When Leslie Hall first listened to Beyoncé’s Renaissance album, he knew it was something to behold.
“With this particular album … she gave a love letter to a community that has really made the music and culture industry possible,” said Hall, director of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities program at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
With a world tour that grossed $579 million — becoming the highest-grossing tour by a female artist — and a documentary that earned $21 million its first weekend in theaters, advocates say Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” creations have highlighted Black power and Black queerness at a time when Black history and LGBTQ+ rights are under attack.
Hall admits he is not one to usually enjoy whole albums, but he found himself listening to Renaissance without skipping any tracks.
“I didn’t feel like I had to put on different hats — the Black hat or the gay hat,” Hall said. “I felt I could be my whole self throughout the entire album.”
The album features voices from iconic members of the LGBTQ+ and house music communities, including samples from Lidell Townsell & M.T.F, Honey Dijon and Ts Madison.
During the Renaissance World Tour, Black and LGBTQ+ dancers graced the stage. Fans screamed themselves hoarse as dancers like Honey Balenciaga and Amari Marshall vogued and twerked across the stage.
The inspiration behind “Renaissance” comes from the superstar’s late Uncle Johnny, a gay man who died of AIDS when Beyoncé was a teenager.
“Uncle Johnny had a lot of different layers of marginalization on him and to now be able to go from really not being able to say gay and living your truth to being able to go to a concert in a state where you could lose your job for being gay shows the beauty and the promise of America,” Hall said. “I’m not really trying to be all ‘American Dream’ about it, but it does show that, like, America is an imperfect project and it shows that over time, we do evolve and get better.”
In one of her songs, “Heated,” Beyoncé proudly declares that Uncle Johnny made her dress. Fans catch a glimpse of that dress in “Renaissance: A film by Beyoncé,” released on Dec. 1, which is World AIDS day.
It was a powerful moment, said David Johns, director of the National Black Justice Association (NBJC), as it highlighted just how many have been able to thrive because of the encouragement of Black LGBTQ+ people around them.
“Most of us Black folks know an Uncle Johnny or Aunt Justine,” Johns told The Hill. “Many of us have been loved on by Black trans-, queer and gender-expansive folks and I think those of us who are lucky enough to have been able to do so in public not only find ways to acknowledge the references that we got from them and how they showed up for us, but also find ways to give them their flowers.”
The album not only pays homage to the man who introduced Beyoncé to house music — a genre created by gay Black men in the clubs of Chicago — but makes clear that Beyoncé stands with the LGBTQ community, added Hall.
In one song, the Grammy award-winning artist fully spells out the colors of the Progress Pride flag: black, green, pink, blue, purple, blue, white, brown and yellow.
During the World Tour, which was three times in three different cities by this reporter, the flag is portrayed across a screen as attendees file in.
“The way that she allowed us to feel safe and loved, in spite of all of the political attacks that we are experiencing, is noteworthy,” Johns said.
Those political attacks include banning books that delve into race and LGBTQ+ topics; attempts by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to ban an Advanced Placement African American studies program from running in public schools; and the more than 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills that have been introduced in state legislatures this year.
Hall and his team at HRC are pushing back against these laws through Beyoncé’s artistry. The HBCU Program recently created “Renaissance: A Queer Syllabus.”
The syllabus takes each song from the album and pairs it with resources to explain topics like the Harlem Renaissance, intersectionality and social justice. The syllabus also features authors like bell hooks and Audrey Lord.
“If a faculty member or a teacher wanted to … talk about LGBTQ inclusion, particularly in an environment where folks are banning your lesson plans and books, this is how you could take music and still be able to get certain lessons across without jeopardizing these draconian, unethical, immoral laws that are in place in some of these states,” said Hall. “We just really wanted to want Beyoncé’s work, but more importantly we want it to advance LGBTQ inclusion, queer identities, and empowerment and resilience.”
Still, there was a time when some fans urged Beyoncé to cancel her shows in states that were passing such legislation.
The New York Times projected the “Renaissance” tour generated nearly $4.5 billion in revenue for the U.S. economy.
“There’s not a state that you can travel to where a version of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ hasn’t either been introduced or codified,” Johns said. “I understand where it comes from, but if the ask or expectation is to only go to friendly or affirming — especially queer — spaces, they really don’t exist. There are very few spaces where we can actually go and assume safety. I think that that’s true for all of us who are Black or who have skin that’s been kissed by the sun. It’s doubly true for those of us who have intersectional identities. And for that reason, I think we have a birthright to take up space and experience joy as often as possible.”
But Johns added that the “Renaissance” movement has also highlighted the power behind Black women in particular.
“We see the results of the labor of Black people in this moment, and Black women in all arenas,” Johns said. “Beyonce, [Supreme Court] Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Michelle Obama – we see what happens when Black women show up and take up space. If we were freed up from having to deal with the bulls–t we could do that much more.”
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