At the beginning of the 1980s a group of black lesbians started to meet regularly to share experiences and offer each other support. Around the same time, a group of black gay men started doing the same. In 1981 they came together to form the Gay Black Group with the aim of creating ‘a supportive environment where black gays and lesbians can meet and share their experiences without fear’.

In 1982 the Gay Black Group approached the Greater London Council (GLC) with a request for funding to create The Black Lesbian and Gay Centre in response to some of the issues facing LGBTQ+ people of colour. These issues included the overwhelming whiteness of the ‘mainstream’ LGBTQ+ scene, racism from within and outside of the scene, and the difficulties of coming out to families, who generally perceived homosexuality as a ‘white’ issue.

Opened in 1985, the Centre provided advice and counselling, a telephone helpline, a library, a social space and other resources for the community – this despite the lack of permanent premises. The Centre produced the magazine Blackout from 1986, providing a forum for the many black gay and lesbian groups that had emerged in London. It also produced newsletters and hosted events and social gatherings.

The GLC initially funded outreach workers, but the abolition of the GLC in 1986 meant that the project had to rely on funding from the London Borough Grants Scheme, donations and membership. For the next few years BLGC workers operated from a range of temporary premises – usually the offices of sympathetic local councils. After years of activism, fundraising and community-building, in 1992 the BLGC finally found a permanent home in a converted railway arch in Peckham, South London, establishing the first black lesbian and gay centre in Europe – and possibly the world.

Included below are newsletters, posters and ephemera held in the LGBTQ+ Archives here at the Institute. We are always very keen to add to the archives documenting the Centre, so do drop us a line if you have material you would like to donate.

BLGC Posters and Ephemera