The format of Fire!! was an extension of The New Negro anthology edited by Alain Locke, but with a mission to publish an edgier perspective not seen in other publications, like the academic journal Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life. Fire!! sought to create a publication whose narratives would counter overly optimistic political idealism and clear space for new voices. Thurman describes wanting to create a publication unlike “old propagandistic journals” that was “ready to emotionally serve a new day and a new generation.” The new voices represented by Fire!! would take the form of essays, short stories, plays, poems, and illustrations written and illustrated by the younger, decidedly non-assimilationist crew that called themselves the Niggerati — a portmanteau of “nigger” and “literati” (i.e., a well-educated nigga who can read) that was too irresistible and shocking not to be used by Hughes, Hurston, Thurman, Nugent, Countee Cullen, and a few other creative friends. Covering topics that were taboo, including sex work and homosexuality, the first (and only) issue of Fire!! opened with a short essay by Wallace Thurman about a woman named Cordelia, who had the “physicality of a prostitute.” Additional pieces included a short story about interracial marriage in Paris by Gwendolyn Bennett and Color Struck, a play in four scenes tackling colorism, as well as a short story about a washerwoman with an unemployed husband, both by Zora Neale Hurston. These were stories about regular people, not the Talented Tenth, not the bourgeoisie. Fire!! shared stories of a different kind of liberation and Blackness.
Thurman and his friends wanted to create an editorial object that instigated conversation and truly depicted a new landscape of Black thought and vocabulary. To that end, Thurman rejected “society negros” and often called out establishment and institutional figureheads who prevented the advancement of a younger, more radical, and inclusive agenda.
As a graphic designer in 21st-century New York City, I am always searching for ways that my identity as a queer Black man has shown up visually in history. Looking, I would ask myself: Where are the images of Black gay folks being tender? Or intimate? What were some of the earliest illustrations of Black gay love? It was in Fire!! magazine that Aaron Douglas and Richard Bruce Nugent pushed visual representations of Blackness and queerness almost a century ago.
For me, the first time I saw Fire!!’s cover, I couldn’t fully process what I was seeing. Is this a face? Was this a man or woman on the cover? Who was this person?
This person was me.