Homophile: Gideon Ferebee, 1951-2005

I'm pulling out my hair with regret since I have been thinking steadily of Gideon for two years, googling him, thinking I need to find him...hesitated because I didn't want someone to give me this news. Wish I had not been so afraid. This is from The Washington Blade.

Gideon Ferebee, poet and activist, dies at 54

By KATHERINE VOLIN
Oct. 07, 2005

Gideon Ferebee, Jr., a longtime central figure in the local black gay arts scene, died Sept. 24 of pancreatic cancer at his Washington, D.C. home. He was 54.

Ferebee, a poet, actor and activist, will be long remembered for considering the plight of the black gay male long before such discussions were more common, said Ron Simmons, his longtime friend.

“He was an openly gay man, black gay man who really thought about that,” Simmons said. “There might have been plenty of black gay men who were out, but they didn’t talk about what that was like in the world, but I could talk to him about that. It wasn’t just about fashion and who had who, but it was really going into something meaningful.”

Collaborating with other artists and black gay men and lesbians marked Ferebee’s life. Simmons said some of his best memories with Ferebee came through their involvement with a group of artistic friends. The group included Essex Hemphill, an African-American gay poet, and Sharon Farmer, an African-American lesbian photographer who served as White House photographer for former president Bill Clinton.

“There was a group of us who were black gay and lesbian artists,” Simmons said. “We would just hang out and chat, we would eat together, we would have fun together. I really can’t describe what it was like, because it doesn’t exist anymore. A lot of the members have passed from HIV. Every week, there was something to see. There was somebody’s house to go to, there was something to do. I can’t describe it. You just had to have been there. It was incredible.”

Role in Us Helping Us

Ferebee was an early member of Us Helping Us, a community-based AIDS service organization focused on reducing HIV infection among African Americans. Simmons, executive director of Us Helping Us, said that Ferebee was essential in determining the course the organization would follow.

In 1992, when Us Helping Us founder Kwabena “Rainey” Cheeks asked Simmons to be the organization’s executive director, Ferebee, Simmons and Cheeks sat down to map out the direction they wanted Us Helping Us to take, Simmons said.

Ferebee was diagnosed with HIV in 1989. His partner of 16 years, Leroy H. Sutton, Jr., died of complications due to AIDS in 2000.

As Ferebee got older, he became increasingly concerned about predicaments facing gay African Americans, longtime friend Greg Ford said.

“He became more accepting of himself and more open about his homosexuality,” Ford said. “And not just more open about being gay, but more open about the validity of the black gay community.”

Ferebee’s poetry and writing also contributed to his work within the black gay community. He wrote three books, “Searching for the Boy,” and “Reflections of,” both poetry collections, and “Out! To Lead,” a self-published compilation of 15 essays that called African-American gays and lesbians to engage in leadership roles.

“They were insightful because nobody was writing about that stuff,” Simmons said. “You could count the number of books that talked about the black gay experience probably on one hand during those days.”

Ferebee started writing poetry at age 16 while attending Bronx High School of Science in New York, according to a biography published with one of his books.

The youngest of 10 children, Ferebee was the first in his family to graduate from college when he completed his studies in theater arts and political science at Indiana’s Valparaiso University in 1972, his sister Ellen Ferebee said.

“Gideon was an independent thinker and very analytical,” Ellen Ferebee said.

Ferebee moved to Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s, and quickly made the arts scene his home. He parlayed his love of theater into the now-defunct D.C. Black Repertory Company, the Minority Arts Ensemble and Station to Station, a collective of black poets he helped found in 1980.

Funeral services were held at Frazier Funeral Home on Saturday, Oct. 1. A memorial service will be offered at 6 p.m. on Oct.29 at the Washington Ethical Society 7750 15th St., NW.