An exploration of Black gay male desires and dreams. Affirmations starts with an affectionate, humorous confessional and moves on to a wish for empowerment and incorporation.

Marlon Riggs’ experimental music video politicizes the homoeroticism of African American men. With images — sensual, sexual, and defiant — and words intended to provoke, Anthem reasserts the “self-evident right” to life and liberty in an era of pervasive anti-gay, anti-Black backlash and hysterical cultural repression.

Through music, poetry, and quiet, at times, chilling self-disclosure, five positive Black gay men speak of their individual confrontation with AIDS, illuminating the difficult journey Black men throughout America have made in coping with the personal and social devastation of the epidemic.