Published
Wed, Sep 8, 2021, 19:09
- The US gospel vocalist and minister famously sang the Motown classic, "I Was Born This Way."
Archbishop Carl Bean, the former Motown recording artist and AIDS activist has died age 77.
In 1977, the openly gay vocalist sang his version of the classic "I Was Born This Way," a disco track written by Chris Spierer and Bunny Jones. The Motown record quickly became a favorite among disco DJs, who helped popularize the track throughout the '80s. The lyrics, which proclaim "I'm happy, I'm carefree and I'm gay/I was born this way," made the song a gay liberation anthem. The track was on Billboard's Dance Club Songs chart for eight weeks, earning a peak position of No. 15 in 1978. The track would later become a major inspiration for US pop star Lady Gaga, who released a gay anthem of her own, "Born This Way," in 2011.
Despite this success, Bean turned down the offer of more work at Motown when asked to sing songs about women, dedicating his life to activism and LGBT ministry. Against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Moment, Bean grew up in Baltimore, where he had a social justice-oriented pastor that planted the seeds for Bean's religious activism later in life. In 1982, Bean was ordained as a minister, and five years later founded Unity Fellowship Church, a safe haven for the Black LGBTQ+ community which now has 17 churches across the US and the Caribbean.
In a 1992 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Bean explained the ministry "will always be a continuum of dealing with the disenfranchised, providing for the poorest of the poor, the undocumented person, persons who can't speak the language, persons in and out of the prison system, kids out of the gangs...to touch those who are considered the untouchables."
That same year, Bean founded the Minority AIDS Project, an organization intended to dispel the myth that AIDS was a "gay white disease," offering treatment to low-income Black and Latino people with HIV and AIDS in Los Angeles.
In 2010, Bean published a memoir titled I Was Born This Way. The Unity Fellowship Church Los Angeles, where Bean was the presiding prelate, reported his death, stating he passed away on September 7th after a lengthy illness.
On May 23rd of this year, the 10th anniversary of the release of "Born This Way," Gaga received the key to West Hollywood, California. The city’s mayor Lindsey P. Horvath declared the day "Born This Way Day."
In an Instagram post that day, Gaga shared how Bean's classic influenced her hit. "Thank you for decades of relentless love, bravery, and a reason to sing," she wrote to Bean. "So we can all feel joy, because we deserve joy. Because we deserve the right to inspire tolerance, acceptance, and freedom for all."