I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: southern perspectives on the queer movement committed to home

  • road trip to Francis Marion University!


    What a wonderful reception for Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home at Pride Week at Francis Marion University last night! A group of 30 students plus several faculty members gathered in Lowrimore Auditorium to hear four contributors discuss the book and  their individual essays as gay alliance faculty sponsor Dr. Lance Weldy moderated the panel.

    Contributor Pat Patterson was the person who originally suggested the panel discussion with Dr. Weldy since Pat is a regular participant at other Pride events. Dr. Weldy took the idea and ran with it – even giving his English Lit students extra credit for attending the event. (No wonder so many students were furiously taking notes! )

    Pretty listens intently as Dr. Weldy briefs us prior to program

    Pretty, Michael Haigler, Sheila –

    Michael entertained Pretty and me on the road trip from Columbia

    Pat Patterson makes us all smile with his stories

    the old girl in action

    Many thanks to Francis Marion student Amanda Montgomery for the pictures since Pretty was pressed into panel service for the evening. Amanda took pictures in between note-taking so maybe Dr. Weldy will give her extra, extra credit?

    Following the book talk, delicious refreshments were provided, books sold and signed. In the midst of signing books, a young lesbian couple came to tell Pretty they couldn’t afford a book but didn’t want to miss an opportunity to talk to us. Would we sign a piece of paper they could use as a bookmark when they did buy the book later. Of course we were happy to write something for them and as we did, one of the young women told Pretty she had never talked to any lesbians older than 20…what the night meant to her and her girlfriend to hear us talk so openly about being who we are. They live together now and plan to get married when they graduate. Repeat: they plan to get married when they graduate.

    Pat reminded us last night that the students in the auditorium were our hope for the future – no disrespect to us oldies but goodies on the panel but these young people aren’t exhausted from the crusades – they’re just beginning the journey. Some of them will see injustice and become agents of change. Thanks for the reminder, Pat.

    Michael, Lance, Pretty, Sheila, Pat

    Stay tuned.

     

     

  • the book tour continues at USC Monday!


    Please join us for our event if you are in the area!

    Books will be sold at the event and contributors will be available for signing books bought there or elsewhere.

    Stay tuned.

  • taking this show on the road


    I am deeply grateful to the South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Business Guild for inviting Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home to be the program for their January meeting, the first monthly meeting of 2018. The Guild meeting was historic for the book, too, since it marked the first public appearance of contributors to discuss their participation in the project since the book was published at the end of December, 2017.

    (l. to r. contributors Teresa Williams, Nekki Shutt, Ed Madden, 

    Harriet Hancock, Michael Haigler, Candace Chellew-Hodge

    and editor Sheila Morris)  

    photo courtesy The Guild

    An audience of more than 50 people listened intently as Candace Chellew-Hodge discussed her reluctance to move to South Carolina from Atlanta many years ago and the subsequent transformation in her life that led to community service; Michael Haigler’s description of three years in Africa in the Peace Corps and another 20 years in San Francisco that ultimately led him home to build community in his native state; Harriet Hancock’s remarks on the impact the civil rights movement had in her life of activism that took a different course when her son came out in the early 1980s;

    Ed Madden’s story of his own journey home that began in Arkansas but took him to South Carolina where he found the experience of family that his own mother and father continue to withhold because of his sexual orientation; Nekki Shutt’s experiences as an attorney who faced overt gender discrimination in her chosen legal profession that couldn’t deter her from her dogged determination to have marriage equality in South Carolina; Teresa Williams who withstood family pressures and the fear of the loss of her son as she fiercely protected her role as mother and ultimately her role as a lesbian activist.

    These are six real stories – intimate accounts – of the lives of ordinary people who became extraordinary in their commitments to stay home and move their home state from an oftentimes hostile environment toward a place of true equality for all of its citizens. These six people and their amazing stories take their place along with fifteen others in the book who shared their commitment to home and their courage to fight for change… twenty-one  southern perspectives captured in one volume that supplies missing information in the overall struggle for queer rights during the turbulent 30-year period from the AIDS epidemic that characterized the 1980s through the realization of marriage equality in 2014.

    I do believe that truth is stranger than fiction – and just as entertaining.

    Our next public appearance will be on Monday, January 29th. at 4:30 in the afternoon on the University of South Carolina campus at the Russell House Theater. Panelists for this event are Harriet Hancock, Ed Madden, Alvin McEwen, Sheila Morris, Pat Patterson a/k/a Patti O’Furniture, and Nekki Shutt. Dr. David Snyder will be our moderator.

    (Books will be available for sale and signing by contributors of books bought there or elsewhere.)

    We hope you will join us as we continue to take this show on the road.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

  • Merry Christmas to me – BOOKS ARE IN!!!


    books in the warehouse – being shipped to customers today

    Thanks so much to all of you have pre-ordered – if you haven’t ordered your copies, please do soon!

    P.S. There will be several opportunities in January and February to have your copies signed by me, Harlan Greene and the other contributors (Jim Blanton, Candace Chellew-Hodge, Matt Chisling, Michael Haigler, Harriet Hancock, Deborah Hawkins, Dick Hubbard, Linda Ketner, Ed Madden and Bert Easter, Alvin McEwen, Pat Patterson, Jim and Warren Redman-Gress, Nekki Shutt, Tony Snell, Tom Summers, Matt Tischler, Teresa Williams) at various functions including the Guild on Thursday, January 11th.

    If you want me to sign copies you’ve bought before Christmas for gifts, please send me an email at smortex@aol.com to arrange a time to bring them by my home for me to sign. I will be here throughout the holidays.

  • It’s a Book! It’s a Book!


    I’m so excited, I just can’t hide it, I’m about to lose control, and I think I like it!

    The Pointer sisters couldn’t have been more excited about their music than I am about my new book, Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home, which is now available for pre-orders on Amazon and should be released in early December!

    Four years ago next month I went to the Guild Christmas Party and had a good visit with one of my favorite people, Harriet Hancock. We sipped our cocktails and talked about the importance of preserving stories like hers for future generations – the more we talked, the more convinced we became that the idea was worth exploring. We decided to get together after the holidays to talk about it again.

    During that same holiday season in 2013 Teresa and I had Christmas at Dick Hubbard and Curtis Rogers’s farm in Hopkins with our friends Dave and Saskia and their son Finn. I mentioned the idea to Dave of an oral history book with the stories of some of the organizers of the lgbtq movement in South Carolina – told him about my conversation with Harriet the night before. Dave, who is an American History scholar at the University of South Carolina, said such a book could be very helpful to the literature. Later on, Dave introduced me to one of the acquisitions editors, Alex Moore, at the University of South Carolina Press.

    And the rest, as they say, is history.

    Through personal interviews, fabulous storytelling, laughter, tears, shared memories – I had the privilege of getting to understand why these ordinary people did extraordinary work that changed the environment for lgbtq issues in a rural conservative southern state. Amazing. Awesome. Truly a must-read.

    Jim Blanton, Candace Chellew-Hodge, Matt Chisling, Michael Haigler, Harriet Hancock, Deborah Hawkins, Dick Hubbard, Linda Ketner, Alvin McEwen, Ed Madden and Bert Easter, Sheila Morris, Pat Patterson, Jim and Warren Redman-Gress, Nekki Shutt, Tony Snell, Carole Stoneking, Tom Summers, Matt Tischler, and Teresa Williams.

    “In Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement, Sheila Morris has curated a gallery of queer activists’ stories. If the SC Historical Commission ever casts around for some new figures for all the surplus bronze, this book has a hero for every platform.”–Kate Clinton, feminist humorist, contributor to the Progressive and the Huffington Post

    I have a special page that will be on this site permanently at the top of my blog – please read it for reviews and other important information about events, signings, the official book launch.

    Stay tuned.