There are some local websites of note, including that of the progressive alternative newsweekly, Memphis Flyer, and the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center.įor general tourism information, take a look at the Memphis CVB's helpful travel site. Tennessee's gay newspaper is Out & About (which is geared more toward Nashville but does have some statewide coverage).
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New Orleans, LA: 400 miles (6 to 6.5 hrs)Ī nicely produced, thoughtful LGBT print and online resource based in Memphis, Focus Mid-South touches covers news, culture, community, events, and plenty of other issues important to the city's and the surrounding region's community. Little Rock, AR: 270 miles (5 to 5.5 hrs) The airport in Memphis is one of the busiest for cargo in the world, as the city is the headquarters of FedEx - Memphis International Airport is a 20-minute drive southeast of downtown and is served by all major airlines and is a smaller hub of Delta Airlines.Įureka Springs, AR: 270 miles (3.5 to 4.5 hrs) Call Premier Transportation (90) for taxi and airport shuttle services. The neighborhoods with most of the gay nightlife and retail scene are in Midtown, a 10- to 20-minute drive east of downtown. Keep in mind that you'll want a car to explore anything beyond downtown Memphis and a few key museums (such as Graceland and the Civil Rights Museum, which have shuttle or trolley services from downtown). Early Nov.: Indie Memphis Film Festival.Late Sept.: Memphis Gay Pride/Mid-South Gay Pride.Mid-Sept.: Cooper-Young Festival (a celebration of music and art in one of the city's most diverse neighborhoods).Early to mid-Sept.: Outflix LGBT Film Festival.Early May: Beale Street Music Festival (one of the world's leading blues festivals, drawing dozens of top artists).May: Memphis in May International Festival (a month of blues, barbecue, and other fun events).Early Jan.: Elvis Presley Birthday Week at Graceland.And gays and lesbians in Memphis have played a vital role in the revitalization of such eclectic neighborhoods as Midtown and funky Cooper-Young. The city's Gay Pride event, Mid-South Pride takes place each October in the heart of downtown, along the famed Beale Street, and Memphis Black Pride in June, in downtown's South Main neighborhood (near the Lorraine Motel).
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Nevertheless, stand along the banks of the Mississippi River and you’ll see a city skyline still retains plenty of charming early 20th-century buildings, including the gloriously restored Peabody Hotel.Īs for the LGBT community, it continues to attain increased visibility. The city’s once grim Civil Rights record has been largely reversed, a highlight being the impressive National Civil Rights Museum, which has been created out of the motel in which Dr. Handy and rock icon Elvis Presley became American icons while living here) continues to draw fans of many genres and is celebrated at several superb museums, including, of course, Elvis' former estate, Graceland (a must, even if you're not a big fan). The city began to rebound economically by the early '90s. Martin Luther King, Jr., was felled here by an assassin’s bullet to about the middle of the 1980s, Memphis suffered an unrelenting slump - even the city’s elegant grande dame, the Peabody Hotel, closed its doors for a time in the ‘70s. As for gay nightlife, don’t come expecting the high-octane club scene of Atlanta and New Orleans, but you will find some very fun bars.įrom the day in 1968 that Dr. Nevertheless, visitors to this sprawling metropolis hugging the east bank of the Mississippi River will find a remarkable variety of outstanding attractions - enough so that you really need at least three days here just to hit the best ones.
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Although it’s one of the most populous cities in the South, Memphis is a fairly low-key place, and its lesbian and gay population is less visible than in most comparably sized cities.