Essex Hemphill

Essex Hemphill was an African-American writer, poet, performance artist and activist. He used writing as a way to confront racism, sexism, classism, homophobia and heterosexism. He condemned racial rifts that developed in the GLBT community as well as divisions that existed in the Black community between gays and straights. He wrote about being a Black gay man living with AIDS, and used his reputation and talents as a means to speak out against AIDS organizations and programs that did not provide for African-Americans.

In 1991, Hemphill edited Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men, which won a Lambda Literary Award. In 1992, he released Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry, which won the National Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual New Author Award. His poems appeared in Obsidian, Black Scholar, Callaloo, Painted Bride Quarterly, Essence, Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time and Life Sentences: Writers, Artists and AIDS.