Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
She's the Mother of Us All: Sweet Evening Breeze and the Queer Community of Lexington, Kentucky

She's the Mother of Us All: Sweet Evening Breeze and the Queer Community of Lexington, Kentucky

Wall, Maryjean

Paperback

Series: Queer Life in America

GLBTQIA StudiesRegional: South

ISBN10: 1476699577
ISBN13: 9781476699578
Publisher: McFarland & Company
Published: May 8 2026
Pages: 195
Weight: 0.59
Height: 0.42 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Sweet Evening Breeze (1895-1983), born James Herndon, was a well-known LGBTQ figure in twentieth-century Lexington, Kentucky, whose gender identity defied categorization at the time. While she wore men's clothing and answered to her birth name at work and church, she was Sweet Evening Breeze in her personal time, during which she dressed as a woman. As a Black individual living through the Jim Crow era, she achieved a rare level of visibility and influence, becoming a fixture in the city's social and political life. Despite the cultural constraints of the Old South, she formed relationships across institutions of power, including the mayor, local police, university athletes, and members of the regional elite, challenging conventional ideas of who could access and exercise influence.

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