Reclaiming Southside with Mattie Coll

M. J. left Richmond for college but when her mother became sick, she found herself back in the town that she both loved and struggled to understand.

Reclaiming Southside with Mattie Coll. Saturday, June 28th at 1 PM.

Mattie Coll grew up imagining herself as like her father’s son, but 1950’s Richmond, Virginia, wasn’t a welcoming environment for her to come of age. Venturing to the Midwest for college, M. J. came into her own as a lesbian feminist in her twenties, exploring relationships with other women, participating in Vietnam War protests, and advocating for citizens in crisis. But when her mother got sick, M. J. found herself back in Richmond, the city that she both loved and struggled to understand. Caring for her mother and reconciling with her father left her with no choice but to Reclaim Southside, the neighborhood she grew up in and had sought so desperately to flee in her teens and twenties.
This collection of vignettes and poems about coming of age in the South speak both to M. J.’s personal experience as a young lesbian and the movements of the latter half of the twentieth century that have shaped America today. A testament to both how far we have come since the fifties yet how far we still need to go in our search for equality for the LGBTQIA+ community, M. J.’s story is both personal and political.

Mattie Coll is a poet, artist and retired English teacher who grew up in Richmond and currently lives in the city with her black lab Flip.