Mapping the New Gay South: Queer Space and Southern Life, 1965-1980

In the midst of his presidential reelection campaign in 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson came to a prominent Atlanta Hotel, the Dinkler Plaza, to give a speech in which he proclaimed: "the New South is Here." Asking his audience to recall the condition of the South during the Great Depression and the commitment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to righting the devastating conditions in the South, Johnson outlined the recent economic successes of the South and the challenges for the future. Invoking Henry Grady, the former editor of the Atlanta Constitution and the man who coined the slogan "the New South," Johnson argued that the South of 1964 was a "South of union and freedom." It was a "South which is living, breathing, growing every hour." (Public Papers of the President of the United States) However, Johnson argued that despite all its successes, the South still had trouble attaining a just society and equality among the races.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a bartender named Bob Damron was working on a guidebook aimed at gay Americans. The guidebook, called Bob Damron's Address Book, contained a list, broken down by city and state, of LGBTQ friendly establishments. Meant to help those traveling the country seek out friendly spaces, Damron's Guides would become an indispensable tool for gay Americans for decades to come.

First published in 1965, the first Damron guidebook featured an exclusive upscale bar called the Alibi Lounge. Damron categorized this bar as "(M)," or mixed, signifying that it was visited by both gay and straight men. Located in Atlanta's Dinkler Plaza Hotel, this queer bar that was frequented by "deviant homosexuals" was the same space in which LBJ spoke to Southern Americans about the "New South."

The overlap between a space where the President of the United States gave a speech and a space that was co-opted by gay or questioning Americans looking for companionship is striking. Perhaps equally striking is that these locations converged in the South. However, using digital historical methods to map the locations in Damron's Address Books from 1965 to 1980 reveals a growing queer community determined to step out of the closet.

This article explores a new digital history project focusing on mapping the Damron Gay Guides in the context of the "New South." As an initial dataset, the project has focused on digitizing the locations listed in the South which is often neglected in favor of the bi-coastal gay meccas of New York and San Francisco. Further, analyzing the Southern data reveals the presence of a growing and diverse community fighting for civil rights and equality.

Questions about the status of gay and lesbian Americans in the "New South" also crossed the mind of L.D. Hoshall, a Baltimore activist and lawyer. In 1982, he embarked on a road trip through the South and wrote about his experiences exploring the contours of gay life in Southern states for the Gay Community Center of Baltimore's The Gay Paper. In his article series "Traveling the New Gay South," Hoshall explored numerous communities and the variety of experiences and levels of openness throughout the South. For example, in discussing his experiences in North Carolina, Hoshall recounted that on the surface it seemed that "a Lesbian and Gay presence in the Tar Heel State" was "either non-existent or has little impact." However, based on his experiences and observations, Hoshall determined that "nothing could be further from the truth." Throughout North Carolina Hoshall found patches of organized gay activity and concluded that more so than other places, in North Carolina lesbians and gay men were "creating the space for a community that is rich in culture, astute in its politics and proud of its heritage" (Hoshall, "Gay Space" 13).

Hoshall's experiences in other states on his road trip were strikingly different. In Montgomery, Alabama, Hoshall observed a brewing battle for social justice and civil rights, writing that "Lesbians and Gay men are on one side" while the "city's right-wing powers-that-be and their primary instruments of social...