Terry Bird collection of Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History Thing records

Terry Bird is a retired attorney who served as secretary of the Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History Thing, Inc. He was born 20 August 1946, in Knoxville, Tennessee, and was raised in Nashville and Murfreesboro. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Middle Tennessee State University in 1968 and subsequently taught at Castle Heights Military Academy for four years, after which he earned a law degree from the University of Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1975. In 1976 Bird began working for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in the southeast district, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. He remained with INS for his entire career and retired in 2007. Bird became active in and familiar with the gay world in the southeast beginning in 1965. He met his longtime partner Clark Lemmons in 1976.

The history of the Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History Thing, Inc. started in 1991. Several lesbian and gay activists from the 1970s and 1980s became increasingly concerned that their history was being lost as the personal papers, records, and ephemera of community members deteriorated in basements and attics or was consigned to the garbage upon their deaths. In response, an ad hoc committee was formed to collect, preserve, and find a permanent home for materials relating to Atlanta’s lesbian and gay history. By December 1991, the committee had met with staff of the Atlanta History Center who encouraged them to collect and donate materials to the History Center. By the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day festivities in June 1992, the committee had constituted itself as the Atlanta Lesbian and Gay History Thing and was conducting community outreach in an effort to “promote understanding and appreciation of Atlanta’s lesbian and gay history.” Over the next several years, the organization presented a series of programs and workshops and collected an extensive amount of material that was donated to the Atlanta History Center.