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.”

My environmental activist side has never gone away. It’s just that for a number of years, feminist activism took precedence. I feel as if I’m coming home now, coming back these last fifteen years or so, to farming, studying, research, and growing things.

Sonja Franeta

Sonja Franeta, born in New York City of immigrant parents, ran for mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, on the Socialist Party ticket in 1983.