Envision Equity February 2019 Special Black History Month Edition

Envision Equity February
Gladys Bentley
Gladys Bentley (stage name, Bobbie Minton) was a Harlem Renaissance blues singer and cross dresser. She was
one of the most well-known and financially successful black women in the United States in the 1920s
and 1930s. She was a pioneer in pushing the envelope of gender, sexuality, class, and race
with parody and exaggeration, personally and professionally.
The eldest of four children, Bentley was born on August 12, 1907 in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania to George L. Bentley from the U.S. and Mary (Mote) Bentley from Trinidad.
Bentley reported wearing her three younger brothers’ suits to school when growing up. Her
parents tried to “cure” Bentley by taking her to numerous doctors. The family struggled
financially.
A talented pianist and blues singer, she ran away to New York City at the age of
sixteen. From early on, Bentley overtly included sexuality in her act with her
song content, stage moves, and attire. She often dressed as a man in her
signature black-and-white tuxedo. In fact, she became the most prominent
mannish lesbian of the Harlem Renaissance. A large, 250-pound woman, her
deep voice appealed to straight, gay, black, and white audiences.
Bentley began singing at rent parties and buffet flats. She moved to speakeasies
and night clubs in Jungle Alley, the center of Harlem’s sporting life. Okeh Race
Records released eight singles of her music between 1928 and 1929. She had her
own weekly radio program the following year. By 1933, Bentley headlined in
nightclubs and theatres such as The Cotton Club and The Apollo. She created her
own musical revue with a chorus of eight male dancers in drag, the primary
attraction at the well-known Ubangi Club, 1934-1937.
In Bentley’s heyday of the 1930s, she owned a Park Avenue apartment with
servants and other accoutrements of wealth. Bentley claimed that she and her
white female lover went through a civil union in New Jersey. With the repeal of
Prohibition, her popularity and public tolerance of openly gay persons waned. Bentley
moved to Los Angeles to live with her mother. Her success picked up again during World
War II with the expansion of gay bars on the West Coast. She recorded in 1945 for the
Excelsior label.