Otherside Lounge Bombing: 1997 Attack on Atlanta Lesbian Bar
Atlanta police share evidence taken from the scene of the Otherside Lounge bombing on February 21, 1997. It includes two 1/4″ steel plates, a green backpack, two 6-volt lantern batteries, two Baby Ben alarm clocks, dynamite, duct tape, and 6d wire nails. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Updated September 11, 2024
February 21, 2021 ~ By Shari Rose
After beloved lesbian bar known as the Otherside Lounge was bombed in Atlanta, the owners soon re-opened her doors in defiance of the homophobic attack
The Otherside Lounge was a welcoming lesbian bar that provided community, safety, and joy for LGBTQ+ people in Atlanta. But on February 21, 1997, the Otherside Lounge was bombed by a domestic terrorist named Eric Rudolph who fostered extremist anti-gay beliefs. Owners of the establishment, Beverly McMahon and Dana Ford, refused to give in to fear and quickly re-opened their bar despite the very real threat of terrorism and violence that they and the local queer community faced.
- Otherside Lounge Becomes Safe Haven for LGBTQ+ Georgians
- Bar Owners Beverly McMahon & Dana Ford
- Night of the Otherside Lounge Bombing
- Owners Fight Threats & Lawsuits Before Being Forced to Shut Down
- Eric Rudolph’s Anti-Gay & Anti-Abortion Extremism
- The Legacy of Otherside Lounge in Atlanta
Otherside Lounge Becomes Safe Haven for LGBTQ+ Georgians
Opened in 1990, the Otherside Lounge on 1924 Piedmont Road was a favorite lesbian bar and club in Atlanta. Queer patrons enjoyed a large dance floor, pool tables, and quieter lounge areas with a full-service bar to relax and have a drink. Otherside also hosted drag events and music-themed nights, such as jazz, hip-hop, and country.
1924 Piedmont Road, the address where Atlanta’s premier lesbian bar of the 1990s once stood, is now home to a urology center. (Source)
But this Atlanta lesbian bar was more than just a popular hangout for LGBTQ+ people to meet others and be themselves in the highly discriminatory times of the 1990s. The Otherside Lounge served as a safe haven for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, trans people, and other folks seeking community after being rejected by family and friends for refusing to hide who they are.
Aware of what this bar meant to so many people, owners Beverly McMahon and Dana Ford kept Otherside open on holidays, including Christmas and Thanksgiving, so it could serve as a safe place for those with nowhere to go. The holidays can be a particularly difficult time for LGBTQ+ folks who are not accepted by their families, and especially during an era where homophobia ran rampant and few laws existed to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination, Otherside undoubtedly served as a life-saving resource for those who needed it.
Bar Owners Beverly McMahon & Dana Ford
After meeting on a blind date in Florida, McMahon and Ford fell in love and eventually moved to Atlanta. They welcomed two children into their family and considered their next business venture. When deciding to open a gay bar in the city, McMahon pointed to the importance of providing a space where everyone felt safe and accepted. In an interview with Georgia Voice, she said, “It was very important to me early on that I would have a business, no matter what it would be, where everyone was welcome: gay, straight, Black, white.”
Conditions for queer people in Georgia during the 1990s was improving slowly, but there were still few legal protections for the LGBTQ+ community. In 1997, the same year of the bombing, Atlanta officially recognized the domestic partnerships of same-sex couples after the case went all the way to the state’s Supreme Court. But Georgian lawmakers enacted a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2004 before things genuinely began to improve for LGBTQ+ folks in the state.
- More stories: What Daughters of Bilitis Achieved for Lesbian Rights in the U.S.
- More stories: Crystal LaBeija: Iconic Drag Queen Who Established House System
- More stories: Why Is Bisexuality an Invisible Majority in the LGBTQ+ Community?
With these social conditions at play in Georgia and throughout the U.S., the Otherside Lounge was born in 1990. At least while they were enjoying themselves at Otherside, gay, lesbian, bi+, and transgender residents in Atlanta could worry a little less about the political climate and just be themselves. They could feel safe while being out at their favorite lesbian bar without fear. Unfortunately, that safety and acceptance made Otherside a target for Eric Rudolph
Night of the Otherside Lounge Bombing
On February 21, 1997, a projectile bomb exploded on the back patio of the Otherside Lounge as the bar entertained a busy Friday night crowd. When the blast went off, customers initially thought someone had been shot. But when fellow patron Memrie Wells-Creswell revealed a spike nail sticking out of her arm, it became clear there was a bomb explosion.
When the bomb went off, Beverly McMahon was walking toward the front entrance of her bar. Shards of glass and other dangerous debris flew directly over her head and destroyed multiple cars in the parking lot. Her car’s backseat was completely blown out, destroying her two kids’ car seats in the process.
In a different part of town, Dana Ford had just returned home from Otherside when the blast went off. When she raced back, she watched firefighters triage a woman by the bar’s entrance. Doors and windows blown out, the interior of the Otherside Lounge was a wreckage of shattered glass, metal shrapnel, and dust.
Memrie Wells Creswell, whose right shoulder was pierced by a four-inch nail from a bomb planted by Eric Rudolph at the Otherside Lounge, talks to members of the media outside the federal courthouse in 2005 after the sentencing hearing for Rudolph. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
Though over 100 people were inside the Otherside Lounge at the time of the explosion, only five total customers sustained injuries. They and others faced social consequences after being outed as victims of the blast. When Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell used Memrie Wells-Creswell’s name in a subsequent press conference about the terror attack, she was fired from her real estate job for being gay. Wells-Creswell sued the company, but lost because there were no laws in Georgia that prohibited LGBTQ+ discrimination at the time.
Owners Fight Threats & Lawsuits Before Being Forced to Shut Down
In the aftermath of the Otherside Lounge bombing, bar owners Beverly McMahon and Dana Ford faced a barrage of threats from this newfound publicity. An onslaught of rape threats and death threats in the form of letters and phone calls targeted them and their queer female customers after the terrorist attack. To protect their children, McMahon and Ford even considered sending their kids to Florida for a while, but but ultimately decided against it.
However, they did decide to clear out the debris and shrapnel, pay for some remodeling work, and re-open the Otherside Lounge just one week after the bar’s bombing.
Emergency medical personnel give first aid to the victims of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, committed by Eric Rudolph, on 27 July, 1996. Two people were killed and 111 were injured. Photo by: Carsten Rehder/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
Some regulars returned to their favorite gay bar in Atlanta, but many customers did not. Unfortunately, Otherside never saw the same crowds it did before the bombing. In addition to the loss of revenue, its owners faced nearly 20 lawsuits leveled against the club, as some patrons argued that McMahon should have been prepared to be bombed.
McMahon and Ford won every lawsuit they were up against. But the legal costs of defending their lesbian bar after it was victimized by a domestic terror attack began to add up. With a mountain of lawsuits, renovation costs, loss of cash flow and insurance delays piling up, the pair was forced to shut down the Otherside Lounge in 1999.
- More stories: Why Are So Many Bisexual+ Women Sexually Assaulted?
- More stories: Zazu Nova’s Legacy at Stonewall Deserves Recognition
- More stories: Hatpin Panic: How Hat Pins Upended Gender Politics in the 20th Century
Eric Rudolph’s Anti-Gay & Anti-Abortion Extremism
Federal authorities immediately made connections with the Lounge bombing and other recent Atlanta bombings that put the entire city on edge. Seven months earlier, a bomb exploded at the Centennial Olympic Park during the Summer Olympic games, killing two people. And just one month before the Otherside bombing, seven people were injured in a bomb blast at a Sandy Springs abortion clinic. All explosives used in these attacks were projectile bombs, usually filled with nails and other metal shrapnel.
Video footage of an outdoor concert captured seconds before a projectile bomb exploded at the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta on July 27, 1996. (Source)
As the FBI scrambled to identify the bomber, they erroneously suspected a security guard named Richard Jewell before realizing the serial Atlanta bomber was a 29-year-old terrorist named Eric Robert Rudolph. Growing up in a deeply anti-Semitic household, Rudolph was heavily involved with the Christian Identity movement from the start. This white supremacist belief system teaches that only white Christians can be saved from damnation, among other grotesque ideas. Illustrating the roots of his extremism, Rudolph even wrote an essay in 9th grade that argued the Holocaust never happened.
Deeply entrenched in white supremacist beliefs, Eric Rudolph fostered extreme anti-gay and anti-abortion sentiment into adulthood, and chose those groups as targets of his terror. He found the Otherside Lounge in an Atlanta directory while looking for a local LGBTQ+ business to bomb after the abortion clinic.
Serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. (Source)
Nearly one year after the gay bar bombing, Rudolph bombed a Birmingham abortion clinic in what became the first fatal bombing of an abortion clinic in the U.S. Four months later, he was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, where he remained for five years until his arrest in May 2003.
Federal agents search the grounds outside the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic after a bomb placed by Rudolph next to the Birmingham abortion clinic exploded on January 29, 1998. The bombing killed an off-duty Birmingham and a clinic nurse. (AP Photo/Caroline Baird)
Ultimately, Rudolph confessed to four bombings: Olympic Park, Sandy Springs abortion clinic, Otherside Lounge, and the Birmingham abortion clinic. He was sentenced to life in prison at ADX Florence, a supermax federal prison in Colorado, where he remains today.
The Legacy of Otherside Lounge in Atlanta
Today, Beverly McMahon and Dana Ford are still together. They miss the bar they owned together more than two decades ago, and continue to receive mail from former customers who reminisce about the old days at a friendly lesbian bar that meant so much to them.
Ford says she is proud of what the Otherside Lounge represented to queer Atlantans: “I hope we made the impact with the community to empower and strengthen and be part of the fabric of the gay community … yes it was our savings; yes it was our retirement. But we’ve had two kids, we had a great life, and we have a great community around us.”
Today, there are a couple of lesbian bars operating in Atlanta, such as My Sister’s Room, as well as many gay bars that welcome diverse clientele to their doors. But as anti-LGBTQ+ lawmakers continue to pass draconian, hateful legislation that targets transgender individuals in particular, the rights of so many Americans living in different states are stripped away each year.
Eric Rudolph is escorted by federal officials on June 2, 2003. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)
It can be easy to forget that one of America’s largest mass shootings in history took place at a gay club in 2016. But the 49 people killed in the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando were targeted by the shooter because they identified as LGBTQ+ and refused to hide from who they are.
Looking out for one another is not optional for queer Americans – it is a necessity. Because it’d be downright dangerous to believe that the anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments of February 21, 1997, are a relic of the past.
- More stories: These Corporations Don a Rainbow Flag & Donate to Anti-LGBTQ Lawmakers
- More stories: Dykes on Bikes & Gay Motorcycle Clubs in the U.S.
- More stories: How Lani Ka’ahumanu Propelled Bi+ Visibility Forward
0 Comments