Drastic Dykes and Accidental Activists by La Shonda Mims

Author:La Shonda Mims
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2022-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

Protesters and parade participants at North Carolina Pride in Charlotte, 1994. (Above) A Pride attendee taunts Bible-carrying protesters lining the parade route. (Below) Parade participants ride on a float with a message to North Carolina’s anti-gay senator Jesse Helms. Accessed from Sue Henry Papers, MS0478, J. Murrey Atkins Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Approximately 1 million queer people participated in the 1993 march. While the gathering would be used as a weapon by religious leaders in Charlotte, the fact that Black queer Atlantan Pat Hussain, member of the March on Washington’s national executive committee, took the stage with fellow queer leaders from across the country serves as an example of how national queer visibility elevated Atlanta’s queer citizens while it was used to oppress Charlotte’s.97 March attendees enjoyed support from Congress members like Nancy Pelosi, leaders in the NAACP, and President Clinton. Although he did not attend, Clinton issued a statement in support of gay civil rights. Just a few months before his “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was finalized, some chanted, “Where is Bill?” in frustration, but many at the march saw Clinton as a sign of potential progress for queer people.98 Drag entertainer RuPaul took the stage in an American flag costume proclaiming that queer voters had put Clinton in the White House and that was where she saw herself in ten years. On the same stage, Indigo Girls, Atlanta’s Grammy-winning superstar white lesbians, performed, with Emily Saliers sporting a Clinton/Gore campaign T-shirt.99

Media coverage of the 1993 march was unprecedented. Newsweek magazine featured a full cover on the event, while the New York Times described the mood as celebratory, noting that Americans would see “conventional” and “well behaved” attendees on the evening news coverage.100 In its feature on lesbians at the march, Newsweek quoted lesbian comic Kate Clinton, who dubbed 1993 the “year of the woman squared,” because women who loved women were having a moment in what many march participants called the Gay ’90s. The article noted Roberta Achtenberg’s new position as the assistant secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the first openly gay person to be confirmed by the Senate. Yet that visibility came at a price. North Carolina’s senator Jesse Helms railed against her appointment and called Achtenberg a “damn lesbian.”101 The nonprofit cable television channel C-SPAN ran six hours of live and unedited coverage of the march, which Newsweek noted as vulgar to “many liberals who . . . were offended by the spectacle of some women—albeit from the lesbian fringes—who were kissing or half naked.”102 Even though the New York Times deemed attendees’ behavior “conventional,” the C-SPAN exposure riled up First Baptist’s parishioners and encouraged them to react like the aforementioned offended liberals when North Carolina state Pride came to the Queen City the following year.

Attorney Tim Sellers and other letter writers offered to share a video from the national march with the Parade Permit Committee in an effort to demonstrate the “illegal and horrifying activity” that a similar “gay rights march” might bring to the streets of Charlotte.

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