Showing results by narrator "Martin Padgett" in All Categories

An electric and intimate story of 1970s gay Atlanta through its bedazzling drag clubs and burgeoning rights activism. Coursing with a pumped-up beat, gay Atlanta was the South's mecca—a beacon for gays and lesbians growing up in its homophobic towns and cities. There, the Sweet Gum Head was...

When a police officer stood at his bedroom door on August 3, 1982, Michael Hardwick had no idea that he would become an avatar of the gay rights movement. Arrested for sodomy, Hardwick sued for his right to privacy all the way to the Supreme Court, as the HIV/AIDS epidemic spiraled. When he lost, his era-defining case inspired a half-million people to protest against the Court. Today Bowers v. Hardwick continues to reverberate as the rights of privacy underpinning abortion, contraception, and same-sex relationships come under fire.