Born into slavery on the eve of the Civil War, William Dorsey Swann grew up in Maryland and had a penchant for “trouble” at an early age. In his early 20s, he was arrested for stealing books from the Washington Library Company and sentenced to several months in jail. This didn’t stop him and his lawyers, however, from filing a presidential pardon owing to the fact that he stole the books to “improve his education and provide for his family.”
In the 1880s and 1890s, Swann arranged a series of drag balls in Washington, D.C., and even headed his own “House of Swann,” calling himself “the queen of drag.” Most of the participants and attendees of these balls were formerly enslaved men who would dress up as women and perform “the cakewalk” (a dance that subtly mocked the dancing motions of white slaveholders which then became used in the vaudeville circuit) and other such dances, with some scholars stating that these dances and balls were the origins of “voguing,” which is still performed in the ballroom scene today.
During Swann’s 30th birthday celebration, he was arrested at a ball for female impersonation. The Washington Post reported that during the raid, Swann fought back (81 years before the Stonewall Uprising) and shouted at the police, “you is no gentlemen.” Because local newspapers published stories about this raid and others like it in an effort to publicly shame the attendees and participants, this is how we even know about William Dorsey Swann’s involvement in the ballroom scene. After his arrest, it became very difficult to continue to hold drag balls in secret.
In the 1890s he was arrested for allegedly running a brothel. Sentenced to 10 months in jail, Swann petitioned President Grover Cleveland for a pardon, which was denied. However, by this act, Swann became the first American on record to use the courts to defend the LGBTQIA community’s right to assemble.
Throughout his life, it is recorded that Swann had close relationships with other gay men, most notably Pierce Lafayette and Felix Hall (who together formed the earliest documented male same-sex relationship by formerly enslaved Americans).
Swann died in 1925, after having walked away from the ballroom scene at the end of his life (his brother took over these duties, however) and officials burned down his house in an act of erasing history. ‘
#LGBTQIA #PrideMonth #YouCannotEraseUs #WilliamDorseySwann
Legends of Pride 