‘A hero’s origins’: the true story of the first drag queen presidential candidate

In off-Broadway show Ms Blakk for President, Oscar-winning Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney explores a slice of under-appreciated queer history

At the height of the Aids crisis, Chicago activist Terence Alan Smith put on his drag persona, Joan Jett Blakk, and announced she was running for president. Her slogan: “Lick Bush in ‘92!” Her platform: fire everyone in the White House and paint it pink, reroute the military budget towards education and healthcare, then give the land back to Indigenous people “and let them take it from there”.

The campaign did not advance. But Blakk did make it on to the floor of the Democratic national convention by infiltrating Madison Square Garden (as Smith) and changing in the bathroom. The country saw its first Black drag queen presidential candidate.