I rummage through

ancestral memories

in search of the

original tribes

that fathered us

I want to remember

the exact practices

of civility

we agreed upon.

“The Tomb of Sorrow" — Essex Hemphill

In recent years, when the title of elder has been placed upon me, I’ve always rejected it. Not just because I felt too young, but also because I believed that being an elder was something you earned. And I did not believe I’d earned it yet. I still don’t.

What I have come to understand is that much of being an elder is really about who survives, and who is left to tell the story. In this sense, being an elder for me seems to be about loss, loneliness, and grief. It’s a reminder of the collective trauma that we as Black gay men and so many marginalized communities face—the war that was waged against us, against our bodies and desires that forced too many of us to become ancestors before we became elders. And for those of us remaining—left to become elders prematurely.

In 1999, the blocks between 10th street and 14th street in Midtown Atlanta was the world I entered. This is where I found community, made friends, earned enemies, felt desired and rejected, built community, mourned community, and ultimately became politicized in a way that is no longer possible. This is where I became an activist. This is where I became a leader; my origin story, if you will. Entering that world for me was like visiting Narnia.

“For a period in my 20s, the Essex Hemphill poem, ‘When My Brother Fell,’ was as much a hymn as a battle cry. And those of us that remained, we are now asked, we are required, to become elders.”

— Charles Stephens

Though it happened only across a few years and only existed across a few blocks: Midtown MARTA Station, Cypress Street, Loretta’s, the Atlanta Lambda Center, and Outwrite Bookstore, these groups formed a social world that defined me in a lasting way. This would nurture me and create the foundation that I would later build my political and creative work upon.

I could not imagine that this brief time, a kind of golden era, utopian as much as a Black boy from Southwest Atlanta can discover a utopia, would be so fleeting. Had I known just how short this period would be, I would have hugged it tighter. Now I’m left to tell the story, and I’m asked to remember. Memories weigh you down, and good memories can be as burdensome as the bad. So even as I have tried to forget, I have also tried to remember. Grief can lead to ambivalence.

Ajani Nafula from “In Dey Spirit” by Johnnie Ray Kornegay III (2016)

I don’t know when it ended or how it ended. The falling apart. The coming undone. The breaking apart. Arguments became permanent rifts. Interpersonal conflicts became civil wars. When you struggle together, I suppose eventually you struggle against each other. When you become bonded by trauma, you also become bonded by blood. But we were Black gay men who, despite our best efforts, were programmed to fail each other. No matter how many times we quoted Joseph Beam as enthusiastically as choir boys, white supremacy programs us to take far too much pleasure in treachery. This is the knowledge you can only acquire as an elder.

Buildings and places eventually left or were sold. People died. Some died before they turned 30. Some died before they turned 40. Not just people, my brothers. For a period in my 20s, the Essex Hemphill poem, “When My Brother Fell,” was as much a hymn as a battle cry. And those of us that remained, we are now asked, we are required, to become elders.

I do know that at a certain point, I became elevated, I would argue prematurely, to this kind of pre-elder status. A status I have rejected aggressively because, in a sense, I associate being an elder with being a survivor. And it becomes, in its way, a reminder of trauma. I would have never thought at 40, that the Black gay men that I loved, argued with, fought with, made up with, admired, and resented, would not enter this phase of my journey with me. Most of them have not. And being an elder to me is a reminder of that.

“I could not imagine that this brief time, a kind of golden era, utopian as much as a Black boy from Southwest Atlanta can discover a utopia, would be so fleeting. Had I known just how short this period would be, I would have hugged it tighter.”

— Charles Stephens

I return to Audre Lorde when she says, “we were never meant to survive.” When I said those words at 18, I was being provocative. I did not completely understand what those words meant. I had not yet survived. So when I say those words now at 42, to invoke survival after confronting structural violence. After bearing witness to how most of us leave the movement smaller than we found it. After seeing so clearly that choosing the pursuit of justice means choosing a path of suffering. Those words, “we were never meant to survive,” I utter now, not from the mind, but from the flesh. Because I understand now that being an elder is about who remains.

I will eventually accept being an elder, and this is what I want it to look like: There would be a ritual, a rite of passage, some way of recognizing this phase. I would want a group of other Black queer men, comrades, and loved ones to come out to some sacred space or sacred land. Maybe by the water. Or maybe the ritual could take place along those blocks between 10th and 14th street, where I first became an activist, where I first became a leader. The other elders in the space would share with me, out in the open, their advice, their wisdom, and affirm for me that even as an elder, there is much to look forward to. I would want loved ones and comrades to share with me what my work has meant, and what my legacy has been.

Finally, I would want some emerging leaders and activists to share what they would need from me as an elder, what it would mean for them, and how I can continue to serve the community. I would then offer to the group, this intimate circle of trusted tribespeople, what my hopes are, my fears, and my vulnerabilities. I would share a list of people—call their names—that made my survival possible. We would then chant the names of those people, my list of angels, that loved me enough to pour into me, to trust me with their stories, so I could keep our traditions alive, and let them know their sacrifices have kept us all alive. This model of being an elder that I want to inhabit, a frame I want to exist within, would not just be about grief or collective trauma, but about radical Black joy.