GLBT History Museum: Hidden Histories: Queer Lives in the American South

https://glbthistory.ticketing.veevartapp.com/tickets/view/list/hidden-histories-queer-lives-in-the-american-south

Join the GLBT Historical Society in partnership with the Faulker-Morgan Archive and Media Working Group for a groundbreaking virtual film trilogy exploring the rich, overlooked history of LGBTQ+ communities in the American South spanning 150 years.

Throughout LGBTQ History Month, each of the three films will premiere for streaming a week apart for watching through the end of October, culminating in a live virtual panel discussion with the filmmaker and historians.
Film Series:
PREMIERING: Mon. Oct. 6

Sweet Evening Breeze and Sue Mundy. Henry Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Rock Hudson, Bob Morgan and Bradley Picklesimer. These are some of the personalities who shape the story of “The Last Gospel of the Pagan Babies” (2017). The documentary excavates a 150 year, gender-bending, sexual outlaw community in the Southern, genteel town of Lexington, Kentucky.

This Kentucky lineage of gay pioneers and rebels grew strong underground. They documented their identity and history as a community through shared storytelling, saving troves of personal photographs, home movies, and early video. The archives include cross-dressing guerilla soldier Sue Mundy, who fought in the Civil War and Sweet Evening Breeze, the notorious Black transgender drag queen who was born in the 1880s and nurtured a community in Lexington until 1987. Artists Henry Faulkner and Bob Morgan worked and partied with Tennessee Williams. Hollywood movie star Rock Hudson would come through town as the owner of its only gay bar, and there’s more.

PREMIERING: Mon. Oct. 13

“Under the Southern Cross” (2024) is an unflinching portrayal of Appalachian queer painter and poet Henry L. Faulkner from Egypt, Kentucky (1924 – 1981). The most documented queer man in the history of Kentucky and possibly the country, Faulkner documented his life and lovers as an adolescent in the 1930s until the day he died. This film tells a raucous, unapologetic and unfiltered story told with Faulkner’s photographs, painting, poetry, rare film and audio recordings, and interviews with people who knew him. Through his national reputation as a painter, Faulkner befriended many well-known LGBTQ+ artists, including out queer painter Edward Melcarth and playwrights Bertolt Brecht, Stefan Brecht Jamie Herlihy and Tennessee Williams. Under the Southern Cross describes a boy and a man who was unwilling to hide who he was and was willing to face the consequences for his authenticity.

PREMIERING: Mon. Oct. 20

“Native Daughter: CD Collins, A Reckoning” (2025) is a biographical portrait told through words and music, an investigation into how stories are created and told. Donohue explores one woman’s lifelong journey for beauty, love, and survival. It examines how domination, abuse and post-traumatic stress works through one’s life. Native Daughter relies solely on the words, music and images of the artist. The film explores sexual identity, growing up queer and an artist in rural America, feminism, eco-feminism, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the cutting-edge treatments for PTSD, and the profound and necessary endurance of the creative impulse.
Culminating Panel Discussion

Thursday, October 30th
5:00 p.m. PDT / 8:00 p.m. EDT

Following the third film, award-winning filmmaker Jean Donohue will be joined by scholars and archivists from the Faulkner-Morgan Archive and the GLBT Historical Society for a virtual panel discussion on Thursday, October 30 at 5:00 p.m. PDT / 8:00 p.m. EDT. They will discuss the importance of preserving queer histories around the country, the challenges and unique considerations for their respective geographical focus, and answer audience questions.