Photograph: Ajamu Xĭ C I remember feeling really excited about it because it was finally going to be a space where I could hear what I liked and that I was into. Langford and Tyrone, two revellers at Europride at Brockwell Park, 1992. Just that physical act of being out in the daytime in this amazing space, with men and women, overwhelmingly Black African and Caribbean, it was magic. That was really significant: you’re out in the sunshine, you’re public, and that’s really rare because often we operated under cover of darkness, hidden away. Walking in, it was filled with people who you would see in the clubs, but it was daytime. Rocking up at the park, I remember just being so hyped, like when you go to Carnival. I went along to Brockwell Park with my friends I remember walking from my house in Oval to Brockwell Park, and taking the back streets, because we didn’t want to go through Brixton, because we knew all the gays going through Brixton probably would be subjected to some homophobia. I didn’t feel that political: the marches were overwhelmingly white, they weren’t speaking for us, so it wasn’t a space I wanted to be in. I remember being really excited to go to Pride, because we never went on the marches. It wasn’t like the other tents, which are usually circus tents, big productions. It would have been 1992 in Brockwell Park. M T That was the beginning of the People of Colour tent. That was really significant – you're public Marc Thompson It was filled with people you'd see in the clubs, but it was daytime. Eventually we were heard, and the council said: ‘OK, at next year’s Pride, we’ll give you a space’, and that space was a tent, which we used to bring the Black Experience to Pride every year. We had to go into the chambers, or upstairs to a balcony and protest. They refused to hear who we were, at first. So he found out about their next committee meeting, and was instrumental in infiltrating it. We said: “We’re not standing for this.” Tony decided he was going to go to Lambeth council to talk about the lack of Black space at Pride. You can’t play that kind of music here, this is not the place for that.” And that was the start of a protest. Next thing you know, the bobbies come walking over. They said “excuse me”, and we immediately knew what they were going to come out with because we always experienced that: you ask any Black gay person, they’d all had this experience, of people saying: ‘You don’t look gay.’ So this white man came up to us and said: “Do you know what’s happening here?” We said: “Yes.” “You sure? It’s Gay Pride, you know?” We just stood our ground. L Y When we turned our music on, we were confronted by white individuals. Up until that point there were no safe spaces at Pride for Black LGBT people to celebrate. I think it put a lot of Black LGBT people off attending Pride actually, because why would you want to attend a festival with music you don’t like? And so to finally attend a Pride where there was music culturally relevant to me, music from the Black gay clubs I used to go to, it was a little piece of paradise. For me, that music was very Eurocentric, it didn’t really speak to me. It was Black music, rather than the hi-NRG music that you’d hear from the rest of Gay Pride, which felt very alienating. I recall a couple of guys, Eddie and Tony, rocking up with some speakers and a ghetto blaster and playing Black music you know, the tunes that we were listening to that weren’t anywhere else.ĭennis Carney The music would have been Janet Jackson, SWV and 112. It was really small, a few tents in the park, me and my boys just kind of hanging out in different spaces in the park – but there was no physical space for us.
Marc Thompson I went to Pride in 1991 in Kennington Park. Pride then was very much like a country fair they had Ferris wheels, men on stilts, drag, and it was open, with no charge for entry. And we thought: let’s all go to Kennington Park there were seven or eight of us, including Eddie, Tony and myself. One day in 1991, in Time Out magazine, there was a little article, like “Celebrate gayness at Kennington Park”. We started to have parties in abandoned buildings we had broken into, or in houses where a friend who worked in housing would give us keys to have secret parties. We soon realised there was a need for our own spaces, and our private meetings extended into hosting parties, and we became known as the Black Experience. The network I formed in north London used to meet around cruising spots in Finsbury Park, because there weren’t many other spaces for us to congregate. Lloyd Young In the late 80s, early 90s, there was an emerging network of Black gay men. Marc Thompson and Lloyd Young at Pride in Kennington, 1991.