Touching Up Our Roots

Happy 50th Anniversary of Atlanta Pride.

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THE SAGA OF TOUCHING UP OUR ROOTS, GEORGIA'S LGBTQ STORY PROJECT

by Dave Hayward, Coordinator, Touching Up Our Root

In 2002 i realized that our stories of our community were passing away, along with our pioneers who initiated our LGBTQ long mach to freedom here - still very much an ongoing effort.

So that June I huddled with my good friend and mentor Berl Boykin. If you've never heard of Berl, well, that's kind of the point. Please find a separate story all about Berl after this message.

We have to tell our stories, I insisted, and Berl said OK we'll begin a group and do it.

And so we have. Borrowing from le***an activist Liz Throop, we took on the name of "Touching Up Our Roots," a fitting sobriquet for an LGBTQ group, and a tongue in cheek play on words. We are after all a festive group of folks and we all have to touch up our roots!

Soon we incorporated as a non-profit in the state of Georgia and started to get the good word out anyway we could. A big boost came from Atlanta Pride, when they chose Berl as their honorary grand marshal in 2003.

For years we laid siege to the Story Corps outlet at WABE Radio, where for a small donation we could interview our sisters and brothers who helped make our rights happen. Prominent among them were the late performer Diamond Lil, one of the first out drag queens in Savannah and Atlanta, and also the late Richard Rhodes, who along with Gil Robison was the first openly gay man to run for office in Georgia in 1988. Richard was also the first gay man from Georgia to become a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, first in 1988, and then again in 1992. Le***an activist Melinda Daniels also was a Georgia delegate in 1988.

Once we had a few donations, we interviewed people on camera. Thanks to the support of Reverend Harry Knox and the Human Rights Campaign, we shot a documentary "Out of Darkness Into Wholeness" on Reverend Erin Swenson, the first mainstream minister (in the Presbyterian Church) to transition from male to female and stay a minister. Erin is proud that "for the first time in Christendom" she helped the church live up to its credo of justice for all.

We also shot a documentary "In the Eye of the AIDS Storm" about Dr. Jesse Peel, a psychiatrist who co-founded all the major organizations to fight AIDS in Georgia. Dr. Peel is a longtime survivor of living with HIV and continues to support our advocacy and arts groups.

Being a lifelong journalist I have written and published extensively about our stories, specifically our human and civil rights challenges for equality here in Atlanta.

Roots now has many audio and video interviews with our foremost LGBTQ leaders and allies.

Also we offer programs and events all the time, including the annual LGBTQ Story Tour we present every June with le***an activist Maria Helena Dolan, in partnership with Atlanta Pride and the LGBT Institute at the Center for Civil and Human Rights. Also every February Atlanta Pride and Roots present Our Founding Valentines, celebrating our pioneers and pathfinders and trailblazers.

We will continue to shop until we drop. Please connect with us and let us know what you think and what you want us to do,
and most of all, how you can help.

ORIGINS OF ATLANTA PRIDE

Six weeks after the Stonewall riot in New York City, Atlanta had its own showdown with the police when they raided the Ansley Mall Mini Cinema in early August 1969. Showing Andy Warhol's "Lonesome Cowboys", the show was stopped, the audience interrogated and photographed, and the theatre owner George Ellis and his projectionist arrested. All this for a movie that dared to show cowboys in love.

Soon after, a standing room only protest was held at the New Morning Cafe in Emory Village, and the Georgia Gay Liberation Front was born. The key founder Bill Smith insisted on calling it the Georgia Gay Liberation Front to encompass the entire state, and took the unusual step - for the time - of legally incorporating the GGLF.
GGLF co-founder Berl Boykin reports that the group staffed a table at the Piedmont Park Arts Festival in 1970, the first anniversary of Stonewall.

In June 1971, the GGLF mounted the first Atlanta Pride march despite the city of Atlanta - "the city too busy to hate" - refusing to grant a permit for the march. Thus the 125 marchers had to "march" on the sidewalks and stop for every traffic light. Berl Boykin also reports the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union refused to help the GGLF obtain a permit, because "you are not a minority."

Then on July 14, 1971, Boykin and Bill Smith and Klaus Smith met with then Governor Jimmy Carter to petition for a series of civil rights advances, including overturning the Georgia so**my laws. Carter's response was a series of resounding "Nos!"

Finally in 1972, Atlanta gave in and Pride was able to march in the streets, several hundred strong, and lead by Bill Smith and Judy Lambert as co-chairs of Atlanta Pride. Proudly bis*xual Judy Lambert marched alongside her bis*xual husband Phil, so bi folks were out in front from the very beginning.