Visions of Pride and Protest: An Interview with Lesbian Artist Leigh H. Mosley

Radical Women confer at 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbians and Gays. © leigh h. mosley

BY EMMA CIESLIK May 15, 2025

In 1979, the first National Conference of Third World Lesbians and Gays was held in Howard University’s Harambee House. Organized by the National Coalition of Black Gays, the event brought together LGBTQ+ activists of color, including Audre Lorde, to discuss intersectionality within the community. Before this conference, participants marched on the National Mall for the National March on Washington. There, between 75,000 and 125,000 people marched in DC’s first Pride Parade, and Leigh Mosley, a Black lesbian photographer was there, camera in hand, documenting early Black LGBTQ+ organizing.

Raised in Boston, Mosley grew up within her largely insular community in Roxbury before moving to Washington, DC at 20. She became a still photographer, videographer, filmmaker, and educator, teaching photography in public schools and universities for over 50 years and photographing the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Mohammad Ali, and Audre Lorde.

The story of the National Conference and Mosley’s incredible photography of early LGBTQ+ activism in Washington, DC will be on full display in the Rainbow History Project’s upcoming exhibition Pickets, Protests, and Parades: The History of Gay Pride in Washington, DC in Freedom Plaza. This exhibition--set for opening on May 19th and ribbon cutting on May 24th with two dozen community pioneers--will explore the history of DC’s LGBTQ+ community organizing in time for World Pride. Mosley was previously a photographer for the Washington Post and later contributed photographs to the Washington Blade, Essence, Ms. Magazine, and Off Our Backs. Her photography represent 15% of all the visual content in the exhibition.

Ahead of the exhibition organized by the grassroots queer history organization, I sat down with Mosley in her Washington, DC home to explore the impact and importance of her work.

Cieslik: What first compelled you about photography and education?

Mosley: It seemed to happen simultaneously because it was 1966 and I was a student at Howard University. I became interested in doing photography for Howard University’s newspaper The Hilltop. I was introduced to that and the yearbook by the staff manager Brad Black, and I started taking classes at Howard. Also, I was singing with this group called the New World singers who incedentally sang with Roberta Flack at Mr. Henry’s. The guy who did the publicity photos for our group took me into the darkroom and showed me how the pictures would come up. I was just fascinated with that process. That’s kind of how I got my beginning.

Cieslik: You took a number of photos of the Gay and Lesbian Movement in Washington, DC. How did you first begin working with those communities and documenting them?

Mosley: Well, first of all, I’m gay, so that helps. I came out in 1958 to my parents when I was 13-years-old, and things just kind of were suppressed…but then I came back out again--of course, I had to--when I was like 18. And when I was 20, I moved here [Washington, DC] and went to Howard [University], and I started working with Howard’s publications.

Then, I started working for the Washington Daily News, which is defunct, in 1968. And as I started trying to shoot things for myself, it was just really hard because people were in the closet frankly. And, they were happy being there it seemed, or at least if they weren’t happy, they wanted to stay there. They didn’t want me buzzing around with my camera trying to take pictures and outing them. So at some point, I started working for the Washington Blade with no contractual agreement because I was a press photographer, photojournalist. I wanted to work for publications that were gay and focused on gay issues.

Cieslik: Do you have any moments that were particularly meaningful working with the gay and lesbian community?

Mosley: I have one that I just missed because I have a bad knee. They had the opening of Mary’s House, the lesbian and gay community in Southeast Washington that was started for primarily African-American gays. The person that started it--Dr. Imani Woody--she is also one very important subject of a film I’m working on called Pioneers for Justice: Black Lesbians in the DMV. This film features ten other women 70 and over (including me) from different fields and backgrounds but all connected to social justice work in some important way. Missing that was a biggie, but that’s something that just happened the other day.

The original photo used for 1983 AIDS Awareness Campaign. © leigh h. mosley

Going back to the past, there’s just been so many things. One was taking the photographs for the Black poster for AIDS in 1983. That’s also going to be in the exhibit. Of course, covering the 1979 first National Gay and Lesbian March here in DC, which featured Audre Lord and her partner at the time. The march coincided with a Third World conference at Howard University’s Harambe House - and that was spectacular.

Audre Lorde Smiling at partner Frances Clayton at the 1979 March. © leigh h. mosley

That’s the earliest that I can remember, and since then there’s been the ‘87 march, the ‘93 march. Those are the big things because thousands of people were galvanized to support the LGBTQ+ movement and come out. And in 1979, it was really great because prior to that time, I hadn’t really seen that many Black women in particular, or Black men for that matter, coming out and being public.

Cieslik: Can you share more about your work at the Washington Post?

Mosley: I was the first Black woman hired by the Washington Post in 1974 for their summer program, and I think they published about 100 photographs from that summer. I was really working hard, and I just decided to keep on by myself when things didn’t work out with them. I went back to school and got a degree in psychology from the University of DC, which was Federal City College. Then I started teaching in public schools at the Lemuel Penn Career Development Center. Before that, I taught at this school called the Eastern High School Freedom Annex in 1966. That was when I did my first photography teaching.

It’s been a long journey and basically a happy one, and I tried to mix things up, although when I taught in Prince George country, students would always say--because I never tried to hide, I had flags on my car and stuff like that--students would say, “Ms. Mosley, are you gay?” I said, “I’m not going to say that. I mean, if you can’t figure it out, I’m not going to tell you because this system is very conservative and church-oriented, and I’m not going to say or do anything to jeopardize my job right now.”

It was interesting being part of the public school system and trying to negotiate how out I was going to be to students.

Cieslik: Can you speak more to how DC is a center for Black gay and lesbian life?

Mosley: I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. Coming to DC when I was 20 was a total contrast. As soon as I stepped outside of my little community in Roxbury, I was surrounded by white people, a lot of whom were essentially hostile. So coming down here to me was like Mecca. And I found out that there were more gay people because DC was like 75%, almost 80% Black when I moved here in 1965. So the proportion of the gay population is, if you say 10%, means there were a lot of Black gay people here in Washington, DC.

Views of the 1969 March on Washington on the Mall. © leigh h. mosley

Cieslik: Why is it important to you for your work to be included in this exhibition?

Mosley: It’s very important to me because it seems like I’ve been gay all my life. I’ll be 80 in a few months, and a big part of my work has just been suppressed. People didn’t even care about it until now 46 years later, so that’s a good thing. I mean it’s inspiring that someone finally recognized that this is a slice of history, herstory, that people should see, and I feel great about it. I’m very hopeful that it continues.

Cieslik: With this focus of this exhibition is talking about how a lot of gay and lesbian organizing in DC predates Stonewall and the richness of the community in the city. How would you describe who has never learned about DC history, the importance of the city for the development of the LGBTQ+ RIghts Movement?

Mosley: Well, there’s been a plethora of organizations. I’m more familiar with the Black ones. I know Sapphire Sapphos was one of the first political organizations. Black Lesbian Support Group, Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, and actually a myriad of others. Also, some of these groups, even though they were local, went to places like Chicago, New York and Atlanta to integrate with and frankly focus on issues that were germane to all of those different groups.

Cieslik: Were you involved in the community? Did you know the people that you were photographing?

Mosley: Well, when I did the AIDS poster, I knew two of the people in the photograph. It was just one photograph that I did, and the people that I shot at the ClubHouse. They were having an event featuring Gil Gerald. He was one of the people that I knew and a couple of others, but I didn’t hang out with them. I knew Gil more on a social level too. I’ve been following him around for years because he’s really active. He and Carlene Cheatham were at the first gay Black press conference here in DC. It was at the mayor’s office. It was a big deal because before that, I hadn’t seen anything about any Black gay press. Coretta Scott King, MLK’s wife, was there. She was the keynote speaker. I have a series of photographs about that.

Cieslik: A lot of queer media centers around white queer cis people. Why is it important for this exhibition but also important for people to see themselves represented?

Mosley: I think it’s important because we’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going anywhere! No, seriously though, early on in the movement, we didn’t have that much visibility and so now that we do, it’s important because other people who were closeted, who are afraid to come out will see that there is a presence, that there are people that they can relate to and reach out to and develop relationships with, which are really important.

It’s also important for the white community to see that we’re here, that we’re a presence in the movement and that we have been doing things despite a whole lot of other issues that we have to tend with as Black people in America - which is very oppressive to say the least. We’re a force to be reckoned with and a people that needs to be seen, needs to be heard, needs more than just visibility but a voice because one of the reasons we have Black Pride is because “they” call it Capital Pride but “we” called it White Pride.

White Pride wasn’t all that inclusive, so Black Pride developed from that set of circumstances, and we’ve been on a roll ever since.

Cieslik: For people who are excited this year for Pride but who are trying to figure out their place in the world with the administration and continued repressive politics, what words of wisdom or advice as someone who's been in this movement, been in this community, for over 40 years can you offer?

Mosley: Keep on keeping on. I was part of the Black Power Movement in the ‘60s, and the repression there was similar. People there were being disenfranchised. People were being murdered. I went to a few funerals. It was terrible, so to me, as a Black lesbian feminist, my view is that we need to stay the course. We need to continue to be visible, to be heard, to advocate for ourselves and for the greater Black community, gay community. Now is not the time for us to go back into the closet because we’re afraid. We can’t do that. We have to stand our ground.

Solidarity is important and there’s nothing like the sure solidarity like huge numbers turning out to support the events that we have. And the other thing is that life is political. People say, “oh, politics this, politics that.” But a lot of the choices we make are political. I mean, we may not put it in that set category, but they are. And I think that practically all the people that I know personally have all made political statements with the lives that they lead, just being who they are, being willing to be out and to represent.

Cieslik: And for people that want to support you and the work you do, how can they get in contact with them?

Mosley: You can always get in touch with me at leighmosley.com, and you can contact me through the Rainbow History Project in particular because you guys have been responsible, Vincent Slatt in particular, for making sure that people know who I am, and the work that I’ve done.

Pickets, Protests, and Parades: The History of Gay Pride in Washington, DC will be on display until July 6, 2025 in Freedom Plaza.