{{short description|American gay rights activist and writer (1954–1988)}} {{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see :Template:Infobox writer/doc --> | name = Joseph F. Beam | image = | imagesize = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1954|12|30|mf=y}} | birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1988|12|27|1954|12|30|mf=y}} | death_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | resting_place = West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, U.S. | occupation = writer · poet · activist | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | signature = | website = }} '''Joseph Fairchild Beam''' (December 30, 1954 – December 27, 1988) was an African-American gay rights activist, writer and poet. He was the editor of ''In the Life: a Black Gay Anthology'', the first compendia of Black gay writing. He was a board member of the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays and the founding editor of ''Black/Out'' magazine.
A second anthology, ''Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men'', was completed by Essex Hemphill and Beam's mother after Joseph's death in 1988 and published in 1991.
==Early life and education== Beam was born in Philadelphia on December 30, 1954, to Sun Fairchild Beam, a security guard, and Dorothy Saunders Beam, a teacher and school guidance counselor.<ref name="Gastic 2013">{{cite book |last1=Gastic |first1=Billie |title=Beam, Joseph Fairchild (30 Dec. 1954–27 Dec. 1988) |url=https://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-35187 |website=Oxford African American Studies Center |date=May 31, 2013|publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.35187 |isbn=978-0-19-530173-1 |access-date=12 June 2021}}</ref> He was raised Catholic.<ref name=nypl>{{cite web |title=Joseph Beam papers 1967 - 1990 |url=http://archives.nypl.org/scm/20666 |website=The New York Public Library - Archives & Manuscripts |access-date=8 June 2021}}</ref>
He attended parochial schools in the Philadelphia area including Malvern Preparatory School and St. Thomas More High School.<ref name=nypl/> Beam received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Franklin College in 1976 where he was an active member of the local Black Student Union. He helped to organize conferences on campus and was active in college journalism and radio programming. He was awarded the Omega Psi Phi fraternity Award for Broadcasting in 1974.<ref name="Gastic 2013"/>
He remained in the Midwest after graduation and enrolled in a master's degree program in communications. He worked as a waiter in Ames, Iowa, and returned to Philadelphia in 1979.<ref name=nypl/>
==Career== In the early 1980s, Beam began working at Giovanni's Room, an independent gay and lesbian bookstore in Philadelphia while he wrote and was active in local and national efforts for acceptance, visibility and social justice for the Black gay community.<ref name="Gastic 2013"/> His writing was published in many newspapers and publications, including ''Au Courant'', ''Black/Out'', ''Blackheart'', ''Changing Men'', ''Gay Community News'', ''The Painted Bride Quarterly'', ''Philadelphia Gay News'', ''The Advocate'', ''New York Native'', ''The Body Politic'', and ''The Windy City Times''.<ref name="Gastic 2013"/>
Beam's short stories, ''Brother to Brother'' and ''No Cheek to Turn'' were critically acclaimed. Beam had a large network of friends and correspondents which included Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Essex Hemphill, Daniel Garrett, Marlon Riggs,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bell |first1=Cei |title=Joe Beam's memory and LGBT racism |url=https://whyy.org/articles/essay-joe-beams-memory-and-lgbt-racism/ |website=whyy.org |publisher=WHYY |access-date=20 June 2025}}</ref> Sonia Sanchez, and Bayard Rustin.<ref name="Gastic 2013"/> Beam also maintained ongoing correspondence with prisoners, which he later attributed to a "deep sense of my own imprisonment as a closeted Gay man and an oppressed Black man."<ref name=Brownworth>{{cite news |last1=Brownworth |first1=Victoria A. |title=Road to Stonewall: Joe Beam |url=https://epgn.com/2019/06/06/road-to-stonewall-joe-beam/ |access-date=12 June 2021 |work=Philadelphia Gay News |date=June 6, 2019}}</ref>
Through his writings, Beam aimed to alleviate the alienation of gay men of color, to help them create their own community and also counteract the absence of positive images of them in the media and what he saw as their exclusion from the cultural world of white gay rights activists. Inspired by the humanism of the Black feminist and lesbian movement, he saw his work as part of a broad effort to "correct" and re-define the reality of race, sex, class and gender in the United States.<ref name=nypl/>
The Lesbian and Gay Press Association awarded Beam a certificate for outstanding achievement by a minority journalist in 1984. In 1985, Beam became a consultant to the Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the American Friends Service Committee. In 1985, Beam joined the executive committee of the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, and became the Editor of its journal, ''Black/Out''. That same year, Beam was awarded The Philadelphia Gay News Lambda Award for Outstanding Achievement.<ref name="Gastic 2013"/>
Beam was the editor of ''In the Life'' (1986), the first anthology of poetry and prose by Black gay men for which he received a Citation from the State House of Rhode Island in 1987 and a Commendation from the City of Philadelphia. Beam began a second anthology, ''Brother to Brother'', named after an earlier short story of his, but died before it was completed.<ref name="Gastic 2013"/> Essex Hemphill and Beam's mother, Dorothy, completed the collection and it was published as ''Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men'' in 1991.<ref name=Brownworth/>
==Death and legacy== Beam died of an AIDS-related illness on December 27, 1988.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Trescott |first1=Jacqueline |title=Anthology of a Mother's Grief |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/08/17/anthology-of-a-mothers-grief/d4b121f4-7bc7-486b-ab52-343077cc3177/ |access-date=12 June 2021 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=August 17, 1991}}</ref> He was found dead on the floor of his apartment by friends and had been dead for several days.<ref name=Brownworth/> He was interred at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.<ref>{{cite web |title=Joseph Fairchild Beam |url=https://remembermyjourney.com/memorials/joseph-fairchild-beam?id=9M31G8aO |website=remembermyjourney.com |publisher=webCemeteries |access-date=19 June 2025}}</ref>
In 1992, Beam's mother donated her son's papers to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York.<ref name=nypl/> The donation led to the curation, by Steven G. Fullwood, of the center's ''In the Life'' archive dedicated to Black LGBTQ experiences. The correspondence includes letters to Black gay writers, including Audre Lorde, and also letters to people who were incarcerated, interviews with organizer Bayard Rustin and poet Pat Parker, as well as notes and manuscripts from Beam's journalism and gay rights work.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Owens |first1=Cassie |title=Dorothy Beam, 94, LGBT-rights activist and archivist of son Joseph Beam's writings |url=https://www.inquirer.com/news/joseph-beam-dorothy-obituary-lgbt-black-gay-brother-20190105.html |access-date=12 June 2021 |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |date=January 5, 2019}}</ref>
Yolo Akili founded BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health) in honor of Joseph Beam.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-12-30 |title=Divine Details: Material Sunshine (Joseph Beam) |url=https://www.alexispauline.com/now/2019/12/30/divine-details-material-sunshine-joseph-beam |access-date=2026-03-18 |website=Alexis Pauline Gumbs |language=en-US}}</ref>
==Works== *''[https://archive.org/details/inlifeblackgayan00beam In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology]''. Edited by Joseph F. Beam (Alyson Publications, 1986). {{ISBN|9780932870735}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== *''[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Brother%20to%20Brother/D7QfAQAAIAAJ Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men]''. Edited by Essex Hemphill, conceived by Joseph Beam (Alyson Publications, 1991). {{ISBN|9781555831462}} *''[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Black%20Gay%20Genius/E7cSGQAACAAJ Black Gay Genius: Answering Joseph Beam’s Call]''. Edited by Steven G. Fullwood and Charles Stephens (Vintage Entity Press, 2014). {{ISBN|9780975298756}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Beam, Joseph F.}} Category:1954 births Category:1988 deaths Category:20th-century American LGBTQ people Category:20th-century American male writers Category:Activists for African-American civil rights Category:Civil rights activists from Pennsylvania Category:African-American civil rights activists Category:African-American LGBTQ people Category:AIDS-related deaths in Pennsylvania Category:American civil rights activists Category:American gay writers Category:Burials at West Laurel Hill Cemetery Category:Franklin College (Indiana) alumni Category:LGBTQ people from Pennsylvania Category:Malvern Preparatory School alumni Category:Writers from Pennsylvania Category:LGBTQ rights activists from Pennsylvania