episode 5: Johnnnathan gadson
(he/they)
“In order for you to be a Pan-Africanist, all Africans have to be included…
Heteronormativity has never been us. It was forced upon us.”
Johnnathan Gadson Photographed by Niyah Shaheed (2025).
"Marsha P. Johnson At 1982 Pride March.” Courtesy of Getty Images.
Audre Lorde - the Third World Gay Conference - Photographed by Ron Simmons (1979). Courtesy of the Smithsonian - NMAAHC.
“As far as any [Black Queer] history, I learned that in college. I didn’t learn about Marsha P Johnson until I got into college. I didn’t know about a lot of the other Queer icons - Angela Davis, Audre Lorde. I’m still trynna learn as we go on. We did a very good job of hiding Queer history in our education system.”
Left: Kwame Ture Photographed by Gordon Parks (1966).
Right: Kwame Nkrumah (circa 1955). Courtesy of Getty Images.
“During my graduate school, me and one of my best friends started a Pan African Organization. We were it. We did mutual aid. We did book club. We did a lot of good work. We built community from the houseless up. We had a children’s program -teaching kids about Africa, resources, different leaders of the movement, against homophobia and sexism - and how that’s not anti-black.”
Poster of Fred Hampton (1969-1970)- Designed by Emory Douglas - Courtesy of the Smithsonian - NMAAHC.
“By the time I got into college, I was reading Hampton, Stokley Carmichael aka Kwame Ture, Kwame Nkrumah, Karl Marx, Lenin.”
Pride Parade - Birmingham (1989). Courtesy of The Birmingham News.
“Birmingham is a very queer friendly city - white queer friendly city.
I don’t know many Black Queer people from back home. There’s one that I always idolized. His name was also Johnnathan. He was in the church. He was so unapologetically himself. And it made him so magnetic.”
“tHERE WAS A ROCKY HORROR MASQUERADE BALL.
Rocky Horror would be playing on this giant screen at the Alabama Theater. You come in your costume. You get to throw toilet paper at the screen, rice, toast, during certain parts of the movie. Yeah, Birmingham was so much fun, especially back then.”
“Rocky Horror Masquerade Ball” (2014). Courtesy of Shutter Bug.
Johnnathan Gadson Photographed by Niyah Shaheed (2025).
“The first Trump election really catapulted me, and Trayvon Martin before that. Now I’m just fully immersed into what does it mean to be a Black person and what my duty is here.
I feel like my duty is to tell the truth…
I feel like that’s what I was put on this earth to do - to educate.”
Trayvon Martin at Aviation Camp (2009)