On the wall in Lena Waithe’s Los Angeles office hangs an image of Lorraine Hansberry, the groundbreaking Black queer playwright whose work, “A Raisin In The Sun,” became the first play written and produced by a Black woman to debut on Broadway. 

Waithe bears the name of the play’s matriarch (Lena Younger) and, like Hansberry, is a Chicago native. “That photo hangs there for me to remember that it’s important to let everybody’s point of view be in the frame,” she told LGBTQ Nation. 

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Sixty years after Hansberry’s death, artists like Waithe are still propelled by the blueprint for freedom and liberation she and other twentieth-century Black queer writers (like James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni) provided. It’s a responsibility she and her contemporaries, like writer, activist, and close friend Darnell Moore have embraced. 

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Now in their 40s, Waithe and Moore proudly accept their new elder status in the community, having lived long enough to earn it. 

“I’m really grateful and honored because I know how important this role is,” Waithe said. “Because to be an auntie is not just about behavior — it’s about action.”

“I want to live a life that is reflective of the very characteristics of the best of what an elder should be,” Moore said. “Embedded in that term for me is a call to collectively care for others, to be available, to give of oneself, to live your life in such a way that it brings good to the world and not harm.” 

“My hope is that when people look at the work, they can get some sense of who I was, what I cared about, and what mattered to me,” Waithe said.

A grammar for freedom

Waithe and Moore share a keen understanding of the shoulders on which they stand.

Waithe constantly reads the work of writers like Baldwin, Giovanni, and Hansberry. “They left breadcrumbs for us when we got lost,” she said. “Baldwin even says, ‘I’ll be right there. I’ll be right there when you need me.’ And he is correct because he has been there for me in times of sadness, in times of loneliness, in times when I felt lost. I read his words and found myself again. And I think he wrote so much while he was alive because he knew how much we would need him when he was gone.” 

Moore added, “The way that we live our lives, what we produce in the world, the politics that we live out, the way that we treat people, it matters — and it can be a lifeline for so many others.”

Creating art that will stand the test of time is one reason why Waithe – creator of “The Chi,” and “Twenties” – and Moore are so intentional about the stories they tell that reflect the Black queer experience. They’re cognizant that a generation of Black queer artists and intellectuals would have been their mentors if not for the AIDS epidemic, and they also know the decisions they make today will become a part of their legacy.

“I understand my work to be a calling in so many ways,” said Moore, whose 2018 memoir, No Ashes In The Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America, won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award. Moore explains that he is creating art that can be “seen as traces of myself” for the next generation to consume long after his work on earth is completed. 

“I lament that I was born into the world at a time where the generation that could have mentored me and who were to be my elders were taken so fiercely and so quickly,” Moore said. “Joseph Beam lived across the bridge from me in Camden, New Jersey, and I never got a chance to meet him because he was taken so early.” 

Moore said those who survived, particularly the Black feminists present in his life, “gave me a vocabulary, a grammar for freedom, who helped me to understand that locating myself in the white supremacist heteropatriarchy and freeing myself from that first was the real liberatory route to helping other people get free.”

“They taught me to wrestle with myself, to reckon with myself, to be self-reflective, and to locate myself in a critique,” he added.

In Moore, Waithe has found a home, community, and kindred spirit in the vein of Giovanni and Baldwin for the thoughtful exchange of ideas bereft of a Hollywood agenda.

The pair met on a Zoom call in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. A direct message from Moore led to a series of conversations and meals that continue today. 

“We started spending time at each other’s homes, breaking bread and realizing how similar we are,” Waithe said. “We look at the world with curiosity, and we aren’t afraid to be wrong. We want to learn from young people rather than preach at them all the time.”

Moore added, “When I’m not here anymore, beyond any sort of great thing I did that somebody can look at on a resume, I want somebody to be able to say that when this person showed up in my life, he showed up and brought joy, he brought care when nobody was looking. I had a need, and this person showed up and filled the gap.”

Show up & shine

Waithe, Moore, and other visible Black queer artists are why Waithe says, “The ancestors are dancing.” She thinks about this as she continues to reflect on the impact of Hansberry’s artistry. 

 “Lorraine’s work continues to force us to grapple with ourselves and what a brighter future actually looks like for us. And it’s okay for us not to be on the same page about what that is.”

Her sexuality and gender expression, she said, challenge public and cultural expectations of Black women in the entertainment industry. “To some people, I was unique; I was new. But to many of us in my community, I am not new. It’s just the first time people have actually looked at a stud lesbian from Chicago. You can see my queerness on me. I don’t have to tell you. You can look at me and say, ‘I have a feeling you’re not dating dudes,’ and yeah, that would be correct.”

But before she could embrace her role as an elder, she had to embrace herself.

“We must show up and shine in spite of the fact that some members of society and even members of our own community may not understand us… The thing about us and our queer community is… we learn that we have to be okay with who we are even if everybody else ain’t.”

Editor’s note: This story originally misidentified Waithe as a creator of “Master of None.” That line has been removed.

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