Gladys Bentley (12 August 1907 – 18 January 1960) was an American blues singer during the Harlem Renaissance. She left her home in Philadelphia at age 16 to live in New York City's Harlem. In the 1920s Harlem was an open and accepting place for gays and lesbians.

The 1920s in Harlem was known as the Harlem Renaissance. Artists and intellectuals, writers and musicians, most of them Black, lived in Harlem, New York City. Many of the greatest names of this era were gay or bisexual including Bentley, Langston Hughs, Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters.


Bentley was openly lesbian during her early career, but during the McCarthy Era, she started wearing dresses, married a man (who later denied that they ever married), and studied to be a minister, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones. She died, aged 52, from pneumonia in 1960.

Bentley was often the subject of gossip columnists. They were intrigued by this big Black woman who flaunted her sexuality. Her 'marriage' to a white woman from New Jersey was widely publicized.

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