Southern Pride: Celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month: LGBTQ+ History
in the South
LGBTQ+ History in the South
The LGBTQ+ community in Georgia and the American South continue to face obstacles at a higher rate than the rest of the country. Yet, the history of LGBTQ+ Southerners, while under-documented, is a rich, multi-faceted story. Here you will find historical collections that hope to illuminate the lives and accomplishments of this diverse community.
LGBTQ+ Archives
- Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony
"The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony collects and makes available the oral histories of people who presently or at one time identified as same-sex and same-gender attracted women.."
- Digital Transgender Archive
"The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world."
- Gale- Archives of Sexuality and Gender
"As part of the Archives of Sexuality and Gender series, this collection enables students, educators, and researchers to thoroughly explore and make new connections in subjects such as LGBTQ history and activism, cultural studies, psychology, sociology, health, political science, policy studies, human rights, gender studies, and more..
The Invisible Histories Project
The Invisible Histories Project Designed to be a connection between Queer communities and local repositories for the preservation of the history of LGBTQ life throughout the American South. The archive will preserve, collect, and protect the living history of the diversity of the Queer community and experiences both urban and rural. IHP is a community-driven project that seeks to engage Southern Queer people, local universities, libraries, and archives in the process of protecting the vanishing LGBTQ history of our region.
The Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project
The Georgia LGBTQ Archives Project is a group started by a group of dedicated archivists/librarians and community volunteers who want to see Georgia's LGBTQ past preserved for future generations. A lot of that history resides in people's photo albums, private letters, and papers. This group is committed to raising awareness among LGBTQ Georgians of the value of the items they have--such as those just listed as well as protest signs used in parades, t-shirts, flyers, etc.
AJCP212-020b, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archives. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.
Selected Collections
- Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Center Records (Georgia State) Founded in 1976, the Atlanta Gay Center was a community center that served the gay community in Atlanta, GA. It has since closed and been replaced by the Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Community Center. The center published a bi-weekly newspaper, and operated the Gay Helpline for the Atlanta area. The center was the meeting place for several support groups including those for teens, interracial couples, older couples, and P-FLAG. During the early 1980s, in the early days of HIV/AIDS awareness, the Atlanta Gay Center offered free testing and support groups.
- Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History Thing Papers and Publications, 1957-1994 (Atlanta History Center) This collection contains various papers related to the gay and lesbian community in Atlanta. Included are gay and lesbian publications from throughout the United States, business and organization papers pertaining to gay rights and AIDS, and various personal papers of gay and lesbian activists in Georgia.
- Jesse. R. Peel Papers, 1956-2003 (Emory) The collection consists of the personal papers of Dr. Jesse R. Peel from 1956-2013, including correspondence; journals and appointment books; galley proofs of his memoir, Camp Merton Chronicles; subject files; photographs and albums; scrapbooks; and audiovisual material. The journals, appointment books, and photograph albums in the collection are the basis of his autobiography, Camp Merton Chronicles and included are folders of inserts, materials that were used as visuals in the work. The subject files primarily focus on Peel's work in the Atlanta LGBTQ community and his work with a number of AIDS organizations including the Atlanta Buyers Club Foundation, the AIDS Legacy Project, and his work on John Howell Park, a public park in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood. Scrapbooks and correspondence primarily document his time in school from elementary through medical residency. Audiovisual material includes recorded letters Peel sent to his parents during his deployment to Vietnam in the 1960s, as well as video recordings of Peel's speeches and his Leon Allen and Winston Johnson Community Leadership Award acceptance from the Human Rights Campaign.
- LGBTQ Institute’s Mike Maloney Collection of OutTV Atlanta Video Recordings (Georgia State) OutTV Atlanta, a half-hour weekly news and entertainment show focused on LGBTQ life, ran from 1999-2001. The brainchild of Michael B. Maloney, the show was supported financially by Maloney’s family and friends. Maloney used his funds to purchase air time, and OutTV aired in Atlanta and Savannah. As producer of the show, Maloney saw that most of the coverage of LGBTQ life involved night clubs and drag queens, and he wanted to focus on “ordinary” gay people who were fire fighters, attorneys, and regular members of the community. This digital collection contains about 230 digitized tapes of raw footage created in the process of making the show
- Stonewall Bar Association of Georgia, Inc. records (Georgia State) The Stonewall Bar Association of Georgia, Inc. ("Stonewall") is a professional association of attorneys, judges, law students, paralegals and other legal professionals who support the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and who oppose discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender identity.