Tag: Atlanta Eagle
6 Atlanta queer history facts you might not know
Way before there was a rainbow crosswalk in Midtown, Atlanta’s LGBTQ+ scene was flourishing. Queer history tends to focus on large cities like New York and San Francisco, but Atlanta’s actually been a haven for queer and trans Southerners since the early 20th century.
On Ponce de Leon Avenue, 2 Atlanta LGBTQ+ landmarks are being preserved
The Wylie Hotel has named its restaurant, Mrs. P’s, for an iconic gay bar housed in the building decades ago. Down the street, the Atlanta Eagle has become the city’s first designated historic landmark dedicated to LGBTQ+ history.
A half-century of LGBTQ+ milestones in Atlanta
The first Atlanta Pride was held in Piedmont Park 50 years ago to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. Our LGBTQ+ community has made many strides over the last half-century. But we have far to go.
What will it take for APD to change the way it polices itself?
Our investigation of thousands of pages of internal-affairs documents raises questions about reform at the beleaguered department.
For the Love of Ponce
Perhaps more than any stretch of pavement in the city, the expanse of Ponce de Leon Avenue between Mary Mac’s Tea Room and the Majestic Diner possesses the historic charm, the culinary creativity, and the total weirdness that makes Atlanta, well, Atlanta. Our ode to Ponce.
StoryCorps seeking Atlanta Eagle raid first-person accounts
Thanks to the power of social media, first-person accounts from the city's infamous September 2009 raid of the Atlanta Eagle on Ponce de Leon Avenue may wind up archived in the Library of Congress. StoryCorps, the national non-profit founded in 2003 and dedicated to recording American oral histories, has a recording studio at Atlanta's WABE-FM. The controversial 2009 gay bar raid by the city's now-disbanded Red Dog Unit was performed by 24 officers who ordered patrons to lie face down on the floor for hours as they performed searches, background checks and shouted anti-gay slurs. Last summer, Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed's office released a scathing 343-page independent report on the raid, disclosing that 16 officers later lied or destroyed evidence about the botched raid. Half a dozen APD officers were fired and nine were disciplined in the fallout from the raid.
