ATLANTA — The City of Atlanta is partnering with Historic Atlanta to highlight LGBTQ+ human and civil rights history in Atlanta through a Historic Context Statement culture project.
Historic Atlanta is a nonprofit organization that is focused on recognizing and empowering Atlanta's diverse communities by "place-based preservation."
According to the City of Atlanta, "A Historic Context Statement is a research project and product that helps identify, document and preserve a specific theme in a city's history."
It will become an important tool for local nonprofits and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs to asses the historic significance of the places the LGBTQ+ community have and will continue to inhabit.
This project is one of the first times a city in the southeast has made an effort to formally record and recognize queer history. In addition to this, the Historical Context Statement is "Atlanta's first ethno-cultural thematic Context Statement, this one being associated with identifying, preserving and protecting the city's LGBTQ+ heritage."
Recognizing LGBTQ+ people, spaces, movements and events as important factors which helped shaped Atlanta's neighborhoods will also provide a strong foundation for protection under the city's Historic Preservation Ordinance as well as erecting historic markers.
In 2021, then-mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms designated the Atlanta Eagle gay bar - which hosted some of Ru Paul's earliest drag performances - a historic landmark. At the time Historic Atlanta noted it as the first recognized and protected LGBTQ+ landmark in the Deep South.