delivered a gut-punch that is simultaneously reflective and unrelenting. Jericho Brown is poetry in motion. He’s also in demand. One glimpse at the 326 text messages on his phone, many of which are congratulatory messages sent after his win, speaks to his impact on the world and the literary community. But despite the Pulitzer Prize elevating his career to unimaginable heights, Brown is embracing the journey and prioritizing laughter.

As Americans are laser-focused on the upcoming presidential election on November 3, there’s another local election that may have slipped under the radar for some, but like all down-ballot races, is equally important. Longtime Atlanta politician, Kwanza Hall (D-District 5), 49, a former member of the Atlanta City Council and a former mayoral candidate, is facing a runoff on December 1 against challenger Dr. Robert Franklin (D-District 5) after neither candidate secured fifty-percent of the vote during a special election in September to fill the District 5 congressional seat left vacant after the death of the late civil rights icon John Lewis.

The Reckoning spoke with Hall, who has been endorsed by Lewis’s son, John Miles-Lewis, about his campaign, his political platform, his allyship to the LGBT community, and his agenda for his short stay in Congress, if elected.

His smile was perhaps Rodnell Dominique Riddick’s most recognizable trait. Bright and toothy, with an inner brilliance that illuminated his whole face. Smooth chocolate skin, bold fashion sensibility, and an indefatigable love for Black men of size were other defining traits for the man most in Atlanta’s creative and Black LGBTQ+ communities knew as Dominique or Dom/Domo. Founder of both the Fearful Clothing Line and later the Tempting, Handsome, Intelligent, and Charming Kings Movement aka the T.H.I.C.K.

Your power is in your vote. The 2020 presidential election is shaping up to be one of the most important elections in the history of modern politics. And with voter enthusiasm at an all-time high and record turnout during the first week of early voting in Georgia, it’s imperative that voters are equipped with the information they need in order to successfully cast their ballot.

Picture it. Atlanta. June 23, 2006. A Black church boy sits in a room awaiting the results of a rapid HIV test. The seconds feel like hours and the hours feel like days. The clock strikes 3 p.m., he is now fifteen minutes away from embodying the stereotype of Black gay men living with HIV as an inevitability. His greatest fear is confirmed. He is HIV-positive. He is also given 90 days to live. But for Morris Singletary, 43, Founder and CEO of Pozitive2Positive, there are no tears, only the beginning of an awakening that would lead him to fight for his life and the lives of other Black same gender loving church boys living with HIV.

Victor Jackson’s father tossed his first pair of ballet shoes into the trash. It was a failed attempt to derail his son’s desire to study dance, restrict access to what he believed to be queer affirming spaces, and to suppress a noticeably burgeoning queer identity. It didn’t work. But that didn’t stop his minister father from trying, nor did it extinguish Jackson’s fire for an artform that would catapult him into his purpose. When Jackson saw his ballet shoes in the trash, which were purchased at Goodwill and gifted to him by his babysitter, he said he knew that he’d be solely responsible for finding ways to receive the training he needed and to create ways to learn and to lean into his passion.

“You know who I am and you know what I am here for. Turn up for Jesus and turn down for nothing!” Those who follow Elder Rahkel Henry, 44, on social media are familiar with this call to action that serves as the intro to several Facebook videos posted by the Atlantic City, New Jersey native to inspire her followers. During a recent conversation she confessed, “I know I’m real talkative, I can’t help it.” This is true, but what Henry doesn’t mention is that when she speaks, she always has a WORD that compels people of faith or no faith at all to sit up and listen, which as an African-American transgender woman in ministry, is a feat of epic proportions.

High above Goodfellas Pizza at the intersection of Spring Street and North Avenue in Midtown, stands a billboard featuring Jeremy Roberts, 31, accompanied by the words: “I Wouldn’t Be Here Without Grady.” Atlantans will instantly recognize the billboard as an ad for Grady Hospital, a long-standing health care institution that for decades has served Atlanta’s African-American community, including those who are uninsured, underinsured, and or living with HIV. Behind the smile and confidence that Roberts displays for thousands of commuters each day, is a story of a man living and thriving with HIV despite initially having his status weaponized against him.

Rev. Duncan Teague’s visit to Atlanta in 1984 was supposed to be a short-lived two-week vacation to celebrate his college graduation. Now nearly 40 years later, Teague is among thousands, if not millions of Black gay men who have migrated to Atlanta in search of liberation, freedom, community, and themselves. It’s a common thread that connects those who have taken the bus ride of faith from their relatively small southern or midwestern towns, often with no concrete plan and very little money, but with an overwhelming desire to become fully realized human beings in a city that is often both romanticized and demonized, yet affords Black gay men space to simply be.

In the wake of the grand jury’s decision and public outrage, The Reckoning collected statements from leaders and community activists in Atlanta’s Black LGBTQ community to get a sense of how local thought and movement leaders are grappling with another Black murder at the hands of the state going unpunished.

New York City based poet, writer, and first time filmmaker Kamaria J. Hodge could have let fear and inexperience stop her from stepping into the director’s chair, but not only would that have been an affront to her gift as an artist, it would have deprived the world of the beautiful gift that is “Bill & Robert,” the short film that serves as Hodge’s directorial debut and is scheduled to make it’s Atlanta premiere during the virtual Out On Film Festival kicking off on September 24.

Bisexuality is real. Black Bisexual men exist. Andrew Gillum happens to be one of those men. The Reckoning is providing a platform to three openly bisexual Black men to amplify their truth and to take control of a narrative that has historically been steeped in misinformation and bias, and told by everyone but the men who live it.

Anthony L. Williams, writer and director of the 2017 independent feature film “Thicker Than Blood” is placing Black gay characters at the center of his work and challenging audiences to move beyond any stereotypically held beliefs in search of the truth in love that binds us all.

Black gay relationship counselor and psychosexual therapist Machel Hunt tells The Reckoning that he is “on a mission to have every Black gay man in Atlanta in therapy.”