Artist/photographer Royce Soble has captured LGBTQ life and culture in Atlanta for several decades. This photo is from the 1994 Atlanta Pride parade. Credit: Royce Soble collection, Rose Library at Emory University.
Emory’s Rose Library will celebrate LGBT History Month with the return of its popular drag show, a booth at Atlanta’s Pride Festival, and an open house of artifacts that document Atlanta’s LGBTQ+ history, arts and culture.
The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library has been collecting and providing public access to a growing collection of materials that document LGBTQ+ communities in Atlanta, Georgia, and the South since 2005. These collections and related speakers and programs help people understand more about the LGBTQ community, the struggles they have faced, and the impact they have made on those around them and society in general.
“At these events, we’ll be able to share information on the collections Rose holds, including the papers of Jon Arge, DeAundra Peek, Dr. Jesse R. Peel, Rebecca Ranson, Royce Soble, and the records of the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus, the Southeast Arts, Media & Education Project, and Trikone Atlanta, to name just a few,” says Randy Gue, assistant director of collection development and curator of Political, Cultural and Social Movements Collections at the Rose Library.
Gue says being part of the Atlanta Pride Festival and other events allows the Rose Library to be involved in the communities where it collects and to share its LGBTQ+ collections with a wider audience.
“These events represent ways for us to show our support, to celebrate our distinctive holdings, and connect users, students, faculty, and staff to these communities,” Gue says. “The Rose Library drag show, for example, began as a way to highlight Atlanta’s long and distinguished history of drag entertainment. I hope folks who join us in October will see how the lasting historical value of materials in LGBTQ+ collections connect to the vibrant, diverse, and fun group that congregates in Piedmont Park each year for Atlanta Pride.”
Rose Library’s LGBTQ+ History Month activities will take place in various sites throughout October 2024. Here is the list of events:
LGBTQ+ History Month open house
Tuesday, Oct. 8, 1-3 p.m. in Rose Library, Level 10, Woodruff Library
Outreach archivist Gaby Hale will discuss related Rose Library items on display in Rose Library, Level 10, Woodruff Library. This will be the second of Rose’s newly launched Miscellaneous Monthly open house series.
Rose Library’s annual drag show
Wednesday, Oct. 9, 7 p.m. in Rose Library, Level 10, Woodruff Library
Drag queens put on an entertaining show that celebrates the library’s LGBTQ+ collections. This event is free and open to the public.
Rose Library booth at the 2024 Atlanta Pride Festival
Saturday, Oct. 12, and Sunday, Oct. 13, Piedmont Park
The booth will be on Oak Hill between the 12th Street Gate and the Meadow from 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. on Saturday and 1-5 p.m. on Sunday. Panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display at Oak Hill on Saturday from 11 a.m.- 4 p.m.
International Pronouns Day button-making activity
Wednesday, Oct. 16, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. in the lobby of Woodruff Library
Make a button to declare your identity or your support as an ally or convey another positive message at this popular event. Free and open to Emory students, faculty and staff. Co-sponsored by Emory Libraries Preservation Department.
Atlanta’s 1990s LGBTQ+ and Arts Scene: A Talk with Artist Royce Soble and Curator Randy Gue
(during Emory’s 2024 homecoming weekend)
Saturday, Oct. 26, 1-2 p.m. in Woodruff Library’s Jones Room
Photographer and multimedia artist Royce Soble, whose work documents Atlanta’s LGBTQ+ community and arts scene in the 1990s, will be in conversation with Rose Library’s curator of Political, Cultural, and Social Movements, Randy Gue. Soble’s photographs, journals, and other digital materials are archived in the Rose Library’s collections. Registration for this event can be found with other Emory Homecoming events, and you don’t have to be an alumnus to register.
A related exhibition, “Forbidden Loves and Secret Lust: Selections from the Golden Age of Queer Pulp Fiction,” will be on view in the Oxford College Library lobby beginning mid- to late-October. Previously shown in 2022 in the Rose Library’s Level 10 exhibition space, it examines the explosion of queer pulp novels printed between 1952 and 1968.
For more information on these events, please contact Gaby Hale at the Rose Library.