Gay Charlotte and LGBTQ Carolina News, Arts & Entertainment
Black Prides offers a safe place where people who identify as black and LGBTQ people could have safe spaces to celebrate their unique identities. In North Carolina, Fayetteville, Raleigh and Charlotte have all had Prides focused on the black community.
There have been times when I’ve had friends visit and they invariably ask, “Where’s Charlotte’s gay neighborhood?” These days, that generally leaves me scratching my head.
Pride events in Charlotte grew out of the activism of the 1970’s, such as the short-lived Charlotte Gay Alliance co-founded by the late Don King in 1972, and a chapter of Dignity, organized in 1977, and later changed to Acceptance to expand its diversity and outreach.
In 1984, when Greg Brafford became part-owner of O’leens, one of Charlotte, N.C.’s most storied gay bars, the city was not far removed from the time when “suspected homosexuals” would be arrested in Freedom Park and have their names featured on the front page of The Charlotte Observer.
In Charlotte, Bishop Tonyia M. Rawls created the Freedom Center for Social Justice (FCSJ) 10 years ago to be a “culture-shifting organization committed to the growth, safety, and empowerment of marginalized populations.”
Like most major American cities, Charlotte is suffering from a severe shortage of affordable housing. More than a third of households in Charlotte are “cost-burdened,” which means they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, according to a city report.
The Solutions Journalism Network and the Knight Foundation teamed up to form the new Charlotte Journalism Collaborative a few months ago. The group selected the affordable housing issue as the initial focus for the reporting work we will publish over the coming year.
Building a welcoming and therapeutic space for humans as well as cats is a central mission for both Daily Mews and MacTabby.
Derrick Vidas is the owner of Midwood Barkery, an Oakhurst establishment offering doggie day care, boarding and grooming for Charlotteans and their fur families.
Knowing the latest in real estate trends in the Charlotte-area helps buyers and sellers when it comes to navigating the market. qnotes reached out to a few of them to get their take on the local scene.
