Jade River: Mother’s Brew, Where Feminist Consciousness Grew
Motherâs 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 in social and political groups
Motherâs Brew bar, managed by Jade River, was a lesbian-feminist cultural center for the Louisville, Kentucky region, and a safe space for lesbians.
“ALFAâs lasting legacy is in womenâs lives. The field of womenâs studies was not just created by the feminist movement, but by the lesbian-feminist movement.”
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.
Jaye Vaughn started Cedar Chest, an organization for lesbians of African descent in 1994, and later a Center for Non-White Lesbians, both in Durham, NC.