Blavity – We Took A Black America Poll And Found That Black And Queer Liberation Are Intrinsically Tied

By: Alicia Garza and Terrance Woodbury.

Terrance Woodbury is a founding partner at HIT Strategies, a public opinion research firm targeting young people and communities of color. Alicia Garza is an activist who helped launch #BlackLivesMatter and the founder of Black Futures Lab, an advocacy organization.

Both Black and Queer liberation have historical milestones in June. In June of 1969, the Stonewall Riots catalyzed the modern gay liberation movement. Annual Juneteenth celebrations commemorate the day enslaved Black people in Texas finally became free, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. By viewing the milestones separately, as we do so often, we overlook the communities that live at the intersection of these identities: Black LGBTQ+ Americans.

As Alicia has said before, Black LGBTQ+ people are often viewed more by their sexual orientation than their race. So being members of both communities, we found it especially important for our two Black-Queer-led organizations, HIT Strategies and Black Futures Lab, to commission and conduct a national poll of 1,000 Black Americans with oversamples of Black LGBTQ+ audiences.