Hemphill, Essex

April 16, 1957
November 4, 1995

Essex Hemphill was an author, poet, performance artist, and black gay activist who challenged silence, exclusion, and homophobia within black communities and institutions. The eldest of five children, he was born in Chicago and grew up in Washington, D.C. Hemphill fought to create an accessible African-American gay history. In 1978, he founded the Nethula Journal of Contemporary Literature, and he ran the journal for several years before becoming increasingly involved in performance poetry. He performed at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the 1994 National Black Arts Festival, and at the Whitney Museum. Hemphill self-published three books—Diamonds in the Kitty (1982), Plums (1983), and Earth Life (1985)—and a larger collection, Conditions (1986).

His work may be seen in the film Looking for Langston and in two docudramas by Marlon Riggs, Tongues Untied and Black Is, Black Ain't. Hemphill won the National Library Association's New Authors in Poetry Award for Ceremonies, published by Penguin in 1992. His radical poems, prose, and expository writing in Ceremonies explored African-American urban and gay realities. He also won a Lambda Award for editing the 1991 anthology Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men —his best-known work. In 1986 he received a fellowship for poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. Hemphill died from AIDS complications on November 5, 1995.

See also Gay Men; Poetry, U.S.

Bibliography

Walsh, Sheila. "Essex Hemphill Dies." Washington Blade, November 10, 1995.

rachel zellars (1996)