I love telling stories. Not tall tales or fabrications, but real accounts. I am not one of those professionals who performs storytelling at the level of high art. When I share stories from three decades or three weeks ago, it is my way of showing what I hold dear, and where I am coming from.

Sometimes I start with the intention of rendering one story, and the very telling releases others stashed in the vault. It is, I believe, my primal way to connect, like the way a child will share one toy after another as a greeting ritual. It is just something I do, and I hope it is one of those quirks for which I will be remembered.

At a gathering of gay black men last month, we listened to a dialogue between two of our brothers — Dwain Bridges and Jerome Hughes — recorded by StoryCorp, a nonprofit oral history project. They are friends nearly 20 years apart. As little gay boys, each was humiliated for the sins of their difference. They both love to open their homes for parties and more reflective conversations such as this. They are both openly HIV positive.

We gathered with them to listen to their stories. There was no video footage of their faces, nothing for us to look at except each other. They sat quietly, letting their voices deliver testimony. Recalling the time he consented to an HIV test, Dwain parroted the stinging scorn in his mother’s voice. “You gay? Why you wanna be tested? That’s for gays.”

His father also questioned his reasons for getting tested. When Dwain pointed his finger in two directions signaling bisexuality and confirming his mother’s suspicions, the response was simple and clear. “Regardless of what you do in life, be who you are.” Not knowing that Dwain had already attempted suicide, he told his son that he had once considered taking his own life. “He let me know that I can make it regardless.”

Jerome’s parents did not fully accept his sexuality, but it took another life threatening condition to recognize they did not want to lose him. In 2012, he started having back and chest pains and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. His doctor told him that without a heart transplant he would die in a few years. “It was hard. It was very hard,” the voice buckled. One after another began dabbing tears. Several tissue boxes drifted along the circle of witnesses. “My parents told me, ‘There’s no need to cry, God has you.’” Four years later, Jerome still has his original heart. “It’s still not up to par, but I’m still ticking.”

The two narrators were given a hearty applause at the end of the playback. Host Larry Walker invited questions and for the next hour we discussed what was shared. Those of us old enough to remember, survivors from the holocaust years, recalled how funerals dotted our social calendars in our 20s and 30s. Several joked about how growing numbers of men seemed to be reverting to the jheri curl, a style which by the early ’90s was outdated. Protease inhibitors had not yet been delivered and many were still taking AZT.

The young ones listened in awe as elders detailed what AZT did to Black bodies, how it turned kinky hair curly or bone straight, and stripped brown skin to an ashen pallor. We railed about the omission of our lives and deaths in films like And the Band Played On and Longtime Companion. “I wish more younger guys were here tonight,” said one young man. “We need to know what you all went through.”

Storytelling is an indispensable practice for us to continue and expand. Through such exchange we counter the misperceptions by which we regard ourselves as divided and powerless. Narratives drawn from experience offer fertile lessons and those lessons require time and attention to be learned. It is natural, if not instinctive, for one generation to pass on to the next the knowledge harvested from life’s hard knocks. In that regard, gay men are no different. But the accommodating silence and secrecy we bartered to avoid rejection has kept too many of our tongues tied.

The profound wisdom of Black men who have more than earned their right to tell often goes unsolicited and buried along with us when we depart. To tell one’s story is a rather intimate act. It serves as a way of revealing ourselves to each other, as we share vital information with our contemporaries and those that come after us. It is an act that requires courage and expresses trust.

With intention, I share how Tre Johnson, a young poet, ushered me into Atlanta’s Black gay cultural scene in 1992, introducing me to other writers and activists such as Duncan Teague and our brother beloved Tony Daniels. It was Tre who informed me of Essex Hemphill’s passing in 1995 just minutes before I would present a keynote address at a college forum about AIDS, signifying what I must do “when my brother fell.” Within less than a year, Tre succumbed but not without leaving a legacy.

As I age, my sense of worth ripens as a valued tribesman who is needed to pass on precious memories. Yet I must do more than tell my own stories or those of the past. I am searching for better ways for us to document what we have experienced and what is happening in our lives today. As all Black gay men’s lives are priceless regardless of age or HIV status, so are all our stories.

Craig Washington serves as a prevention programs manager at AID Atlanta. He is a writer and community organizer who has been HIV positive for 31 years. He can be reached at craigwerks13060@gmail.com.

“Our Stories, Our Evolution” is a series of monthly listening sessions featuring selected oral interviews from community members. Please join us for our next event on Friday, May 13, at 7 p.m. at the Phillip Rush Center.