Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval

Mary White Ovington, a white woman, sympathizes with Black people and seeks to improve their situation. She notices that the people blur the lines of gender and gender roles. Living among Black people in San Juan Hill, New York City, she encourages social integration. For this, she is regarded as a race traitor by white society. A steady stream of Black folks has been moving into San Juan Hill. The segregation between poor Black, poor white, and well-off white neighbors is stark.

W. E. B. Du Bois and Mary White Ovington discuss the common local arrangements of Black woman heads of household who financially support their men. Slavery significantly reconfigured African American gender roles, motherhood, and family. Far more women than men have migrated North, creating a “surplus” of such self-sufficient Black women. Between this and accusations of sexual immorality, they face the challenge of gaining full status as women.

Ovington goes to visit young Annabel and her sick mother. Annabel wants to be a chorus girl when she grows up, to sing and dance on stage. This way she can avoid her mother’s fate as a hardworking housekeeper and laundry worker.

Hartman imagines how an Oscar Micheaux film about Gladys Bentley might look: perhaps scenes from his childhood, or his mother rejecting him at birth because he is born female, or her failure to accept him even later, as he is now queer, a man, the son she wanted. The film might show Bentley leaving home, and his evolution into a rich and womanizing entertainer. There might be musical numbers, where the chorus dances. The dancing evokes the “ring shout” and the “limbo dance,” both practiced by enslaved people. The performance gestures at what Black life could be if it were not limited or damaged by the Atlantic Slave Trade.

When Bentley performs in cabarets and nightclubs, it is always in men’s formalwear and with women on his arm. In a Micheaux film, Bentley’s scenes would be the most exciting, but his character would inevitably meet a tragic end. This is because his “queer masculinity” cannot be reconciled with the gendered norms and moralizing objectives of racial melodramas. Reformers and legislators would increasingly criminalize queerness and cross-dressing in the 20th century. In Bentley’s demise, he would be repressed into becoming a wife.

The Black women in Edna’s family have a long history of sexual violence and abuse, having its roots in slavery. This continued with her mother and grandmother, who were “nominally free” but sexually abused by white men while employed as house servants. Born as the product of this assault, Edna is nearly white. This makes her the object of ridicule and jealousy growing up. The three generations of women live together. Edna is embarrassed by her mother’s many lovers, Black and white.

Edna’s fate is different from that of the women before her. Edna is an aspiring actress and the secretary to millionaire entrepreneur Madame C. J. Walker. She is also married to the wealthy Lloyd Thomas, a manager for singers and actors. Lloyd is aloof and distant. This first attracted Edna but now it threatens their marriage, as do his drinking and gambling. On stage, she escapes the boredom and disappointment of married life. As she gains fame as an actress, Lloyd grows jealous, resentful, and unfaithful.

Edna becomes romantically involved with a woman and it is exhilarating. Later, Lady Olivia Wyndham pursues Edna, but her love is far too intense and Edna declines. It is only when Olivia resolves to return to England that Edna admits she wants her too. Olivia moves in with Edna and Lloyd. This gets a lot of publicity, yet Edna and Lloyd can carry on with their respective romantic relationships under the guise of remaining married. The three of them live well from their own success and especially Olivia’s wealth.