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Title:	The Gay Harlem Renaissance
Date:	10/10/2025 - 3/8/2026
Address:	The New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024
Location:	New York, NY
Hours:	Tuesday – Thursday, Saturday & Sunday: 11am – 5pm / Friday: 11am – 8pm
Cost/Cover:	free - $24
Web Page:	https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/the-gay-harlem-renaiss ...
Contact Info:	(212) 873-3400

Details:

To mark the centennial of The New Negro—the groundbreaking 1925 anthology of poetry, essays, and art edited by Alain Locke—The Gay Harlem Renaissance invites visitors to immerse themselves in the richness of Black LGBTQ+ life in the 1920s and 1930s. This exhibition recognizes that Locke and many of the best-known writers and artists he championed were gay or bisexual, and it explores the queer mentorship and gay-inclusive salons and friendship circles that helped sustain the Harlem Renaissance.. It takes visitors to Harlem’s posh segregated nightclubs, where LGBTQ+ singers and dancers lit up the stages for white downtowners—and to its modest rent parties and cellar speakeasies, where lesbian, bisexual and transmasculine blues queens sang for gay and straight working-class Harlemites partying together. Throughout, it provides a sweeping portrait of Harlem after the First World War, when the Great Migration of Black Southerners, Caribbean migrants, activists, writers, painters, and performers transformed the neighborhood into the dynamic new capital of Black America.