Food for the Soule
When Elijah Li started SOULE (Seekers of Unity, Love & Equality) he wanted to educate, empower, and inspire the Black LGBTQ+ and same-gender-loving community. The vision, he says, was to “create a platform where the community could feel seen, experience a sense of community, and feel empowered to share their voices.”
When he was growing up, there weren’t many magazines out there where Li could see himself reflected. But after watching the 2004 Rodney Evans film —which portrays the (created by Langston Hughs, Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston, Aaron Douglas, John P. Davis, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett, Lewis Grandison Alexander, and Countee Cullen), Li decided to create a space himself, launching , a digital magazine for the Black LGBTQ+ community. We sat down with Li to discuss how the magazine has grown and how his mission to represent, connect, and inspire the Black LGBTQ+/SGL community has transformed into a foundation and youth scholarship.
