Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight was a writer and artist during the Harlem Renaissance. He was the first out black writer. Today's Out Spotlight is Bruce Nugent.

 Richard Bruce Nugent to a middle class African-American family in Washington, D.C. July 2, 1906. . He was the oldest child of Richard H. Nugent, Jr., a train porter, by his wife, Pauline.  After his father died in 1920, Nugent moved to New York to live with his mother. When he told her he was going to be an artist, she sent him back to Washington.
Nugent met author Langston Hughes at a salon in poet Georgia Douglas Johnson’s home. In 1925, Hughes found Nugent’s poem “Shadow” in a trash can and had it published. The poem shocked readers because it was about being gay.

Nugent returned to New York, where he moved in with fellow writer Wallace Thurman and pursued art and writing. One of his drawings was published on the cover of Opportunity: Journey of Negro Life.

Along with Hughes and other Harlem Renaissance luminaries, Nugent cofounded Fire!!, an African-American art magazine. In 1926, he published “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade,” the first literary work by an African-American that openly depicted homosexuality.

His only stand-alone publication, Beyond Where the Stars Stood Still, was issued in a limited edition by Warren Marr II in 1945. He later married Marr's sister, Grace on December 5, 1952.

This marriage however was never consummated since he was openly gay, but she insisted they marry with the notion that she could change him. It was not seen as a ploy to hide his homosexuality, but rather they were just very close. They were married nearly 17 years until Marr’s death.

In 1964, he was elected co-chair of Columbia University’s Community Planning Conference, an organization that promoted the arts in Harlem.

Nugent was open about his sexual orientation and was known for his vivacious personality and elegantly erotic style. Called the “Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance,” he is remembered for living unconventionally and for following his own path. Nugent passed away on May 27, 1987 at the age of 80.

“You’d be surprised how good homosexuality is. I love it.”