Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert

Harriet stands with her pistol aimed at Darnell. She explains that she has not lost anyone yet, and she does not intend to lose him. With a heavy heart, he admits to her that he is “different.” She brushes off his anxiety, explaining that she and everyone else knew he was gay from the moment they met him and does not care.

The group then gives him a history lesson. They tell Darnell that there have always been gay, Black men, and not all of them were activists who lived their lives in the public eye. There were some, like William Dorsey Swann, who hosted large drag balls and were often targeted by the police for their actions, but history is full of men and women who, like Darnell, preferred privacy. There is nothing wrong with that, they explain. Some people’s destiny is to lead, others is just to live their lives. Just getting through one’s life is an accomplishment.

During the story about William Dorsey Swann, Darnell thought of the film Paris is Burning, and at one point, he even thinks that Moses quotes from it. What a strange world, he reflects, that one of the returned, a man from a completely different culture and a bygone era, would have seen that film.