MACON, Ga. — After around 60 years of being loud and proud, Macon LGBTQ drag performer and icon Tangerine Summers died last Thursday.
We share more about her life, whom friends say was a pioneer for the LGBTQ movement in Macon.
Where pride flags and merchandise are easy to find nowadays, the world looked different for the LGBTQ in the 90s.
"Back then, most people I knew lived in the closet," Scott Mitchell said. "They were very scared to come out and very scared to tell people."
Mitchell is Macon's Pride President. He says representation was hard to find in Central Georgia then.
"The only places we could find sanctuary were inside of nightclubs like that, was it. We did not have organizations and things like that that we could go to and be a part of," he explained. "Going to the club and seeing someone like Tangerine– Tangerine was larger than life."
Known for her Tina Turner performances was drag queen Tangerine Summers.
"I had never seen anything like it before in my life, you know? Huge personality on stage and off stage. Just an exceptional human being. She was living her best life and living out loud, and trying her best to be a change agent for this area."
Macon Pride co-founder DeMarcus Beckham says Tangerine, a Macon native, pioneered the LGBTQ movement in the 60s and 70s. In a time when it was dangerous to be openly gay and perform drag.
"Tangerine started drag in high school," Beckham explained. There were a lot of laws against being homosexual."
He says there was one law where drag performers had to have at least one article of men's clothing.
"Tangerine would tell times about after clubs. Police officers would be standing out waiting to arrest them. So Tangerine would, oftentimes, lift up her dress and show that she was wearing boxer shorts. Men's boxer shorts," Beckham laughed.
He says her unapologetic self paved the way for the new generation.
"She was a role model, and we have nothing to do but respect her," said Akasha Giselle Vidalle.
Vidalle has been doing drag for 13 years but says she met Tangerine at 18 when she was beginning her drag career.
"I fell in love with her then because she was so sweet and she was very charismatic," Vidalle said.
She says Tangerine was a grandmother to young drag queens like her, often giving advice.
"She said, 'Akasha, I just want you to be yourself and do what you want to do. Make sure that you're performing for the people and not just yourself." Vidalle explains. "So, I took that to heart. Maybe because it came from a legend."
When Mitchell got the call last Thursday that Tangerine had died after after a battle with an illness, it hurt.
"You so want someone to get better. You so, selfishly sometimes, want them to stay," Mitchell said.
However, they say the happiness she spread and the activist that she was will always be around.
"She loved life, she loved going to church, she loved singing. To have people that this next generation can look up to and know that they don't have to hide and don't have to not be themselves. That's why it's so important," Mitchell said.
"I loved Tangerine with all my heart," Vidalle said. "She will be missed.''
"Her willingness to stand up for what she believed in at a time and space where we hear stories about the trans community or the drag community were reviled–it's a story of tenacity like no other," Beckham says.
Family and friends will have a funeral for Tangerine this Thursday at Macon's Greater Zion Hill Baptist Church at 11 A.M.
On Sunday, there will be a drag brunch at the Society Garden, where performers will pay tribute from 12- 2 P.M.