s2, e2: be bop bing- queer poetry and writing salons
episode details
Welcome back to episode two of season two! While we placed these episodes in an order that we think will make for the best listening experience, it isn’t essential that you listen to every one in order. However, if you want more information on what you can expect this season as a whole, we recommend going back to episode one, ‘are you a homosexual?’
In this episode, we’ll be exploring how Queer folks have used private homes for poetry and writing salons, creative exploration, and open mic nights. While many people think of D.C. as a political city, the District has been full of amazing artists since the beginning, especially Queer artists. Dive in with us to learn how Queer writers and creatives have created community together in salons and open mics for the past century.
Special thanks to the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who helped inspire and guide us through this process.
Audio editing by Abby Stuckrath and Julia Hay
A full transcript is available below or in this pdf. You can also find works cited and in-text citations for the episode in this pdf.
transcript
[QTDP theme music fades in]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Welcome back for episode two! We hope y’all enjoyed learning about 70s Queer activist communes last episode.
If you haven’t listened to episode one yet, no worries! While we intended for the podcast to be listened to in the order we release it, this season’s episodes aren't in chronological order, so if you listen out of order, you’ll still be able to easily follow along. However, if you’d like to know a little more about what you can expect this season as a whole, episode one’s intro can give you a little bit more detailed information.
This week, we’ll be starting in the roaring 20s to learn about the homes that hosted Queer art and poetry salons in D.C.
From legendary poets meeting at writing salons to a small group of friends hosting a casual open mic, we will be diving into how private homes have served as an essential gathering place for Queer art, writing, and poetry in the last century.
So with that, let’s rewind to the 1920s to a cozy home in the Shaw neighborhood.
[QTDP theme music fades out]
[Contemplative fades in and then into background]
KATIE KIRKPATRICK: So we're in front of 1461 S Street in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. And between about 1910 and 1966 a very important woman named Georgia Douglas Johnson lived here.
[Katie Kirkpatrick quote fades into background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Katie Kirkpatrick runs Off the Malls Tours, an ‘off the beaten path’ walking tour company in D.C.
KATIE KIRKPATRICK: We're about two blocks off of the U Street corridor, which was already known as a center for Black excellence.
ABBY STUCKRATH: She runs a tour called ‘The Harlem Renaissance in D.C’ or, as it’s known in the District, the Black Broadway era, when the U street community, during the height of Jim Crow, became one of the country's leading epicenters for Black artists, scholars, medicine, and more.
KATIE KIRKPATRICK: You had Howard University very close by. So you had a lot of thought leaders at the time, cultural leaders. We weren't quite into the era known as the Harlem Renaissance yet, but you already had a lot of established writers, and the whole area just attracted a lot of talent of the African American community. So D.C. already was known for that. So it's not surprising they chose this neighborhood to move to.
[Contemplative music ends]
ABBY STUCKRATH: It’s the 1920s.
[Old timey car horn]
[Light jazzy music plays in the background]
Georgia Douglass’s home was about to become known as the “Halfway House” for Black literary artists, especially Black Queer artists. You see, Georgia was already a writer. She studied poetry in college, and she was well versed in the literary scene. But her husband, Henry Lincoln Johnson, didn’t support her ambitions.
KATIE KIRKPATRICK: In 1925, her husband passed away, and while that is very sad, obviously, what it did do was allow her to more freely pursue her talents in writing and also do more proactive outreach to other writers. So this is when Alain Locke has just published the New Negro Movement. Langston Hughes, also at this point, was residing in D.C. This was a very exciting time for Black writers in Washington, and so the timing was truly fortuitous. She started a weekly gathering, a literary salon at her home here on the corner. Every Saturday, they would meet over, you know, wine, cake, whatever, and share their work.
[Light jazz music fades out]
[Footsteps up squeaky stairs]
[Knocking on a door]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Thus, the S Street Salon was born…
[Door opens]
[Sultry jazz music plays in background]
[Glasses clink together]
[Light chatter in background]
DR. KIM ROBERTS: They called it the Saturday Nighters.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Kim Roberts, a literary historian and award winning poet, wrote of Georgia’s salons in her book, A Literary Guide to Washington D.C. She spoke with me about Georgia’s impeccable hosting skills and her ability to herald an intergenerational reckoning of poetry and literature.
KIM ROBERTS: She is this bridge between these older writing styles and this new modernist writing that was just coming into being.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Georgia created a home where Black artists, many of whom were Queer, could hone their craft.
KIM ROBERTS: It was not a safe time to be openly Queer. And yet, there were so many Queer writers involved with this movement that they made a sort of safety within, you know, these a few, these a few of these spaces, like Georgia Douglas Johnson’s salon.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Her hosting went beyond keeping everyone fed and comfortable…she crafted a welcoming and thoughtful atmosphere, an essential part to her revolutionary salons.
KIM ROBERTS: She was really good at sort of keeping people on track. So if there were discussions, or there was a out-of-town guest, or a she, she made sure that everyone who came was known to her or known to someone who was known to her, and that if they dominated the conversation, she let them know they were not going to be invited back. I mean, she sort of had this firm hand to make sure that it remained a welcoming space, the kind of space she wanted it to be.
[Party sounds and sultry jazz music swell and then fade out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Kim says while there is little documentation on what went on in the salons, you can read and hear the influence of Saturday Nighters in the participants' work, including Georgia’s.
DR. KIM ROBERTS: To a modern sensibility, to a contemporary reader, some of her work sounds old fashioned. She used much more sort of regular rhyme and meter, but you start noticing after the Harlem Renaissance starts, her first book is different from the books where she's influenced by these younger writers.
[Melancholy piano music plays in background]
[Pencil scratching on paper]
She starts writing a lot more about women's bodies, women's aging bodies, desire, loneliness, wanting physical contact. These were things that, you know, a respectable middle class Black woman, just one generation past slavery, did not talk about. So clearly she was being influenced, as well as it going the other way, her influencing these younger writers
ABBY STUCKRATH: While Georgia herself wasn’t Queer, her door was always open to the community.
[Melancholy piano music fades out]
Some salon attendees were more quiet about their Queerness in their work.
KIM ROBERTS: I think in some ways, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston were trying to protect their reputations so that they could have a wider readership, so that they could be accepted in a mainstream, straight world.
ABBY STUCKRATH: While some were more explicit in expressing their Queerness.
KIM ROBERTS: Richard Bruce Nugent
[Soft jazz music plays in background]
I think, couldn't help but be exactly who he was, and he is the author, very famously, of this short story called “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade.” It came out in 1926 in a very short lived literary journal, and we believe that it was the first published openly gay fiction by a Black author.
ABBY STUCKRATH: One poem of his, “Narcissus,” stands out to Kim for its ability to discuss transness before there was even the language for it.
[Pencil scratching on paper]
KIM ROBERTS:
(Voice echoing while reciting)
—And as he gazed there seemed to grow
The sound-soft beauty of pale Echo;
Petaled breasts began to show
On the image pictured below.
And the beauty of it pained him so,
The smile so double sexed and slow,
Faint fair breasts and pale torso,
Male into female seemed to flow—
ABBY STUCKRATH: Kim says the unapologetically Queer themes displayed in his work may have cost him fame.
KIM ROBERTS: He had the support of that time period, but never sort of broke through to a wider audience. How much of that was because he could not play this game of being socially acceptable and you know, it's hard to say.
[Soft jazz music swells and fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Another Saturday Nighter regular,
[Dreamy jazz music plays]
was Angelina Weld Grimké, a closted Lesbian, who never married and spent her whole life living with an unaccepting father. Her desire for women was inked in the prose of her personal journals and poems. Kim loves Angelina’s poem “April,” and recited some of it for us. While the word gay is used, during this time period gay is used synonymously with happy.
[Pencil scratching on paper]
KIM ROBERT:
(Voice echoing while reciting)
Toss your gay heads,
Brown girl trees;
Toss your gay lovely heads;
Shake your downy russet curls
All about your brown faces;
Shake your brown slim bodies;
Stretch your brown slim arms;
Stretch your brown slim toes.
Who knows better than we,
With the dark, dark bodies,
What it means
When April comes a-laughing and a-weeping
Once again
At our hearts?
ABBY STUCKRATH: Kim says it was Angelina and many other artists’ Queerness at Georgia’s salon that made their poetry magnetic.
KIM ROBERTS: There's something about feeling othered that helps us, sort of prepares us to be artists and to do this kind of indirect way of communicating that breaks down barriers and that allows us to communicate in newer and hopefully deeper ways.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Whether their Queerness was known or a well kept secret, the poets in Georgia Douglas’s home set the stage for Black poetry and literature. Queer poetry can be buried in between the lines, its true meaning and historical impact embraced in the subtext.
[Dreamy jazz music swells and fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The momentum created through the Black Broadway and Harlem Renaissance eras helped usher in new political and cultural literary movements. In the 1960s and 70s, there was the Black Arts Movement, that focused on Black nationalism and was led by iconic artists, like Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and Thelonious Monk.
D.C. would ride the momentum created by both the Black Broadway era and Black Arts era to create something of their own.
CHRISTOPHER PRINCE: So back in the 80s, there was a resurgence of the salon scene among Black gay D.C.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Christopher Prince, a Washingtonian and local performing artist, was always a writer.
[Click of pen]
[Pen scratching on paper]
CHRISTOPHER PRINCE: So as a teenager, I was already in the habit of writing, and then being a little Black teen, gay teenage boy, I had a whole lot of angst to write about.
[Christoper laughs]
ABBY STUCKRATH: That angst would turn into poetry, song, and spoken word. He joined a performance group called The Four of Us. But before the mainstream world would discover his brilliance, there was a small, tight-knit community who helped mold his voice.
Within the Black Queer community in the early 80s, something powerful was brewing. A group of soon to be performing and artistic legendaries sought to harness the power of Black Queer thought and art by following in their ancestors’ footsteps–Georgia Douglas’s salons.
One salon, a true epicenter for the community—one that hosted some of the greats, like Essex Hemphill and Audre Lorde—was an old carriage house. Yes, one that used to hold horses and hay. And it was located off of I Street Northeast.
Its name?
The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse.
Christopher Prince was a regular there.
[Heavy footsteps down a street]
[Streetlights creaking]
CHRISTOPHER PRINCE: Being in a dark, and I'm not exaggerating, a poorly lit, dark alley in front of a big, heavy, steel door. That sound of you banging on that door and the reverberations of bam, bam, bam.
[Banging on steel door]
It’s quicker than that, because you really try to get in there. So it’s like bam, bam, bam!
[Faster banging on steel door]
And then the door opening up, and you enter into a space that is, it's a tight space, it’s a small space.
[Door opens]
[Light chatter in background]
[Mellow jazz music plays in background]
The smell of wood burning, the crackling of the fire, the murmuring, the greetings, because for me, I was a regular so you know, warm embrace of your friends.
[Fire crackling]
[Indistinct chatter in background]
There was a brick wall where the fireplace was, another brick wall where the bar was and the smell of cinnamon tea being poured. It was a warm hug.
[Glasses clink]
[Tea kettle whistling]
[Tea pouring out of the kettle]
[Footsteps up the stairs]
The space was had two levels. The top level had a big square hole in it, and it was a railing around that hole, so you can look up, and there was a you can see the rafters of the building, the wooden rafters. And people would be upstairs with their feet dangling over the edge of the hole, looking down. And it was like it was, it was a, it was like a big hug.
ABBY: Named after the streets it cornered - Eighth, Ninth, I and K, the EnikAlley Coffeehouse was started by Ray Melrose and his partner Gary. The artistic oasis opened in 1982 and was a centerpoint for the Black Queer community, especially at a time when they were excluded from mainstream white gay spaces, like nightclubs who would often require Black patrons to follow racially discriminatory dress codes or require multiple forms of I.D.
[Chatter and mellow jazz music fade out]
CHRISTOPHER PRINCE: The relationship between the white gay community and the Black gay community was not always the most friendliest, so we need to have a space of our own that we can come together. As creatives, it was important because it gave us not only a gathering place, a meet, a where minds could meet and just be together, but a place to rehearse, a place to write together, a place to work on our performances. And didn't cost any money. It was free.
ABBY STUCKRATH: For Christopher, the space having no entry fee was an essential part of to just its success but the energy and aura of the space.
CHRISTOPHER PRINCE: It was an extension of someone's home, as opposed to being a business or run by an organization. So that enhanced the support, the feeling of being supported. They had a family vibe, you know, that kind of emotional intimacy.
ABBY STUCKRATH:I asked Christopher what performances and nights at the Coffeehouse still stick out to him today.
[Performance by The Four of Us plays in background]
CHRISTOPHER PRINCE: I have a memory of my first performance in the vocal group I was in, The Four of Us, and it was just four vocals and piano. It had its high points and its low points, but I can remember being nervous about that and excited about that.
THE FOUR OF US:
(Singing)
But everybody knows that
I’m in love
You’re in love
We’re in love
With you
I find I’m helpless everytime that you’re around
My head keeps spinning around and round
[The Four of Us performance fades into background]
CHRISTOPHER PRINCE: The Coffee House was a nurturing space. It was an incubator for Black gay thought and Black gay art at a time when we were very much the other, and that in a different way than what it is now. Among the Pan African movement, the Black heterosexual intellectuals, we were still shunned. Homosexuality was still a negative thing, and we were not visible. You have people like James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, who came to the Coffeehouse more than once. But there were a lot of Black, gay intelligentsia and power brokers, that they were to consider renegades. I’m very proud to have been part of a group of people that had such a strong impact on Black gay culture, historically and internationally. We would never had imagined you know the Tongues Untied, Essex’s work. We ended up, we performed in New York, Philadelphia. It wasn’t even trying to do that, we were just doing us. So I think it’s important that you find a space to express who you are in whatever form that comes out. And be supported, you know. Community is vital. Community is at the core of the Coffeehouse story. It’s community.
THE FOUR OF US:
(Singing)
You were on my mind
You were on my mind
You were on my mind
You were on my mind
[The Four of Us performance swells and ends]
ABBY STUCKRATH: While the performances and open mics were at the heart of The Coffeehouse, it was also a space for political and social groups to gather.
PAPAYA MANN: I guess we started the first original Black lesbian support group. It was, you know, called Sapphire Sapphos, and we formed it as a club.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Papaya Mann, a Washingtonian, poet, and activist, co-founded the Sapphire Sapphos in 1979, D.C.’s first Black lesbian political and social group. As an artist and leader in the community, Papaya was friends with Ray, the owner of The Coffeehouse.
PAPAYA MANN: Because of my relationship with Ray Melrose, and I would often help him with the Coffeehouse, I was one of the people that helped to decide what we were going to do on the weekend and who was going to perform, and what we needed to do to set up for that, but at some point we had a collaboration between Sapphire Sapphos and the Coffeehouse, and we were able to use that space for our meetings.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The meetings always started with the women reciting their theme poem.
[Light guitar music plays in background]
PAPAYA MANN:
(Reciting)
Rise Sapphire Sapphos. Rise, Sisters of the Sapphire Sapphos. Ascend gently and steadily, forced to be sisters of the night. Elevation unfolds our every effort as we grow above unwarranted criticism, growing from darkness and obscurity into the brilliancy of light. Beautiful ebony sapphires, glittering in sensitive feminine delight.
[Poem fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Gathered in a circle, the Sapphire Sapphos would informally chat, giving each other the space to simply be in company that deeply understood each other.
PAPAYA MANN: We could talk about all kinds of things: coming out, parenting, how to introduce your lover to your family, how to be in community and not have family support.
ABBY STUCKRATH: For Papaya, there was nothing else like the Sapphire Sapphos.
PAPAYA MANN: It felt great to be able to sit there and to be there for as a resource where other lesbians of color could come and get support. So I often felt like we were doing the right thing.
[Children laughing and playing]
[Grill sizzling]
[Dog barking]
You know, when we got together with the children, we had cookouts and all these kids were running around, where else would you get that? You wouldn't get that where you have your lesbian sisters and group of children coming together and having, celebrating their birthdays and various things that we were able to do. So it always felt important to me.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Sapphire Sapphos would frequent the Coffeehouse for the performances as well. And Papaya says she always understood its significance. She could feel that this was going to be the birthplace for a future none of them could predict.
PAPAYA MANN: These were people that were performing in the Coffeehouse. So we knew, we didn't know how big some people might become later, but we knew it was important for us to have a place to go and to be able to showcase our talent, or to go for education, because there were no other resources.
(Reciting)
Rise as one
Ascending all
As women no longer hidden in the shadows of the night
But sisters of the sapphire sapphos
Sisters dwelling in the light
[Light guitar music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: One Coffeehouse regular never performed, not because she didn’t love the craft or have anything to say,but because she wasn’t ready…not yet.
[Jazzy organ music plays]
PAMELA A. JAFARI: You know, I mean, those kind of people were performing at the Coffeehouse, you know, and I was thinking, ‘I'm never going to be that good.’ But at Tuesdays, at my home, I could do my thing there. I could read my poetry, even if I only got five sisters set aside. I could read to them, I could share that.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Pamela A. Jafari is —
PAMELA A. JAFARI: A mother, grandmother, great grandmother, lesbian, and theater professional. The theater is probably my third love, God, my family, and then theater. I should say, and the sorority too. But
[Pamela laughs]
certainly theater is up there.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Her story of starting two Queer art salons in the 80s, Tuesdays and First Street, begins as you would think….with a baked potato restaurant.
[Jazzy organ music fades out]
[Counter bell dings]
[Lively jazz music plays in background]
PAMELA A. JAFARI: We had started a baked potato restaurant, a deli over in Georgetown called One Potato, Two…
ABBY STUCKRATH: That’s so cute!
ABBY STUCKRATH: Pamela along with her partner at the time, Toni, would often end the day at their restaurant with leftover potatoes. So using their rowhouse in Columbia Heights, they decided to host their friend’s art show, catering the event with their potato leftovers.
PAMELA A. JAFARI: We had decided we should do the salon thing more regularly. And then we invited a poet and filmmaker here in the city who was a part of the Coffeehouse with us, Michelle Parkerson, and Michelle came and presented her poetry. And it was, it was a hit.
[Fingers snapping]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The event became known as Fridays First Street salons. It was so popular that Marion Barry, D.C.’s soon to be re-elected mayor, even wanted to attend.
PAMELA A. JAFARI: Marion Barry came and blessed the house and said he had a great time, and left, and right after that, they said, ‘Hey, this place is not legal.’
[Record scratch, music stops]
‘You need all of these permits.’
[Pamela laughs]
ABBY STUCKRATH: How rude!
PAMELA A. JAFARI: Well, it completely blew our minds.
[Pamela’s interview fades into background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: While First Street's salon fell due to regulation nonsense, Pamela and Toni decided to create another, more covert and somewhat exclusive salon.
PAMELA A. JAFARI: Toni came up with this idea. Let's do this thing on a weekday night, when not a lot of people will be around, keep it private. We'll charge women to feed them.
[Burner clicking, flames igniting]
[Chopping on cutting board]
[Whisk whisking in a bowl]
[Cork pulled from a bottle, pouring into a clinking glass]
[Ice cubes clinking in glass]
[People laughing]
Toni was an excellent cook, the fee will pay for the food, and we'll serve them a three meal course and drinks, because we could drink, because it was private, we'll always have beer and wine and offer them something in addition.
[Footsteps thumping upstairs]
[Sauna steam]
[Hands rubbing across skin]
So we had entertainment and upstairs we had a sauna. Sometimes you could get a back rub, sometimes you could get your nails a pedicure or a manicure, depending on who was available that particular month. And it went over quite well, to our surprise and to our delight. You know, thus the creation, and we called it Tuesdays. Just made it simple.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Pamela, who at the time was serving in the Navy, wanted to create a space for lesbians who weren’t comfortable being out in lesbian social groups like the Sapphire Sapphos.
PAMELA A. JAFARI: People who did not necessarily go to other places, or were not necessarily openly gay, but we were all knew that they were, I could say closet queens. We, you know, they were welcome at Tuesdays.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Tuesdays took the form of a poetry salon, but transformed into something unique and special.
[Relaxing keyboard music plays in background]
PAMELA A. JAFARI: Tuesdays was really for networking, for us to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly.
ABBY STUCKRATH: One night, Pamela and Tony had booked Evelyn Harris, a Grammy nominated composer and legendary vocal artist. A night that Pamela says changed the game for Tuesdays.
PAMELA A. JAFARI: Well, we all felt like Evelyn was there to entertain each one of us individually, and that is one of the shows that probably solidified people coming back saying, ‘Oh, I like this. I not only going to have a fabulous meal, and I'm going to be entertained, but not only am I going to be entertained, Imma feel like I'm a part of something,’ you know. And I think belonging, feeling a part of feeling, standing up straight, with your back straight as a lesbian and being proud of it, here's a place where you could actually do that and be that. You know, no matter what government agency you worked for, no matter who I saluted to, no matter what you did in the world. Here, I know people got the feeling of community, of being proud of themselves, for being associated with all that was represented within that space.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Even now, decades after Tuesdays ended in 1985–because Pamela and Tony broke up–people, especially her good friend Ina reminisce with Pamela about the good ol’ days.
PAMELA A. JAFARI: We would spend a couple of hours together, and at least one hour we'd be talking about Tuesdays and what happened at Tuesdays, and just how much she appreciated and loved us for doing that.
ABBY STUCKRATH:Tuesdays left a very personal impact on Pamela too. It gave her the confidence to find her own artistic voice.
PAMELA A. JAFARI: I felt the courage to do it, and I felt the acceptance. I knew I could write. I knew people could understand my writing, and I knew people would ask me for more. Clearly, that Tuesdays, that time in Tuesdays, gave me the courage and the foundation to develop those skills.
[Relaxing keyboard music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Now, Pamela at 73, performs in a local improv group and continues the legacy of The Coffeehouse, First Street Salon, Tuesdays, and Georgia Douglas’s Saturday Nighters through her pen.
PAMELA A. JAFARI: This piece is called E, flat and blue.
(Reciting)
Be bop bing,
Be bop bong
Ba ding bing
Ba ding bong
Strings plucked
Notes framed
High C, Low C, E Flat
All over me
Hands touch
Sounds fly
Images captured
In the Mind
Of my Sky
Falling over
G- clef, Bass and mixed
Treble, dubbed high notes
No notes unfixed
Feeling close
Yet so far away
Spend the night
with me
I want you to stay
Warmth of our bodies
Open ears to sensation
Melody in rhythm
Blends the combination
No B flat – My love to you
F Sharp, on top
Orgasms come true
Your score reads straight
And mine reads gay
Harmonies are blocked
Voices singing
No way
Yet, I still want you
Need you, love you
It’s all true
Keep playing music
Act like nothing you can do
Like Cassandra on Miles
Traveling woman to and ‘fro
Life without your constant love
I just can’t stand no mo’
You know her like I know her
She’s jazz everywhere
Harp played music
Tones of rhythmic flair
Blocking the cock
Stomping the gleam
Ignoring any bisexual dream
Well the melody has played
And the blues has sadly stayed
So come now, be with me
Spend the entire night
Between the two of us
Our composition is divinely right
So surrender
Put the pedal down
Blend the voices of the strings
And find our true combo sound
Cause just like me
Sarah wants you
Bessie needs you
Carmen loves you
It’s all true
Ella said Be Bap Bing
Without your love
Life is
E flat
and Blue
Thank you.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Do you remember writing it?
PAMELA A. JAFARI: Oh, yeah. I had a terrible, terrible, terrible crush.
[Pamela and Abby laugh]
On a straight woman. Loved her. She loved me too. Truly we could have had a wonderful relationship, but she wanted a closet relationship, and I eventually said I worked too hard to be out and gay. I can't go back in the closet, not even for love, and we had to go our separate ways. But life happens sometimes to you like that, and you have to decide on what is the most important thing that will take your life forward. And as much as I loved her, I saw myself giving up a big part of who I was. I figured I could find love being my authentic self. Yeah.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Have you heard, do you know who Chappell Roan is?
[Interview fades into the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Although they are no longer around, nothing can replace the uniqueness of the S Street Salon, the ENIKAlley Coffeehouse, and Tuesdays. It’s the time period and the people that harnessed the magic of those spaces, not just the physical place.
That isn’t to say, however, that others haven’t taken inspiration from the legacy of these salons. Today, one creative hopes to lead the next generation of artists and changemakers by leaning on the city's history.
TRACY CHILES MCGEE: This is where my world collided in a most beautiful way. Because I am…
[Tracy’s interview fades into background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Tracy Chiles McGee stumbled across the history of the S Street Salon when researching for her upcoming book about Zora Neale Hurston. She was instantly inspired and wanted to combine her work as a writer and passion for community events, so she created…
TRACY CHILES MCGEE: Salon Redux, in the spirit of Georgia Douglas Johnson.
ABBY STUCKRATH: A free salon toolkit filled with historical tidbits about Georgia’s salons and curated discussion prompts.
TRACY CHILES MCGEE: So the idea was to revive the spirit of the Saturday night S street salons, and to give it some meaning for today's time, particularly because we know that we always are in a period of time where, and now more than ever, where we need community.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Since launching the project this past year, she has helped host around 15 salons, each with its own unique topic.
TRACY CHILES MCGEE: We discussed, basically those times of the pandemic where it was really hard to be with your loved ones, if you were in the hospital, or if you were experiencing an illness, how lonely that was at times. Another one brought together, mostly artists in D.C., and they talked about the status of D.C. arts.
ABBY STUCKRATH: No matter the topic or the guests it has reaffirmed Tracy’s belief that these salons are essential.
TRACY CHILES MCGEE: One thing that it taught me that no matter what is going on, community is important, and having a place where you feel included, where you feel seen, where you feel comfortable, talking about the things that are most important to you with people that you have earned trust with, or you're building friendships and relationships with, is very, very important, and it will always be important. Join in the spirit. Open up a space. Make it feel safe and see what happens, because everything can be a ripple effect. You just never know.
ABBY STUCKRATH: One group is doing exactly that…
NILE:
(Over microphone)
Hi everybody
[Audience cheers]
Find a seat, if you can find one. There's places on the floor if you want to sit on the floor. You’re welcome to stand if you want to stand.
NILE: The culture of the city, you know, feels, you know, very type A and like feels very professional. And so I think at least among a subsect of the people here, there's this like, real, like, yearning to, like, express yourself and to explore a creative side to yourself. And I know that, like, I've always felt like a need to, like, have, like, some sort of artistic outlet, or I'll go crazy.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Nile, through the leadership of his friend Kelly, created a regular open mic in Kelly’s warm, welcoming living room right off the U Street Corridor.
[Audience chattering in background]
Kelly doesn’t remember much about what happened at their first open mic, but they do remember feeling nervous, scared that no one would come–every host’s worst nightmare–which quickly subsided after a bunch of friends and creatives filled up the room.
[Knock on door, door opens]
[Audience chatter swells and then fades underneath]
KELLY: I remember going to bed feeling so happy. And I also remember, like, jumping up and down and hugging you.
[Kelly and Nile laugh]
We did it!
NILE: Yeah I can't remember if that was, I think it was, af--yeah, it was definitely after like, Biden got elected. So we kept, like, repeating that, like meme of like ‘We did it, Joe!’
ABBY STUCKRATH: The open mic, which remains nameless, has blossomed into a haven for folks to explore their artistry.
KELLY: An important feature of it is the privacy of it being in someone's living room, because we have a lot of people perform that I think would otherwise not play at a public open mic, which allows people to grow as artists, because they're allowed to make mistakes basically.
[Jazz cover of Gymnopédie No. 1 plays in background]
NILE: There's something very like, you know, Queer-coded about, just, like, experimentation. And I think the fact that, like, people can come and kind of just like, you know, wear their heart on their sleeve, is an inherently Queer thing. You know you can be a straight man, and, you know, wear your heart on your sleeve. And I've met some of them, although it's few and far between.
[Nile laughs]
Shout out Nick.
NICK: I feel like what I've wanted out of this most is a place to experiment my art and try things out that I wouldn't try in a public place.
ABBY STUCKRATH: That’s Nick, a local artist and computer engineer.
NICK: I'll play in a public space, but it will be something I know people will enjoy here, I feel like someone could scream for a minute, and it, and people would clap.
KELLY: You can wear whatever you want, and I think you do perform differently when you can show up as your authentic self. And I think by virtue of being in a safe place in someone's living room, you do get to experiment with how you present yourself.
ABBY STUCKRATH: So what’s the key to curating this immaculate vibe and space?
KELLY: No overhead lighting, because that is homophobic.
[Kelly and Nile laugh]
[Jazz cover of Gymnopédie No. 1 fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: I had the chance to visit the open mic and witness the event for myself.
NILE: Ok um, I guess it’s only appropriate for me to read a poem about love since I was, I guess I should stay on theme, so.
[Audience awws]
Alright this one is called “The Wind.”
(Reciting)
You know, love is quite hard to find sometimes.
You have to connect the heart and mind
It must be the right person, it needs to be the right time
It’s this alchemy…
ABBY STUCKRATH: Folks sang original songs, acoustic covers of “Sympathy is a Knife” by Charli XCX, read poems ranging from Queer love to the infamous doomscrolling obsession.
NICK:
(singing, playing guitar)
Start to write a novel
(Kids these days)
Chapter once a week
(They don’t know what they’re saying)
Parents getting older
(Read the news)
Try to say my piece
Getting older
ABBY STUCKRATH: At the end of the open mic, one participant asked for her piece to be a group song that she would sing over and over again until the living room crowd could sing brightly along with her.
PARTICIPANT:
(Singing)
It is time now, and what a time to be alive
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
We shall be known by the company we keep…
[Song fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKATH: Kelly and Nile have no big plans to commercialize or move the open mic to a public space, because again, its privacy is essential to its sense of exploration.
And even without intending to, they have recreated the foundational premises of the S Street Salon, The Coffeehouse, and Tuesday's–a home away from home that gives comfort to artists amateur and professional to feel in community–especially during times where the world around us may feel like it’s crumbling.
OPEN MIC AUDIENCE:
(Singing)
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love
[Song ends, audience cheers]
ABBY STUCKRATH: So…who’s next?
[QTDP theme music fades in]
Hey baby, we’re so glad you’re here, and thanks so much for listening until the end of the episode.
Don’t worry, we promise we won’t leave you hanging too long. Next week, we’ll be expanding the concept of what makes a house. Rather than talking about a place with four walls, we’ll be talking about how Queer folks have formed families and connections through Ballroom Houses. You can expect to learn about some of D.C.’s most legendary Ball houses and the impact they’ve had on the Queer community here.
We want to thank the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who helped inspire and guide us through this process.
And, of course, shout out to the rest of the QTDP team, Julia, Andrew, Ellie, and Mads for making this podcast happen.
You can find a transcript for this, and every episode, on our website at queeringthedistrictpodcast.com and linked below in the episode notes.
If you want to learn more and stay up to date on all things Queering the District Podcast, follow our social media pages @queeringthedistrictpodcast! You don’t want to miss exclusive interview clips, juicy voicemails, and bi-weekly spotlights.
Have a story to share? Do you think we missed something? Give us a call, and bare it all after the beep at 202-753-6570.
If you’re still with us, we have a treat for you. As always, we finish every episode with a Phi-Phi voicemail left by a local Queer.
[QTDP theme music fades out]
VOICEMAIL: My favorite Queer memory in D.C. is going to Malcolm X Park for a topless Queer happy hour. And there were lots of boobies, and we all talked about our Queer awakenings, and mine was the tye-dye girl from Parent Trap when she uses all of her strength to pull that duffle bag out of that huge pile of bags…very hot.
