(May 26, 1944–September 7, 2021)
This May, when Lady Gaga celebrated the 10-year anniversary of her hit album “Born this Way,” she gave an acknowledgment shoutout to Archbishop Carl Bean.
“‘Born This Way,’ my song and album, were inspired by Carl Bean, a gay black religious activist who preached, sung and wrote about being ‘Born This Way,'” Gaga stated in Today.com. “Notably, his early work was in 1975, 11 years before I was born.”
To Gaga’s generation and younger, Bean’s name does not compute for them. However, during the 1970’s disco era, Bean was known for the 1977 Motown Record dance hit single “I Was Born This Way.” The song was an instant success appearing for eight weeks on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart, and it became a liberation anthem heard in disco clubs across the country.
Bean thanked Gaga for reviving the song, stating how “I Was Born This Way” is relevant decades later for the LGBTQ+ community.
“When Gaga did [hers], I felt the same way, knowing that it’s in the ears of young kids who might have given up and wondering if they should end it,” Bean stated in LosAngelno.com in 2019. “I feel great that it’s in the ears of those who need it most.”
Bean was the first black openly gay gospel singer to join Motown. However, his time at Motown was short-lived when he refused to croon heterosexual love songs. Bean eventually left Motown in the 1980s, abandoning his singing career.
In 1982, he founded Unity Fellowship Church Movement, Los Angeles (UFCLA), the first welcoming and affirming Black Church for LGBTQ+ parishioners with churches today throughout the country and the Caribbean.
In 1985, Bean founded the Minority AIDS Project (MAP), a nonprofit based in South Los Angeles for Black and Latinx communities living with HIV/AIDS.
In 2010, Bean published his autobiography titled “I Was Born This Way: A Gay Preacher’s Journey through Gospel Music, Disco Stardom and a Ministry in Christ.” The book became a second Bible for many black LGBTQ+ people of faith who couldn’t find comfort in their church or left it.
Bean’s words and works will live on through his followers throughout New England, across the country and around the world.
Rest in Power!
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