Welcome to DBQ. This publication, now entering it’s15th year was established to not only document the culture, experience, and work of LGBTQ+ people of color, but to affirm, celebrate and o garner visibility for community.
Fifteen years after its first issue, DBQ Magazine returns—not to revisit where we left off, but to begin again with everything time, survival, friendship, disappointment and purpose have taught us.
Founder, publisher and Editor-in-Chief Dave Bridgeforth appears across three commemorative Summer 2026 covers photographed by Eric Hart Jr, marking both the return of DBQ Magazine and Dave’s reintroduction into the public conversation.
Inside the issue, Dave joins actor, artist and advocate Jussie Smollett for A Walk in the Park—a deeply personal three-part video conversation accompanied by photographs of the two longtime friends walking together and speaking candidly about visibility, survival, creativity, public perception, friendship and the decision to keep moving forward.
This issue begins a new season for DBQ Magazine, told through film, photography, personal essays, cultural commentary and live conversation.
Over the coming days, the Summer Issue will unfold with:
Jussie Smollett: A Walk in the Park
A three-part video conversation with Dave Bridgeforth about identity, visibility, survival, creativity and moving forward.
The Private Ache
Dave Bridgeforth confronts the private pain and unsustainable lives we build to avoid what hurts.
The Silent Emergency
Dr. Avery Carter M. Walker examines the mental-health crisis too many Black gay men are carrying in silence.
Living Legend: Stanley Bennett Clay
An intimate conversation with the celebrated actor, director, playwright, author and longtime DBQ mentor.
DBQ Magazine
The 15th Anniversary Summer Issue
There are very few people who can honestly say they changed the direction of someone else’s life.
Stanley Bennett Clay changed mine.
Long before I became a publisher, Stanley was the writer who taught me how to write. He challenged me to think more deeply, to respect language, and to understand that writing wasn’t simply putting words on paper—it was an act of observation, discipline, honesty, and love.
When I first told him I wanted to create a magazine, Stanley refused to let me think small. He insisted that I publish it. He insisted it should carry my own name. He told me to call it David Bridgeforth Quarterly, to stand behind my work, and to have the courage to put myself on its covers. That publication would eventually become DBQ Magazine.
The older I get, the more I notice how many people are holding themselves together with habits they do not fully question. Some call it pleasure. Some call it routine. Some call it comfort. I think we are living in a time of deep ache. Not just grief, not just stress, not just burnout, but ache that settles into the spirit, the body, the appetite, the habits, and the private rituals people build to get through the day.
What I’ve come to know is that everybody is carrying something. Some of it is personal. Some of it is political. Some of it is economic. Some of it is racial. Some of it is sexual. Some of it is inherited. Some of it is happening in the body itself. We are trying to survive a culture that exhausts us, a public life that keeps people on edge, an economy that keeps ordinary living under pressure, and systems that make wellness feel like a luxury instead of a basic human right. Even food has become part of the ache. Too many people are trying to nourish themselves in a system that offers cheap convenience, poor quality, chemical burden, and very little real care. People are tired, inflamed, under-rested, overworked, and calling it normal because normal has been distorted.
Black gay men are often discussed through the language of resilience, style, survival, and cultural influence. While all of that is true, it can also be incomplete. Resilience should never become a reason to ignore suffering. Behind the visible strength of many Black gay men are layered experiences of racism, homophobia, family rejection, religious shame, sexual stigma, economic pressure, and the ongoing burden of having to appear “well” in spaces that have not always made wellness accessible.
As a psychologist, I do not view Black gay men’s mental health as a niche issue. I view it as a public health issue, a community issue, and a moral issue. The data supports this urgency. In 2022, gay and bisexual men accounted for 71% of estimated new HIV infections in the United States, and among gay and bisexual men diagnosed with HIV, Black/African American men represented 34% of diagnoses (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). (CDC) KFF also reports that Black gay and bisexual men accounted for almost half of Black people living with HIV and 30% of gay and bisexual men living with HIV (KFF). (KFF) These numbers are not just about sex. They are about access, stigma, prevention, trauma, poverty, medical mistrust, and whether people feel safe enough to seek care before crisis arrives.
