The Birth of Pride in Atlanta: 20th Century Origins of Gay Rights in Midtown and Downtown

In Downtown Atlanta in the 1920s there were a couple notably successful individuals whose queer identities were “open secrets”. Norris Bumstead Herndon was the son of Atlanta’s first Black Millionaire and prosperous heir to his father’s life insurance business on Auburn Avenue. His same-sex attraction was known among his associates and friends, yet he was known to be rather reserved and reclusive, perhaps due to the danger in this identity. The entertainment scene of the nearby “working class block”⁴(Five points, Decatur, Edgewood, Whitehall, Marietta) allowed some expression in the 1920’s. This area was known for both cheap entertainment for the working class and to draw tourists. It had nightclubs, bars, burlesque, and perhaps most notably vaudeville that, despite ongoing raids, was profitable and provided visibility. Ma Rainey, who some hail as the mother of Blues, performed at the 81 Theatre on Decatur Street and had songs hinting about her bisexuality⁵. Such representation and the crowds it drew fostered a culture of tolerance in this block for some time, yet a lack of acceptance from the larger community limited this area being mobilized for gay rights in Atlanta.

World War Two and the war effort have been linked to the growth of gay culture as independence grew in communities at home and those returning from war likely experienced new exposure to unspoken same-sex relations in the military. The 1950s and 1960s in Atlanta were marked by the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Feminism movements with a broader air of liberation that bolstered growing gay rights and visibility. With this is of course city and corporate leaders welcoming forms of gay visibility they deemed acceptable to boost queer tourism⁶ , midtowns incoming residents were primarily white middle to upper class indivudals drawn in hopes of escaping limiting, often rural, hometowns. Organizing of softball teams through the Atlanta Lesbian-Feminist Alliance (ALFA)⁷ and other organizations is one example of how this community subtly connected and utilized their space springboarding off intersectional movements. This growing representation was, of course, still bolstered by crowd-fascinating entertainment, especially in what would become known as drag. 

The sense of revolutionary activism and liberation was not an Atlanta-only phenomenon. As anti-war efforts, civil rights activism, and gay rights spread nationally, Atlanta was carried along. The Stonewall Riot of 1969 in New York is often noted as a catalyst for the Gay Rights movement in Atlanta that really kicked off heading into the 1970s. Still centered in Midtown, bars such as Sweet Gum Head, performers such as Lil Diamond and Phyllis Killer, and gay activists such as the leader of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) Bill Smith provided momentum for gay rights in a breach of invisibility that would ultimately liberate the gay community in the city⁸. This is, in part, due to the gathering and organizing of large and diverse LGBTQIA+ individuals in a confined area of space. The area surrounding Piedmont Park known as the “strip” was becoming a gay safezone. This was not only a safe zone for gay individuals but for a broad and socially subversive “alternative” community. As part of a commercializing area, these communities gained representation through publications such as the “alternative” newspaper The Great Speckled Bird (GSB) which largely employed gay individuals. In 1969 the press held a free concert in Piedmont Park that was raided by police with little warrant, part of ongoing attempts to subdue any alternative culture further demonstrated by a new police station nearby called the Pigpen for related arrests. While the station faced protest and eventual closure, police interference and oppression caused challenges for places in the alleged “safe zone” such as the GSB which was demolished and moved locations several times in the span of a few years. Cops lurked in the park and on the streets to bust out same-sex interaction and raided gathering spaces to end and erase their existence – this only private gatherings such as home dinner parties and community organizing that would make the movement forever visible. With this, Gay Atlanta fully flourished throughout the 1970s

In 1971 Bill Smith and GLF are noted to have started the first Atlanta Pride march from the Capitol, through downtown and midtown, and eventually into Piedmont Park⁹. The first official Gay Pride Parade was held the following year in 1972 drawing decent crowds. This was a catalyzing event, public perceptions grew favorable, and the community had the freedom to connect and make change. Outside of noted growing community organizations such as GLF and ALFA, the metro Atlanta community church, the SE Gay Coalition, the Gay Political Action Committee, the Board of First Tuesday, and innumerable others aided in building and growing the community. Local events such as the Mr. and Mrs. Gay Atlanta Pageants at the Sweet Gum Head and broader events such as the Hotlanta River Expo (1980) further coalesced the community. Gay Publications such as The Barb (1974), Sister Wisdom (1976), Cruise (1976), the Southern Voice (1980), and Gaybriel (1979) were created providing information to support the larger cultural expansion of the queer movement as well as the larger social liberation movement of the time.

These ideas did not, of course, only stretch the strip. The Decatur Street area, home to Georgia State University by the 1970s, had many student-led during this time – in 1972 Smith attempted to lecture and organize at Georgia State but was ultimately unsuccessful. This is perhaps indicative of the physical barriers such as interstates as well as social and class barriers that arose from the proceeding decades. As this movement developed in-fighting as well as overarching social norms created expansive yet distinct subsects and intricacies of the community that require separate attention to properly address. The Black Queer community has faced heightened and ongoing stigmatization developing separate leadership and movements to support broader community interests to be further explored in Black literature such as that of Michael Bartone¹⁰ which specifically explores this identity in the Black Gay Mecca with a focus on historic and social considerations of such. Action here influenced relations between the gay community and the political sphere contributing to the larger culture of acceptance such as that of Mayor Jacksons’ pride proclamation in 1976. Black-lead organizations such as the Gay Atlanta Minority Association (GAMA) founded in 1979 were created due to discrimination against minority individuals in the developing gay scene in Atlanta garnering visibility and traction by hosting pageants at Sweet Gum in the 1980s. At this time the distinct geographic lines of the gay community became blurred with ongoing socio-demographic changes in the city.