Reclaiming histories of Black queer resistance, culture, and political imagination
9 April 2026
Now open at the California African American Museum, ‘Free and Queer: Black Californian Roots of Gay Liberation’ unfolds as a vital act of historical reorientation, positioning California as a crucible for Black-led LGBTQ struggle, expression, and resistance. The exhibition traces a lineage that precedes and exceeds the familiar coordinates of Stonewall, foregrounding generations of Black queer Californians whose cultural and political labour reshaped the terms of democracy and visibility.
Through a rich assembly of photographs, film, archival materials, and print culture, the exhibition maps intersections between artistic practice, performance, and activism. It attends to the pressures of McCarthy-era repression, the surge of civil rights mobilisation, and the urgent responses to the AIDS crisis, while holding space for celebration, critique, and mourning across decades.
Curated by Susan D. Anderson, with researchers Sean Patrick Dickerson and Sela Mariama Kerr, and developed in association with ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, the exhibition insists on a recalibration of historical narrative. In reclaiming Black queer culture as central rather than peripheral, Free and Queer not only recovers overlooked histories, but it also asks how we might reimagine the past when its margins are brought to the fore.
This exhibition is on view at the California African American Museum, until 28 Febuary 2027.
