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    Back to Press Play with Madeleine Brand

    Press Play with Madeleine Brand

    Poor black women at the turn of the 20th Century lived quiet, revolutionary lives

    Sex parties, queer relationships, and multiple partners were not unusual during the early 20th Century in African American neighborhoods in Philadelphia and New York. Young black women led that social-sexual revolution.

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    By Madeleine Brand • May 8, 2019 • 1 min read

    Sex parties, queer relationships, and multiple partners were not unusual during the early 20th Century in African American neighborhoods in Philadelphia and New York. Young black women led that social-sexual revolution. The book “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments” looks at how those women have challenged and transformed ideas about love, marriage, and family -- even before the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance.

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      Madeleine Brand

      Host, 'Press Play'

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      Sarah Sweeney

      Vice President of Talk Programming, KCRW

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      Michell Eloy

      Line Editor, Press Play

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      Yael Even Or

      Producer, 'Press Play'

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      Saidiya Hartman

      author, Guggenheim Fellow, professor at Columbia University

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