Reading Between the Stones

A panel on interpreting Edmonia Lewis through an LGBTQ+ lens with Angela T. Tate, Arielle Gray, Giselle Byrd, and theo tyson.

Join Queer History Boston and the Museum of African American History for an evening of community, history, and reclamation.

⚒️ About "Reading Between the Stones"

Edmonia Lewis (1844–1907) was a pioneering sculptor of Black and Ojibwe heritage whose neoclassical marble works broke barriers of race and gender in 19th-century art. She was also one of ours.

In queer and trans communities, Lewis has long been claimed as an ancestor — recognized in her chosen family of women who cross-dressed and had relationships with each other, her refusal of convention, and her life built entirely outside the boundaries others tried to impose on her. Mainstream institutions have been slower to catch up, treating her queer life as speculation, footnote, or simply beside the point.

Reading Between the Stones takes its name from the practice queer historians know well: learning to see what the archive doesn't say — to read between the lines; in Lewis's case, between the stones.

This panel asks not whether Lewis belongs to queer history — but what it means to claim her, how to honor the full complexity of her life, and what it looks like when curators, journalists, and artists bring that history home.

🎙️ About the Panel

This panel brings together Angela T. Tate, Arielle Gray, Giselle Byrd, and theo tyson — curators, a journalist, and a theatre-maker whose work spans museums, media, performance, and community — each bringing a distinct lens to the life and legacy of Edmonia Lewis.