EP014: Pat Hussain Sings Her SONG of Social Justice Advocacy

Pat Hussain recounts her childhood in segregated Atlanta and her involvement in various social justice groups, especially her role in the creation of SONG (Southerners On New Ground).

Hussain (b. 1950) was born and raised in Atlanta, where she attended segregated schools until high school. She came from a middle class family and was a debutante, but then joined the Marines when her brother came back from Vietnam psychologically damaged and feeling a failure. She married men twice before coming out as a lesbian in the early 1980s. She helped organize the first GLAAD chapter in Atlanta (when GLAAD was just forming), and had just been working for the Gay and Lesbian Task Force organizing the first March on Washington when she attended the Creating Change 1993 conference that led to the founding of SONG, of which she was the first co-director (with Pam McMichael).

Biography taken from an interview of Pat Hussain by Lorraine Fontana for Sinister Wisdom. http://www.sinisterwisdom.org/SW93Supplement/Hussain