There's a hundred year history of Ballroom and its genesis. We can track, drag balls run and organized by queer black men back to the turn of the 19th century. Langston Hughes writes about going to one of these balls with Madam C.J. Walker's daughter in around 1927. Crystal Lebeja was what we would refer to as a trans woman now, a black woman. She won Miss Manhattan, which was sort of a local pageant. And then she went to follow Flawless Sabrina’s pageant,. And she was kind of tired of it being what she thought was rigged towards the favor of sort of white women.
With roots in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, ballroom culture evolved into a vibrant movement that has since been a haven of self-expression, creativity, and community for the LGBTQ individuals, particularly those from the black and latino community. It's a world of flamboyant fashion, fierce competition, and above all, a celebration of identity. In this episode, we're not just exploring the sequins and voguing, we're delving deeper. We discuss the significant impact of ballroom culture on popular culture and its commodification in the mainstream, and we address its crucial role as a form of protest and its influence on the fight for LGBTQ rights and acceptance.
And the Category Is…Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community, By Ricky Tucker
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