Honoring Pride in Gay Comics

I remember living in Knoxville, TN, back in the 1980s, and in a counter-culture weekly newspaper, a writer named Jack Neely produced a regular column called “Secret History” where he’d relate some story of old Knoxville that sometimes educated and reassured his readers of what used to be. At other times, he probably challenged if not intimidated other readers with stories of forgotten and lurid lore. I’ve longed to write such stories of my own past, of the place where I grew to be a man: 1960s-70s Birmingham/Bessemer, Alabama. I’ve written and published a few essay collections about long ago places that most don’t remember and others would love to keep buried. Places like former Klan hangout Moose Lodge/Park, and that illegal gambling den, Little Man Popwell’s, in a neighboring county where my grandmother wagered away her grocery money at the roulette table. <a href="https://medium.com/prismnpen/honoring-pride-in-gay-comics-492781ae3975">Learn More</a>