Black Lesbian Newsletter Bay Area Periodical Archive of 3 Consecutive Issues, 1982

Black Lesbian Newsletter

Periodical

Black lesbian community and cultural organizing in the Bay Area, 1982, documented through three consecutive issues of Black Lesbian Newsletter published during its first year. Founded by Laverne Gagehabib, A. C. Barber, and Vivienne Walker-Crawford, the newsletter created a forum in which Black lesbians could publish poetry and artwork, advertise events and businesses, exchange personals, review books and performances, and address racism, isolation, and political disagreement within lesbian communities. The October issue states the editors’ purpose directly: "...this newsletter is an important vehicle for creating a sense of community which so often feels fragmented and isolating...this can be an important way to express the divergent opinions and ideas of Black Lesbians". The three issues preserve that project across consecutive months, moving between community announcements and first person accounts of Black lesbian social life, theater, and experiences of racism in Bay Area lesbian spaces. Black Lesbian Newsletter. Vol. I. Berkeley: Black Lesbian Newsletter, October to December 1982. Archive of 3 consecutive issues, each 8 pages, 8.5 x 11 inches, in illustrated pictorial wrappers. Published in San Francisco and Berkeley from 1982 to 1984 and later titled Onyx. [1] Black Lesbian Newsletter. Vol. I, No. 4. Berkeley: Black Lesbian Newsletter, October 1982. Includes poetry, drawings, political commentary, book and event notices, personals, business listings, and the editors’ statement describing the newsletter as a means of countering fragmentation and isolation among Black lesbians while providing space for "divergent opinions and ideas." [2] Black Lesbian Newsletter. Vol. I, No. 5. Berkeley: Black Lesbian Newsletter, November 1982. Includes discussion of Black lesbian theater and creative work, including Paula Ross’s account of efforts to develop Black lesbian theater in the Bay Area and Joyce Penalver’s recollection of Black lesbian social life in Harlem in 1961. [3] Black Lesbian Newsletter. Vol. I, No. 6. Berkeley: Black Lesbian Newsletter, December 1982. Includes community notices and commentary alongside Marlene Bonner’s report on racist harassment directed at six Black women at Ollie’s, an Oakland lesbian bar, followed by demands addressed to the establishment. The run belongs to a period when lesbian and gay periodical publishing provided organizational infrastructure for communities poorly represented in commercial media and frequently marginalized within larger feminist and gay institutions. Black Lesbian Newsletter addressed that problem from within Black lesbian life itself. Its contents move between cultural production and practical community formation: poems and drawings appear beside subscriptions, telephone contacts, event announcements, personals, political statements, and accounts of discrimination. The November discussion of theater records efforts to create Black lesbian cultural work outside predominantly white institutions, while the December report on Ollie’s documents conflict within lesbian social space and the organized response of Black women confronting racist treatment. Light toning and minor handling wear; wrappers and interiors clean and intact. Overall very good condition. A consecutive three issue record of Black lesbians using independent print to build community, circulate cultural work, document discrimination, and debate the political conditions of Black lesbian life in the Bay Area in 1982.

Item #23737

Price: $385.00