Gay Black Group

From the collection of

Media Archive for Central England
MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.

Gay Black Group


The Gay Black Group - reasserting culture and identity on two levels.

The formation of the Gay Black Group was a landmark in gay black history. Meeting at Gay's the Word, a bookshop in Bloomsbury, London, it provided a sounding board and support for gay and black communities of the 1980s. Sitting on the outside of both by virtue of their sexuality or ethicity the group attempted to negotiate a path through the complexities of cultural and sexual identity. In this film, members of the group talk to Paula Ahluwalia about their experiences.

One of the interviewees is the film-maker Isaac Julien, then a student at St Martin's School of Art. In 1991 his film Young Soul Rebels won the critics prize at the Cannes Film Festival.


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