Ashley Coleman Taylor will begin by discussing “Atlanta as Black Queer Place,” an innovative, multi-disciplinary project featuring geospatial digital humanities components alongside oral histories and participant observation. Next, Ashby Combahee and Morna Gerrard will discuss their work with the “Georgia Transgender Oral History Project,” as advisor/interviewer and archivist, respectively. The Georgia Transgender Oral History Project gathers and preserves stories, memories, and histories with transgender and gender non-conforming people and allies who live/lived in Georgia, or who have participated in activities that affect Georgia. La Shonda Mims will then discuss oral histories she both consulted in the archives and conducted with lesbian-identified women in Atlanta and Charlotte for her recent book, Drastic Dykes and Accidental Activists. Finally, Hooper Schultz will discuss his oral history work with elder queer activists in Durham. His presentation will focus on the ways LGBTQ+ oral history interviews can shed light on forgotten histories, in this case the 1981 homophobic murder of a man in a well-known cruising spot at the Little River in Durham, North Carolina.

Preserving Southern LGBTQ+ oral history is particularly relevant at this political moment. Foundational LGBTQ+ activists of the 1970s and 1980s are reaching old age, and the COVID-19 pandemic has put the lives of many elders in danger. Collecting their stories now is urgent. At the same time, Republican state leaders across the South are leading a national attack against LGBTQ+ people with a particularly vicious focus on transgender youth. A better understanding of long-standing LGBTQ+ communities and activism in the South is needed to challenge the current demonization of LGBTQ+ individuals and the silencing of our past.