On Tuesday, March 23, 2021, LGBTQ-RAN hosted a lively conversation about researching and writing LGBTQ religious history with historian Dan Royles, Ph.D. and the Rev. Duncan Teague, pastor and HIV/AIDS educator. Royles recently received the 2020-21 LGBTQ Religious History Award for his paper, "There Is a Balm in Gilead: AIDS Activism in the Black Church." You will have a chance to ask questions at the end of the conversation.
Dan Royles is Assistant Professor of History at Florida International University, where he teaches courses on United States, African American, LGBTQ, oral, and public history. His first book, To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle against HIV/AIDS, was published by University of North Carolina Press in 2020. To Make the Wounded Whole offers the first history of African American AIDS activism in all of its depth and breadth. It introduces a diverse constellation of activists, including medical professionals, Black gay intellectuals, church pastors, Nation of Islam leaders, recovering drug users, and Black feminists who pursued a wide array of grassroots approaches to slow the epidemic’s spread and address its impacts. Through interlinked stories from Philadelphia and Atlanta to South Africa and back again, this book documents the diverse, creative, and global work of African American activists in the decades-long battle against HIV/AIDS.
Rev. Duncan E. Teague is the founding minister of the three-year-old Abundant Love Unitarian Universalist (UU) Congregation in SW Atlanta, GA, a largely African American community. He has served on the national UU Ministers Association’s Committee on Anti-Racism, Anti-Oppression, and Multiculturalism (CARAOM). Rev. Teague advises Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health and School of Nursing assisting with research to inform faith-based HIV/AIDS prevention programs from the perspective of Black gay and bi-sexual men.
Rev. Teague is also a published writer and senior member of the performance poets, The ADODI Muse: A Gay Negro Ensemble. Archival collections of The ADODI Muse’ work, Teague’s papers, memorabilia and writings are held at the Auburn Avenue Research Library. His narrative is also featured in the award-winning book, a documentary, and stage productions of Sweet Tea, an anthology of Black gay men's lives in the South by E. Patrick Johnson, Ph.D. He is currently archived in a recent interview held by OutWords, a digital online archive from the LGBTQAI communities.
Tags
AIDS | Black | Teague, Duncan | Artist/musician/poet | Unitarian Universalist | Author/editor