Like Sanders and Teague, Edward says one visit to Atlanta over Labor Day weekend, solidified his decision to make the move. We had Boystown, but that was for White gay men,” said Edward. “For Black gay men, you could be yourself in Atlanta. Raised on the Southside of Chicago in what he describes as a “very segregated city,” Edward says Atlanta provided an opportunity to be immersed in a culture more reflective of his dual reality. Edward, a native San Franciscan says he was running away from what he viewed as the White-centric gay community of Boystown in Chicago, Illinois. “I was running away to my adult life, but not away from a life that I couldn’t have had in Kansas City,” said Teague.īurrell Edward, a USPS professional, who was in his mid-twenties in 1990 was running, too, but not from the confines of a small town.
Like Sanders, Teague says his move to Atlanta wasn’t the result of any specific trauma related to his queerness, but a necessary chapter in the evolution of the person he would ultimately become. And I certainly know I would have never experienced liberated worship like I saw that Sunday with The Vision Church if I’d stayed in South Carolina.” I don’t think I would have ever been introduced to critical thinking in that regard if I’d stayed in South Carolina. “So for me, moving to Atlanta provided the perfect context. “About a month and a half later, I ended up coming out, I left my Apostolic church, I became the first executive admin pastor of The Vision Church all in one weekend. Sanders says he would begin to realize that the service he attended was “just a projection of what was already going on in me.” I’m like, ‘how in the world are they doing this?” “Everything about me sacrilegious.” I was happy and sad at the same time,” said Sanders. The two men were introduced after Sanders’ initial objection to an LGBTQ affirming interfaith service Allen held during Black Gay Pride weekend. Allen III, Senior Pastor of The Vision Church of Atlanta.
Raised in the traditional Apostolic church, Sanders tells The Reckoning that his theological perspective and embrace of his sexual orientation shifted after a chance encounter with the then assistant of Bishop O.C. It would be another nine years in 1993 before Troy Sanders, Bishop-Elect of Rehoboth Fellowship of Atlanta would decide to move from his hometown in Denmark, South Carolina to the city during the same holiday weekend, but under different circumstances. And I thought every Black gay person in the South is here. “And of course that was a stupid question, but I’d never seen this many Black gay people, and we’re all here together.this is crazy. “I turned to my cousin and I said, ‘Is every Black gay person in Atlanta here?” “And he just laughed at me because he knew what I was experiencing because he grew up in Kansas City, too,” said Teague. I didn’t know I was coming to Labor Day Weekend, I was just coming for a two-week vacation to celebrate my college graduation,” said Teague.Īnd what Teague says he saw during an outing to a gay bar with his cousin during that weekend in 1984, made it clear that Atlanta was on it’s way to becoming what the city is now commonly referred to as the Black Gay Mecca. “I’m one of those kids who showed up for Labor Day Weekend, it was before it was Black Gay Pride. I bought two weeks worth of clothes and I haven’t gone back to live at home since,” he said.īorn and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Teague’s arrival in Atlanta during Labor Day Weekend begins like so many Black gay men who have made the journey before, during, and after him. “The richness of who I am and who I became happened after I took that two-week vacation,” said Teague. It’s a common thread that connects those who have taken the bus ride of faith from their relatively small southern or midwestern towns, often with no concrete plan and very little money, but with an overwhelming desire to become fully realized human beings in a city that is often both romanticized and demonized, yet affords Black gay men space to simply be.įor Teague, who had never set foot inside the city before making his initial trip, the move to Atlanta would prove to be a defining moment on his journey into adulthood. Now nearly 40 years later, Teague is among thousands, if not millions of Black gay men who have migrated to Atlanta in search of liberation, freedom, community, and themselves.
Duncan Teague’s visit to Atlanta in 1984 was supposed to be a short-lived two-week vacation to celebrate his college graduation.