The University of North Carolina Press

584 pp., 61/8 x 91/4, 26 illus., 1 map, glossary, notes, bibl., index

Cloth

ISBN  978-0-8078-3209-7

Published: September 2008

Sweet Tea

Black Gay Men of the South

By E. Patrick Johnson

2009 Stonewall Book Award Honor Book, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Round Table of the American Library Association

Giving voice to a population rarely acknowledged in writings about the South, Sweet Tea collects life stories from black gay men who were born, raised, and continue to live in the southern United States. E. Patrick Johnson challenges stereotypes of the South as "backward" or "repressive," suggesting that these men draw upon the performance of "southernness"--politeness, coded speech, and religiosity, for example--to legitimate themselves as members of both southern and black cultures. At the same time, Johnson argues, they deploy those same codes to establish and build friendship networks and to find sexual partners and life partners.

Traveling to every southern state, Johnson conducted interviews with more than seventy black gay men between the ages of 19 and 93. The voices collected here dispute the idea that gay subcultures flourish primarily in northern, secular, urban areas. In addition to filling a gap in the sexual history of the South, Sweet Tea offers a window into the ways that black gay men negotiate their sexual and racial identities with their southern cultural and religious identities. The narratives also reveal how they build and maintain community in many spaces and activities, some of which may appear to be antigay. Ultimately, Sweet Tea validates the lives of these black gay men and reinforces the role of storytelling in both African American and southern cultures.

About the Author

E. Patrick Johnson is chair, director of graduate studies, and professor in the Department of Performance Studies and professor of African American studies at Northwestern University. He is on tour in 2008, giving live performances of "Pouring Tea," a one-man-show based on the interviews collected for Sweet Tea.