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A Night at the Sweet Gum Head

ebook

An electric and intimate story of 1970s gay Atlanta through its bedazzling drag clubs and burgeoning rights activism.

Coursing with a pumped-up beat, gay Atlanta was the South's mecca—a beacon for gays and lesbians growing up in its homophobic towns and cities. There, the Sweet Gum Head was the club for achieving drag stardom.

Martin Padgett evokes the fantabulous disco decade by going deep into the lives of two men who shaped and were shaped by this city: John Greenwell, an Alabama runaway who found himself and his avocation performing as the exquisite Rachel Wells; and Bill Smith, who took to the streets and city hall to change antigay laws. Against this optimism for visibility and rights, gay people lived with daily police harassment and drug dealing and murder in their discos and drag clubs. Conducting interviews with many of the major figures and reading through deteriorating gay archives, Padgett expertly re-creates Atlanta from a time when a vibrant, new queer culture of drag and pride came into being.


Expand title description text
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Kindle Book

  • Release date: June 1, 2021

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781324007135
  • Release date: June 1, 2021

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781324007135
  • File size: 9040 KB
  • Release date: June 1, 2021

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Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

History Nonfiction

Languages

English

An electric and intimate story of 1970s gay Atlanta through its bedazzling drag clubs and burgeoning rights activism.

Coursing with a pumped-up beat, gay Atlanta was the South's mecca—a beacon for gays and lesbians growing up in its homophobic towns and cities. There, the Sweet Gum Head was the club for achieving drag stardom.

Martin Padgett evokes the fantabulous disco decade by going deep into the lives of two men who shaped and were shaped by this city: John Greenwell, an Alabama runaway who found himself and his avocation performing as the exquisite Rachel Wells; and Bill Smith, who took to the streets and city hall to change antigay laws. Against this optimism for visibility and rights, gay people lived with daily police harassment and drug dealing and murder in their discos and drag clubs. Conducting interviews with many of the major figures and reading through deteriorating gay archives, Padgett expertly re-creates Atlanta from a time when a vibrant, new queer culture of drag and pride came into being.


Expand title description text