Nashville - Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project

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

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.”

Posted on September 7, 2024 Posted in Culture and the Arts, Lesbian-Owned Enterprises Tagged with Atlanta, Birmingham Alabama, Blue Creek number 3, Cherry Omega, Decatur Georgia, Georgia, IBEW, IEW 429, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Nashville Local Union 429, Jim Walter Modular Homes, Jimmy Carter, Just Roxie, Knoxville, Metropolitan Community Church, Nashville, pipefitters union, Savannah River Plant, Tennessee, These Friends of Mine, trade unions, United Mineworkers Local

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.

Posted on May 5, 2024 Posted in Publishing, Publications, and Booksellers Tagged with 2019 last Womonwrites, 30th Womonwrites Anniversary 2009, Atlanta, Barbara Ester, Beth York, Carol Hanisch, class diversity, consciousness raising groups, Corky Culver, descendent of Womonwrites, Duke University archive, Durham NC, education diversity, first womens land community 1972, first Womonwrites 1979, Florida, Gainesville, Herstory Project 2009, Jaye McNeil, Jessica Lenn Chia, Kathy Sarachild, Knoxville Tennessee, Lennie Lassiter, lesbian activity, Lesbian Connection, Lesbian Home Movie Project, Lorraine Fontana, Mandy Carter, Merril Mushroom, Nashville, New York Radical Womens group, North Forty, old lesbians organizing for change, OLOC, Pagoda project, participant led, race consciousness, reading groups, Rose Norman, Sinister Wisdom, SLFA, Southeast, Southern dykes, Southern Festival, Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project, Southern Women’s Music and Comedy Festival, timeline of activism, twentieth century lesbian feminism activism in Southern states, University of Florida Oral History Program, WeMoon 1973, Womens Liberation Movement, Womonwrites, writing groups

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