PRIDE 2025 | Snapping Beans and Southern Black Queer Pride: Redefining the Legacy of Pride and Queer Identity
By Jayme Canty-Williams, PhD (she/her)
We are delighted to present the following submission from our 2025 Pride Series. The present entry, “Snapping Beans and Southern Black Queer Pride: Redefining the Legacy of Pride and Queer Identity” was submitted by Dr. Jayme Canty-Williams, Adjunct Professor in Humanities Department at Clark Atlanta University. You can read more about Dr. Canty-Williams’ work on Black queer southern identity in her 2024 book, Snapping Beans: Voices of a Black Queer Lesbian South.
Beans. Peas. Snap peas. Green beans. Butter beans. Black-eyed peas. Snapping beans. Shelling peas. The words roll off the tongue like a Southern haiku, steeped in rhythm and memory. But they are far more than ingredients or side dishes on a Sunday plate; they are symbols of a Southern heritage. The memories of snapping beans draw memories of grandma and ‘em [1] and the American South. They bring us to a place of comfort and love. For Southern Black queer lesbian [3] women and gender nonconforming persons (hereafter SBQLWP), snapping beans represent something greater than nourishment and Southern life—they are acts of memory, rituals of belonging, and pathways to queer identity. The sound of snapping beans is a reminder of our [4] Southern homeplace and helps us to redefine what Pride means for us. Pride Month is not only a time of celebration, but also a reflection of what queerness means for SBQLWP given our cultural and ancestral lineage to the American South and Black South. The memories of snapping beans helps us to do that.
The sound of snapping beans [5] is a Southern cultural marker, a practice unique to this region. Snapping beans is a time-consuming process that involves growing, canning, and cooking the green beans. Snapping beans represent the slowness and steadiness of Southern cooking and culture. As outlined in Snapping Beans: Voices of a Black queer lesbian South, the practice of snapping beans establishes the significance of curating safe spaces for Southern Black women to connect with one other. [6] Snapping beans with our maternal figures became the blueprint for creating these intergenerational safe spaces, forming communities where our layered identities can be affirmed and actualized.
Snapping beans was more than a chore; it was an act of creation that transcended difference. The sound of a bean snapping is the great equalizer in Southern homes. It does not matter who you are—if you are sitting on the porch or at the kitchen table snapping beans, you are participating in a shared cultural practice. No one asks about difference in that moment. That inclusion is powerful, especially for SBQLWP, who may otherwise feel excluded or invisible in other Southern spaces. Snapping beans with grandma and ‘em creates this sanctuary for all Southern Black women, including SBQLWP. With that in mind, snapping beans was an inherently queer practice.
This safe space, while snapping beans, forces conversation. Even if grandma and ‘em were not engaged in explicitly queer conversations while snapping beans, the act itself was queer in its intention—it created a space for women to engage in what the Combahee River Collective (CRC) note as “life sharing.” [7] When our grandma and ‘em snapped beans, they often did so outside the watchful eye of judgmental others, creating intimate spaces for honesty, reflection, and a little gossip. Through life sharing, grandma and ‘em were engaged in a conscious-raising activity. [8] For SBQLWP, snapping beans provided the blueprint for us to engage in this conscious-raising activity as we actualize [9] our queerness. Snapping beans gave us that lesson early on. While we could not be fully queer with grandma and ‘em, they planted the seed for us to engage in this life sharing so we may uncover a new truth.
Because of the life sharing that happens while snapping beans, SBQLWP recognize how queer identity extends beyond the embodiment of gender and/or sexual identity and becomes a means of questioning and redefining narrowly defined parameters of identity. [10] We define queerness to include how it helps us to unlearn the constraints society places upon us and how to exist in the world on our own terms. We question gender norms and expectations, challenge church hypocrisies, argue against heteronormativity, and uncover new ways to reach freedom and liberation. Moreover, the act of snapping beans introduced SBQLWP to the significance of establishing safe spaces in order to engage in life sharing. The sound of the green bean snapping reminds us of our connection to our Southern Black female community and our desire to maintain that connection with other SBQWLP. [11] Because of that, snapping beans was a subtle but profound act of queer freedom, an example of what it means to claim space, redefine our identity, and question societal norms. Snapping beans provided this blueprint for queer freedom. It showed us how to redefine what queerness means for us while staying rooted in our Southern culture and tradition.
Pride is often associated with parades, rainbow flags, and public declarations of identity. But for many SBQLWP, Pride month carries a different meaning. Pride for SBQLWP is more than a soundtrack—it is a legacy of our grandma and ‘em who made room for us at the table. It is the legacy of Southern kitchens and porches where we first felt seen and held. Our pride is not confined to our sexual identities alone, but how our Southern Black identity informs our queerness. These elements of our identity are not separate but are profoundly interconnected. The act of snapping beans reaffirms that interconnectedness, reminding us that we are proud to be all of it: Black, queer, and Southern.
Notes
[1] The Southern vernacular that refers to maternal figures in the Southern Black family that include, but not limited to mothers, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, godmothers, etc.
[2] Jayme Canty, Snapping Beans: Voices of a Black Queer Lesbian South (New York, SUNY Press, 2024), 15-16. This work refers to the United States South as the American South. As cited in Snapping Beans: Voices of a Black Queer Lesbian South, the American South represents a multifaceted Southern landscape and represents our version of America. I also discuss how the American South represents a specific sociocultural geography that fits in the context of how we broadly define American.
[3] Queer lesbian women and persons are used in this context to be inclusive of Black women in the South who may not identify themselves as queer and/or lesbian. Persons refers to gender non-conforming queer persons or lesbians in this work. Because Southern women who are sexually marginalized use both queer and lesbian to identify themselves, this article uses queer and lesbian and persons to describe this population.
[4] Because this is an autoethnographic piece, I will use “we” and “us” when referring to SBQLWP, as it is a community I am also a part of.
[5] In this case, I am speaking of the process of snapping green beans or snap beans.
[6] Canty, 3.
[7] Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” in Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminst Thought, edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall, (New York: New York Press, 1995), 233
[8] Ibid.
[9] In this context, actualize is a form of coming out for SBQLWP. Based on the information in Snapping Beans, coming out is for others while queer actualization is internal, a result of the conscious raising. This queer actualization happens before coming out. Coming out is for others while queer actualization is for SBQLWP.
[10] Canty, 27.
[11] Canty, 175.
Works Cited
Canty, Jayme. Snapping Beans: Voices of a Black queer lesbian South. New York City, SUNY Press, 2024.
Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” In Words of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought, edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall. New York: New York Press, 1995.
hooks, bell. Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics. South End Press: Boston, MA, 1990.
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