VISIBILITY IS SURVIVAL: THE CHOCOLATE MAPS OF BLACK GAY LIFE IN URBAN ETHNOGRAPHY Marcus Anthony Hunter and Terrell J. A. Winder ABSTRACT Drawing on shared research and educational trajectories, the authors illus- trate the importance and challenge of tracing Black gay social life in urban ethnography. This chapter investigates the ephemeral nature of Black gay geographies using live experience and data collection from Los Angeles. Guided by Joseph Beam’s (1984) key sociological insight, we offer and amplify a new warrant for urban ethnography emergent from the study of Black and LGBTQ life, visibility is survival. In so doing, we aim to under- score the importance of ethnographic inquiry to understand the spatial and communal navigation of cities by Black gay people. In examining the unique Black gay maps of a rapidly changing Los Angeles, we articulate the multi- tude of ways that ethnographic inquiry serves as a correction to the record and a form of documenting threatened histories and everyday realities of Black LGBTQ life. Keywords: Urban Black America; race; sexuality; ethnography; qualitative methodology; Los Angeles INTRODUCTION The 1980s had been a complicated and fraught time. The War on Crime and the War on Drugs were in full effect, digging their heels in Black and Brown com- munities across urban America. The parties and discos of the 1970s and free love of the 1960s had culminated into a protagonist in a deep battle with the Urban Ethnography: Legacies and Challenges Research in Urban Sociology, Volume 16, 131À142 Copyright r 2019 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1047-0042/doi:10.1108/S1047-004220190000016010 131