The lives and accomplishments of more than 30 black gay men with Rhode Island connections, including the writer James Baldwin, are the subject of the exhibit “Black Lavender 2,” on display at the John Hay Library through January 29, 2010.
\nCurator Robb Dimmick tells the stories of these men — many of them local artists, actors, public servants and scholars — through letters, photographs, playbills and even State House laws, items he has collected over a 30-year span. Dimmick, an actor, theater director and collector, said his mission “is to bring to light the black gay community, because it is sort of invisible.” A former book scout for Providence’s Cornerstone Bookstore, which specialized in black literature at a time when many stores did not have an African American section, Dimmick began collecting information and ephemera on black gay writers in the mid-1970s.
\nThe exhibit is funded by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and is part of its “On the Road to Freedom” initiative which explores African American life in Rhode Island. The John Hay Library, at 20 Prospect Street, is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The lives and accomplishments of more than 30 black gay men with Rhode Island connections, including the writer James Baldwin, are the subject of the exhibit “Black Lavender 2,” on display at the John Hay Library through January 29, 2010. Curator Robb Dimmick tells the stories of these men — many of them local artists, … Black Lavender 2 – through January 29, 2010<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exhibits-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}