“We need to continue to be visible, to be heard, to advocate for ourselves and for the greater Black community, gay community”
BY EMMA CIESLIK, IMAGE BY LEIGH H. MOSLEY
In 1979, the first National Conference of Third World Lesbians and Gays was held in Howard University’s Harambee House. Organised by the National Coalition of Black Gays, the event brought together LGBTQIA activists of colour, including Audre Lorde, to discuss intersectionality within the community.
Before this conference, participants marched on the National Mall for the National March on Washington. There, between 75,000 and 125,000 people marched in DC’s first Pride Parade, and Leigh Mosley, a Black lesbian photographer was there, camera in hand, documenting early Black LGBTQIA organising.
Raised in Boston, Mosley grew up within her largely insular community in Roxbury. She came out to her parents in 1958 when she was 13 but things were largely suppressed and she came back out again at 18 before moving to Washington, DC to attend Howard University when she was 20. While attending Howard in the 1960s, she also did photography for Howard University’s newspaper The Hilltop.
She first began working at Washington Daily News, which is now defunct, in 1968, but during a time of intense persecution, many people were still in the closet and felt uncomfortable with her taking photos, so she began working for the Washington Blade with no contractual agreement.
“I wanted to work for publications that were gay and focused on gay issues,” she explained to me in an interview this week.
She continued working independently before being hired by the Washington Post in 1974, their first Black woman hired by the newspaper as part of their summer program. The Post published 100 of her photos that summer, and she continued working independently, photographing pivotal moments in Washington, DC’s and the wider LGBTQIA community, including the first National Gay and Lesbian March in DC in 1979 and the first Back poster for AIDS in 1983.
Mosley went on to photograph the 1987 and 1993 marches, inspired by how many people gathered together in solidarity. “In 1979, it was really great because prior to that time, I hadn’t really seen that many Black women in particular or Black men for that matter, coming out and being public,” she explained.
While continuing her photography, she went onto work in public schools and universities teaching photography. Today, she is working on a new film Pioneers for Justice: Black Lesbians in the DMV. “This film features ten other women 70 and over (including me) from different fields and backgrounds but all connected to social justice work in some important way,” she said. She is hopeful that the film will be finished by her 80th birthday in the fall.
When asked what advice she would give to LGBTQIA people today, she replied, “Keep on keeping on.” She recalls the Black Power Movement in the 1960s, where she saw community members disenfranchised and outright murdered. The repression then and now, she explains, is similar.
“It was terrible,” she explained. “To me, as a Black lesbian, my view is that we need to stay the course. We need to continue to be visible, to be heard, to advocate for ourselves and for the greater Black community, gay community. Now is not the time for us to go back into the closet because we’re afraid. We can’t do that. We have to stand our ground.”
The story of the National Conference and Mosley’s incredible photography of early LGBTQIA activism in Washington, DC, will be on full display in the Rainbow History Project’s upcoming exhibition Pickets, Protests, and Parades: The History of Gay Pride in Washington, DC in Freedom Plaza.
This exhibition – set for opening on 19 May and ribbon cutting on 24 May with two dozen community pioneers – will explore the history of DC’s LGBTQIA community organising in time for World Pride. Mosley’s photography represents 15% of all the visual content in the exhibition.
Mosley is grateful for the exhibition as her work often goes unrecognised and uncelebrated. When asked how people can support her work, she replied, “You can always get in touch with me at leighmosley.com, and you can contact me through the Rainbow History Project in particular because you guys have been responsible, Vincent Slatt in particular, for making sure that people know who I am, and the work that I’ve done.”
Pickets, Protests, and Parades: The History of Gay Pride in Washington, DC will be on display until 6 July 2025, in Freedom Plaza.
DIVA magazine celebrates 31 years in print in 2025. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQIA media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.
