Channing Gerard Joseph

Queer culture historian

TED Fellow Channing Gerard Joseph is a queer culture historian.

Why you should listen

Channing Gerard Joseph (he/him/his and she/her/hers) is a storyteller, journalist and historian. For a recent project, he illuminated the birth of gay liberation in 19th-century Washington, DC, through the life of William Dorsey Swann, an American former slave and the world’s first self-described drag queen.

Channing Gerard Joseph’s TED Talk

Channing Gerard Joseph
How Black queer culture shaped history
8 minutes 9 seconds
Names like Bayard Rustin, Frances Thompson and William Dorsey Swann have been largely erased from US history, but they and other Black queer leaders played central roles in monumental movements like emancipation, civil rights and LGBTQ+ pride, among others. In this tribute to forgotten icons, queer culture historian and TED Fellow Channing Gerard Joseph shares their little-known stories, connecting the origins of drag in the 1880s to the present day and exploring the awesome power to choose how we define ourselves.
Posted Feb 2023

More news and ideas from Channing Gerard Joseph

News
A New Era: Notes from Session 2 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022
April 10, 2022
Session 2 of TED Fellows talks brought us yet another incredible group of individuals doing wildly different things in wildly different places. Eleven speakers and one performer took us across the globe to share their bold plans for social impact, technological innovation, cultural shifts and more. The event: Talks from Session 2 of TED Fellows […]
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Channing Gerard Joseph

Why you should listen

Channing Gerard Joseph’s TED Talk

More news and ideas from Channing Gerard Joseph

A New Era: Notes from Session 2 of TED Fellows Talks at TED2022