This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of African ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, third gender, gender nonconforming), men who have sex with men, or related culturally specific identities. This timeline includes events both in Africa, the Americas and Europe and in the global African diaspora, as the histories are very deeply linked.

1600s 1672 The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672) is the first reference of homosexuality between nuns in Ethiopian literature.

1700s 1791 France repeals its anti-"sodomy" law in all French-held territory, including Saint-Domingue (later Haiti), Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana.

1800s 1830 Brazil's anti-"sodomy" law is repealed under Emperor Pedro I of Brazil.

1880s The Kabaka of Buganda, Mwanga II, assumes the throne of his country at age 16. He sets about to drive out Christianity, Islam and European influence from the kingdom, and executes several of his Christian-converted male pages who refuse his sexual advances."Long-Distance Trade and Foreign Contact". Uganda. Library of Congress Country Studies. December 1990. Retrieved 6 June 2009.

1920s 1924 December 24 – The Society for Human Rights, an advocacy organization for gay men, is chartered in Chicago; an African American clergyman named John T. Graves serves as the first and only president of the organization, and the organization publishes Friendship and Freedom, the first gay-interest publication in the United States. The Society collapses by the following summer.

1940s

1948 22 June – Ivor Cummings, an openly gay British civil servant with Sierra Leonean ancestry, welcomes the first immigrants of the Windrush generation, and his decisions on how to support them end up establishing Brixton as a modern hub for Britain's African Caribbean community. He is known as the "gay father of the Windrush generation."

1960s 1960 Bayard Rustin, prominent gay activist who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, is forced to resign from the organization by Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. when he threatens to leak fake evidence of an affair with Martin Luther King Jr.Lewis 1978, p. 131. Because of the threats, King also calls off a demonstration in front of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California, U.S.

1962 James Baldwin publishes his novel Another Country, which intersects issues of race and sexual orientation.

1963 At the behest of Asa Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin co-organizes the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, despite Senator Strom Thurmond railing against him as a "Communist, draft-dodger, and homosexual" and having his entire Pasadena arrest file entered in the record. Despite his preference for behind-the-scenes work, Rustin becomes famous for his work. On September 6, 1963, a photograph of Rustin and Randolph appeared on the cover of Life magazine, identifying them as "the leaders" of the March.Life Magazine , 6 September 1963.

1969 Black and Latino queer people are among the majority of patrons at the Stonewall Inn who riot against a police raid, resulting in the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement in the United States.

1970s 1970 Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera establish the gay and transvestite advocacy organization S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries).

1972 Johnson and Rivera establish the S.T.A.R. house, the first shelter for gay and trans street kids, and paid the rent for it with money they made themselves as sex workers."Rapping With a Street Transvestite Revolutionary" in Out of the closets : voices of gay liberation. Douglas, c1972 July 1 – Ted Brown and the U.K. Gay Liberation Front organized the U.K.'s first Gay Pride Rally.

1974 The Salsa Soul Sisters form from the Black Lesbian Caucus within the Gay Activists Alliance in New York, with the goal of supporting inclusion of lesbians of color, particularly Black and Latina lesbians. It is the oldest Black lesbian womanist organization in the United States. The newly formed Combahee River Collective, a Black feminist lesbian organization created in Boston, drafts the Combahee River Collective StatementThe full text of the Combahee River Collective Statement is available here. a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the development of the concepts of identity and intersectionality as used among political organizers and social theorists.Hawkesworth, M. E.; Maurice Kogan. Encyclopedia of Government and Politics, 2nd edn Routledge, 2004, , p. 577.Sigerman, Harriet. The Columbia Documentary History of American Women Since 1941, Columbia University Press, 2003, , p. 316.

1976 Glenn Burke becomes the first (and only) openly gay Major League Baseball (MLB) player, coming out as gay to teammates and team owners during his professional career and later acknowledging it in public.

1978 Sylvester releases his well-received disco album Step II. National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays (NCBLG) founded by A. Billy S. Jones, Darlene Garner, Delores P. Berry, and Gilberto Gerald (among other activists) in Columbia, Maryland.

1979 The first National Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference takes place in Washington D.C. It brought together LGBT people of color from the U.S, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. The Lambda Student Alliance forms at Howard University in Washington, D.C., the first openly Black LGBT organization on a college campus. August 1 – Blacklight, the first Black gay publication in the Washington, D.C. area, begins publication under founding editor Sidney Brinkley. October 14 – Audre Lorde speaks at the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

1980s 1980 October 17 to 19 – The First Black Lesbian Conference is held in San Francisco, with nearly 200 women in attendance.Kyper, John. "Black Lesbians Meet in October." Coming Up: A Calendar of Events 1 (Oct. 1980): 1. Web.

1983 In 1983, after a battle over LGB participation in the 20th anniversary March on Washington, a group of African American leaders endorsed a national gay rights bill alongside Coretta Scott King and put Audre Lorde from the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays as speaker on the agenda.

1984 Rev. Jesse Jackson included LGB people as part of his Rainbow/PUSH.

1985 Once the only gay bar in Brixton, South London and cornerstone of the 1970s Black LGBT community, bisexual Jamaican immigrant Pearl Alcock's shebeen closes.

1987 The Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum was founded in 1987 in Los Angeles, California by Phill Wilson and Ruth Waters.

1988 The first Black Pride event in the United States, called "At the Beach LA," occurs in Los Angeles, California, U.S. 4 March – South Africa passes the Immorality Amendment Act, 1988 imposes an age of consent of 19 for lesbian sex, which had previously been unregulated by the law. This was higher than the age of 16 applying to heterosexual sex.

1989 Kimberlé Crenshaw creates the term "intersectionality," to show how different aspects of one's identity, including race, sexuality, gender, etc., combine to affect their life. Keith St. John was elected to the Albany Common Council, becoming the first openly gay Black elected official in the U.S.

1990s 1990 13 October – The first pride parade in South Africa was held in Johannesburg. Sherry Harris was elected to the City Council in Seattle, Washington, making her the first openly lesbian African-American elected official.Bonnie Zimmerman. Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1. Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) is founded.

1991 November 7 – NBA player Magic Johnson, who is straight, holds a press conference to reveal that he is HIV-positive and retiring from the NBA. His announcement and subsequent activism helps to dispel public perceptions of HIV/AIDS as a "gay" or "drug addict" disease. The very first annual D.C. Black Pride event was held in Washington, D.C., inspiring other Black Pride celebrations around the country and around the world. Burkina Faso's 1991 constitution bans same-sex marriage, although same-sex relationships are not criminalized.

1993 Dr. William F. Gibson, national Chairman of the Board of NAACP, endorsed the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation and the end of the ban on LGB service in the United States military. Althea Garrison becomes the first transgender or transsexual person to be elected to a state legislature in the United States. Phill Wilson of the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum speaks at the 30th anniversary of the March on Washington on behalf of Black gay and lesbian people.

1994 Anti-discrimination legislation: South Africa (sexual orientation, interim constitution) Bermuda decriminalizes homosexuality. National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality is founded in South Africa. Deborah Batts became the first Black, openly lesbian federal judge in U.S. history, nominated by President Bill Clinton and later confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

1995 The Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum organizes an historic Black gay contingent in the Million Man March.

1996 Burkina Faso equalizes age of consent.

1997 Sexual orientation-inclusive Anti-discrimination is added to the constitution of South Africa.

1998 LGB servicemembers are allowed to serve in the South African National Defence Force. 8 May – In the case of National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality v Minister of Justice, a judge of the Witwatersrand Local Division of the High Court of South Africa declares the criminalisation of sodomy and "unnatural sexual acts", and section 20A of the Sexual Offences Act, to be unconstitutional for violating the anti-discrimination clause of the Constitution. 9 October – The Constitutional Court of South Africa unanimously confirms the judgment of the High Court in the National Coalition case. 30 November – South African gay rights and anti-apartheid activist Simon Nkoli dies of AIDS. J-FLAG, a Jamaican LGBT rights organization, is formed. Coretta Scott King announces her support for LGBT equality, saying "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group."

1999 12 February – In the case of National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality v Minister of Home Affairs, three judges of the Cape Provincial Division of the High Court rule that it is unconstitutional for the government to provide immigration benefits to the foreign spouses of South Africans but not to the foreign same-sex partners of South Africans. The declaration of invalidity is suspended for one year to allow Parliament to correct the law. May – Black AIDS Institute is founded by Phill Wilson. 2 December – The Constitutional Court unanimously confirms the judgment of the High Court in the second National Coalition case, but removes the suspension of the order and instead "reads in" words to the law to immediately extend immigration benefits to same-sex partners.

2000s 2000 South Africa passes PEPUDA, which prohibits discrimination, hate speech and harassment on numerous bases, including sexual orientation.

2001 25 September – In the case of Satchwell v President of the Republic of South Africa, a judge of the Transvaal Provincial Division of the High Court rules that financial benefits provided to the spouses of judges must also be provided to the same-sex life partners of judges.