When Taylor Alxndr co-founded Atlanta’s Southern Fried Queer Pride in 2014, they just thought it would be a yearly festival that would host a few events in the city. There weren’t any lofty goals. Building a community for queer and trans people of color where they can simply be themselves was the main priority.
“We started off just doing house parties and small events and then we did the festival,” said Alxndr, who uses they/them or she/her pronouns. “After that, we were like, ‘Oh, people are like, really hungry for the things that we do.’ We slowly started doing more programming throughout the year and I feel like it wasn’t until like 2015, early 2016, that it was like, ‘Ok, we’re more than just the festival’.”
Alxndr didn’t fathom that, a decade later, Southern Fried Queer Pride would become a pillar for Black and brown queer communities in Atlanta, widely viewed as the LGBTQ capital of the South. Now, the organization is set to open its first community space, Clutch, in a 4,300-square-foot warehouse in the Oakland City neighborhood in southwest Atlanta. Southern Fried Queer Pride signed a five-year lease for the building last month.
Clutch is scheduled to open in April, but Alxndr admits that date may be delayed by a month or so. They want to ensure the space has everything the community needs. After all, the search for a new building took roughly four years. They needed both funding — Alxndr said that since 2020, the nonprofit has raised $250,000 — and a space that could hold the wide scope of their audience, from the potlucks or workshops of 30-40 people to the dance parties of 200-300 people.
Credit: Courtesy of Southern Fried Queer Pride
Credit: Courtesy of Southern Fried Queer Pride
Each year, Southern Fried Queer Pride hosts at least 40 events — all without a building to call their own. Last year, the group hosted its first week-long Pride festival in venues around Little Five Points. The work is rewarding, but often overwhelming, said Maya Wiseman. Wiseman is one of SFQP’s program coordinators, known as chefs within the organization. She curates events like Let’s Eat, a quarterly queer potluck that often takes place in Candler Park.
Wiseman said the staff started to reflect on the weight of their workload during a retreat in North Carolina last November. During that time, she said, “we’re like, ‘Are we too tired? Do we not have enough volunteers? Do we want to keep doing this?’ I think people knowing that we were going to have the center and that it was really going to happen, alleviated some of that stress for us.
”I think the most common misconception that people have is that SFQP is like this huge machine because we’re able to turn out a bunch of events that host a lot of people,” Wiseman said. “And really, it’s like maybe 6 to 10 people that really keep this thing going.”
At Clutch, Southern Fried Queer Pride plans to host its regular programming (like their vision board parties, potlucks, etc.), but on a more frequent basis. The nonprofit also plans for the warehouse to serve as a co-working space, a performance venue for local LGBTQ musicians and, eventually, an STI and HIV testing center.
The space is named after a popular Southern Fried Queer Pride event hosted by the late organizer and musician MonteQarlo, who died in 2018.
“When you think about like clutch, you’re like holding something, you’re keeping it with you,” Alxndr said.
It’s about bringing people together and giving them a space to be themselves, said Alxndr, “the artists, the activists, the performers, the organizers, the everyday average community members, the young people, the older people. This a community-centered space that should be able to clutch and hold all these different identities and different paths of life.”
Credit: Clique Creative : Aurie Singletary
Credit: Clique Creative : Aurie Singletary
But Wiseman, who joined the nonprofit roughly seven years ago, noted that Southern Fried Queer Pride would be nothing without the community’s support throughout the years.
“I’ve seen so much evolution. I’ve seen so many different people come into themselves,” Wiseman said. “I’ve seen so much joy. I’ve seen laughter. I’ve seen pain. I’ve seen just like so many things that have helped evolve people individually and have helped evolve us as a community.”
For Alxndr, securing a space still feels surreal. Their next goal is to have a large donor base that includes at least 200 monthly donors that would help cover rent and utilities for Clutch. Securing the space is an important feat, but ensuring Clutch continues to exists for years to come is just as essential.
“We just want this space to fully reflect the amazing, diverse community in Atlanta that has made us who we are,” Alxndr said. “What I really look forward to is just seeing what people create in the space and just being there for support— offering the space, giving different options, working on accessibility, making sure that everything is secure and just letting them have fun and create magic.”
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