Atlanta - Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project

Lenny Lasater: Coal Miner, Electrician, Musician, and Renaissance Butch

Lenny Lasater Photo credit Candi Pollitt

In the 1970s, Lenny Lasater was a trailblazer for women, first in the Birmingham coal mines, then, in the trade union for electricians, The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, when she was in Nashville, Tennessee, and later, in Atlanta, Georgia. She formed her own business, Lenny Lasater Electrical, in Atlanta, where she also got clean and sober. Also, she started a band that is now called “Just Roxie.” Throughout, she has been out and proud of who she is, “a very butch lesbian.”

Between Betty and Me: Art, Activism, and Accessibility

Betty Bird with Ellie

Susan Robinson writes about her then partner Betty Bird, and tells the story of how she and others began a system for recording feminist journals like *Sinister Wisdom* and distributing those recordings through services for the blind.

Epicurean of the Heart: In Memory of Shay Youngblood

Shay Youngblood at Charis Books and More in 2020

By E.R. Anderson, on behalf of Charis Books and More, and Charis Circle Shay Youngblood, novelist, playwright, artist, and poet, died on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, after an extended illness. She was surrounded by loved ones sending her to meet the ancestors. In the days since Shay has gone from this Earth, our Charis community has been longing for her to come back, and has sought sustenance in her words and in the words of all those whose lives she touched. Shay Youngblood was an epicurean of the heart, a writer’s writer, a generous gift-giver, a marvelous cook, and a cheerleader for everyone’s wildest dreams. Shay got her start at Charis Books and More in Atlanta, Georgia (now located in Decatur, Georgia), at the Charis Circle Young Women Writers Group. “The first evening Mama doesn’t come back, I make a sandwich with leaves from her goodbye letter.I want to eat her words.” We are fortunate that we got to witness and celebrate the entire trajectory of her writing career that went from her first, pre-publication poetry reading at Charis Books and More in 1980 all the way to her picture book release …

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Posted on July 15, 2024 Posted in Culture and the Arts, Publishing, Publications, and Booksellers Tagged with A Family Prayer, Amazing Grace, Atlanta, Big Mama Stories, Black Girl in Paris, Charis Books and More, Charis Circle, Decatur, Firebrand Books, Georgia, Horizon Theatre Company, Linda Bryant, Lisa Adler, Nancy Bereano, Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery, Shay Youngblood, Soul Kiss, Square Blues, Talking Bones, Ticket to Paris, Yaddo, Young Women Writers Group

Celebrating the Anniversary of the Herstory Project

May and June 2024 are multiple anniversaries for the SLFA Herstory Project. It’s the fifteenth anniversary of our first Herstory Project planning workshop at Womonwrites. It’s the tenth anniversary of our first special issue of Sinister Wisdom. And it’s the second anniversary of the launching of this website.

We celebrated the publication of our sixth and final Sinister Wisdom volume two years ago. The six special volumes contain a treasure trove of collected stories, interviews, timelines, and photographs from three decades of twentieth-century, lesbian-feminist activism in Southern states. Now, we are focusing on making these edited interviews available online as we continue to add new interviews.

The herstory of lesbian-feminist activism in the South was rapidly being lost as these stories of unsung sheroes were not being reported in any of the memoirs and histories of the women’s liberation movement in the twentieth century.

Tag: Atlanta

Lenny Lasater: Coal Miner, Electrician, Musician, and Renaissance Butch

Between Betty and Me: Art, Activism, and Accessibility

Epicurean of the Heart: In Memory of Shay Youngblood

Celebrating the Anniversary of the Herstory Project