Dr. Edwana Andrews is the director of Social Justice and Advocacy at the University of Central Florida. Early in life she realized that not everyone appreciates or accepts or values individuals who identify in the LGBTQ Community. The church that a friend grew up in was not inclined to host a funeral when he died. She had been taught that you should love your neighbor. Why would the church not allow the funeral?
This became the catalyst for her to do her doctorate and dissertation on the gay, lesbian and bisexual experience in the black church. She interviewed individuals who had a religious experience in a black church. She defined a religious experience as the person attending church at least twice a month. None of the individuals she interviewed continue to attend the black church. None of them identify as religious, but they do identify as spiritual. They experienced a lot of hurt and homo negativity in the black church.
While in their parents roof, they had to attend church. When they went to college, they took that opportunity to take a step back from the church and re-evaluate to find perspective as they tried to rationalize their own sexual identity.
She interviewed individuals from Florida, Texas, Atlanta Philadelphia, and California there were no geographic restrictions.
The oral history was cut short by a fire alarm. The line work was finished in the 30 minutes we had, and I added a few washes afterwards from memory.