Philip Coleman

Interview Description

Oral History Interview with Philip Coleman

Philip Coleman was fifty-two at the time of the interview in 1992. A gay African-American person with AIDS (PWA), he was born in Harlem, New York, lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for many years and was living alone in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. Coleman was a member of Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and, before he became ill, he used to conduct sensitivity training for volunteers working with gay African-Americans. In 1992, he participated in a HIV positive support group for gay men in Brooklyn. Being gay was Coleman's primary identification. He had been ill for some time and had previously been hospitalized with respiratory and circulation ailments shortly before this interview.

In the interview Phil Coleman provides a clear sense of the impact that AIDS has had on the black gay community and on his life. He speaks candidly about what love, sex and relationships have come to mean to him as a PWA. Based on the experiences he had in his support group, he was able to make a few general observations about gay PWAs living in Brooklyn. Coleman shares throughout the interview his thoughts and feelings rooted in the intersectional experience of being Black, gay and living with HIV. He applies his analysis to what was needed in terms of activism, and services, and how racism and homophobia play out in church, in community and elsewhere. Throughout the interview Coleman connects the work he does around his being a gay Black man living with HIV to issues such as ageism, the house music and ballroom dance scenes, and even overlapping activism as it related to Haiti. Interview conducted by Robert Sember.

The AIDS/Brooklyn Oral History Project collection includes oral histories conducted for an exhibition undertaken by the Brooklyn Historical Society in 1993. The project attempted to document the impact of the AIDS epidemic on Brooklyn communities. Recordings initially made on magnetic tape concerned the epidemic and were with narrators who had firsthand experience with the crisis in their communities, families and personal life. Narrators came from diverse backgrounds within Brookyn and the New York metropolitan area and had unique experiences which connected them with HIV/AIDS. Substantive topics of hemophilia, sexual behavior, substance abuse, medical practice, social work, homelessness, activism, childhood, relationships and parenting run through at least one, and often several, of the oral histories in the collection.

Citation

Coleman, Philip, Oral history interview conducted by Robert Sember, June 13, 1992, AIDS/Brooklyn Oral History Project collection, 1993.001.02; Brooklyn Historical Society.