A Juneteenth-Pride crossover event is coming to Newburgh tonight, celebrating the intersection of Black, queer and trans identity.
The Freedom Ball will be hosted by Hudson Valley-based media company Community Humanity Art Representation Media – or CHARM.
The organization’s founder Sabrina Kee said the event honors the origins of Drag and Ballroom culture and the central role of Black queer and trans people.
Those include William Dorsey Swan, a formerly enslaved Black man from D.C., who called himself the first Drag Queen back in the 1880s.
And Crystal LaBeija, a Black trans woman credited with reinventing ball culture and creating the house system to care for homeless queer and trans people, who abandoned by their birth families found refuge in their chosen families.
“The mothers and the fathers of these houses took care of folks who were unhoused, took care of folks who were sex workers, took care of folks who were incarcerated or formerly incarcerated. A lot of these folks did not make it to their elder years,” Kee said.
Kee said Friday’s festivities will include a variety of performances, including categories such as Afro-Futurism and Revolutionary Runway.
Kee said Ballroom is about self-determination and said categories like realness are rooted in history of transgender people having to pass as cisgender
“The realness category, which is basically like you have to look real so you don't get clocked. The whole premise of that is, who in this ballroom house can go out and get groceries for the family and not get clocked and not be harmed and not be targeted.”
The Freedom Ball will take place at Highpoint Newburgh at 8 p.m. and will be free to all Black people, with a sliding-scale entry fee for everyone else.
