IN THE EARLY 1990s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, musician, singer, and LGBTQ activist John Quillin added the 51st name to a list he kept of the friends he’d lost. Then he stopped counting. “I just cried and cried. I couldn’t do it anymore,” he says. “They had so much to offer the world, and they were all dead.”
By then, Quillin was already a leader in Charlotte’s LGBTQ community, and he’s continued his activism to this day. In 2006, he merged his activism and lifelong passion for music by founding Gay Men’s Chorus of Charlotte, now a 51-member group that tours and performs at community functions, and is so inclusive it doesn’t require members to be gay. We recently caught up with Quillin, 61, to talk about his work with the chorus and his own experience in Charlotte over the last 39 years. His words have been edited for space and clarity.
I’M ORIGINALLY FROM KINGSPORT, in East Tennessee. I moved to Charlotte in 1981, chasing my first love. It did not end well.
I LOVED IT HERE. It was an easy place to make friends. There were so many transplants, and everyone was looking to connect. That worked to my advantage.
THERE WASN’T MUCH GOING ON in the LGBT community. There were a few bars, which I didn’t go to. There was a group called “Acceptance,” and there was the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, but I didn’t know about either of them at that time. My activism started in 1983, and I became deeply involved, even running the switchboard for a couple of years.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 2020-Ausgabe von Charlotte Magazine.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 2020-Ausgabe von Charlotte Magazine.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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