I Found the First Black Gay Magazine in America at a Fort Lauderdale Library

I was doing archival research at the African-American Research Library on Sistrunk Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale when I came across something that stopped me completely.

A December 1993 edition of BLK magazine. RuPaul on the cover. Six months after Supermodel of the World dropped, right in the middle of his breakthrough year.

BLK was the first Black gay magazine in America. Founded in 1988 by Alan Bell, it ran for six years and 41 issues, covering the AIDS crisis, Black queer culture, politics, and identity for a readership that mainstream gay media and Black media both largely ignored. At its peak, it reached 37,000 readers internationally.

And the complete archive of every single issue is right here. In Broward County. On Sistrunk Boulevard.

I had no idea. Most people don't.

If you want the full story, including the history of BLK, who Alan Bell was, why this archive ended up in Fort Lauderdale, and what a December 1993 RuPaul cover actually meant to the people holding it, I wrote it all up over on Properly South Florida.

Read the full story at Properly South Florida →