When Harlem Was ‘as Gay as It Was Black’

The New York Times has just published an essay by By Derrick Bryson Taylor and Scott Reinhard When Harlem Was ‘as Gay as It Was Black’ which maps the people, homes and hot spots that transformed the neighborhood during its Harlem Renaissance.

The text features Isaac Julien's photographic artwork series that was created during the production of his iconic film Looking for Langston (1989). 

In 1989, Julien helped lead the efforts in the late 1980s and 1990s to reevaluate gay and lesbian contributions to the Renaissance, released “Looking for Langston,” a black-and-white phantasmagorical film inspired by Hughes.

“I think in ‘Looking for Langston,’ it's of course not a traditional documentary,” Mr. Julien said. “It’s looking to the secret places of dreams, desire, the subterranean sort of aspects which were there in the literature.”