Janice Toy, a beauty pageant winner, performer and transgender activist from Milwaukee, said when she was younger, she didn’t tell people she was transgender because it would have meant losing her jobs.
But now she’s speaking out about her past and present: “Sharing these stories is so important because, like a lot of things people are going through, it helps people know that there are other people out there who are in the same situation.”
Toy’s story is the centerpiece of the recently launched House of History website, which features video interviews with 24 black LGBTQ people living in Milwaukee.
Many of their stories are deeply personal.
Chris Allen, president and CEO of Diverse & Resilient, recalls being a homeless teenager who wasn’t accepted by his biological parents, when his cousin reached out to him, told him she loved him, and helped him find acceptance at Diverse & Resilient.
And Tyra Neal expressed her feelings about the chosen family she found in SHEBA, a support group for black transgender women: “I want you to know that you never got a hug or a kiss from anyone until you got here. That means more to me than anything. They mean more to me than anything.”
The personal stories shared in House of History are interwoven with historical stories about Milwaukee’s Black LGBTQ past — stories that many, if not most, Milwaukee residents are unaware of — and spreading awareness of these stories is a primary reason historian Bryce Smith began this project.
“In doing this work, I’ve come to understand how powerful oral traditions have been in Black and queer communities,” Smith says, “but sometimes that history gets lost, so we’re trying to find ways to keep that history alive and pass it on to the next generation.”
Below are some stories about Milwaukee’s Black LGBTQ past, as told by House of History interviewees.
What is Black Knight Brawl?
For many, the Stonewall Riots, in which LGBTQ people fought back against police raids on gay bars in New York City in 1969, mark the beginning of the gay rights movement.
But a few years earlier, in 1961, a similar incident had occurred in Milwaukee. Four military men had gone to the Black Knight, a gay bar formerly located at 400 N. Plankinton Avenue. After the men began fighting with a bouncer, a Black transgender woman, Josie Carter, stepped in to intervene. As the men left, they promised to return later that night. Carter used the time to summon more than 70 members of Milwaukee’s LGBTQ community to the bar. When the men returned, a brawl broke out, resulting in several people being hospitalized and arrested.
“Most people in the United States consider the Stonewall riots, the uprisings that took place in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1969 to be the catalyst for the gay rights movement,” author Diane Buck said in a presentation at the Milwaukee County Historical Society in October 2022. “Though less known outside of Milwaukee, the catalyst for the gay rights movement happened right here in Milwaukee, eight years before Stonewall.”
What is Milwaukee’s place in the history of ballroom culture?
Ballrooms were started by the Black queer community as a place for people to “walk” (or compete) in different categories during pageants. It’s a place where contestants are free to experiment with outfits, makeup, and different gender expressions. When contestants walk, they represent a house, and house members often become like family to one another.
In an interview with House of History, Vincent Morrow recalled being asked by a group of friends to get involved in bringing a ballroom dance scene to Milwaukee in the 1990s.
Morrow and friends founded a Milwaukee chapter of House of Infinity that is a health and education resource for members of the Black LGBTQ community, with a focus on acceptance and celebration. Many of the people interviewed for House of History credit Milwaukee’s ballroom culture with providing health support to the city’s Black queer people that they might not have had access to otherwise.
