Memory Flash

In the early 1960s, Freddie Styles briefly belonged to a gay male social club called the Jolly Twelve. When going to social functions, the group would dress in blue pants and white shirts, line up according to height, and walk in step. The catcalling between Fourth Ward residents on their porches and the Jolly Twelve instilled in Styles the value of a quick defensive wit. Styles will walk this neighborhood block again, joined in the end by the John Q. collective.

One of the first venues for Billy Jones’ drag performances, The Joy Lounge was located in what is now a vacant lot next to the Ponce de Leon Hotel. In the mid to late 1960s, it was illegal for men to appear in full drag. When the police would enter the Joy Lounge, a person on the door would alert the drag performers who would all crowd into a walk-in beer cooler and wait until the signal that all was clear. This installation takes place in a mobile cooler at the location of the old Joy Lounge and presents the excerpt from Billy Jones’ oral history in which he tells the story.

Socializing among lesbians was often part of the softball games played in Piedmont Park. Two of the teams were the Tomboys and the Lorelei Ladies. This performance presents spoken word from the oral histories of women who were impacted by softball in Piedmont Park with a women’s softball game as the backdrop.