THE SONS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, tells the story of the gay men of New
Orleans who created a vast and fantastic culture of wildly popular 'drag
balls' starting in the late 1950s. These men worked with the traditions
of Mardi Gras to bring gay culture into public settings in the early
1960s. By 1969, there were four gay Mardi Gras clubs legally chartered
by the state of Louisiana, throwing yearly extravaganzas at civic venues
around the city. 'Society matrons begged for ball tickets from their
hairdressers'. They succeeded in bringing down the 'Jim Crow' type laws
that targeted gay people during this period, staging a flamboyant,
costumed revolution without politics and won freedoms during a time, as
now, when laws and people fought against them.
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