Spaces to Live: Oral Histories of LGBTQ People in Mississippi

Introduction

In July, the Washington Post reported some bad news and some good news for LGBTQ residents in Mississippi.  The bad news was that Jack’s Construction Site, the gathering spot for the LGBTQ community in Jackson, Mississippi for the last twenty-five years, was closing.  Business was slow, and the seventy-one-year-old owner of the gay bar wanted to retire.  The good news was a legal victory for the LGBTQ community–a federal judge has issued an injunction against HB 1523–which would have permitted anti-LGBTQ discrimination. At first, it might seem odd that, even as public acceptance of LGBTQ people is growing, gay bars are closing.  It defies the assumption that more rights would encourage more LGBTQ people to congregate in spaces like J.C.’s. In other words, they would build a stronger community within existing LGBTQ institutions. That does not appear to be happening.  Instead, LGBTQ people are using other spaces — real and virtual — to meet partners, to socialize, and to work together for progress.  The way LGBTQ people in Mississippi use space changes over time and, therefore, has a history.

The Spaces to Live project seeks to record that history.  It will view LGBTQ people through the lens of the spaces where they created their lives.  In turn, looking at why people changed which spaces they used sheds new light on how the circumstances and identities of LGBTQ

A sign produced by Equality Mississippi in opposition to Mississippi's "Religious Freedom Act."
A sign produced by Equality Mississippi in opposition to Mississippi’s “Religious Freedom Act.”

people in Mississippi have changed.  This project comes at a perfect time because the lives of gay men and lesbians in Mississippi are in a state of flux.  Recent advances in civil rights, such as the right to serve openly in the armed forces and the right to marry a member of the same sex, have changed the legal and social status of LGBTQ people in Mississippi.  Some have responded by coming out into the public eye, forming new organizations and appearing regularly in local media.  At the same time, other LGBTQ people in Mississippi are deemphasizing their sexual orientation.  Young people with accepting straight friends often circulate in spaces linked to their neighborhood or their school, rather than in LGBTQ institutions such as bars or churches.  Finally, a sizeable portion of Mississippi residents have accepted their same-sex desires without accepting an LGBTQ identity, indicative of both a local and national conversation on gender and sexual identity.  The history recorded by the Spaces to Live project, consequently, will underscore the diversity of LGBTQ people in Mississippi.

This oral history project will examine this changing experience by interviewing twenty LGBTQ people in Mississippi. It will be conducted during the 2016-2017 academic year under the aegis of the Center for Oral History at the University of Southern Mississippi.  The project was commissioned and is funded by the Mississippi Humanities Council.  The Project Coordinator is Dr. Douglas Bristol, and the historical consultant is Dr. Andrew Ross.  Both are history professors at the University of Southern Mississippi.  The project will ask gay men and lesbians how they created spaces to live their lives, and what were the major turning points in their lives.

To get at the answer to those big questions, participants will be asked about specific aspects of their lives. They will be asked to describe their support network.  They will also be asked to discuss their experiences in the major social institutions of Mississippi—home, church, school, work, and businesses.  By focusing on institutions that almost everyone in the state has participated in, it will be easier to compare interviews with people from different backgrounds.  These men and women will be asked to describe their own social identities, rather than having them imposed by the interviewer. Gay men and lesbians in Mississippi also differ by age, gender, race, or socio-economic status.  The project’s goal is to interview a cross-section of LGBTQ people who live on the Gulf Coast or in the Hattiesburg area. In doing so, the project will contribute to emerging work on the significance of rural and southern LGBTQ life to the American story.

Seeking Interviewees

The “Spaces to Live” Project is currently seeking LGBTQ (and other) identified people who wish to participate in this project by being interviewed by a local volunteer trained by the Project Coordinator. We are especially interested in people who have grown up and/or lived in the South Mississippi region, broadly defined. Interviews will take place over the course of about an hour or two and you will be asked about your life in Mississippi, the places you have lived, worked, prayed, and/or socialized, and your experience with friends and family. In addition, you will be asked to complete a brief, written survey. These oral histories will be collected and stored by the Center for Oral History and will be made available to researchers and the general public. Interviews can remain anonymous.

If you or someone you know would like to participate in this project, please contact Project Coordinator Douglas Bristol via the contact form available here.