Black LGBT Mississippians share building community and identity

Jun. 20—Growing up, Holly Springs native Carlton Smith knew his identity wasn't something he ever had a choice to hide.

"Even from an early age, there was a way in which I was identified as different or called names," Smith said.

When he became a potential candidate for Mississippi's 1st Congressional District in 2018, he decided to own his identity as a Black gay man for integrity and to send a message to younger people about the possibilities available to them. While he didn't make it onto the ballot after missing the deadline to register his candidacy, he wrote an opinion piece for his hometown paper that year about his own journey accepting himself.

"I didn't have anyone in the public sphere who owned all of who they were if they were holding an LGBTQ identity, so that I felt somewhat responsible for," Smith said.

Smith, 56, came of age in post-segregation Mississippi. His parents, the late Eddie Lee Smith Jr., the first African American mayor of Holly Springs, and late Luberta Elliott Smith, met at Rust College in the 1950s.

Smith left Holly Springs at 17 to attend Howard. His experience there was rich. He explored his sexuality. He volunteered with the elections office of his student government, where he worked alongside fellow student council member and future vice president, Kamala Harris.

He also travelled, spending five months abroad in Paris, France. Visiting places outside of Mississippi broadened his perspective.

"Something within me knew that in order to grow into the person that I needed to be, that I needed to leave Mississippi, at least for a while," Smith said.

When he had a lung collapse at age 23, he began to rethink his life. He eventually found his calling to go into ministry. At Howard's School of Divinity, he developed his own political ideals as progressive and liberal. A seminary classmate inspired Smith to become an Unitarian Universalist (UU) ministerial candidate in '94, kicking off internships and being a parish minister for UU congregations in New York, Boston, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California.

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In his travels, Smith built community again and again. During seminary, he became more involved in LGBTQ issues, working with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). In New York, he regularly visited The Center, a nonprofit organization serving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in New York City. He joined two gay Black men groups, and when his then-partner relocated to California, he was part of a couples group.

As a minister, Smith discovered he didn't believe that being LGBT and holding a Christian identity conflicted.

"As a Black person in the United States, I'm aware of the ways in which the Bible and religion have been used to justify enslavement and second-class citizenship," Smith said. "If I can see how scriptures can be manipulated to justify slavery and oppression of any kind, then I feel that it stems to the realm of sexual orientation and gender identity as well."

'Who they want to be'

Since coming out, Jamaya Coggins, 25, of Guntown has found a community naturally.

"When people know that you're gay, they just kind of gravitate towards you, whether they come out to you or not at that time," Coggins said. "It's just, they sense that energy, I guess. I don't really know how I found my people, it just kind of happened."

In 2017, she participated in the Human Rights Campaign's #LoveYourNeighbor video project, a collection of stories from LGBT people and allies in the South. After sharing her own experience, a middle school friend who now lives in Los Angeles saw the video and told her he came to terms with himself thanks to her.

"It just made my heart so happy, and I was really glad I could be a part of something like that, that makes people want to tell you that I helped somebody," Coggins said.

While she's found gay community, she sometimes feels being both Black and gay is complicated. Growing up, she felt very ostracized for how she acted, and for feeling that the Black community disapproved of being Black and gay.

However, she still feels proud to be Black. When she meets other Black gay people, she gravitates toward them.

What helped Coggins come into her own identity was finding her chosen family. She met Melanie Deas, founding board member of Equality Mississippi who introduced her the #LoveYourNeighbor video project, and her sister, Meredith Deas Tollison. By meeting them, she said she's felt lot she finally got a taste of what it's like to be gay in Tupelo.

"It probably would have taken me a while to fully understand that I'm gay and it's OK," Coggins said. "I don't have to worry about what everybody else thinks about it because I have these people that love me no matter what. That's really awesome. They're my people."

Coggins believes Tupelo has progressed since she was in high school, thanks in part to pride celebrations such as Tupelo Pride and Oxford Pride.

"It's really, really crazy to me how kids nowadays are so open with their sexualities and stuff like that," Coggins said. "They're free to be who they want to be, and it just amazes me. They're so free. I never could have done that in high school, never, ever."

Establishing Pride

Dejah Abdul-Haqq, My Brother's Keeper Inc. (MBK) Director of the Office of Organizational Development, remembers her first Black Pride being a magical moment.

"You realize this is a space where people come to be themselves," Abdul-Haqq said. "They don't necessarily get to do that everyday, so it's like you can actually feel the deep breaths happening."

When Jackson Black Pride first started in 2002, it was hosted by Pride of Mississippi under the direction of Michael Robinson and Joseph Lindsey. MBK, a nonprofit organization that works to reduce health disparities for minority and marginalized populations, was a sponsor. After Pride of Mississippi dissolved in 2007, MBK took over the celebration.

"Pride was basically established to empower LGBT individuals in our community to take responsibility for action, to move forward eradicating different health disparities and making ourselves visible on a social and political level, letting them know there are Black, African American individuals in the state of Mississippi and we do have a voice," said Lindsey, MBK South Mississippi Program Manager.

MBK made health care the epicenter of the event. With MBK and Open Arms, a safe space clinic, the goal is to foster conversations about a person's whole health and destigmatize conversations about STDS and HIV tests.

Every Pride celebration had community input and involvement, said MBK Outreach and Testing Manager Gerald Gibson.

"We never do anything without getting community input because we know things are changing," Gibson said. "We really want to talk about people's lived experiences and what do you want to see in Mississippi, what makes you prideful in Mississippi and what can we do differently."

The past year put MBK's work into perspective. Being LGBT in a state with a high rate of health disparities and is 38% Black means "there's a triple layer of oppression that the Black LGBT community suffers with," Abdul-Haqq said. During the pandemic, they kept their doors open to continue serving and made Jackson Black Pride virtual.

Jackson Black Pride is proud of their work building community. For the future, Abdul-Haqq envisions Jackson Black Pride educating the masses with better information, empowering Black LGBT to advocate for themselves, and encouraging people to be allies.

"I wish that the Jackson Black Pride energy could just be magnified across the state, where everyone is OK with who you are, come as you are, be as you are and everything about you is important," Abdul-Haqq said.

A part of Mississippi

In 2013, after 31 years away from Mississippi, Carlton Smith returned to his hometown of Holly Springs as part of the UUA regional staff for the South.

In Mississippi, Smith has not found the same sense of community as he had in other states, but he believes there's value in visibility and a need for LGBTQ elected officials on the local and state levels.

"We are part of the population of Mississippi and every other state, and when those voices are missing, when we don't have a broad enough representation of voices, then people's rights and basic human dignity often go unrecognized."

Smith thinks Mississippi has a long way to go politically. Legislation such as House Bill 1523, which allows people to not provide services to LGBT people on religious grounds, and the state's continued affirming of the confederacy is damaging, he said.

However, Smith also believes change will come to Mississippi as LGBTQ people in the state become more focused and organized.

"There will eventually be an LGBTQ elected official in Mississippi," Smith said. "I hope to be part of that focus and organization, whether I'm that first person or not."

For now, Smith is grateful for the communities to which he belongs. In some ways, he said the LGBT community is automatically assumed to be white, and hopes for more recognition of diversity in the LGBT and Black communities.

"Some of us straddle those," he said. "I think there are gifts that come with being able to understand life in a complex and nuanced way."

danny.mcarthur@djournal.com