
Mandy Carter is a long-time Black lesbian activist and community organizer. Born in 1948, Mandy spent her childhood bouncing between New York state children's homes. While that came with exceptional challenges for a young person, it also allowed her the freedom to grow into exactly who she wanted to be, without the binds of familial pressures and expectations. For Mandy, that meant being a lesbian, a quaker, and a radical agitator (at one point in jail for 90 days). In this episode, Mandy shares stories of: -discovering the Quaker tradition as a teen -sleeping in central park and hitchhiking all the way to San Francisco -finding a home at Maud's Study -protesting the war in Vietnam -the impact of Harvey Milk's assassination -reconnecting with her brother after 50 years, and continuing to search for her sister to this day **Help us find Delores!!! It's been six decades and Mandy is still looking for her sister. Please share any leads with us at cruisingpod@gmail.com and help us spread the word by sharing our related posts on social media (@cruisingpod) ... Thank you for listening to Cruising Podcast! -Reviews help other listeners find Cruising! If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a 5-star review! -For more Cruising adventures, follow us @cruisingpod on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook -Check out Cruising's Substack for deep dives and companion pieces to our episodes! -Preorder our book, THE LESBIAN BAR CHRONICLES -Support Cruising here! Cruising is an independent podcast. That means we're entirely funded by sponsors and listeners like you! -Cruising is reported and produced by a small but mighty team of three: Sarah Gabrielli (host/story producer/audio engineer), Rachel Karp (story producer/social media manager), and Jen McGinity (line producer/resident road-trip driver). Theme song is by Joey Freeman. Cover art is by Nikki Ligos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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LIVE: Community Story Share (Northampton, MA / 06.01.26)

Highlights From Our Lesbian Bar Road Trip

Organizer Meg Riley on living in a lesbian co-op, the history of radical resistance in Minneapolis, and the ICE surge

Franco Stevens on the history of Curve Magazine, lesbian visibility, and extremely creative fundraising
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