“Even when I think my work is done or I have a reason to give up, I have a reason to carry on, because my ancestors sacrificed so much for me to be able to do the work I’m doing now.”
Here is an excerpt from an interview with Ricardo Wynn, who is talking about the work he has done to support Milwaukee’s Black LGBTQ community. The ancestors he is referring to are members of his chosen family who have worked as activists, advocates, and community builders.
Wynn’s words sum up very well the project he was interviewed for: House of History, a recently launched website featuring video interviews with 24 Black LGBTQ people in Milwaukee. In the videos, the interviewees, ages 30 to 70, tell stories of celebration, struggle and community.
The project began when historian Bryce Smith met Janice Toy.
Smith worked on UWM’s Transgender Oral History Project, wrote a book about trans activist Lou Sullivan and organized walking tours of historical sites related to Milwaukee’s LGBTQ history. Toy has been a performer and pageant winner in Milwaukee for decades and is a founding member of SHEBA, a Milwaukee advocacy group for Black trans women.
While working on research for the walking tour app, Smith met with Toy and two other SHEBA members, Elle Haro and Marie Kelly, to learn more about the group.
“We thought we were just meeting to learn Sheba’s story,” Smith said, “but we heard so many stories of people who had died and people who had died with them. The women were so concerned about that.”
Toy and Smith decided to work together to interview elders in the black LGBTQ community and document the history of some of Milwaukee’s black bars, which many consider to be cornerstones of the community.
But as they began interviewing, they realized there was a much richer story to be told about people’s activism, achievements and relationships — a story that told the evolution of Milwaukee’s black LGBTQ community.
Initially, Toy used his knowledge of elders in the Black LGBTQ community to solicit interviews; as word of the project spread, more people joined. Smith said the initial interviews were mostly a volunteer effort, but work on the project accelerated after receiving a grant from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. House of History is now part of Diversity & Resilience, and the organization has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund the project.
“When I was younger, I couldn’t tell people I was transgender because I would lose my job, so I had to do a lot of things behind the scenes,” Toy said. “But now I’m more vocal, so sharing these stories is really important because it lets people know that like a lot of the things I’m going through, there are other people out there who are going through the same thing.”
“This project can be like a textbook to guide them and show them they can do this and the steps to do it.”
The power of history
“What do we need to continue living this life? To be strong for each other. To be strong for each other.”
From an interview with Tyra Neal on House of History
When Smith began researching Lou Sullivan, who many consider to be the “godfather of the transgender movement,” she became frustrated when she couldn’t find a biography of the Milwaukee-raised activist.
“So I enrolled in a doctoral program in history at the University of Wisconsin to learn how to write his biography,” Smith says. “As I was writing it, I found myself in his story, and that gave me the courage to transition.”
“I experienced the power of history firsthand.”
On the History House website, interviewees share many similarly moving stories. There’s Toy, who reminisces about the community he found while performing in black bars in Milwaukee, and Chris Allen, who found a place at Diverse & Resilient where “his experience as a black gay youth was valued and appreciated” years before he became the organization’s executive director. Multiple interviewees talk about the Black Knight Brawl, an LGBTQ riot that took place in a Milwaukee bar in 1961, several years before the famous Stonewall riots. There’s also the story of Marie Kelly, who became a plaintiff in the lawsuit that led to Medicaid coverage of gender reassignment surgery in Wisconsin. Several interviewees talk about the impact of the murders of several black transgender women in Milwaukee over the past few years.
“I feel like being an activist has given me control over my life, it’s given me stability, it’s given me something to keep going, to enjoy, to keep working hard,” El Jairo said in an interview with House of History.
Learning about the history of Milwaukee’s black LGBTQ community through her work with the House of History also inspired her activism, noting that events like the Black Knight Brawl made Milwaukee “the epicenter of the movement.”
“I never knew it was just about Marsha P. Johnson and Stonewall,” Halow said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel.
In 2021, Halo attended an event commemorating 400 North Plankinton Avenue, the site of the Black Knight Brawl. Then-Mayor Tom Barrett was also in attendance, and later that day he saw her at a ceremony where Halo received an award from Shepherd Express for her LGBTQ advocacy work.
“While we celebrate the launch of House of History, there are those who would like us to fail, who think it would be convenient for them to tell their stories if Janice and I and the other women involved in this project weren’t here,” Halow said, “But we are here, and we’ve made sacrifices, been active, and built a foothold to be part of the conversation and leadership, to be on the mayor’s schedule twice a day.”
The power of family
“Love is what love does. What comes from the heart reaches the heart. If someone falls, and you don’t help them up, they stay down.”
From an interview with Vincent Morrow for House of History
The House of History interviews mention Milwaukee’s ballroom scene (also known as the ball scene, ball culture, ballroom, or ball) several times. The ballroom began as a place for people to “walk” (or compete) in different categories during pageants, initiated by the black queer community. It’s a place where contestants are free to experiment with outfits, makeup, and different gender expressions. When contestants walk, they represent a house, which is not just a team they represent, but often a family they choose. This creates a sense of belonging that is especially important in the queer community, who often don’t get the approval they need from their families of origin.
In an interview with House of History, Vincent Morrow recalled becoming involved in the ball scene in the 1990s after meeting a group of Detroit natives who wanted to make a home in Milwaukee with some friends.
“But my friend’s thinking was that he didn’t want to be part of the ball, he wanted to change direction. We were going to be advocates for the African-American gay community, advocates for HIV and AIDS,” Morrow said in an interview.
Morrow and her friends founded a Milwaukee chapter of House of Infinity, a health and education resource for members of the Black LGBTQ community with a focus on acceptance and celebration, and Morrow was asked to serve as the group’s house mother.
“The matron is the head of the house. If you have a problem, you have to go to mama. If you’re struggling, you have to go to mama,” Morrow told House of History. “A matron is someone you can look up to. No matter what happens, good, bad or neutral, they’re there for you.”
House of History draws on imagery of home, from its name to its logo (which depicts a toy dining room chair), and Smith said the family resemblance is also important to evoke in the queer community the same sense of lineage that exists within biological families, “a similar experience to sitting down with your grandparents and having them tell you the stories of those who came before us.”
And in the History House, the housemother is Toy herself, or “Mama J” as many call her.
Toy said her mother taught her to “always do your best and always give it your best, whatever you do in life,” and that she always felt supported.
“I know a lot of the younger generation don’t have the support of their families, but my mom came to the gay bars, she watched my shows, she went to local pageants, she was always with me,” Toy said.
In 2021, Toy was diagnosed with cancer and her mother stayed by her side throughout her chemotherapy and radiation treatments, but one day at the hospital, Toy’s mother became ill. Toy told her mother that she was okay being alone during treatment and urged her to go downstairs to be examined. Toy’s mother tested positive for COVID-19 and died five days later.
“I owe it to my mother that I am here and that fighting spirit within me. She always gave me the strength to keep going,” Toy said. “She taught me to keep living, and if you have a testimony, you have to share it.”
Toy identifies as a mother to young members of the LGBTQ community and shares the love she inherited from her mother with others.
“I’ve always opened my home to people who’ve been kicked out by their families and have nowhere to go,” Toy says, “I’ve given them a place to stay, so when they asked me to be a matron, it was a natural fit, because I was a matron before they were.”
Black LGBTQ Power in Milwaukee
“You can’t say black lives matter if you say black lives matter and then have people who are homophobic. You can’t say that if you don’t support all black lives, including black transgender women.”
From an interview with Angela Lang for House of History
Smith, who is white, noted that while projects about LGBTQ history are not new, there aren’t many that highlight the experiences and center the voices of Black LGBTQ people.
And when people don’t hear these stories, they often don’t realize that the marginalization Black LGBTQ people experience is not the same as that experienced by Black straight or cisgender people, or even by white LGBTQ people. Because queer Black people have to deal with different forms of prejudice, they face more obstacles to living the life they want.
“Most queer spaces are predominantly white, predominantly gay, or in the binary, white and gay,” Black transgender activist Yante Turner told House of History in an interview. “Our realities are not the same, our experiences are not the same.”
Halow said racial issues often feel “ignored, unseen and unheard,” and that House of History’s intention to interview only Black leaders in Milwaukee’s LGBTQ community will help expose other Milwaukee leaders to the tenacity of Black queer activists, advocates and leaders.
“We know the areas where leadership is lacking and we bring that to the leadership conversation, and we’re also aware and mindful of how much progress we’ve made,” Halow said. “There’s a tenacity and unwavering spirit in our community, and it’s not just the negativity that we’re pushing back against.”
“It’s also about winning and reclaiming your power, and this project is a beautiful way to highlight that.”
