Leigh Angelique

Leigh Angelique was from the house of Sweet Evening Breeze. On April 8th, 1970, a Wednesday night, Lexington Police raided what is now the Bar Complex on East Main Street. The police arrested four queens, including 22-year-old Garland Hanley, better known as Leigh Angelique.

After Leigh was booked for the crime of "wearing a disguise," she sought refuge at the home of Sweet Evening Breeze. Enraged by the injustice, Sweets called the judge assigned to sentence Leigh. Sweets told the judge it was "in his best interest to drop the charges." The judge complied. In the words of Leigh, "I don’t know what Sweets had on the people in this town, but she had something.”

This was the last time Lexington Police raided a gay bar for simply being a gay bar. For years after, Sweets and Leigh celebrated the date as their "Bastille Day," when they dismantled a prejudiced law and its unjust enforcement. Every queer person in Kentucky for the past 50 years has lived easier, a little more safely, because of these two Black Kentuckians enraged by injustice.

In 1971, a sociology student named Janice Engsberg spent the fall traveling to Angelique’s performances in Kentucky drag bars, taking photographs and recording quips from Leigh and her fellow queens. Engsberg relocated to the Pacific Northwest, but sent the album home to Kentucky 45 years later.