Remembering a Black Gay PioneerTommi Avicolli Meccabyline‚ Dec. 14‚ 2006Sometimes remembering is the most painful thing we do. It was a bitter cold December morning in 1988. I had not seen my friend, Joe Beam, for a few days. Louise and I walked up the gray stone steps to the glass door of the old apartment building at 20th and Spruce streets in the heart of Philly's queer community. We pressed the bell several times. No answer. I was sitting at my desk at the Philadelphia Gay News office later that morning when Louise called: Joe had been found dead in his apartment. "They think it's AIDS-related," she said, "but you can't print that yet." Joe was one of the country's leading black gay male activists and writers. "In the Life," his first-of-a-kind collection of black gay male writing, was taking the gay literary scene by storm. He had published interviews in the queer press with black gay writer James Baldwin and lesbian poet Audre Lorde. He was working on a second collection of black gay male writing, tentatively titled, "Brother to Brother." |