The chronology is a work in progress. Entries marked with bullets rather than dates indicate a more exact date needs to be determined; entries describing events taking place outside of Atlanta or Georgia a plus sign. Any reader with more specific information about a particular entry, with information about an event or person who has been overlooked, or who wishes to correct an error is welcome to contact Atlanta-Fulton Public Library librarian Cal Gough at (404) 885-7832 or cal.gough@fultoncountyga.gov. Revised 25 October, 2012. 

 

1969

+  June 27-28 - A routine police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, provokes riots involving over 2,000 citizens and 400 policemen.  The riots result in organized resistance that grows into the modern-day gay liberation movement. 

**  August 11 - Atlanta police raid George Ellis’ Film Forum, which was showing of Andy Warhol’s movie Lonesome Cowboys, and take photos of audience members. One of them, a minister, files a $500,000 lawsuit against the police.

 

1970 

+  Militant gay activists form the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activist Alliance, with chapters of each group springing up in many U.S. cities.                 

**  October 31- Buddy Clark stages the first Miss Gay Atlanta Pageant at The Rathskeller bar.

**  Miami-born Beryl Boykin, after moving to Atlanta, helps organize a Gay Pride rally at Piedmont Park to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City.

**  Feminist activists establish the Atlanta Women’s Liberation Center.

 

1971

+  “The Gay Manifesto” is published.

+  A year after expelling lesbian members, the National Organization for Women acknowledges lesbian oppression.

**  February – Approximately one hundred local activists, originally organized by members of The Great Speckled Bird (published from 1968 to1978) form a Georgia chapter of the Gay Liberation Front. Activist Bill Smith arranges for the GLF to be legally incorporated.

**  June 27 - The Georgia GLF sponsors Atlanta’s first Gay Pride March, with 125-150 people participating.

**  June 27 – On this eighth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the U.S. House of Representatives votes 230-133 to amend the Legal Assistance Act to prevent federal funds from providing legal help to anyone involved in “the issue of homosexuality or so-called gay rights.” This ban is one of the first instances of federal legislation specifically denying help to a particular group of U.S. citizens. The bill, written by Georgia Representative Larry McDonald, later dies for a lack of a Senate companion bill.

**  July 14 – Beryl Boykin, Klaus Smith, and Bill Smith meet with then-Governor Jimmy Carter to ask for his support to repeal anti-GLBT laws. Carter refuses.

**  The lesbian theatre troupe WomanSong performs at several GLF fundraisers, as does local resident drag performer Severin.

**  Four activists meet with Mayor Sam Massell. They presented him with a list of demands—that he end police harassment of homosexuals, that he end all job discrimination against homosexuals, and that he pledge to help end social discrimination against homosexuals in Atlanta. Subsequent inquiries to the city’s personnel office reveal no written policy against hiring homosexuals.

 

1972

+  The first gay synagogue is opened.

+  The first openly gay person is ordained by a major Christian denomination, the United Church of Christ.

+  Ann Arbor, Michigan voters elect the first politician in the U.S. to a city-wide office.

+  Richard Nixon defeats George McGovern for the post of U.S. President.

**  January 16 – A group of about 50 people establish an Atlanta congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church forms in the city, receiving its charter on April 16. John Gill serves as MCC's first minister. (The congregation meets first at the Universalist Unitarian Church, then moves to the Pocket Theatre on Juniper Street, then to a former move theater on Highland Avenue in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood; moves again near the town square in Decatur, and finally, in 1994, to its present location, accommodating 500 attendees, on North Druid Hills Road.)

**  June 23 – A group of radical lesbians, including activist Lorraine Fontana, break away from the Atlanta Women’s Liberation Center to form the Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA), a major force in the local lesbian community for the next two decades. (ALFA’s first location was at 1190 Mansfield Avenue until October 1973, when it moved to McLendon Avenue near Atlanta’s near Atlanta’s Little 5 Points neighborhood; later it moved to a house on Clay Street in the Kirkwood neighborhood.)

**  June - The Atlanta Gay Liberation Front organizes a local Gay Pride Day demonstration with 300 participants.  Organizers Bill Smith and Judy Lambert talk about Gay Pride on a local television talk show; John Gill and Dave Hayward do the same on Georgia Tech's radio station WREK.  An alternative newspaper, The Great Speckled Bird, features a centerfold spread on Gay Pride. Two gay bars, The Cove and the Sweet Gum Head, prohibit activists from distributing leaflets about the Pride demo and evict the activists from their premises.

**  Atlanta's Gay Liberation Front sets up offices in a converted warehouse on Pine Street and hosts several well-attended dances.

**  Atlanta mayor Sam Massell appoints Charlie St. John to the city's Community Relations Commission, the first appointment by a city official of a spokesperson for local gay and lesbian communities.

**  Emory University students establish a Gay Liberation Committee.

 

1973

+  The National Gay Task Force is founded in New York City 

+  The American Psychological Association removes homosexuality from its manual of mental disorders.

+  The American Bar Association urges repeal of all laws criminalizing sexual conduct between consenting individuals.

**  Spring - Atlanta's Gay Liberation Front moves its offices to Exchange Place and coordinates this year’s Gay Pride Day celebrations. 

**  June - Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance's first participation in Atlanta's annual commemoration of the Stonewall Riots, which draws an estimated 300 participants.

**  July - Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance co-founder Elaine Kolb begins hosting "Lesbian Woman" show on local radio station WRFG.

**  September - Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance publishes the first issue of its newsletter Atlanta, Atlanta.

+  November 15 - Gay and lesbian activists establish the  National Gay Task Force.

**  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fires employee Charlie St. John for putting into newsroom mailboxes flyers advertising Gay Pride activities. Supporters of St. John picket the newspaper's offices protesting the firing and the paper's discriminatory editorial and advertising policies. (This same year, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation raids St. John's apartment on trumped-up drug charges; his landlord forces him to move.)

**  Georgia State University’s Gay Liberation Front  (GSU-GLF), forms early in the year, with official recognition by the university.

**  Late in the year, the local chapter of the Gay Liberation Front folds due to internal dissent and public disinterest.

 

1974

+  Massachusetts citizens elect the first openly gay public official in the United States, Elaine Noble.

+  June – The week-long local commemoration of the Stonewall Riots begins with a news conference at the two-year-old congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church, then located in the Virginia-Highland neighbor-hood. Festivities include an AFLA-sponsored carnival, beauty contests, worship services, film screenings, a parade, a picnic, and rap sessions.

**  July - The first openly lesbian softball team in the Atlanta City League, the ALFA Omegas, play their first league game.

**  September - Housewarming for the second location of the ALFA House 

**  November - Atlanta resident Linda Bryant opens, in Little 5 Points, Charis Books and More, the first lesbian/feminist bookstore in the Southeast.

**  The local Metropolitan Community Church moves into the old Highland Theatre on North Highland Avenue.

**  After a sit-in threat by Jim Snow, assistant pastor at MCC of Atlanta, gay leaders finally achieve a face-to-face meeting with Mayor Maynard Jackson to discuss gay rights and allegations of police harassment against the gay community.

** Bill Smith begins publishing The Barb, a free gay newspaper distributed in gay bars locally and elsewhere until 1983.

 

1975

+  U.S. Civil Service approves employment of gays in federal government agencies.

**  Gay/Lesbian Civil Rights Bill introduced by Bella Abzug for the first time into the U.S. Congress; Georgia Representative John Lewis is among the bill's many sponsors.

+  Leonard Matlovich, discharged from the Air Force because he is gay, is pictured on the cover of Time Magazine.

**  May 24-26 - Between 500 and 600 women attend the Great Southeast Lesbian Conference, sponsored by ALFA.

**  The Atlanta Journal publishes a three-day, front-page series entitled ‘‘The Gay Life.’’ Gay leaders organize to respond, and critics blast the series for its ‘‘general omission of the positive and constructive work being done by the gay people and gay organizations’’ in Atlanta, “while employing the more irascible stereotypes in the community.’’ They also create an ad hoc group, the Atlanta Gay Coalition (ARC), which is supplanted in 1976 by the Gay Rights Alliance (GRA).

**  June - Over 600 people attend a Gay Pride rally in Piedmont Park, but there is no parade preceding the rally.

**  August – First ALFA Invitational All Women’s Softball Tournament.

**  September – First meeting of the Atlanta Socialist-Feminist Women’s Union.

 

1976 

+  Georgia native Jimmy Carter is elected U.S. President.

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the second time into the U.S. Congress.

+  The first Southeastern Conference on Lesbians and Gay Men is held in Chapel Hill, N.C.

**  January - Richard Kavanaugh, Bob Swinden, Rick Burroughs, and others begin publishing Cruise, a monthly guide to activities in gay bars.

**  June 26 - Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson officially proclaims "Gay Pride Day" in Atlanta.  A group of Southern Baptists calling itself “Citizens for a Decent Atlanta” protests the mayor's proclamation, buying full-page ads in the local newspapers denouncing "acts against the moral laws of the Judeo-Christian tradition," and unsuccessfully trying to obtain a court order to rescind the mayor’s proclamation. 300-500 (some reports state as many as 1,000) Atlanta citizens gather for the annual local commemoration of the Stonewall Riots; the theme this year is "Christopher Street South" and the festival is sponsored by the Gay Rights Alliance, founded by Linda Regnier and Victor Host.  (The Alliance also sponsors the 1977 festival). African-American Florida transplant Gene Holloway is among this year’s Pride organizers. Gay Pride Week activities include candlelight poetry readings by local writers Liz Throop, Dave Hayward, and Gil Robison.

**  July - Local gay and lesbian activists picket Wieuca Road Baptist Church in response to the anti-homosexual advertisement in the Atlanta Journal that had been spearheaded by the church’s pastor William Self.

**  August - Despite a lawsuit by seven anonymous local businessmen and calls for his resignation by several local Baptist ministers, Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson refuses to rescind his June order proclaiming Gay Pride Day in Atlanta.  (The next year, however, Jackson proclaims an annual "Human Rights Day" instead of a "Gay Pride Day.")

**  November - The Atlanta-based Lucina’s Music sponsors the city’s first music concert sponsored by an all-women's production company.

**  Linda Regnier and Victor Host create the Gay Rights Alliance, which sponsors the local 1976 and 1977 Gay Pride Day marches.

**  An informal gay community center begins functioning for about nine months out of a building owned by activist Bill Smith at 4th Street and West Peachtree.  The center sponsors a variety of discussion groups, a telephone information/counseling line, and a forum of candidates for upcoming election (organized by Gil Robison).

**  Patrick Cuccaro and Michael Chafin produce the first gay male theatre piece shown in Atlanta, The Boys in the Band at Buckhead’s Academy Theatre.

 

1977

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the third time into the U.S. Congress.

+  Entertainer Anita Bryant launches her “Save Our Children” campaign, aimed at repealing a Miami/Dade County, Florida ordinance forbidding discrimination against gay government employees.

+  Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE) is formed.

+  President Carter receives the first-ever official delegation of lesbians and gay men at the White House.

**  June 26 - An estimated 1,500 people march in the local Pride Parade, with an estimated 3,000 attending the rally at the parade’s conclusion.

**  July 2 - Gil Robison, Liz Throop, Beth Coonan and other gay activists form the city's first gay political action committee, calling it the First Tuesday Democratic [Party] Club.  The organization's name commemorates the date of the Miami/Dade County (Florida) referendum protecting the rights of gay citizens there.  First Tuesday launches a series of lobbying efforts, candidates' forums, and voter registration drives.

**  August - With an election only a few months off, Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson issues a proclamation for "Civil Rights Day" instead of "Gay Pride Day" in Atlanta.  Approximately 1,500 people attend the city's annual march and rally.

**  August 19 - 150 Atlantans picket the Miss National Teenager Pageant meeting in Atlanta to protest its honoring of anti-gay rights activist Anita Bryant as "America's Greatest American."

**  August - Dykes Together, an Alcoholics Anonymous group for lesbians, forms.

**  Fall - A local chapter of gay Christians, Evangelical Outreach Ministries, forms.

**  Activist James Moody moves to Atlanta and through the Gay Rights Alliance and with co-anchors David Hayward and Greg James inaugurates the program "Gay Digest" broadcast by WRFG, Atlanta's community-operated radio station.

**  Local gay amateur athletes form a new organization, Atlanta Venture Sports.

**  Actor/director Howard Brunner produces a sold-out run of the play Fortune and Men's Eyes at the Sweet Gum Head, a local gay bar.

**  Congregations of churches and synagogues in Atlanta raise $4,000 to fight Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign in Florida.

 

1978

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the fourth time into the U.S. Congress.

+  San Francisco resident Gilbert Baker designs the rainbow flag to fly in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade.

**  March 31 - April 2 - The Southeastern Conference of Lesbians and Gay Men holds its third annual conference in Atlanta. Among the event's chief coordinators are Franklin Abbott, Terry Barfield, Leif Sandberg, Stella Eller, and Heidi Silver. Over 500 participate. ALFA women's participation in the conference and in conference planning results in a Southeastern Lesbian Network and initial planning for a Lesbian Writers' Conference.

+  Summer - Responding to a campaign led by Anita Bryant and others, Miami/Dade County council repeals its ordinance outlawing employment discrimination against gay people.

**  June 11 - Approximately 1,800 to 2,000 Atlanta gay men, lesbians, and their supporters from a coalition of human rights groups picket Anita Bryant's keynote speech to the Southern Baptist Convention's conference at the World Congress Center. Local activist Maria Helena Dolan is among the featured (and televised) speakers at the rally. Money collected during the Anita Bryant protest is used to launch an Atlanta Gay Center (later the Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Center).

+  November 27 - San Francisco City council member and gay political activist Harvey Milk and San Francisco mayor George Moscone are murdered by former city council member Dan White.

**  December - James Moody becomes the first openly gay columnist for a straight Atlanta newspaper, the Atlanta Gazette, a local entertainment/news weekly.

**  Howard Brunner stages the 1930s gay musical comedy Boy Meets Boy at the Magic Garden, a local gay bar.

 

1979

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the fifth time into the U.S. the U.S. Congress.

**  February - ALFA's Library Committee begins organizing an archive of local lesbian activities.

**  February - Created by the Atlanta Coalition for Human Rights that coordinated gay protests of the June 1978 appearance in Atlanta of Anita Bryant, the Atlanta Gay Center opens in a Midtown facility. Later in the year, the Center, under the direction of co-coordinators Diane Stephenson and Frank Scheuren, graduates its first class of telephone counselors and begins offering a variety of health, legal, and social services.

**  April 11 - First meeting of Atlanta's Liberal Religious Gay Council.

**  April – A group of African-American men and women establish the Gay Atlanta Minority Association (GAMA) to address issues of racism in Atlanta’s gay community.

**  June - Shortly after Channel 11 TV runs a series on male prostitution, the Fulton County Solicitor issues warrants for the arrest of three gay owners and employees of local gay publications Score and Cruise Weekly on charges of distributing obscene materials.

**  June 24 - Atlanta's annual Gay Pride Day parade celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Stonewall riots with the theme “Lavender Anniversary.” Over 700 attend.  The festivities include a Lavender Anniversary Film Festival at the local Metropolitan Community Church on June 26th, coordinated by Greg James and Dave Hayward.

**  June 28 - On the steps of City Hall, local activists Gil Robison and Maria Helena Dolan conduct a mock trial of Harvey Milk's assassin Dan White, finding White guilty of murder in the first degree.

**  August - Some 200 people show up for the first “Hotlanta Raft Race” down the Chattahoochee, an annual event eventually attracting gays and lesbians from around the country.

**  September 27-28 - David Hayward and John Howell, under the auspices of the Gay Center Arts Advocates, coordinate the screening of seven more gay films at the MCC.

**  October 14 - Atlanta gays and lesbians travel to Washington, DC for the First National Lesbian & Gay March on Washington and the simultaneous Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference; over 100,000 people attend, including 4 bus-loads from Atlanta. Atlantans Ray Kluka, Eva Salzer, and Elizabeth Monahan are among the primary mobilizers of March attendees from the Southeast.

 

1980

+  Ronald Reagan is elected to succeed Jimmy Carter as U.S. President.

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the sixth time into the U.S. Congress.

+  Black & White Men Together is formed.

+  The opening of the movie Cruising sparks nationwide protests by gay rights activists.

+  The gay-themed Last Summer at Bluefish Cove opens on Broadway.

+  New York abolishes its law against sodomy (the 24th U.S. State to do so).

**  February - Atlanta gays and lesbians (including 20 members of ALFA) travel to Greensboro, NC to an Anti-Klan March and Pro-Civil Rights Celebration. ALFA joins the Atlanta Anti-Klan Coalition.

**  March 22 - The Atlanta Gay Center sponsors a symposium, "Coming Out in the 80's," featuring a speech by Massachusetts state representative Elaine Noble, a lesbian. 

**  April - Longtime gay activist Bill Smith dies of a drug overdose.

**  April 29 - A coalition of gay and lesbian organizations picket Atlanta religious TV station WANX (Channel 46) for endorsing a "Washington for Jesus" march organized by Christian fundamentalists opposed to (among other things) civil rights for gay people.

**  May - The Atlanta Gay Center moves from Midtown to Ponce de Leon Avenue. Later, Ray Kluka becomes AGC Director.

**  Spring - Atlanta's First Tuesday Democratic Association breaks its ties to the Democratic Party and becomes the First Tuesday Association for Lesbian and Gay Rights, amending its by-laws to include 50% women and 20% Third World people on its steering committee.

**  June 4 - Atlanta Gay Center and First Tuesday Association for Lesbian and Gay Rights hold a press conference to protest Georgia governor George Busbee's deletion of a reference to gay families in a recommenda-tion made by the Georgia delegation to the White House Conference on Families.

**  June 21-28 - Gay Pride Week renamed “Lesbian, Gay, Transperson Pride Week”; 1,200 people attend the annual march, with the theme “Let’s Get Together.” The Gay Atlanta Minorities Association (GAMA) sponsors a forum on “Black Lesbian/Gay/Transperson Survival in the ‘80s.”

**  June - Owners of several gay-operated bars concerned about licensing problems with a neighborhood association form a “gay chamber of commerce” calling itself the Atlanta Business Guild. (Adopting its charter in September, the organization is later re-named Atlanta Business and Professional Guild).

**  June - Gene Loring opens Christopher’s Kind, a gay bookstore, in Atlanta’s Midtown.

**  July - All of Georgia's delegates to the U.S. Congress except Wyche Fowler and Bo Ginn vote for a House provision introduced by local Congressman Larry McDonald that forbids the federal government's Legal Services Corporation from participating in cases that might benefit gay people.  (The McDonald Amendment is later deleted from the Senate version of the bill.)

**  July - In response to gay and lesbian activists' objections, and with the help of City Council member Mary Davis, Atlanta Public Safety Commissioner Lee Brown removes a question about sexual orientation from the Police Department's employment form and lie-detector test.

**  Summer - Atlanta City Council members Mary Davis, Richard Guthman, John Sweet, and Marvin Arrington help remove vague language in a city ordinance prohibiting loitering that had been used for years by police officers to harass gay men.

+  Summer - Black gay activist Mel Boozer nominated for U.S. Vice President at Democratic National Convention.

**  August 24 - Arsonists destroy the After Dark, a bookstore and video gallery on Peachtree Street catering to gay customers. Later the Down Under bookstore is blown up in an explosion. Eventually city ordinances are enacted to prohibit explicit sex-oriented magazines and videos in Atlanta.

**  September - Dance Atlanta, a local organization that brings internationally known dance groups to the city, refuses to carry advertisements in its programs paid for by Atlanta's Christopher's Kind Bookshop, objecting to the ad's use of the words lesbian and gay.

**  December – “A History of the ALFA: 1972-1978” by Vicki G is published in ALFA’s newsletter, Atlanta.

**  The Gazette Newspaper is launched. Regular contributors include James Moore, Ken Alan Ray, Gil Robison, Maria Helena Dolan, and Dave Hayward.

 

1981

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the seventh time into the U.S. Congress.

+  The New York Times reports a new cancer taking the lives of otherwise healthy gay men.

+  The first Gay Games are held in San Francisco, with 1,300 participants from 12 countries.

+  The Gay Press Association is organized.

**  January 22 - Lesbian & Gay Rights Chapter of the local American Civil Liberties Union forms. Co-founders include Buren Batson, Jean Levine, Maria Helena Dolan, and Dave Hayward. The city police commissioner, Lee Brown, asks the chapter to have regular meetings with the city government.

**  March 13 - Over 300 gays and lesbians picket an Atlanta appearance of Christian fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell, who was speaking here on behalf of anti-gay federal legislation proposed by Georgia Congressman Larry McDonald.

**  March 27 - Gary Piccola and others form an organization for Atlanta's Jewish gays and lesbians.

**  April - ALFA hosts its first annual Azalea Dance.

**  May 23-26 - American Booksellers Association holds its national convention in Atlanta; votes not to return until Georgia and Atlanta repeal their censorship laws and ordinances.

+  June 15 - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control first mentions the Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) syndrome.

**  June 20-27 - Lesbian/Gay/Transperson Pride Week celebrated locally by 3,000 to 4,000 participants. This year’s theme: “OUT: Openly United Together.”  Pride events (beginning on the 14th) besides the annual march and rally include a music concert, radio show, art show, film showings (organized by Charlie St. John) at Image Film & Video and The Silver Screen, a history seminar, open houses at the Gay Center and ALFA, a street dance (on 7th Street between Piedmont and Juniper), and a voter registration drive. The Gay Atlanta Minority Association (GAMA) calls for a boycott of the festival, citing racism.

**  June 22-23 - Auditions are held for The Pride Players, a local gay theatre/cabaret company directed by Oscar Blake.

**  July 29 - Atlanta gays and lesbians join others to protest President Ronald Reagan's cutbacks on social programs, his attitude toward the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, abortion, gay rights, military policies, etc.

**  August 29 - Auditions are held to form the Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus.

**  August - The Lambda Bowling League begins its first season.

**  September 22 -  Representatives of the Atlanta Gay Center, the First Tuesday Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian and Gay Rights Chapter meet with Public Safety Commissioner Lee Brown and others to discuss police harassment of Atlanta gay citizens.  Brown asks the "GayCLU" to appoint a committee to meet regularly with the police department to discuss complaints.

**  November - Southern Feminist Library and Archives, organized by Elizabeth Knowlton, incorporates.

**  Michael Hardwick, an Atlanta gay man, is arrested in his bedroom for sodomy; the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel fires him from his job.

**  Six of the seven Atlanta mayoral candidates attend a forum sponsored by the gay/lesbian political group First Tuesday.

**  Local media speculate that the serial killer of local teenagers is a gay man. Activist Frank Scheuren, by this time national president of the gay Catholics group Dignity, appears frequently on radio and television to rebut generalizations about the "gay community."  Scheuren's outspokenness and the content of some of his remarks infuriate other gay people in the city.

**  Georgia Dept. of Human Resources begins tracking AIDS cases in the state. Three are reported this year. 

 

1982

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the eighth time into the U.S. Congress.

+  Wisconsin state legislature is the first to outlaw discrimination against gays and lesbians.

+  Gay Men’s Health Crisis is established in New York City.

+  Torch Song Trilogy opens on Broadway.

+  For the first time, a federal judge rules a U.S. State’s (Texas’) sodomy statute is unconstitutional.

**  January 26 - The board of the National Association of People With AIDS meets in Atlanta.

**  January – A women's radio group forms, instigated by ALFA women working at local radio station WRFG.

**  February 17 - A Fulton County Municipal Court judge upholds the right of a deceased local gay man, PWA David O'Shield, to will part of his estate to his gay friend Gary Kaupman, a right contested by O'Shield’s family.

**  March 1 - Founding of the Galano Club, an LGBT clubhouse which rents space to AA/Al-Anon meetings.

**  March - Lesbian Family Support Group forms in Atlanta.

**  June - The Atlanta City Council proclaims Lesbian/Gay/Transperson Pride Day without Mayor Andrew Young's signature, who says approving of private sexual practices is inappropriate. Atlanta's annual Gay Pride Parade, with the theme “Stonewall Then/Atlanta Now,” draws 4,000 marchers, whose destination this year is the State Capitol.

**  August – ALFA celebrates its 10th anniversary.

**  Charlie St. John coordinates the second annual local Lesbian/Gay/Transperson Film Festival.

**  Late in the year a group of concerned gay men hold a public discussion of a new disease eventually called AIDS.

**  AID Atlanta, an educational, advocacy, and  social service agency for people with AIDS, is formed by members of the Atlanta Business and Professional Guild. 

**  Having been formed in 1980, the Atlanta Business & Professional Guild provides financial assistance to the Atlanta Gay Center, establishes a credit union, and creates a legal defense fund. By 1982, the Guild grows from a handful of members to nearly 300 and has over 10,000 people on its mailing list.

**  Michael Hardwick and a partner are arrested n Hardwick’s Atlanta home and charged with sodomy. Although the local district attorney decides not to pursue the case, Hardwick and his attorney challenged the constitutionality of the Georgia sodomy statute.

**  A group of lesbians begins a networking group called Fourth Tuesday, meeting regularly at local restaurants.

 

1983

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the ninth time into the U.S. Congress.

+  Congressman Gary Studds becomes the first openly gay man to be elected to federal office.

+  Key West, Florida elects an openly gay mayor.

+  Coretta Scott King announces her support of civil rights for lesbians and gay men.

**  April - A Federal District Court judge, without holding a hearing, dismisses Michael Hardwick's claim that the Georgia sodomy statute is unconstitutional; Hardwick appeals the dismissal to U.S. Court of Appeals.

**  April 28 - May 1 - Virginia Apuzzo, head of the National Gay Task Force, and author Rita Mae Brown address the Southeast Conference for Lesbians and Gays, held again this year in Atlanta.

**  June 6 - Atlanta City Council approves a resolution designating June 25th as Gay/Lesbian Civil Rights Day in Atlanta.

**  June 25 - 2,000 march from the Civic Center to Peachtree and 10th Street. For the first time a "Stop AIDS" banner is carried in the march, whose theme this year is “Out Front/Out Loud/Outstanding.” This is also the year of Atlanta’s first “Dyke March,” an ALFA-sponsored candlelight march from the Candler Park neighborhood to Little Five Points.

**  October - Atlanta's first candlelight AIDS vigil is held, in Piedmont Park.

**  November – The city council passes three anti-discrimination ordinances based on organizing work done by Black and White Men Together, First Tuesday, and ALFA.

**  A network of gay-operated Atlanta businesses, the Atlanta Business and Professional Guild, holds its first annual Business Fair.

**  The Gazette newspaper discontinues publication.

**  Graham Bruton, David Harris, Dr. John Kopchak, Caitlin Ryan and others begin developing AIDAtlanta, a social service organization for people with AIDS.

**  Christopher's Kind owner Gene Loring sues Southern Bell for refusing to use the words gay or lesbian in its advertise the store in the local Yellow Pages of the telephone book.  The Georgia Bureau of Investigation prosecutes store employee Charlie St. John for selling "obscene" materials.

**  The Atlanta Campaign for Human Rights (later the Georgia Equality Project) is formed.

**  Fulton County’s health department funds a proposal written by Maury Weil to establish a gay STD clinic in Atlanta.

**  At the local gay nightclub Illusions at Peachtree and 10th Streets, local drag celebrities Mickey Day, Charlie Brown, and Dina Jacobs emcee a Pride Day fundraiser. .

**  A production of Terrence McNally’s Lips Together, Teeth Apart at Marietta’s Theatre in the Square (founded the previous year by gay couple Michael Horne and Palmer Wells) touches off a public debate that leads the Cobb County Commission to stop funding arts programs in Cobb County and, later, to a resolution condemning lesbians and gay men.

 

1984

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the tenth time into the U.S. Congress.

+  Gay diver Greg Louganis wins four gold medals at the Olympic Games.

+  Berkeley, California becomes the first U.S. city to legalize domestic partnerships.

+  The National Organization for Women sponsors its first conference on legal rights for lesbians.

+  The Unitarian Church becomes the first U.S. religious denomination to recognize gay and lesbian unions.

**  January – First meeting, at the ALFA House, of Fat Dykes.

**  March – Older Lesbian Energy (OLE) begins meeting at the Little Five Point Community Center.

**  April – The first Southeast Lesbian/Gay Health Conference meets in Atlanta.

**  June 21 - Another local gay entertainment publication, Pulse, is launched.

**  July 3 - The annual Lesbian/Gay Pride Parade and Rally is held, this time with ex-Mormon feminist and third-party Presidential candidate Sonia Johnson addressing the crowd of about 1,500.  This year’s slogan: “Once More, with Feeling.” Mayor Andrew Young proclaims “Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights Day” in Atlanta. The Dyke March becomes part of the official local Pride celebrations. 

**  September – Older Lesbian Energy (OLE) renames itself Women of Wisdom (WOW).

**  September - Rebecca Ranson's play Warren, about her friend with AIDS – one of the first if not the first AIDS plays produced in the United States – opens in Atlanta at the Atlanta’s 7 Stages Theatre, eventually playing in several other cities.

+  September – International March for Lesbian & Gay Rights held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

**  December - Atlanta Gay Center publishes its first newsletter, The News.

**  The Atlanta chapter of Gay Fathers Coalition International (later the Gay Parents Coalition International) is established.

**  A court upholds Southern Bell's refusal to list Atlanta's gay bookstore in the local telephone directory.

**  Ken South is appointed Executive Director of AID Atlanta; under his leadership, this organization becomes nationally recognized.

 

1985 

+  U.S. Supreme Court invalidates as unconstitutional an Oklahoma law preventing teachers from discussing gay rights in classrooms.

+  Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) founded in New York City.

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the eleventh time into the U.S. Congress.

+  The Normal Heart, an AIDS-themed play by Larry Kramer, opens on Broadway.

**  January – Due largely to the efforts of activist Alexander Wallace, approximately twenty local gay and lesbian advocacy groups  join forces to establish a coordinating committee, the Metro Council of Lesbian and Gay Organizations (MACGLO), which begins meeting at AIDAtlanta’s office on Cypress Street.

**  January - Atlanta Gay Center vandalized for the sixth time in two years.

**  January - Atlanta Campaign for Human Rights, a local political action committee, forms.

**  February - Atlanta Couples Together, an organization for gay and lesbian couples, is established.

**  February - Charis Books and More, a feminist bookstore in Little Five Points, begins its weekly series of women-only readings.

**  March - The Times of Harvey Milk wins Academy Award for Best Documentary Film of 1984. It plays to record crowds for 4 weeks at Atlanta's Ellis Theatre.

**  April - Atlanta Gay Center moves to 12th Street in Midtown.

**  May - A synagogue for local gays and lesbians, Bet Haverim, forms.

**  May 21 - U.S. Court of Appeals rules in the Michael Hardwick case that Georgia's sodomy statute infringes on the privacy rights of U.S. citizens and is therefore unconstitutional.  Georgia's Attorney General Michael Bowers appeals the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

**  June 15 - Three gay men, Pat Coleman, Jaye Evans, and Jim Heverly, launch the first issue of Etcetera Magazine. Before its 10th anniversary, it becomes the Southeast’s largest lesbian and gay publication.

**  June - Mayor Andrew Young signs proclamation for Gay Pride Week in Atlanta.

**  June - Atlanta's first annual community-wide memorial service for people who have died from AIDS-related diseases is held as part of the local Gay Pride celebration.

**  July 4 - Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus marches for the first time in WSB TV's annual Independence Day parade, one of the largest in the U.S.

**  Summer - The Cove, one of Atlanta's oldest continuously operated bars for gay men, celebrates its 13th anniversary.

**  Fall - AID Atlanta celebrates its 3rd anniversary.

**  October - Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG) holds its 4th annual national conference in Atlanta.

**  October 15 - Atlanta gays form Friends Atlanta, an organization providing social, cultural, and recreational opportunities for its members.

**  November - Atlanta Sexual Minority Youth Advocates forms its board of directors.

**  November – Charis Books and More celebrates its 10th anniversary.

**  Southeastern Arts and Media Education (SAME) is chartered to consolidate the administration of and fundraising for several projects, including Amethyst (a literary journal), the Atlanta Gay * Lesbian Arts Festival, Network Q, Out on Film (a film festival), and the Triangle Theatre Group.

**  The first International Conference on AIDS is held in Atlanta.

**  Georgia’s first lesbian and gay political action committee, the Greater Atlanta Political Awareness Coalition (GAPAC), is founded. It survives today as Georgia Equality, a statewide organization. 

 

1986

+  June 30 - With a 5-4 vote, U.S. Supreme Court justices announce their decision in Bowers vs. Hardwick that Georgia's sodomy law, when it is enforced against gay people, is constitutional. Hardwick petitions the Court to reconsider the case. The decision sparks a movement to repeal the sodomy laws still in force in 25 states and also spurs momentum for the call for a National March on Washington, D.C. (The Hardwick decision is overturned 17 years later, in 2003, in Lawrence v. Kansas.)

+  National Gay Task Force changes its name to National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

+  In California, and for the first time in the United States, an openly lesbian couple is granted the right to legally adopt a child.

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the twelfth time into the U.S. Congress.

**  February 9 - Gays and lesbians and their supporters encircle the First Baptist Church in downtown Atlanta, protesting minister Charles Stanley's sermonizing that AIDS is God's judgment against sinners.

**  March 3 - The Atlanta City Council overwhelmingly passes an amendment to the city charter to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, age, or handicap. Among the proposal’s advocates is Councilman (soon to be Congressman) John Lewis.

**  April 19 – Georgia outlaws gay bathhouses.

**  May 26 - A candlelight vigil draws to the Academy of Medicine in Midtown 300 people wanting to honor and remember people with AIDS.

**  June 21 - Pride Day is marked with a parade from the Civic Center to a rally at the State Capitol. The parade’s theme: “Forward Together.”

**  September 2 - Two Atlanta City Council members, Richard Guthman and Buddy Fowlkes, introduce a measure to repeal the recently enacted civil rights protection for gays and lesbians in Atlanta.  A local group called Citizens for Public Awareness buys a full-page ad in the local newspaper:  "Do you want Atlanta turned into another San Francisco?"

**  October 6 - At a city council hearing on the proposal to rescind the city's ordinance outlawing discrimination against gays, Citizens for Public Awareness leader James Zauderer is confronted by his gay brother Doug Zauderer. The emotional and crowded hearing results in the council's eventual reaffirmation of the ordinance with a 12-4 vote.  Gay and lesbian activists celebrate on the City Hall steps.

**  October - Citizens for Public Awareness, a local Atlanta group led by Nancy Schafer, begins circulating a petition asking for a referendum on whether or not Atlanta's human rights ordinance should be repealed.  (The petition campaign fails when not enough signatures are obtained to place the issue on the ballot.)

** Atlanta City Council votes to forbid discrimination against gays – the second major city (after Austin, Texas) to do so, and among  the first 20 U.S. cities to do so. In November, the council rejects a move to repeal these protections.

** The Southeastern Media and Arts Exchange (SAME) sponsors a performance of actor Michael Kearns' autobiographical play about his "happy hustler" past entitled The Truth is Bad Enough.

**  Georgia State University professor Roger Bakeman, along with others at Morehouse College, release a paper showing that AIDS is disproportionately prevalent among African-Americans.

**  The AIDS Survival Project forms in Atlanta.

**  Christopher’s Kind bookstore closes its doors.

**  The John Howell Park Project is begun to honor gay activist John Howell, who before his death due to AIDS-related causes was the widely-liked president of (among other things) the Virginia-Highland Neighborhood Association, president of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Chapter of the local ACLU, a board member of various gay organizations in the city, and a member of the city’s liquor license review board.

 

1987

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the thirteenth time into the U.S. Congress.

+  Congressman Barney Frank comes out of the closet.

+  In San Francisco, The Quilt is begun to honor AIDS victims, 20,000 of whom will have died by the end of the year 

**  January - A group of gay volleyball enthusiasts form the Hotlanta Volleyball League.

**  February – Representatives from numerous national gay organizations meet in Atlanta during an AIDS conference convened by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control, planning to protest a proposed CDC regulation that would mandate HIV testing in health care facilities. At the organizations’ press conference, a New York City-based group called the Lavender Hill Mob disrupts it, accusing the organizations of being out of touch with the predicament of HIV-infected individuals.

+  March 10 - ACT UP is founded in New York City to protest government indifference to the AIDS pandemic.

**  Spring - Threatened with a gay boycott, Atlanta-based Delta Airlines apologizes for discriminating against people with AIDS.

**  June - Atlanta hosts the annual conference of Gay and Lesbian Parents Coalition International (later renamed the Family Pride Coalition).

**  June - With only last-minute planning for a local Pride celebration, approximately 500 people show up for a rally on the steps of the State Capitol.

+  July - After years of refusing to do so, the New York Times finally begins permitting its writers to use the word gay in their stories (although only as an adjective).

**  July 16 - Local gay journalist Ralph Ginn succumbs to AIDS-related complications.

**  August - Local playwright Jim Grimsley's  play Mr. Universe premieres at Atlanta's 7 Stages Theatre.

+  October 11 - Coinciding with a display of The Quilt, a national memorial for AIDS victims, approximately 600,000 lesbians and gay men converge on Washington DC to demand full civil rights. Even though this second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights has the largest number of participants (over half a million) of any march on the capital in U.S. history, and though 640 people (including local activists Ray Kluka and Maria Helena Dolan) are arrested in civil disobedi-ence actions at the U.S. Supreme Court protesting its Hardwick decision, neither Time nor Newsweek covers the march.

**  AID Atlanta abruptly fires Executive Director Ken South, who had made plans previously to resign from the post. Within days eight staff members resign in a flurry of media publicity. Activist Buren Batson is named the new director, provoking further controversy within the agency and from critics of the organization.

**  Atlanta lesbian and librarian Elizabeth Knowlton publishes the first known directory of GLBTQ archives.

**  Fourth Tuesday sponsors the first Atlanta Gay Expo.

**  Local activist Cathy Woolard serves as coordinator for the Atlanta March Committee for the 1987 March on Washington.

 

1988 

+  The first National Coming Out Day is announced.

+  The National Black Gay and Lesbian conference is convened.

+  Sweden becomes the first country to enact legal protections for its gay citizens.

+  Gay Rights Bill introduced for the fourteenth time into the U.S. Congress.

**  March 1 - The local gay newspaper Southern Voice, originally a project of Southeast Arts and Media Education (SAME), is launched as a 16-page newspaper published every other week, founded by Christina Cash; her partner Leigh VanderEls, later joins as publisher.

**  March - Local writers' Dan Pruitt's and Patrick Hutchinson's gay musical revue Different opens at Atlanta's 7 Stages Theatre. Very popular, it returns the following summer.

**  April - Atlanta hosts, for the third time, the annual Southeastern Conference of Lesbians and Gay Men, co-chaired by Alan Perreault and Laney Richardson.

**  April - Local gay playwright Jim Grimsley's Math and Aftermath debuts at Atlanta's 7 Stages Theatre.

**  May 6-7 - A 26-hour AIDS vigil is kept outside the State Capitol, ending nine days of lobbying around the country for government legislation to fund AIDS treatment and research.

**  May 28-30 - The Quilt, a national memorial to AIDS victims, is displayed in Atlanta at the World Congress Center. Thousands of people from the southeastern U.S. come to see it. Local lesbian activist and playwright Rebecca Ranson's play Higher Ground, based on interviews with over 40 people with AIDS, premieres at the Congress Center.

**  June 26 – The annual Pride Parade is the culmination of this year’s Pride Week whose “Celebration of Life” includes the first Pride prom. Between 1,500 and 3,000 attend the rally.

**  June 28 - Longtime gay and neighborhood activist John Howell dies of an AIDS-related illness.

**  July 18-21 - The Democratic Party National Committee holds its presidential convention in Atlanta.  The 98 openly gay and lesbian delegates or alternates (a 30% increase over the 1984 Convention and a group that includes local activists Melinda Daniels and Dick Rhodes) meet daily. Keith Gann, a person with AIDS, addresses the convention on July 19th, criticizing President Reagan for not saying the word AIDS publicly for six years while thousands died.

**  August 1 – An Atlanta chapter of the national Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT/UP) forms during the Convention to push for increased attention and funds for AIDS sufferers. Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis fails to mention gays or lesbians in his acceptance speech.

**  August 23 - Maury Weil, chair of the Georgia AIDS Legislative Coalition, reads his paper “Atlanta’s Gay Community After Hardwick: One man’s View…” at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, held this year in Atlanta. 

**  August 27 and September 3 – In protests organized against Circle K’s policy of not paying health insurance claims that are the result of “personal lifestyle decisions” (aka AIDS), ACT UP/Atlanta mobilizes dozens of cars to pull up to Circle K gas pumps, purchasing a quarter’s worth of gas, and paying with a $20 bill. Circle K reverses its discriminatory practice.

**  September 29 – A protest organized by ACT UP/Atlanta stages a funeral procession down West Paces Ferry Road to the governor’s mansion for a “die-in.” Soon the state government establishes a fund to distribute AZT to indigent or uninsured AIDS patients.

**  October 11 - During another showing in Washington, D.C. of the Names Project AIDS Quilt, ACT/UP joins in the "die-in" demo at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration headquarters near Washington, D.C., closing down the agency for a day.  Local activist Ray Kluka is one of the demo's planner-participants.

**  December 3 – ACT UP/Atlanta sponsors the first of many teach-ins to educated local Persons With AIDS on their rights and on the latest treatment options (traditional and otherwise).

**  In the latter part of the year, the Atlanta chapter of ACT/UP demonstrates at Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza to protest those shopping centers' bookstores that censor an issue of SPIN Magazine that includes a free condom.

**  The AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta forms.

**  The first Atlanta Human Rights Campaign Dinner is held. Its theme: “Dare to Dream, Dare to Be.”

**  Fourth Tuesday organizes Atlanta’s first Gay & Lesbian Business Expo.

**  Richard Rhodes is the first openly gay man to run for office in Georgia. He also is the first openly gay delegate from Georgia to the Democratic National Convention held this year.

 

1989 

+  Denmark legalizes same-sex marriages.

+  Two U.S. Dept. of Defense studies conclude there is no reason to ban lesbians and gay citizens from military service.

+  Gay Rights Bill (this year H.R. 709) introduced for the fifteenth time into the U.S. Congress this year by Georgia Congressman John Lewis.

**  January 16 - A group of about 80 people (most of them white) from various local gay organizations march together in Atlanta's annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade.

**  January 26 - The board for the National Association of People with AIDS meets in Atlanta.

**  January 28 - First regional planning meeting for a proposed national Lesbian Agenda Conference.

**  February 17 - A Fulton County Probate Court jury upholds the will of a gay man who had died of AIDS the previous May.  The will had been contested by the man's family when they discovered that the gay man, David O’Shields, had willed the bulk of his estate to another gay man, Gary Kaupman.

+  February – The American Bar Association votes to urge federal, state, and local governments to enact legislation prohibiting discrimination against lesbians and gay men in employment, housing, and public accommodation.

**  February - The Georgia Insurance Commission releases a regulation prohibiting insurance companies from asking potential customers about their sexual orientations, living arrangements, or occupations.

**  March 1 – After ACT UP/Atlanta stages a protest against Georgia General Assembly speaker Tom Murphy’s disparaging remarks about lesbians, gay men, and Persons With AIDS, Murphy invites ACT UP activists to his office to discuss their grievances. The activists also try to enlist Murphy’s support for repealing Georgia’s anti-sodomy law. (A bill calling for the law’s repeal later reaches the House, where it fails.)

**  March 6 - In Raleigh, NC, at the first national planning meeting for a nationwide Lesbian Agenda Conference in 1991, Atlanta is chosen as the conference site.

**  April - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution refuses to list a local activist's lover's specific request to be listed as a survivor in the activist's obituary.

**  April 18 - Gary Piccola, one of Atlanta's first openly gay psychologists and a founder of the local gay synagogue, dies from an AIDS-related illness.

**  April 18 - Georgia Governor Harris signs into law a bill (drafted by local gay activist Chris Hagin in response to attempts to repeal Atlanta's human rights ordinance) making it more difficult for citizens to hold referendums.  In June, Atlanta City Council member Mary Davis sponsors an ordinance placing this state law regarding referendums into the City Code.

**  April 21 – ACT UP/Atlanta joins ACT UP/New York and South Carolina activists to protest a South Carolina legislative bill that would allow Persons with AIDS to be quarantined. The proposal is dropped.

**  May 9 - Atlanta Gay Center members picket a rally of the Citizens for Public Awareness, an organization formed in 1986. CPA was announcing its plans to raise $160,000 to sponsor a ballot initiative to remove Atlanta’s gay rights ordinance.

**  May 20 – Atlanta’s Virginia-Highland Park is renamed for an openly gay local citizen and political activist John Howell. This is the first dedication of public property in the city to an openly gay person.

**  May – Lesbian activist Pat Martin, who had recently moved to Atlanta from Minneapolis and who was best-known locally for her work with ALFA and Fat Dykes, dies at age 43 from complications from an intestinal disorder.

**  June 10 – Etcetera Magazine editor and neighborhood activist Ray Kluka dies from an AIDS-related infection.

**  June 16 – Protesters organized by ACT UP/Atlanta demonstrate in the town square of Marietta, Georgia, objecting to the conviction of an HIV+ man on charges of attempted murder after he bites a police officer during the man’s arrest.

**  June 19-23 - The Atlanta-Fulton Public Library sponsors an exhibit at its Central Library entitled  “Lesbian/Gay History in Atlanta,” created by librarian Cal Gough.

**  June 24 - Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson makes an appearance at this year’s Gay Pride celebration. This year’s theme: “Stonewall: Reasons to Remember.”

**  July 13-19 – Members of ACT UP/Atlanta participate in demonstrations at the Sixth International Conference on AIDS.

**  July 24 - Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young signs a city ordinance passed July 17 requiring police to count crimes motivated by prejudice, including hatred of gay people. Atlanta City Council member Barbara Asher and five at-large members co-sponsored the ordinance for the city, one of six nationwide mandating the tracking of this type of crime.

**  August 4-6 - 11th Annual Hotlanta River Expo activities draw more than 5,000 party-goers and river rafters from over 40 cities to Atlanta.

**  August 12-13 - Over 20 gay volleyball teams from around the country meet in Atlanta for the Hotlanta Volleyball Classic III.

**  August 22-26 - Some 60 gay softball teams from cities throughout the United States converge on Atlanta to play their 13th annual week-long tournament.

**  August - Panels from the AIDS Quilt are again shown in Atlanta, at the Georgia World Congress Center.

**  September 17 - Heartstrings: The National Tour, a series of 35 concerts across the nation to raise money for AIDS treatment and education, premieres at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre.

**  September - Simon Nkoli, a gay South African anti-apartheid activist, visits Atlanta; the city government names a day in his honor.

**  September – SAME’s Two-Stepping with the Girls by Rebecca Ranson opens at 7 Stages Theatre.

**  October – SAME and Image Film & Video produce the second Atlanta Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

**  November 4 - Charis Books and More, Atlanta’s feminist book store, celebrates its 15th anniversary.

**  November 10-12 – Atlanta’s Image Film and Video Center and the Southeastern Arts and Media Exchange co-sponsor a week-long series of motion pictures with gay or lesbian themes, the first such series in Atlanta in six years.

+  November - After a 17-year legislative controversy over the issue, Massachusetts becomes the second State to grant equal rights to lesbian and gay citizens.

**  November - Georgia native Keith St. John becomes the first openly gay Black politician elected to office when voters in Albany, New York choose him to represent them on their city council.

**  November - The Synagogue Council of Atlanta votes to reject local gay and lesbian Congregation Bet Haverim’s application for Council membership.

**  December - By mid-month, 177 Atlanta gay and lesbian athletes had committed themselves to participating in 17 of the 29 sports events scheduled for Gay Games III in Vancouver the following summer, where 5,500 gay and lesbian athletes, 4,500 gay and lesbian artists, and 16,500 gay and lesbian spectators were expected to participate.

**  December 19 - DeKalb County Commissioner Sherry Sutton introduces an ordinance to punish people convicted of malicious harassment of any citizen, including a gay or lesbian citizen, due to prejudice.

**  A group of local artists and business professionals known as ARTCARE raise nearly $40,000 for battling the AIDS crisis by auctioneering work by local artists.

**  SisterLove, Inc. opens its doors in Atlanta to offer resources, especially to women, about safer sex techniques.

 

1990

+  The organization Queer Nation is founded.

+  The U.S. President signs federal legislation mandating the collection of statistics on Hate Crimes against gays and lesbians (among other minority groups).

**  January 8 - Over 300 gay and lesbian activists (many of them from ACT.UP’s New York chapter) converge on Georgia’s State Capitol on the opening day of the annual legislative session to call for the repeal of Georgia’s sodomy law. Sixty-three demonstrators are arrested.

**  January 9 – About 300 protestors stage a demonstration at the Atlanta headquarters of the federal Communicable Disease Center, calling for a re-definition of AIDS and ARC. Forty-nine demonstrators are arrested.

**  January 12 - February 10 – SAME’s exhibition at the Atlanta College of Art of multi-media works produced by Georgia artists and performers living with AIDS.

**  January 17 – The Lesbian & Gay Rights Chapter of the ACLU of Georgia holds its annual Martha Gaines Humanitarian Award reception. Honored this year is Judd Herndon. Lifetime Achievement Awards go to July Colbs, Linda Lowe, and Kurt Rahn.

**  January 19 – ACT UP/Atlanta orchestrates hundreds of phone calls to Galaxy Carpets in Chatsworth, Georgia, protesting a self-funded health insurance policy that caps reimbursement for AIDS-related treatment to $10,000. Within hours, the company drops the provision.

**  February 10-16 – Black Gay & Lesbian Leadership Forum sponsors its 3rd annual GGLL Conference & Health Institute at Atlanta’s Hyatt Regency Hotel – the first time this event takes place outside of Los Angeles. Atlanta’s African American Lesbian/Gay Alliance (AALGA) is the conference’s host organization.

**  June – “The Billboard Project” puts a “Gay Atlanta Loves You” message on the city’s largest billboard (off I-75/85 near Grady Hospital).

**  June - An estimated 5,000 people attend the annual Pride celebrations in Atlanta, which inaugurates an annual “Cabaret Night.” The local Front Runners sponsor the first annual Pride race.

**  June – The Atlanta Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (the local congregation of Quakers) affirms its intention to conduct commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples.

**  June – Georgia Privacy Coalition formed to repeal Georgia’s sodomy law.

**  July 16 – Hundreds of newspaper boxes are covered with bright pink signs with the word homophobic on them in protest of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s publishing of an anti-gay editorial cartoon. Similar posters soon appear condemning AJC columnist Dick Williams’ anti-gay editorials.

**  August – Atlanta Lesbian/Gay Police Advisory Board establishes a Hate Crime Documentation Hotline.

**  August 31 – ACT UP/Atlanta endorses the growing movement to boycott Miller beer and Marlboro cigarettes in protest of Phillip-Morris’ continued financial support of North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms’ political career.

**  September 13 – Members of ACT UP/Atlanta join with performance artist Tim Miller to disrupt a speech by National Endowment for the Arts Chair John Frohnmayer, who had tried to censor lesbian and gay-related art projects. Several weeks later, Frohnmayer resigns.

**  September 26 – At ACT UP/Atlanta’s insistence, the Georgia Department of Human Resources and the local office of the Federal Drug Administration agree to allow ACT UP’s participation in the newly-formed Georgia AIDS Therapy Information Network.

**  October 9 – A coalition forms to protest the scheduled appearance of Senator Jesse Helms at the annual convention of the anti-gay group Family Concerns. Over 150 people circle the First Baptist Church and Helms refuses to make an appearance.

**  December 3 – Hundreds of AIDS activists descend upon the federal Communicable Disease Center headquartered in Atlanta to protest the continued exclusion of women from the CDC’s definition of AIDS. 107 people are arrested, including the 52 people who take over the office of Deputy Director for AIDS Gary Noble. (Two years and dozens of protest later, the CDC revises its definition to include several of ACT UP’s demands.)

**  PALS (Pets Are Loving Support) is formed by two Atlanta businesswomen to provide pet care to people living with AIDS.

**  The National AIDS Education & Services for Minorities forms in Atlanta.

**  Over 700 people attending the 2nd annual ARTCARE auction contribute $70,000 toward battling the AIDS epidemic.

**  Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation  (GLAAD) opens its southern office in Atlanta.

**  Activist and writer Dallas Denny establishes the American Educational Gender Information Service (AEGIS) to make referrals and disseminate information about gender dysphoria.

**  A group of lesbian members of the African American Lesbian/Gay Alliance (AALGA) leaves to form ZAMI.

 

1991 

+  Connecticut and Hawaii enact legislation protecting gay and lesbian citizens in those states from discrimination.

+  For the first time, a major U.S. corporation (Lotus) extends workplace benefits to same-sex domestic partners.

**  January – MACLO disbands.

**  April 27 – National Lesbian Conference held in Atlanta.

**  May - ACT-UP/Atlanta conducts a series of protests criticizing Atlanta’s Grady Hospital, complaining about the long waiting periods for HIV-positive persons to see Grady doctors, and the delay in funding its Infectious Disease Clinic. Within weeks, 1.5 million is allocated for the expansion, and improved intake procedures reduce the waiting period for new patients from six months to two.

**  June 23 – Over 10,000 march in a 15-block-long Pride Parade, Atlanta’s 20th, with the theme “Be There, Be Aware, Be Counted,” and between 20,000 and 30,000 attend the rally in Piedmont Park, emceed by comedienne Lea Delaria. Other Pride festivities include 83 couples joining in a mass commitment ceremony; the annual AIDS Candlelight Vigil (moved this year to John Howell Park), attended by 500-600 participants; the 3rd annual Pride Prom (with 150 participants); a first-ever artists’ market; and the city’s first annual Gay Pride Run/Walk (with 225 runners). For the first time, both the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Creative Loafing feature cover stories about the local gay community.

**  June 23 - The results of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “Gay in Atlanta” poll makes the front page of (and three additional entire pages worth of copy in) the AJC’s Sunday edition. Quoted and/or appearing in accompanying photographs: Ron Greaves, David Greer, Jeff Corrigan, Jimmy Smith, David Salyer, Sam Coppock, Claudia Scarbrough, Joanne DeMark, Carolyn Upton, Jim Knoll, Kent Wilson, Nancy Wilkinson, Robert Johnson, Scott Auerbach, Jim Grimsley, Michael Phillips, Chester Old, Christina Cash, Jeff Graham, Heinz Brandt, Lane Fischer, Gene Bowers, Lyn Hall.

**  July 5-6 - The 7th Annual Armory Classic Softball Tournament hosts 33 teams of lesbian and gay softball players from 15 cities.

**  July 13 – ARTCARE’s 3rd annual auction for AIDS. Over 150 artists donate more than 200 works of art for the auction.

**  July 25 – Two people are arrested when they try to take over the office of Communicable Disease Center director William Roper to protest CDC’s guideline urging all health care workers to disclose their HIV status to patients.  (This guideline was produced after a Florida woman, Kimberly Bergalis, tested HIV+ after seeing her dentist.)

**  July 26 – Four people are arrested after a protest at CNN Headline News to highlight the panic surrounding the Kimberly Bergalis story. ACT UP/Atlanta claims that the media is biased in its reporting, and that her claim of how she was infected with the HIV virus was never proven.

**  September 10 – ACT UP/Atlanta joins with GLAAD to protest advertisements by Metro Dentist that claim their staff is tested for HIV to protect their clients. Within days, the ads are withdrawn.

**  November 9 – Protests are staged at local Winn-Dixie grocery stores following the company’s firing of an HIV+ worker. The employee successfully sues for damages, and the grocery chain releases a statement supporting the employment rights of Persons With AIDs.

**  November 28 – December 1 – To commemorate World AIDS Day, ACT UP/Atlanta conducts a series of actions: displaying a half-dozen banners on local highway overpasses, releasing balloon-supported banners at local shopping centers, projecting the words STOP AIDS on the side of the Rich’s department store during the annual lighting of its Christmas Tree, and distributing condoms and educational materials and unfurling a banner at a Falcons football game.

**  The first AIDS Walk in Atlanta is held in Piedmont Park.

**  Queer Nation’s Atlanta chapter organizes a nationwide boycott of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain after it fires lesbian cook Cheryl Summerville from a suburban-Atlanta Cracker Barrel. In June, several protestors are arrested at one of the protests.

**  Despite attempts by local police to prevent it from happening, Augusta, Georgia holds its first Pride March, the first in the state outside of Atlanta.

**  The first Southern Comfort Conference (a gathering of transgender people) is founded in Atlanta.

**  In the Fall of 1991, Emory University establishes what will become known as its Office of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Student Life, staffed by two graduate students, Donna Smith and Michael Wyatt.

**  Local activists Maria Helena Dolan, Cal Gough, John Howard, Gil Robison, Liz Throop, and David Whittier establish The Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History Thing to collect archival materials from the community and deposit them at the Atlanta Historical Society.

 

1992 

+  Colorado passes anti-gay Amendment 2 to its constitution.

+  New Jersey and Vermont enact legislation protecting those states’ gay and lesbian citizens from discrimination. California legislators ban discrimination against gay people in employment and public accommodation (though not in housing).

+  The Lesbian Avengers is founded in New York City.

**  March 10 – A federal district judge lets stand a lawsuit brought against Georgia Attorney General Michael Bowers by Robin Shahar, a lesbian lawyer whose job offer was rescinded after she acknowledged that she was planning to marry another woman.

**  May – A planning group is formed to establish an Atlanta Lambda Community Center.

**  Spring – Members of ACT UP/Atlanta distribute condoms and AIDS prevention materials outside of local high school proms.

**  June 28 – An estimated 60,000 attend Atlanta’s annual Pride celebration whose theme this year is “Take Pride: Celebrate Your Individuality.”

**  August 1 – A 24-hour vigil is planned to call attention to the fact that Grady Hospital has yet to begin renovations to and expansion of the facility on Ponce de Leon Avenue for treating infectious diseases. The demonstration is called off after 12 hours, when Grady administrators pledge their support for the planned clinic.

**  September 11-November 29 - Actor’s Express reprises The Harvey Milk Show, a musical written by Dan Pruitt and Patrick Hutchison. This production stars Chris Coleman as Harvey.

**  Fall – A series of demonstrations take place focusing on the planned expansion of the Grady Infectious Disease Clinic. The demonstrations initially target the Fulton County and Dekalb County commissions, which both initially block the proposal; later demonstrations protest area businesses who file a lawsuit to prevent the clinic’s opening on Ponce de Leon. Soon, officials from both counties pledge their support for the clinic, and the lawsuit is dropped. (The clinic opens a year later, as scheduled and under budget.)

**  October – Atlanta Lesbian AIDS Program forms.

**  October 22 – A protest orchestrated by ACT UP/Atlanta criticizes the state’s Department of Human Resources for their lack of effective AIDS education materials and for its plan for requiring the reporting of all persons testing HIV+. The Department invites ACT UP to help create future educational materials, and eventually the proposed reporting regulation is dropped.

+  Positive Impact, Inc. is formed to provide mental health services for people living with or affected by HIV.

**  Fourth Tuesday sponsors another Gay Business Expo.

**  Two Emory University freshmen, Michael Norris and Alfred Hildebrand, are jeered by other students after they were seen kissing in a dorm common area. Students upset by the university’s handling of the incident stage a march through campus and a sit-in in the university president’s office. Their activism provokes the formation of a committee to examine and improve the conditions of LGBT life on campus. The commission recommends the hiring of a full-time director for Emory’s Office of LGBT Life (established in 1991) and that Emory begin offering work-related benefits to the domestic partner of Emory employees.

 

1993 

+  The Third National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights attracts one million protestors. Atlanta activist Pat Hussain is the March’s National Outreach Coordinator.

+  The movie Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks as a person with AIDS, appears in U.S. movie theatres

+  The first Dyke March in Washington, D.C.

**  January – Saralyn Chesnut is hired as the first full-time director of Emory University’s Office of LBGT Life.

**  February 9 – ACT UP/Atlanta’s protest at the office of drug manufacturer Hoffman-LarRoche eventually results in the establishment of critical drug trials in the Atlanta area.

**  April - Olympics Out of Cobb co-chairs Pat Hussain and Jon Ivan Weaver release Spiked: Olympics Out of Cobb, a book describing their struggles with the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.

+  June – The Lesbian Herstory Archives reopens at its permanent location in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.

**  June - The city establishes its domestic partner registry for city employees after the city council approves workplace benefits for the partners of city employees.

**  June – Fulton County government, as well as the City of Atlanta, issue a proclamation marking the Pride celebration. The Dyke March becomes an official Atlanta Pride event. Over 100,000 people attend the local Pride celebration (the theme: “It’s Time to Tell America”), but the event’s sponsorship lands the organizers with a large post-festival debt.

**  July – Protests are staged to object to Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson’s veto of legislation assuring partners of lesbian and gay city employees that they will receive the same benefits as their heterosexual counterparts. New legislation is drafted and signed by the mayor.

**  August 10 - Grady Hospital’s Infectious Disease Clinic opens its new site on Ponce de Leon Avenue. (During the opening ceremony in October, Fulton County Commission Chair Michael Lomax credits ACT UP/Atlanta with making this state-of-the-art facility a reality.)

**  Summer - Cobb County, located to the north of Atlanta, adopts an ordinance declaring homosexuality to be “incompatible” with Cobb’s “community standards.”

**  November 5 - Atlanta’s OutWrite Bookstore, established by Georgia Tech graduate Phillip Rafshoon, opens its doors for business.

**  December 1 – ACT UP sponsors a speak-out in the rotunda of the State Capitol to draw attention to the continued effects of the AIDS crisis on local citizens.

**  December 2 – After months of demonstrations and appeals by letter-writers, Emory University announces that it will seek approval as the site of the National AIDS Clinical Trial Group.

**  Olympics Out of Cobb is formed to protest Cobb County’s anti-gay ordinance, and to make sure that Cobb would not benefit from Olympic activity in Atlanta, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games having taken a public stand against anti-gay communities.

**  Lesbian activist Julia Strong is chosen to be one of the “faces of diversity” depicted in an Olympics-celebrating mural in downtown Atlanta.

** The Atlanta Executive Network, a group of gay businesses, forms.

** Georgia state senator Ronald Slotin unsuccessfully introduces a bill to repeal the state’s sodomy law. (In 1998, in Powell v. Georgia, the Georgia Supreme Court strikes down the law as unconstitutional, in a 6-1 decision.)

** Richard Rhodes becomes the first openly gay chair of the Dekalb County Democratic Party.

** A group of lesbians – among them Mandy Carter, Joan Garner, Pat Hussain, Pam McMichael, and Suzanne Pharr – establishes the organization Southerners on New Ground (SONG), committed to advocating for a progressive human rights movement across the American South.

 

1994

+  January - The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s airing of the miniseries “Tales of the City,” by Armistead Maupin, triggers Congressional hearings where some lawmakers try to de-fund the CPB. In Georgia, the legislature threatens to kill funding for a new state public tv production facility after the miniseries aired. 

**  February 1 - The Cobb Citizens Coalition unveils a billboard that reads “Stop the Hate – Rescind the Resolution.”

**  February 17 – A letter from ACT UP/Atlanta protesting Atlanta’s failure to provide approved funding for local AIDS organizations results in the mayor’s commitment to reduce bureaucratic red-tape and streamline the funding process.

**  February 27 - Olympics Out of Cobb Coalition stages its first demo, in Woodruff Park. The next day, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games announces it would not move the volleyball events scheduled in Cobb County, but would listen to OOCC’s demands.

**  March 14 - Queer Nation/Atlanta, a key mover in the Cracker Barrel controversy of 1991-92, votes to disband, citing “lack of interest in direct action.”

+  March 30 - The Swedish furniture company IKEA becomes the first corporation to depict a gay couple in a television advertisement.

**  April 10 - Lesbian Avengers/Atlanta sponsors a mock Olympic torch run from Olympic headquarters in Atlanta to Cobb County’s Marietta Square to protest the scheduling of an Olympic venue in a county that vilifies gay people.

**  April – Due to waning interest in membership and chronic financial problems, ALFA votes to disband. Its archives are sold to Duke University and proceeds from the sale of the ALFA house are distributed among investors and creditors.

+  April 27 - The U.S. Coast Guard (a division of the U.S. Dept. of Transportation) lifts its ban on gay service-members.

**  May 2 - Wayne County, Georgia officials pass a resolution identical to the one on the books in Cobb County, hoping it will prevent pro-gay lesson plans from being used in Wayne County school systems.

**  May 10 - More than 350 protestors rally in downtown Atlanta’s Woodruff Park during a visit from the International Olympic Committee’s president.

**  May 25 - Thirty-seven Cobb County ministers sign a proclamation calling for the county commissioners to repeal their anti-gay resolution.

**  Spring – ACT UP/Atlanta and AIDS Survival Project join forces to protest the confinement of an HIV+ man after he tested positive for multiple drug resistant tuberculosis. Several protesters are arrested.

**  June 10-12 - An estimated 150,000 attend the local Pride celebration, making it the fifth largest in the nation.

+  June 18-25   More than 11,000 athletes compete in Gay Games IV, which are conducted this year in New York City, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the city’s Stonewall Riots. For these two events, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno temporarily lifts the ban on people with HIV from other countries entering the United States.

**  June 20 - A group of Lesbian Avengers on their way to New York City’s Stonewall 25 celebration stage a protest of the Olympic Games’ plans to hold an Olympic event in Cobb County and of the Centers for Disease Control’s lack of research into lesbian health issues.

**  June 22 - Cobb County Commission Chair Bill Byrne’s daughter Shannon Byrne announces she is a lesbian in hopes of changing her father’s mind about the county’s anti-gay resolution. The resolution remains on the books.

+  June 23 - The Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1994 is introduced into the U.S. Congress after languishing in various committees for the past 18 years. Protections for gays and lesbians in housing are dropped from the bill.

**  June 27 - The Neighbors Network releases a report that links Cobb County anti-gay resolution author Gordon Wysong with a Christian extremist group that advocates the death penalty for gays and the abolition of the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment’s provision separating church and state.

**  June 28 - The Cobb County Commission reaffirms its anti-gay ordinance by declaring it was correct to condemn “the gay lifestyle.”

**  July 5 – Demonstrations orchestrated by ACT UP/Atlanta  outside the Atlanta City Council meeting result in the council’s approving funds allocated for a housing facility for HIV+ individuals.

**  July 17 – The Atlanta Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (the local congregation of Quakes) joins with other religious groups in asking the Cobb County Commission to rescind its resolution condemning lesbian and gay citizens.

+  July 29 - The U.S. Senate holds its first-ever hearings on a gay civil rights bill. Atlantan Cheryl Summerville tells the Senate about Cracker Barrel restaurants firing her and other lesbians and gay men because of their sexual orientation.

**  July 29 - The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games faxes its decision to move the upcoming Olympic volleyball venue out of Cobb County. The Olympics Out of Cobb Coalition is dissolved (even though its $3,000 indebtedness wouldn’t be paid off until November).

+  August 25 - The U.S. Congress passes (and President Clinton later signs) the first hate crimes legislation that covers lesbians and gay men.

**  August 28 - Cobb County rabbi Steven Lebow holds a rally attended by more than 1,000 people who demand that the county’s commissioners rescind the county’s anti-gay ordinance.

**  September 15 - Activists in Savannah persuade the Chatham County commissioners not to adopt a proposed  anti-gay ordinance similar to the one on the books in Cobb County.

**  October 14-22 - ACTUP/Atlanta sponsors an AIDS-themed art exhibit at the King Plow Arts Center to advocate for the passage of pending federal legislation that would fund more research for a cure for AIDS.

**  October - The U.S. Paralympics, a sporting event for disabled athletes, pulls its planned venues from Cobb County, depriving the county treasury of $72,000 in expected rental agreements.

**  October 26 - As part of his re-election bid, anti-gay resolution author and Cobb County commissioner Gordon Wysong pledges to repeal the resolution if Georgia’s Supreme Court finds the City of Atlanta’s domestic partnership ordinance unconstitutional.

**  November 4 – Southeastern Arts & Media (SAME) opens its 7th Annual Lesbian and Gay Film & Video Festival. Poor attendance leaves the festival in debt.

December 6 - A large crowd attends a meeting at the Stone Mountain, Georgia city hall to protest a pending anti-gay resolution similar to Cobb County’s. City councilmembers defeat the measure.

+  December 9 - President Clinton fires Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for describing masturbation as a healthy sexual outlet at a World AIDS Day conference on December 1st.

**  December 13 - Lief Eric Spivey, co-producer and host of gay-themed cable tv programs airing in Atlanta, dies at his home of AIDS-related complications. Spivey, 35, had also served as a delegate from Cobb County to the 1992 Democratic National Convention and had run for Atlanta City Council in 1993.

**  Queer Planet/Atlanta, a direct action group, forms. In December, members of the group pass out flyers at Atlanta’s Grady High School calling for realistic sex education; others picket a fundraiser for re-electing Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich.

**  A judge rules that the City of Atlanta’s domestic partnership ordinance violates the state constitution’s home rule clause.

**  Marietta police raid Players, a recently-opened gay bar in Cobb County, for hosting adult entertainment (a “Mr. Cobb” strip contest) without a permit; they arrest two contestants.

**  Queer plays presented by Atlanta-area theatres this season include Howard Crabtree’s Whoop-Dee-Doo (OnStage Atlanta); Unidentified Remains and the True Nature of Love (Actor’s Express);  The Faggots of the Coronado (OutProud); Southern Gothic (Acme); The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me and The Sum of Us (SAME); House of Balls and Eula Mae’s Beauty, Bait and Tackle (Neighborhood Playhouse); and the Pulitzer Prize-and Tony-winning Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (Alliance).

**  Fourth Tuesday and the Atlanta Executive Network form the Greater Atlanta Business Coalition (GABC), a nonprofit organization, to sponsor the 6th Annual Gay & Lesbian Business Expo, with the theme “The Buck Starts Here.”

 

1995 

+  President Clinton signs an executive order ending the denial of security clearances for federal employment based on sexual orientation.

+  Angels in America by Tony Kushner arrives on Broadway.

+  The Elton John AIDS Foundation is formed in Atlanta.

**  January – Atlanta’s YouthPride begins offering a place for GLBTQ teens to meet. It is the only local program designed to specifically meet the needs of this age group of GLBTQ citizens.

**  Summer – “From Silence to Celebration” is this year’s Pride theme; attendance is estimated at 120,000. (The Pride Committee had earlier hired Hubert Alexander as its first part-time Executive Administrator.)

**  Labor Day Weekend - Although a gathering of African-American lesbians and gay men in Piedmont Park had been a tradition for many years, 1995 marked the first official Black Gay Pride event.

**  October 11-15 - Southeastern Arts, Media & Education (SAME) sponsors the 8th annual gay/lesbian film festival.

**  Ruling in (City of Atlanta v. McKinney) that because the city defined domestic partners as “family” rather than

“dependents ,” the Georgia Supreme Court strikes down the city of Atlanta’s original (1993) domestic partnership legislation.

**  Emory University approves workplace benefits for the domestic partners of Emory employees.

**  The Georgia Equality Project, the state’s first statewide gay political organization, is organized.

**  African-Americans Duncan Teague, Tony Daniels, and Malik M.L. Williams form ADODI Muse, a gay performance collaborative. (After Daniels’ death, Anthony Antoine joins the group.)

**  In the Fall (“Black Gay Pride”) issue of Venus, a local magazine for lesbians and gay men of color, editor Charlene Cothan reports that a celebration of Black Gay Pride is being planned.

 

1996

+  The U.S. Congress passes the Defense of Marriage Act, and President Clinton signs it.

+  1.2 million people visit the AIDS Quilt, again displayed in Washington, D.C.

+  The U.S. Supreme Court declares Colorado’s anti-gay Amendment 2 unconstitutional.

+  South Africa becomes the first county to include protection for its gay and lesbian citizens in its constitution.

**  January – Georgia’s insurance commissioner, declaring same-sex partner benefits a threat to Georgia’s families, forbids insurance companies operating in Georgia to offer domestic partnership benefits to their customers.

**  February 12 – A group of approximately 20 gay and lesbian lobbyists recently trained by the Georgia Equality Project visit their hometown legislators at the Georgia Capitol.

**  February - When anti-gay Nancy Schaefer’s organization, Family Concerns, let its corporate license lapse, some Atlanta activists file to use the name to form a pro-gay group. State attorney general  Michael Bowers issues a ruling preventing the name takeover, and “Georgia Family Concerns” is formed instead.

**  February – The Georgia House of Representatives pass two bills outlawing marriages between same-sex couples and send the bills to the state Senate.

**  April 10 - Faced with a lawsuit and an unfriendly opinion issued by Georgia attorney general Michael Bowers, Georgia Tech’s student newspaper agrees to accept an ad from the Campus Crusade for Christ about “curing homosexuality.”

**  April – Georgia governor Zell Miller signs legislation outlawing same-sex marriages  in the state. (By the end of the year, the number of states with such statutes reaches 16.)

**  April - The Atlanta Lesbian Cancer Initiative is formed.

**  April – Protests against the anti-gay resolution approved in 1993 by suburban Cobb County results in the International Olympic Committee’s decision to re-locate its venue for the Olympic volleyball competition.

**  May – The Georgia Equality Project is launches as “the political voice for full equality for the gay communities” in Atlanta.

**  June 1 - Atlanta’s Outwrite Bookstore celebrates its grand opening at its new location at the corner of 10th Street and Piedmont Avenue.

**  June - The Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Visitor’s Center opens to serve gays and lesbians attending the 1996 Olympic Games. The Center, conceived by the Mayor’s Advisors for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans-gendered Community, is led by local entrepreneur Julie Rhoad. The Center operates an information center, showcases exhibits, and puts on concerts and shows.

**  June 28-30 - Some 200,000 people (some reports claim 300,000) attend this year’s local Pride celebration. The Indigo Girls perform, and Coretta Scott King is among the guest speakers. This year’s Pride theme: “People of the World: Listen, Think, Act!” Pride organizers hire their first full-time executive director, Donna Narducci.

**  July 12-16 - As an official part of the Olympic Arts Festival, Actor’s Express reprises its previous two runs of The Harvey Milk Show, a musical written by Dan Pruitt and Patrick Hutchison. (The show is held over for a subsequent run August 10-September 8.)

**  July 14 - The Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus and the Atlanta Feminist Women’s Chorus join more than 500 other choral group members for a performance in Woodruff Park in the middle of downtown Atlanta.

**  July 19 – On the eve of the opening ceremonies for the 1996 Olympic Games, Gerry Bright, one of the organizers of the John Howell AIDS Memorial Park in Atlanta’s Virginia-Highland neighborhood, and Harry Brown, longtime AIDS fundraiser, participate in the Olympic torch-bearing relay.

**  August – Lesbian activist and executive director of the Fund for Southern Community Joan Garner is appointed a trustee of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library.

**  September 5 – After its having been introduced on June 17 by Atlanta City Council member Mary Davis, Atlanta’s mayor Bill Campbell signs a re-worded ordinance extending employment benefits to domestic partners of city employees.

**  September – After earlier this year trying to prevent gay couples from sharing health insurance benefits, Georgia’s insurance commissioner John Oxendine bars car insurance companies from providing multi-car discounts to Georgia’s same-sex domestic partners.

**  October 19 – The Atlanta Lambda Center opens at 828 West Peachtree Street, in the same building that houses the AIDS Survival Project, Jerusalem House headquarters, and The Atlanta Pride Committee.

**  October – The Atlanta Gay Center celebrates its 20th anniversary.

**  November – The Metropolitan Atlanta Community Foundation’s Lesbian and Gay Funding Initiative for Youth co-sponsors (with IBN Corporation) an all-day forum to discuss growing up as a lesbian or gay man.

**  December – Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell signs an administrative order forbidding city contractors from discriminating against their employees on the basis of sexual orientation.

**  December 31 – A Fulton County judge strikes down the City of Atlanta’s most recent attempt to provide domestic partnership benefits to city employees.

**  ZAMI, a support group for African-American lesbians in metro-Atlanta, announces the awarding of its first three Audre Lorde Scholarships for out lesbians attending colleges in Georgia.

**  Georgia’s Supreme Court upholds the state’s sodomy law.

**  A small group of African-American lesbians and gay men establish a nonprofit organization, In the Life, to sponsor programs and social events for Black Pride celebrations held in Atlanta over Labor Day each year.

 

1997

+  New Hampshire and Maine pass gay rights laws. 

+  A federal appeals court strikes down an Alabama law barring gays from forming organizations on that state’s college campuses.

**  January 16 – A bomb rips through a Sandy Springs abortion clinic and a second bomb explodes later, injuring seven people.

**  February 21 – A nail-studded pipe bomb explodes at The Otherside Lounge, a local gay and lesbian nightclub, and injures five people. Investigators later charge Eric Rudolph with the bombing, along with others (including the January 16th bombing at an abortion clinic and the bomb that killed a visitor to the 1996 Olympic Games). Rudolph is eventually sentenced to five consecutive life terms in prison.

**  May 30 -  A federal appeals court rules 8-4 that Georgia attorney general Mike Bowers did not violate the constitutional rights of staffer Robin Shahar when he withdrew a job offer after learning she and her partner had been married in a religious ceremony. (Shahar loses her subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court in 1998.)

**  June 25-27 - Emory University hosts “Queering the South: A Gathering of LBGT Artists, Activists, and Academics.” Local speakers and performers include Saralyn Chesnut, Cindy Abel, Harry Knox, Pat Hussain, Pam McMichael, Jim Grimsley, Donna Smith, Debbie Fraker, Lynwoodt Jenkins, Jonathan Lerner, Dave Hayward, Berl Boykin, Steve Warren, Edward Gray, Morticia DeVille, Mark Parham, Jane Seville, Jon-Ivan Weaver, Jane Morrison, and the African-American performance group Adodi Muse (Tony Daniels, Duncan Teague, and Malik M.L. Williams).

**  June – The three-day-long Pride ’97 (this year’s theme: “Generations of Pride”) draws between 280,000 and 300,000 people, despite heightened security precautions taken because of the bombings earlier in the year.

**  October – The 7th annual AIDSWalk Atlanta raises almost $1.5 million for area AIDS service organizations. Some 15,000 people participate in the event.

**  November 14 - Methodist-affiliated Emory University announces it will allow same-sex couples to take marriage vows its chapels, but only if officiated by a leader of one of 24 recognized religious groups.

**  November 25 – Lesbian activist Cathy Woolard becomes Georgia’s first-ever openly gay public official when voters choose her for a seat on the Atlanta City Council.

**  December – The city council of Lithia Springs, a suburb of Atlanta, joins Atlanta and Tybee Island as the third city in Georgia to approve a personnel policy that forbids its employers from doing business with contractors who discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

**  Members of the Cobb Citizens Coalition, formed to oppose the county’s anti-gay resolution, declare the resolution “dead” when a new set of commissioners refuse to re-enact the resolution.

**  The Georgia Supreme Court rules (in City of Atlanta v. Morgan) that Atlanta can provide benefits to the domestic partners of its employees. (Those benefits are not effective, however, until 1999, when the Supreme Court rules against State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine’s ban on insurers offering such benefits.)

 

1998 

+  Maine rescinds the state’s gay non-discrimination statute.

+  Washington becomes the 27th U.S. state to ban same-sex marriages when the legislature overrules the governor’s veto of the legislation.

**  June - Over 300,000 attend the local Pride celebration.

+  October - Wyoming college student Matthew Shepherd, age 21, dies of wounds suffered during a hate crime.

**  November 23 – After having previously upheld the state’s anti-sodomy law by ruling that federal privacy rights do not protect gay people, Georgia’s Supreme Court (in a 6-1 decision, Powell v. State) strikes down as unconstitutional the state’s 156-year-old ban on consensual, private sodomy between (all) adults. Conservative legislators vow to push for a new anti-sodomy law in the next legislative session.

+  The Hotlanta Softball League hosts the Lesbian and Gay World Series.

**  YouthPride moves into its first space, in Atlanta’s Candler Park neighborhood.

 

1999

**  January 8   Activists protest in Atlanta the decision of the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust’s decision to delete from its guidelines for teachers the only two paragraphs that mention the Nazi persecution of gay men.

**  March 15 – Atlanta’s city government files suit against the state’s insurance commissioner, John Oxendine, for refusing to permit domestic partner benefits to employers who want to offer them. City council-member Cathy Woolard joins the suit as a plaintiff.

**  June - Some 250,000 brave the rain to participate in the local Pride celebration whose theme is “Prideful Past, Powerful Future.” Funds are raised to pay for the placing of 300 banners marking the celebration along several prominent streets in the city.

**  September 22 – A court orders state insurance commissioner John Oxendine to lift his statewide prohibition against insurance companies issuing policies covering domestic partners.

**  Georgia’s Supreme Court rules against Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine for blocking the Atlanta City Council’s providing insurance benefits to the domestic partners of city employees.

 

2000 

**  January - Pine Lake, a suburb of Atlanta, swears in Georgia’s first openly-gay mayor, Al Fowler.

**  January - Atlanta city council member Michael Bond introduces legislation to outlaw gender discrimination against city employees. The legislation wins unanimous passage on March 6.

**  February -The suburban-Atlanta Decatur City School Board enacts protections for employees against sexual orientation and gender discrimination. (In June the city of Decatur enacts similar protections for all city employees.)

**  March - Georgia legislators approve (and the governor signs in April) hate crimes legislation – but only after eliminating from the bill a phrase referring to sexual orientation.

**  June - A DeKalb County superior court judge rules against a lesbian who wanted joint custody and visiting rights after her ex-partner (and biological mother) of their child objected.

**  June - Atlanta-based Coca-Cola announces it would offer workplace benefits to employees’ domestic partners. The announcement came as the Georgia Equality Project launches a campaign to persuade nine other large Georgia companies (including BellSouth, Georgia-Pacific, Home Depot, and Wachovia) to do the same thing.

**  June - The B-52s perform for a crowed of approximately 300,000 participants in the local Pride celebration. Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell is one of the parade’s 30 grand marshals. Corporate sponsors include Coors, Pepsi, Jose Cuervo, Stoli, and Showtime, which together donate approximately $250,000 toward festival expenses. The festival includes a commitment ceremony, an AIDS vigil, a footrace, the annual parade, and entertainment in Piedmont Park.

**  July - Unopposed by a Republican Party opponent in the primary round of voting, Georgia’s Democratic Party voters select suburban-Atlanta Avondale resident Karla Drenner as Georgia’s first openly-gay representative to the State Legislature.

**  July 22 – Governor Roy Barnes becomes the first sitting Georgia governor to address an all-gay group when he speaks at a meeting of the Atlanta Executive Network.

**  August - The mayor of Columbus, Georgia holds the first-ever meeting with representatives of that city’s gay citizens. (The meeting comes shortly after the local chapter of parents Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays were denied an application for a booth at a city festival.)

**  August – YouthPride opens the doors of its new, expanded space, in Decatur.

**  September - Thousands of African-Americans from around the country converge on Atlanta for the city’s annual Black Gay Pride celebrations held every Labor Day weekend.

**  September - The owners of Atlanta Gas-Light Company announces it will begin offering benefits to domestic partners of its subsidiaries’ employees.

**  September - Savannah, Georgia holds its first Gay Pride festival, drawing up to 2,000 participants.

**  October - Atlanta-based Delta Airlines finally joins other major U.S. carriers who have long since begun offering workplace benefits to its employees.

**  October - Fulton County Commission Chair Mike Kenn, elected after promising to lead the fight for domestic partner benefits for county employees, reverses his opinion, claiming that he only agreed during the campaign to “examine” the issue, and ignoring the recommendations of a committee appointed to draft the legislation.

**  October - Under orders from its denomination’s ruling body, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church cancels a commitment ceremony for a gay male couple that the church’s congregation had approved. 

**  November - The National Lesbian & Gay Task Force holds in Atlanta its 13th annual “Creating Change” conference, drawing thousands of gay activists from around the county to the event.

**  December - Atlanta’s city council adopts (and Mayor Bill Campbell signs) a non-discrimination ordinance proposed by openly gay councilmember Cathy Woolard. 

**  December - Lesbian Jane Morrison, former director of the Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund’s Atlanta office, is appointed as the first judge in the state to join the bench after a career in gay rights.

**  Chris Kids establishes The Rainbow Home in the East Atlanta neighborhood to serve homeless LGBTQ youth.

 

2001

+  The AIDS Memorial Quilt moves its headquarters from San Francisco to Atlanta.

**  Atlanta voters elect lesbian Cathy Woolard as city council president.

**  Emory University hosts the biennial conference of the World Professional Organization of Transgender Health.

 

2002 

**  June - Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin speaks at the local Gay Pride celebration, attended by 300,000 people this year. This year’s theme: “The Power of Pride.” Protesting the parade this year are a dozen members of the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kansas.

**  October - Sgt. Connie Locke, a 15-year veteran of the Atlanta Police Department, becomes APD’s first liaison to the local gay community. (After Locke retires, she is replaced in December 2005 by Officer Darlene Harris.)

 

2003

**  February 25 – Gay activist and founding member of the Atlanta Gay Center Billy Smith dies at age 81.

+  June 26 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules as unconstitutional a Texas law outlawing “homosexual conduct,” thereby invalidating similar laws in other states.

**  June 27 - Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin marches in the annual Pride parade and speaks at the rally in Piedmont Park. This year’s Pride theme: “Freedom to Be.”

**  July – Fulton County government extends employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners. (The benefits become effective January 1, 1994.)

**  The Greater Atlanta Business Coalition (GABC) changes its name to the Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and distributes its first printed directory of members.

 

2004

+  Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriages.

**  Summer – Pride’s theme this year: “Equality=Justice.” The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performs for the crowd on Friday night. The rainy weather interrupts Pride festivities twice and ends the celebration early on Sunday.

**  A state constitutional amendment proposed in 2004 to ban same-sex marriage is opposed in a House vote by one of the 72 Republicans and a Democratic bloc of blacks and urban whites. 

**  November – Along with voters in ten other states, Georgia voters approve a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages when 76% of voters approve a referendum amending the state’s constitution.

**  December 30 – Druid Hills Golf Club, cited by the city in 2004 for discriminating against two gay members by not offering spousal-equivalent benefits to their domestic partners, sues the city to avoid paying a $90,000 fine. Georgia legislators introduce legislation that prohibits the city for punishing private groups for discrimination. (The law is later passed and approved by the governor.)

 

2005 

**  January – Georgia legislators introduce legislation that prohibits cities for punishing private groups for discrimination. (The law is later passed and signed by the governor.)

**  January - The city approves an ordinance that favors vendors vying for city contracts that offer their employees domestic partnership benefits. Georgia legislators pass a law gutting these sorts of ordinances, and the governor signs the bill into law.

**  January - Attorneys from the ACLU of Georgia, Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, and the law firm of Alston & Bird files suit against the 2004 anti-gay, voter-approved amendment to Georgia’s constitution.

**  April - Eric Rudolph pleads guilty to a string of bombings, including a 1997 attack on the Otherside Lounge, a gay bar. (In August, Rudolph is sentenced to life in prison.)

**  April - Local police officers arrest six gay men in Piedmont Park after the park’s 11pm closing. The persons arrested claim police made anti-gay remarks during the arrests. (The men were eventually fined and/or sentenced to community service. After a five-month investigation of the incident, one of the arresting officers is fired.)

**  April – The local congregation of Quakers reaffirms its commitment to including LGBTQ individuals in all its activities, including commitment ceremonies.

**  June - The Indigo Girls again perform at the local Pride festival, which draws over its three days an estimated 320,000 participants. This year’s theme: “Unite and Act.”

**  July   Georgia Equality launches a “We are your Neighbors” billboard campaign, which places ads on 12 billboards within a 75-mile radius of Atlanta. (The second phase of the campaign is launched in November.)

**  September – YouthPride relocates from Decatur to a larger facility in Atlanta’s Inman Park neighborhood.

**  November 11-17 – IMAGE Film & Video Center hosts “Out on Film,” Atlanta’s 18th annual GLBTQ film festival.

**  December - A student group’s celebration of “Coming Out Day” at Macon’s Baptist-affiliate Mercer University leads  Southern Baptist Convention executives to announce it would seek to sever its ties with Mercer. If the vote is ratified, it would mean the loss of some $3.5 million in Convention funding for Mercer.

**  December – Fifteen-year-old student Jessica Bradley, expelled by the private Covenant Christian Academy in Loganville, Georgia after school officials heard she had kissed another female, sues the school for $1 million.

**  Archivist Wesley Chenault curates an exhibit at the Atlanta History Center of artifacts from Atlanta’s pre-Stonewall past, “The Unspoken Past: Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History, 1940-1970.”

**  Project Open Hand serves its 10 millionth meal.

**  Shelley Emerson becomes the first transgender woman to lead Fourth Tuesday, a lesbian social and community service organization. Emerson is also the first transgender person to be named a Grand Marshall of the annual Atlanta Pride Parade.

**  Sharon Semmens and Elliott Mackle found Emory University’s Gay And Lesbian Alumni (GALA) organization.

**  The Georgia General Assembly passes a law enabling county governments to establish domestic partner benefits for gay and lesbian county employees.

 

2006

**  January 20-21 - The National Black Justice Coalition conducts its first Black Church Summit at Atlanta’s First Iconium Baptist Church, bringing together African-American clergy and gay and lesbian activists from around the country to discuss ways to fight homophobia within Black congregations.

**  March – Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin extends medical insurance benefits to employees with GLBTQ domestic partners.

**  May 18 - On a procedural issue, a federal judge strikes down the voter-approved amendment to the state’s constitution that bans same-sex marriages.

**  June – The Pride theme this year is “Pride 365: Live, Love, Be,” but storms cause damage on the festival grounds, including the marketplace and the main state. The festival shuts down early each day.

**  July 6 – At Governor Purdue’s request for an expedited decision, the six justices of the Georgia Supreme Court reverse the May 18th lower court ruling and rule that the state’s 2004 ban against same-sex marriage in Georgia is constitutional.

**  The Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce’s membership reaches an all-time high of over 350 businesses, business professionals, corporations, and nonprofits employing over 3,000 employees.

 

2007

**  June – This year’s Pride theme is “Our Rights, Your Rights, Human Rights.” Congressman John Lewis speaks from the stage to a crowd of approximately 200,000. 

**  December 6 – The municipal government in Athens, Georgia authorizes health benefits to the domestic partners of its unmarried employees.

 

2008

**  July – A severe drought prevents mass events from being allowed in Piedmont Park this year; Pride activities take place instead at the Atlanta Civic Center and in July instead of June. The Pride theme this year is “Your Vote, Your Rights, Your Future.” Corporate sponsorships are radically reduced due to the national economic crisis.

**  The Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce hires its first fulltime administrator and sponsors the first annual Community Awards Dinner.

**  Arcadia Press publishes Wesley Chenault’s and Stacy Braukman’s book Lesbian and Gay Atlanta, based partly on a 2005 exhibit curated by Chenault at the Atlanta History Center.

 

2009

**  January 12 – Craig Washington and other members of the Atlanta Black LGBT Coalition hold a press conference on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol to protest anti-gay minister Rick Warren’s scheduled appearance as the keynote speaker at the upcoming observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King once served as pastor, and at Warren’s being chosen to give the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration ceremony.

**  September 10 – Four dozen Atlanta police raid the Atlanta Eagle, a gay bar, ordering customers to lie on the floor, making homophobic slurs, and arresting 62 people.

**  October 31 – November 1 – The Pride festivities return to Piedmont Park, but in the fall instead of the usual June date. The Trans March becomes part of the festival.

**  In a special election in 2009, Simone Bell is elected to the Georgia House of Representatives: the first openly lesbian African American woman to serve in a U.S. state legislature.

**  Gay Asian-American candidate Alex Wan is elected to the Atlanta City Council.

 

2010

**  October – Pride celebrates its 40th anniversary, moving to October this year to coincide with National Coming Out Day. Perfect weather brings back festival attendance to its pre-2008 levels.

**  Atlanta-based Bishop Eddie Long, the leader of one of the country’s largest black churches and an outspoken supporter of Georgia’s 2004 gay marriage ban and a proposed U.S. constitutional ban, is sued by several men who claimed Long coerced them into sexual activities. Long denies the accusations and the cases are eventually settled out of court.

 

2011

 

2012 

**  January 24 – A final evening of author readings is held at OutWrite.

 

Sources Consulted

Other Chronologies:

• 1981  “The ‘70s in Atalnta: A Decade of Gay Pride” compiled by David Hayward. Gazette Newspaper, June 18-24, 1981, p. 11.

• 1982 “ALFA/Lesbian TimeLine: The First 10 Years” compiled by Lorraine Fontana [5 unnumbered pages].

• 1989  “Atlanta’s Gay and Lesbian Communities Since Stonewall: A Chronology, 1969-1989" compiled by Cal Gough, Reference Librarian, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library. 1989.

• 1989 “The 80s: The Decade in Review.” Washington Blade, December 29, 1989, pp. 3-29.

• 1989 “1989 in Review” compiled by Sabrina Sojourner. Etcetera Magazine, December [?] 1989, pp. 18-21 (Part 1); December [?] 1989, [pp. ???] (Part 2).

• 1990  “1989, The Year That Was…” by Gary Kaupman, Southern Voice, January 4, 1990, pp. 4-5 (Part 1); January 18, 1990, pp. 12-13 (Part 2).

• 1991 “20 Years of Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History” compiled by Dave Hayward and Cal Gough. Southern Voice [June 1991] [3 unnumbered pages].

• 1991 “The Best and Worst of 1991.” Etcetera Magazine, December [?], 1991, pp. 26-27.

• 1991 “A Periscope on Pride” by Maria Helena Dolan. Etcetera Magazine, December [?] 1991, pp. 29-32.

• 1992 “Atlanta’s Gay Pride Celebrations [1972-1992]” compiled by Cal Gough. 1992.

• 1992  The Gay Decades by Leigh W. Rutledge. Plume, 1992.

• 1993 “Events Measure Increased Visibility of Gays, lesbians: Queer Timeline” by Frank Bruni. Email posted to Gaynet@Queernet.org, May 11, 1993. Available at http://gender.eserver.org/queer-timeline.txt. Consulted April 12, 2011.

• 1994 “An ACT UP/Atlanta Chronology” http://www.cdagraphicdesign.com/CDA_ClientProofs/ASP/survivalnews/SN0406/ACTUPATLChronology.html Consulted October 3, 2012.

• 1994 “ALFA/Lesbian Timeline – 1982 to 1994” compiled by Lorraine Fontana [18 unnumbered pages].

• 1994 “Culture Colorized: 1994 in Review” compiled by Don Johnston. Etcetera Magazine, December 20, 1994, pp. 18-23.

• 1994 “1994 in Review.” Etcetera Magazine, December 30, 1994, pp. 18+.

• 1995 “1995: A Queer Review” by Rob Nixon. Etcetera Magazine, December 29, 1995, pp. 20-22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32.

• 1996 “1996: News from a Queer Planet” by Rob Nixon, Etcetera Magazine, December 27, 1996, pp. 16-30.

• 1997 “1996: The Year in Review.” Southern Voice, January 2, 1997,  pp. 6-7 (“Home Front”); pp. 8-9 (“Health News”); pp. 22-24, 30 (“Gay, Gay-Friendly Arts & Artists Enliven Year” by Dave Goldman).

• 1998 “’97: The Year in Review” by Laura Brown. Southern Voice, January 1, 1998, pp. 6, 16, 19 (“Atlanta”); p. 12 (“The South”); pp. 14-15, 19 (“The Nation”); pp. 21-22 (“Health”).

• 1999 “From Stonewall to Piedmont Park: Three Decades of Atlanta’s Gay History” by Laura Brown. Southern Voice, June 24, 1999, p. 1, 32-33.

• 1999 “1999: Year in Review.” Southern Voice, December 30, 1999, pp. 26-27 (“Local News in Review”), pp. 46-47 (“Around the South 1999”); pp. 50, 53 (“Around the Nation 1999”); pp. 54-55 (“Around the World”).

• 2000 “Highlights of Atlanta’s Gay History: 1970-1999,” pages 11-15 of Covering Us: A Journalist’s Guide to Resources in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Gay-Friendly Communities of Metro Atlanta compiled by the Georgia Chapter of the  National Association of Lesbian and Gay Journalists, 2000. [“Sources: Cal Gough; Laura Brown; Atlanta Gay and Lesbian History Thing; Dave Hayward; Southern Voice; Atlanta History Center Archives”]

• 2000 “Annual Atlanta Pride Festival: The Early Years” by Richard L. Eldredge. Atlanta Journal-Constitution,        June 23, 2000, pp. E-1, E-8.

• 2000 “Historic Victories, Ongoing Battles Across Georgia” by Laura Brown. Southern Voice, December 28, 2000.

• 2001 “31 Years of Atlanta Pride” by Laura Brown. Southern Voice, June 21, 2001, pp. 30-31. [“Sources: Southern Voice archives and staff reports; Dave Hayward; Maria Helena Dolan; Atlanta Pride Committee”]

• 2004 “35 Years Since Stonewall” by Laura Douglas-Brown. Southern Voice, June 25, 2004, pp. 50, 53-54. . [“Sources: Southern Voice archives and staff reports; Dave Hayward; Maria Helena Dolan; Atlanta Pride Committee”]

• 2004  Speaking for Our Lives: Historic Speeches and Rhetoric for Gay and Lesbian Rights (1892-2000) edited by Robert B. Ridinger. Harrington Park Press / Hayworth Press, 2004.

• 2005 “How Far We’ve Come: Historical Timeline of the GLBT Rights Movement in America and Atlanta.” Unattributed. [Appended to “The Unspoken Past” by Wesley J. Chenault, pp. 6-8 of the Gay Pride Program for 2005[?] ]

• 2005 “[2005:] Year of Hard Knocks for Gay Atlanta” by Andrew Keegan, Southern Voice, December 30, 2005,        pp. 12-14.

• 2006 “A Brief History of PRIDE in Atlanta & the Atlanta PRIDE Committee, Inc.” http://new.atlantapride.org/history/  Consulted May 26, 2006.

• 2006 “Milestones in the HIV Epidemic” Southern Voice,  June 2, 2006, page 14.

• 2006 “Georgia History Timeline” http://www.ourgeorgiahistory.com Consulted May 26, 2006.

• 2006 “Sears’ Queer Southern Century (Or So) Timeline”  http://www.jtsears.com/histline.htm  Consulted May 26, 2006.

• 2006 “Swade’s Tribal Chant Lesbian History”  http://www.swade.net/lesbian/tribal_chant  Consulted May 26, 2006.

• 2009  “Atlanta Since Stonewall, 1969-2009: A Local History.” A collaborative project of the Atlanta History Center and the Auburn Avenue Research Library. http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Atlanta_Since_Stonewall,_1969-2009:_A_Local_History  Consulted October 2012.

• 2010 “Pride History” http://atlantapride.org/about/pride-history  Consulted October 5, 2012.

 

Additional Sources:

• 1988  “Atlanta’s Gay Community After Hardwick” by Maury Weil. Presented August 23, 1988 at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems; sponsored by the ASA’s Lesbian and Gay Caucus.

• 1989  “Memories of Pride Past” by Maria Helena Dolan. Etcetera Magazine, June 16-22, 1989, pp. 30-36.

• 1999  Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America by Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney. Simon & Schuster, 1999.

• 2000 “30th Annual Atlanta Pride Festival: The Early Years” by Richard L. Eldredge. Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 23, 2000, page E-1.

• 2004  “Hitting Below the Bible Belt: The Development of the Gay Rights Movement in Atlanta” by Arnold Fleischmann and Jason Hardman.  Journal of Urban Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 4 (October 2004), pp. 407–426.

• 2006  GLBTQ Encyclopedia  http://www.glbtq.com  Consulted May 26, 2006.

• 2006  “The Demographics of Georgia III: Lesbian and Gay Couples” by Gregory B. Lewis. The Fiscal Research Center, March 2006.

• 2008  “An Unspoken Past: Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History, 1940-1970” by Wesley Chenault. University of New Mexico, American Studies, 2008.

• 2008  Gay and Lesbian Atlanta by Wesley Chenault and Stacy Brakman. Arcadia Publishing, 2008.

• 2010  The Highs and Lows of Little Five: A History of Little Five Points by Robert Hartle, Jr. The History Press, 2010.

• 2011  “American Bar Association Initiatives: Historical Support for LGBT Diversity in the Profession,” National LGBT Bar Association website, http://lgbtbar.org/aboutus.html  Consulted April 12, 2011.