Celebrating Black Queer Icons:

Willmer "Little Axe" Broadnax

Willmer "Little Axe" Broadnax was born December 28, 1916 in Houston, Texas to parents William Broadnax and Gussie Frazier. Broadnax was an American hard gospel quartet singer that gained widespread popularity during the Golden Age of Traditional Black Gospel (1940s/50s). He received the nickname Little Axe from his short stature and as a companion to his brother, William "Big Axe" Broadnax, a popular baritone. By the time of the 1930s census Broadnax was living with his mother, brother, step-father Augustus Flowers, and step-sister Amartha Broadnax*. Broadnax began his career in gospel during his teen years, alongside his brother William. In the 1930s the Broadnax brothers joined the St Paul Gospel Singers in Houston, TX. The Broadnax brothers would later move to Los Angeles and join the Southern Gospel Singers. The group did not tour, and only preformed on weekends. The Broadnax brothers eventually broke off and formed their own quartet, The Golden Echoes. At some point Broadnax's brother, William, left the group and moved to Atlanta, GA where he joined The Five Trumpets. Broadnax stayed on as the lead of this iteration of the Echoes until they disbanded in 1949, after Specialty Records label chief, Art Rupe, decided to drop the group. The Golden Echoes only made a single recording with the label. Pianist Willie Love would go on to say "Little Axe couldn't sing low, because he had a relatively high voice. It wasnt falsetto, it was naturally high. So somebody had to sing the bottom.". Broadnax and the baritone Paul Foster sometimes created the illusion of a multi-octave singer together. In 1950 Broadnax joined The Spirit of Memphis Quartet, recording for King Records, and appearing with them until at least 1952. He would go on to join The Fairfield Four, shortly after, and in the early 1960s served as one of Archie Brownlee's replacements in the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. Broadnax lead another iteration of The Golden Echoes until 1965, releasing singles through Peacock Records. As gospel's popularity waned Broadnax decided to retire from touring. Broadnax continued to perform and record in some capacity, most notably recording with the Blind Boys in the 1970s and 80s. On May 23, 1992, in Philidelphia, PA, Broadnax was killed by his lover, Lavina Richardson. After witnessing Richardson in a vehicle with another man, Broadnax pursued the vehicle, bumping into it several times with his own. At some point both vehicles stopped and Broadnax pulled Richardson from her vehicle and threatened her with a knife. A bystander disarmed Broadnax, after which Richardson picked up the knife and stabbed him three times. Broadnax died several days later, on June 1st, 1992, as a result of the injuries. Richardson was later convicted of manslaughter. After Broadnax's death it was publicly discovered that he had been assigned female at birth, which created a notable stir in the gospel community. Many claimed "they always knew" but there is no evidence to support anyone other than Broadnax's brother and other close family knew.

*This post by @ubleproject (The Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project), which served as a source for me and Broadnax's wiki article, speculates that its possible Amartha is the deadname of the singer we know as Willmer "Little Axe" Broadnax, and that Amartha may have assumed the older brother's name to preform. In which case, Broadnax was born in Louisiana in 1922 to Frazier and Flowers. In the 1930 census Amartha's entry was corrected by hand to list Amartha as a girl. The census taker had initially listed Amartha as a boy, suggesting Amartha may have been presenting as such, at the time. Amartha is also, interestingly listed as Amartha Broadnax, despite being listed as Frazier and Flowers' biological child. There are little to no records of Amartha's later life. I have two more planned, but not sure on the order I will be doing them. The last will probably be out in the beginning of March. After that I will be saving the rest of my list for October, when the US is having LGBT History Month, and the UK is having its Black History Month. I will start including cis icons as well, such as Bayard Rustin. As always corrections and suggestions are welcome and much desired.

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‘The Simpsons’ ain’t have to come for Black people like this! 🤣

hello... you may notice you are strapped to a chair infront of a computer screen.... you must either saw off your arms or read two hours worth of mcu influenced daredevil fanon

My granny refuses to listen to any gospel music recorded after 1985 and she's been stretching our 'jam session' out for 6 hours now. Feel like I'm 9 years old being held hostage at revival again.

between nina simone richie havens odetta mavis staples tracy chapman and the brothers and sisters ALONE black people really are the foremost interpreters of bob dylan like there is no competition

Wade In The Water Ep. 2: In Search Of The Sacred : NPR

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Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)

oedipus killed his dad and fucked his mom. polynices and eteocles killed each other because they wanted to be king. agammemnon was ordered to sacrifice his own daughter. clytemnestra killed an innocent woman and ill-treated her children for years afterwards. orestes was goaded by elektra into murdering their mother. achilles murdered hector and desecrated his body. medea murdered a shitton of people including her own children.

one of the main draws of greek tragedies is that there aren't bright lines of "good" and "evil", it's about human people with flaws that exacerbate the situations they're in and lead to devastating consequences. oedipus's hotheadedness, medea's mild sociopathy, polynices and eteocles's lust for power, achilles and clytemnestra's rage, the tyranny and indifference of the gods themselves. that is what makes the greek tragedy so incredibly compelling even thousands of years after they were written, and why some of the great tragedies from later eras (shakespeare's tragedies, american canon tragedies like death of a salesman or the crucible) are still so inspired by that fundamental "the characters are flawed and those flaws are their downfalls regardless of inherent good or evil within them" type of storytelling.

and if you've been studying and analyzing greek texts and are not in fact just talking out of your ass for twitter points about the dragon incest show and you genuinely think that greek tragedies have clear cut "good guys" and "bad guys" then you are two steps away from being brain dead and i'm shocked you're allowed online access without adult supervision. also idk how to tell you that ancient greece was in fact quite misogynistic soooooooooooo. but i think op is just stupid.

Cover of an XVIII century Gospel from the village of Stupino, Voronezhskiy uyezd of Voronezh province (1924)

Afro Culture (My culture)

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