The Atlanta Constitution bluntly described the film as “not the kind of movie where you send the kids on a Saturday afternoon.” Fifteen minutes into the film, it abruptly stopped. 5, 1969, the Atlanta Police Department entered a screening of Lonesome Cowboys, a homoerotic underground comedy directed by Andy Warhol. (Georgia State University Library Exhibits) It’s likely that this spark of hope, self-identity, pride, and defiance had already rooted itself in the minds of roughly 70 people in Atlanta as they made their way to their seats for a film at Ansley Mall Mini-Cinema, unaware they were settling into the South’s very own Stonewall.įront entrance of the Ansley Mall shopping center. But the tide had permanently shifted as became clear when Gay Liberation grew rapidly in the coming years. People had settled back into their everyday lives. The streets had been cleaned and the Stonewall Inn reopened. By early August, police officers and protestors had stopped physically fighting. The subsequent five days of protests jumpstarted the gay rights movement. Its impact here was little more than one month after a police raid at New York City gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, and the resistance that followed.
In the summer of 1969, a spirit of rebellion reverberated from New York City and touched down in Atlanta. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia State University Library Exhibits) Promotional photo from Andy Warhol’s comedy, Lonesome Cowboys.
