Jade River: Mother’s Brew, Where Feminist Consciousness Grew
Mother’s Brew bar, managed by Jade River, was a lesbian-feminist cultural center for the Louisville, Kentucky region, and a safe space for lesbians.
Southern lesbian-feminist activists with lesbian-owned businesses
Mother’s Brew bar, managed by Jade River, was a lesbian-feminist cultural center for the Louisville, Kentucky region, and a safe space for lesbians.
Yer Girlfriend was a Louisville-based, lesbian band active from 1989 to 1996, with reunion concerts as recently as 2015. They recorded three albums: “We Won’t Be Silent!” (1989), “L-word Spoken Here” (1992), and “Not Afraid to Love” (1995), all published by Esther Records. In 2015, Rose Norman interviewed the two founders of the band, Carol Kraemer and Laura Shine. Four songs by Carol Kraemer are posted online at Sinister Wisdom (sinisterwisdom.org/YerGirlfriend), and Sinister Wisdom uses one of them, “The L-Word,” to begin and end Zoom readings from each new issue of this quarterly journal of lesbian arts and literature.
From a rooftop garden in New York City to Maat Dompim Womyn of Color Land Project in Virginia and beyond, Blanche has offered support and empowerment to women of color throughout the country.
My feminism began in college. I started a women’s lib group, organized the first Earth Day in Richmond, and got in jail for antiwar and civil rights actions.