Pride (American TV series)

FX's six-part docuseries focusing on "LGBT rights in the US decade-by-decade."

Equal (Docuseries)

An upcoming HBO Max series chronicling critical moments in LGBTQ+ history, featuring Isis King, Samira Wiley, and Alexandra Grey. 

Carmen Mercedes McRae

She was a jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Also known as "The Singer's Singer", McRae was considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century.  Although McRae never reached the heights of popularity attained by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday, she was widely regarded as their artistic equal. 

The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Carmen was known for her impeccable phrasing, melodic invention, and dramatic interpretation of lyrics. McRae absorbed the influences of Billie Holiday and bebop to establish her own distinctive style.

Also an actress, her film appearances include The Square Jungle (1955), The Subterraneans (1960), Hotel (1967), and Jojo Dancer, Your Life is Calling (1986), as well as one episode of the television series Roots (1978) and the documentaries Tribute to Billie Holiday (1979), Thelonious Monk: Music in Monk’s Time (1985), and Carmen McRae—Live (1986).

She believed sexuality was fluid, and was often seen in public with “female companions,” having had experiences with both men and women but resisting any official label. Many have speculated that she even had a sexual encounter with Billie Holiday.

McRae was nominated for multiple Grammy Awards, recorded more than 60 albums, and all told spent fifty years performing in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Sadly, McRae died from complications of a stroke suffered a month earlier. Still she inspired many young jazz singers, and musicians and critics alike recognized her superb musicianship and evocative interpretation of lyrics.

Nell Carter

Nell Carter was an American singer and actress. She won a Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin', as well as an Emmy Award for her reprisal of the role on television. Starring as the sassy housekeeper on the 1980s sitcom, Gimme a Break, she was nominated for two Emmys and two Golden Globes for the role.

Her trademark sass complimented by a distinctively adenoidal voice that could out-snarl Eartha Kitt and Fran Drescher put together, short (4'11"), round, and robust Nell Carter was one indomitable, in-your-face firecracker...and it made her a star.

On Gimme a Break, Carter got to showcase the many facets of her talent, she could do physical comedy; she could handle storylines featuring social issues like racism and mental illness. And, of course, she could sing. In addition to recording the show’s theme song, Carter occasionally got a chance to sing within an episode. 

Throughout her lengthy career Carter amassed a treasure trove of awards including, an OBIE Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Tony Award, a Soho News award, and an Emmy award.

Unfortunately, her immense level of success was accompanied by misfortune. She endured many personal tragedies and chronic health problems, yet she achieved a level of success that most young singers and actors only dream of.

After having previously survived two brain aneurysms, Carter died at the age of 54 on January 23, 2003, from heart disease complicated by diabetes in her Beverly Hills home.  

She was a pioneer in many ways,” fellow Tony award winner Audra McDonald told the Chicago Tribune. “She had the ability to be such an incredible comedic musical-theater actress, blow a song all the way to the back of the wall and then come down and be so intimate and beautiful in a ballad.”

Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was a gospel blues and jazz singer and dramatic actress. One of her best known recordings was her powerful version of the spiritual "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." Waters was the second African American, to be nominated for an Academy Award. She was also the first African-American woman to be nominated for an Emmy Award, in 1962. Ethel Waters was the first African-American woman to star in her own TV show. Three recordings by Waters were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. One is listed in was listed in the National Recording Registry. She is in Christian Music Hall of Fame, the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and on the 29-cents commemorative stamp. She starred in countless films and Broadway plays. In her private life, Waters was known to have romantic relationships with women as well as men. She kept her lesbian relationship with dancer Ethel Williams private, even ensuring that biographies didn't mention they lived together.

Waters was approved for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. However, as of 2014, the star has not yet been funded.

Lucy Hicks Anderson

Though she was assigned male at birth, when she entered school she began wearing dresses & calling herself Lucy. Physicians advised her mother to raise her as a girl. In a time, most people weren’t discussing gender identity or expression. They certainly didn’t have language like transgender to describe identity or the medical structure to support medical or legal transition. In 1944 she married Reuben Anderson, a soldier stationed at New York. She was charged with perjury because she was assigned male at birth. The belief was that she committed perjury when she signed the application for a marriage license .She was convicted and placed on probation for 10 years, successfully avoiding a prison sentence. During her perjury trial she was quoted for saying, "I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman. I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.” Lucy Hicks Anderson was a pioneer in the fight for marriage equality. She spent nearly sixty years living as a woman. And she made history by fighting for the legal right to be herself with the man she loved

Stormé DeLarverie

Also known as the “Rosa Parks” of the gay rights movement, whose reported tussle with the police was one of the decisive moments of the Stonewall riots. The popular Drag king spent much of her life as an entertainer, MC, singer, bouncer, and bodyguard. Most significantly as a volunteer street patrol worker, the "guardian of lesbians in the Village"