This year, 2024, marks the 30-year anniversary of a little-known convergence between the history of the Olympic Games and the struggle for LGBTQ rights in the United States. When the Olympics came to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996, no events were held in one of Metro Atlanta’s most populous counties despite efforts by business and local power elites. That lone place—one of Georgia’s 159 counties—was not visited by the Olympic torch: Cobb County. Why? Because a determined and resourceful group of LGBTQ activists made sure the Olympics would stay away.

In a time of renewed political attacks on the LGBTQ community and a growing activist Left devoted to such issues as racial equality, women's rights, and preventing environmental catastrophe, looking back and learning from history is vital. As a gay man who was born in 1997 and raised in Atlanta by two mothers, both of whom were active in gay rights groups like Queer Nation, ACTQuee UP, and the Lesbian Avengers, I thought I knew a lot about the protest movements of the 1990s. But when I asked my parents for more information on that history, they brought up a book I had never heard of, written by activists they had known and worked with—and who deserve to be better known today. 

The book is Olympics Out of Cobb: Spiked! by Pat Hussain and Jon-Ivan Weaver, published in 1996. It’s a riveting narrative journey through the conversations and thoughts that surrounded an activist group's birth and its fight against homophobia and prejudice in the years 1993-4. When I opened its covers, I began to read about people I’d grown up seeing and knowing in Atlanta—veteran activists like Jeff Graham, head of Georgia Equality; Mona Bennett, one of the co-founders of the Atlanta Harm Reduction Project; and Pat Hussain, who co-founded both the Atlanta chapter of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and Southerners on New Ground (SONG). Growing up, I always wondered what these people were like in their youth, especially those who I knew as "professionals" and boardroom activists. But through the book—and conversations I had with my family—I learned that before fighting for grants or struggling with the levers of power, they too were young activists marching, protesting, and taking direct action on the streets for their causes.

Olympics Out of Cobb: Spiked! opens with a shameful incident in Georgia history. On August 10, 1993, the Cobb County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution which explicitly condemned and targeted their gay constituents. The resolution stated that the “lifestyles advocated by the gay community should not be endorsed by government policy makers" since they were against Cobb's “community standards” and its policy to support the “traditional family structure" and that “gay lifestyles are directly against state laws.” The last point was actually true, as Georgia still had a law on the books criminalizing gay sex until 1998. The resolution passed by a vote of 3-1, with only Commissioner Bill Cooper voting no. The whole thing was blatantly homophobic and hateful, and as soon as the news got out, the LGBTQ community began looking for ways to fight back. 

Around the same time, Metro Atlanta had another focus: the city’s upcoming status as the host city for the 1996 Olympic Games. In Olympics Out of Cobb: Spiked!, Jon-Ivan Weaver recalls when he and his partner, Diego, joined hundreds of others in the Underground Atlanta district for a watch party of the International Olympic Committee's decision and the “joyous shout” of the crowd when their own city’s name was read out. He describes how they felt “like a part of the city; not a gay part, not different, just proud citizens of Atlanta.”

Weaver no longer felt the same come January 30, 1994, when during that year’s Super Bowl pre-game show, Cobb County—which had officially condemned its gay citizens just a few months earlier—was announced as hosting some Olympic events, mainly women’s volleyball. Immediately Weaver felt he had to do something and began calling, and, yes, faxing (it was the ’90s) both local and national gay and lesbian groups as well as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, or ACOG.

From that point on, the book is an exciting tale of how Weaver, Hussain, and a small circle of their friends and allies built up a dedicated community of activists, all with the goal of overturning the decision to hold Olympic events in Cobb County. The name they gave themselves was simple and descriptive: “Olympics Out of Cobb.” This group of activists, mostly in their 20s, some already with political baggage from previous protest movements, knew it would be an uphill battle. Weaver himself was not a natural leader at first, and he dealt with moments of shyness and anxiety throughout the campaign; at one point, he recalls downing half a bottle of Pepto-Bismol to steady himself before his first-ever public speech. But when he meets Pat Hussain, who has a little more experience as a political organizer, she helps him find his courage: 

“What do you want to do?” Pat was trying not to be rude, but she didn’t have time for this conversation.

 

“I’m not sure… but I’m pissed.” He blurted out, stood there defiantly in the parking lot. 

 

Pat stopped and turned around, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Well, that’s all it takes.”

By the book’s end, Weaver is threatening to chain himself to the Olympic volleyball nets if ACOG doesn’t abandon Cobb County and its homophobia, and he’s telling public officials things like “there is no compromise” and “our rights are not for sale” when they try to get the activists to back down. It’s an inspiring transformation. 

As the book shows how Olympics Out of Cobb is formed and gains strength and its characters are introduced, I find my own perceptions begin to shift, just as Jon-Ivan Weaver shifted from a timid, uncertain activist to a courageous organizer and leader. Jeff Graham, someone I always saw as a very formal and corporate activist growing up, is revealed to have designed and made a satirical "KKK outfit" for Izzy, the 1996 Olympic Games mascot, as an act of protest. The outfit was worn in the Atlanta Pride march that year, as well as at multiple pickets and protests; the activists also wore matching T-shirts with the slogan “Izzy a Bigot?” to many of their events, infuriating Billy Payne, the leader of ACOG. I remember Mona Bennett, who’s introduced with the pseudonym Mona Love in the book, always wearing her hat covered in activist buttons; the story of how she came by some of those buttons is included here. Even the book’s co-author, Pat Hussain, is a familiar face who my family would often meet while out shopping; for my moms, it was always an opportunity to catch up with a fellow activist from the old days. These were everyday people who I grew up around, only seeing them at the end of a hard-fought struggle. But in reading Olympics Out of Cobb: Spiked!, I saw their story begin to solidify into a whole. A facet of their lives that I didn’t know about had been revealed.

Once officially formed and named, Olympics Out of Cobb began to deliberate on their demands. During this process, Hussain gave some advice that activists today should learn from: “Always ask these people for more than you think they will do. Then when you get what you want, they think they’ve made a great deal for themselves.” After several meetings, the group finalized a list and presented it at a press conference on February 24, 1993. Most importantly, they called for the IOC and ACOG to move Olympic events out of Cobb County venues and to ensure the county itself received “no direct benefit” from the games. However, reflecting the diverse background of the group’s founders and organizers—and their desire to build alliances with other social justice movements—they also made other multidimensional demands. In particular, they wanted the IOC and ACOG to issue a statement denouncing the Georgia state flag, which at that point closely resembled the Confederate one. Following the press conference, Weaver and Hussain began a series of meetings with ACOG representatives. Their first and subsequent six meetings were attended by the same group: Jon-Ivan Weaver and Pat Hussain representing Olympics Out of Cobb, and from ACOG, Shirley Franklin and David Getachew-Smith. Franklin, a senior advisor, was fourth in the leadership structure at ACOG and would go on to become mayor of Atlanta in 2002. Getachew-Smith, meanwhile, was a professional lawyer and the Director of Local Government and Community Relations for ACOG.

Illustration by Tom Humberstone

The first meeting went as expected, and Franklin echoed all of ACOG’s previous statements with a flat denial: "No, we're not moving." Following their first meeting on March 3, they had a second on March 7 and then another a week later on March 14. Throughout this time, Olympics Out Of Cobb was hard at work organizing support: contacting, informing, and creating a grassroots coalition including other LGBT groups and civil rights leaders like Congressman John Lewis, who wrote them a letter endorsing the demand about the Georgia flag. At each new meeting with ACOG, Weaver and Hussain brought lists, letters, and other shows of support from an ever-growing army of groups and individuals, from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and GLAAD to Latinos en Acción. But they also took daring direct action: when ACOG held a press event to unveil the Olympic Cauldron for the 1996 games, activists Ed Scruggs and Don George snuck in and unfurled an "Olympics Out of Cobb" banner before the assembled world press. Four days later, Weaver and Hussain had their fourth meeting with ACOG, showing two new letters of support from Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative Pat Schroeder. They also made an ultimatum, informing Franklin and Getachew-Smith of their plans to hold a huge national protest in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics if volleyball wasn’t moved out of Cobb County.

The book expertly depicts small-scale organizing and intersectional coalition-building at a time when the LGBTQ movement was still in a constant struggle to be recognized at all. Throughout, Weaver and Hussain show different strategies and tactics, from professional high-level negotiating meetings to massive outpourings of support from interested parties and dramatic on-the-ground actions. Remember, this was the 1990s—before the internet as we know it, when most people got their political information from a national pipeline of newspapers and cable stations. Weaver and Hussain show how to use the media to a social movement’s advantage and how they built relationships with journalists who provided Olympics Out of Cobb with vital publicity. The tactics they used may be outdated now, but many of them still work, and they could still be effective in fights today. The authors also show the discussions and conflicts within the group itself and how they managed to successfully resolve them. Most of all, the Olympics Out of Cobb fight highlights the multi-dimensionality of struggles. Just as they are today, homophobia and racism were siblings in the 1990s, not strangers, and they had to be confronted at the same time.

The fifth meeting between the activists and ACOG came on the heels of an event organized by the Lesbian Avengers, which was one of the most eye-catching demonstrations of the whole campaign. Waving a large Olympics Out of Cobb banner, the Avengers held a mock Olympic torch run from Atlanta to Marietta, ending with several members swallowing fire from their torches (yeah, seriously) and declaring that “this is the last time the Olympic torch will burn in Cobb County!” At the ensuing meeting, the organizers decided to emphasize a new angle, possibly inspired by the lesbian runners a few days before: the fact that some Olympic athletes, including in women’s volleyball, were gay themselves. Hussain, a lesbian, summed up this argument succinctly by saying that "you can't send those dykes and their girlfriends, and the dykes and their girlfriends who want to watch them play, to Cobb," where they might not be safe from homophobic harassment. Soon after, Olympics Out of Cobb got an endorsement from Bruce Hayes—a gold medalist swimmer and the first openly gay Olympian from the United States—who said that “Asking these people to attend an event in a place that condones homophobia and hatred is akin to asking black athletes to participate in a sporting event in South Africa.” This only gave more weight to Hussain and Weaver’s argument that gay people were an integral part of the Olympics and contributed to the growing wave of bad publicity for Cobb County. For ACOG and the IOC, the pressure was mounting.

Members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) at the Olympics-Out-of-Cobb protest, 1994. Courtesy of Kennesaw University Archives

 This meeting was also the first time any kind of official progress was made in the negotiations. ACOG conceded to some of the activists’ lesser demands, mainly increased sensitivity training for the Olympics security staff, as well as meeting the group’s demand for an LGBTQ advisory panel. This was a critical moment, because it appears ACOG hoped they could buy Olympics Out of Cobb off with these small changes and avoid making more serious ones. But Hussain and Weaver stood firm, reiterating that as long as there were games in Cobb, their movement would continue. At the last planned meeting, Hussain roundly rejected ACOG’s perpetual compromise-seeking, saying that "trading a kick in the head for one in the stomach is no bargain. You're still under attack."

May 9 and 10 marked the largest days of demonstrations for the group. Starting with a press conference at the Marriott Marquis hotel, they requested a meeting with Juan Antonio Samaranch, the president of the IOC. In response to media questions, the group said to "look for the pink triangles." Next, a set of activists got into nine cars with pink triangles painted on their roofs and began a "slow-down" of I-75 South, a major artery of Atlanta traffic which goes through Cobb County. Ignoring the shouts of police on their bullhorns, they drove at the legal speed limit of 40 mph in more or less all lanes of traffic—and no faster, snarling the entire highway and creating a visual spectacle for the news helicopters that soon gathered above. The demonstrations concluded with a picket outside the Capitol City Club, where ACOG was hosting a dinner for Samaranch. A top ACOG official joked about the activists’ low numbers, dubbing them the "Capital City Nine," only to be shown up the next day when a candlelight vigil held by Olympics Out of Cobb attracted an estimated 600 people. Chanting and singing, the group walked from Woodruff Park to Underground Atlanta.

Following the group’s name appearing on multiple banners in the Atlanta Pride Parade, where Hussain and Weaver served as official Grand Marshals in 1994, the Olympics Out of Cobb activists then attended the Stonewall 25 Pride Parade in New York City and called for a national protest at the Olympic Games in Atlanta. As they continued to get more and more national media coverage, the group got its biggest endorsement yet. When Greg Louganis, a champion diver who’d won gold in both the 1984 and 1988 games and who’d not long before come out as a gay man, accepted the Robert J. Kane award, which honors former Olympians, he dedicated his award to all gay athletes and specifically backed the Olympics Out of Cobb fight, saying, “It's not an issue of politics but fairness.” Louganis later called Weaver and told him that members of ACOG had been in the audience for his speech and that it had “scared the pants off them.” And finally, after an intense May, June, and July, ACOG announced on July 29 that it would comply with the activists’ demands and move all Olympic events out of Cobb County. They’d won. 

Now, nearly 30 years later, reading this book and talking to my mothers has enriched my own recollections of growing up within an activist family. My mom, Kelly, said “they just didn’t know what to do with us” when reminiscing over her time in the fight as a member of groups like Queer Nation, ACT UP, and the Lesbian Avengers. As a kid, I went with my parents to all kinds of protests, marches, and demonstrations for everything from MLK Day to the antiwar movement and, finally, the fight against the Georgia Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage in the early 2000s. My parents worked diligently in 2003 to oppose that homophobic law, but much to their dismay, it passed anyway in 2004. This was when they backed away from street activism, as that defeat stung in a new way. I was 6 or 7 at the time, but I remember seeing our local polling place—which was also my elementary school—become the target of anti-LGBTQ pickets with signs that said "God Hates Fags" during the election where this amendment passed. After that fight, my parents adapted to professional roles as they funded movements more than marched in them. But my childhood of activism planted seeds in me to fight for a better future for all.

The story of Olympics Out of Cobb: Spiked! may have taken place three decades ago, but the lessons, anecdotes, and humanity found in its pages are more relevant than ever. As a new generation of activists stand up and fight, whether it's against “Cop City” in Atlanta or in defense of trans rights across the country, we must remember that looking to the past and learning from our history is always necessary. So, if you thought you knew the whole story of this country’s social justice movements, think again. Ask a few more questions, read a few more books, and maybe talk to a few more people. There are more chapters yet to be written as the torch is passed to a new generation.