In the decade following the 1969 clashes at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, the emergence of communities among southern lesbians, bisexuals, gay men, and transgendered persons gained new vibrancy and visibility. Where isolation and accommodation had characterized queer southern life since World War II, the seventies were marked by networking and organizing, discoing and marching. In Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones, award-winning writer James T. Sears tells the stories of queer history in the South through characters who shaped, and were shaped by, the events ushered in by the antiwar, civil rights, womens liberation, and gay movements following Stonewall. Sears builds upon his own earlier acclaimed book, Lonely Hunters, which details the postWorld War II generation of southern homosexuals.

Sears interweaves stories of people and places to chronicle a distinctly southern panorama of queer life in a time of transformation. He brings to light unforgettable people and events whose effect on America is still with us: A psychedelic queer wedding. Drag pageants. Motorcycle runs. Dyke softball. Faery gatherings. Gay prison life. Sears follows a dozen characters as they build communities of desire and the heart, work for social change, construct sexual identitiesand muster the political clout to take on Anita Bryant and march on Washington. He describes the evolution of music and literature, the bar and disco scenes, and gay spirituality in cities and towns from Virginia to Texas.

In rich, novelistic fashion, Sears explores how southern queer communities emerged from a region and culture uniquely contoured by the divisions of race, social class, religion, and gender, showing how the newly constructed communities of the seventies both owed a debt to their precursors and looked hopefully to the future.

James T. Sears is the award-winning author or editor of twelve books, among them Growing Up Gay in the South and Lonely Hunters. He is currently a visiting professor at Harvard University. Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones is the second of a projected multivolume work on queer southern life.

Praise for Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones

"While Scarlett OHara may resemble a drag queen, and Mardi Gras inspires more camp than a gay pride parade, the American South also boasts a rich, authentic and transgressive gay and lesbian history. In this chatty, free-ranging cultural survey, Sears presents a vivid kaleidoscope of the mores and political activities of many gay Southerners following the 1969 Stonewall riots and leading up to the 1979 march on Washington. Sears unspools this history through portraits of activists and community organizersincluding Merril Mushroom, Jack Nichols, Lige Clark, Vicki Gabriner, Minnie Bruce Pratt and Sgt. Leonard Matlovitch. . . . A panoply of emotionally riveting snapshots that aptly portray Southern gay experience in the 19760s."Publishers Weekly

"Hippies, communes, lesbian publishing collectives, drag pageants, gay bars: these are the marginalized, collective, and personal histories to which Sears pays homage in his second volume of a projected multivolume work on queer Southern life. . . . Think drag isnt political? Sears points out that it was a misdemeanor to wear clothing belonging to the opposite sex until the 1970s in some jurisdictions. . . . Sears effort is commendable. . . . Recommended."Library Journal

"Edward Albee has hailed [Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones] as a classic, and there can be no doubt but that Sears extraordinary skill as both a writer and a historian have made it just that."Gay Today

"In this second volume of a multivolume work detailing the emergence of Southern queer life, James T. Sears explores the tumultuous decade of the 1970s through the intersecting lives of a multitude of people. Sears frames the book in a storytelling style reflective of oral traditions. . . . The range of material Sears has gathered is stupendous, including the evolution of Southern drag from the hills of South Carolina, intimidation by FBI agents and grand juries, an unsolved murder in Mexico, a tragic fire in a New Orleans bar, a lesbian softball league in the summer of 1974, challenges to the militarys homophobia, and the founding of southern churches and synagogues. These stories serve as a choral narrative of a time of massive conflict and rapid change."Creative Loafing (Charlotte, N.C.)

"Dykes in Dixie! Queer boys in Hotlanta! Just name the place because we were there. James T. Sears has revisited those wild, wonderful, searching, sad seventies. The distance of years gives him a sharp perspective, and youa good read."Rita Mae Brown

"Continuing the groundbreaking work of Lonely Hunters, Searss Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones is invaluable. It is scholarly, deeply moving and disturbing, at times hilarious and always essential. Searss work will become a classic."Edward Albee, playwright, author of Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

"An extraordinary mosaic about the emergence of Stonewall in the South."Bonnie Zimmerman, author of The Safe Sea of Women: Lesbian Fiction 19691989

"Searss deft portraits, strong narrative, and clear-sighted analysis make Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones a classic of the genre."John Loughery, author of The Other Side of Silence: Mens Lives and Gay Identities, a Twentieth-Century History

"A fascinating, marvelously detailed, meticulously and extensively researched and compiled, highly structured, wonderfully personalized picture of the early post-Stonewall, southern gay scene."from the Foreword by Franklin E. Kameny, longtime gay activist and coiner of the slogan "Gay Is Good"

"Brimful of gay energy and solid history from a fresh angle!"Barbara Gittings, gay rights activist since 1958

"I cant imagine a more thoroughly researched history of the post-Stonewall American Southor a more delightful one to read! Mr. Sears paints enthralling and inspirational pictures."Donn Teal, author of The Gay Militants

"James Sears tells the story in magnificent detail."Allen Young, coeditor of Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation

"Beautifully written. Engaging. Very moving. And what a spectacular ending! Im really appreciative of the artfulness and passion in the work."Jack Nichols, activist, and author of The Gay Agenda

"With all the color and style and pathos that defines the gay and lesbian community, this book introduces readers to some of the women and men who, like the rest of us in other parts of the country, were learning exactly what it meant, during the 1970s, to be queer in America."Rodger Streitmatter, author of Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America

"Having lived as an out interracially married person deep behind the Cotton Curtain during that decade, I am fascinated by the range and depth of detail that Sears has meticulously documented."Louie Crew, Founder of Integrity