Atlanta mayor invites drag queen to read to kids at city hall after library cancels ‘drag queen reading hour’

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) invited a drag queen to read to children at city hall after a library pulled its sponsorship for her “Drag Queen Story Hour” event.

“Miss Terra Cotta Sugarbaker and all of our LGBTQ friends are always welcome at Atlanta City Hall. How about we host your next story hour? @CityofAtlanta—let’s make it happen! #OneAtlanta ,” Bottoms tweeted Friday.

Miss Terra Cotta Sugarbaker and all of our LGBTQ friends are always welcome at Atlanta City Hall. How about we host your next story hour? @CityofAtlanta—let’s make it happen! #OneAtlanta https://t.co/gj3eUIRZSC

— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) April 5, 2019

The event Bottoms offered to host is part of a national “Drag Queen Story Hour” movement that promotes events at local libraries in which drag queens read to children.

Miss Terra Cotta Sugarbaker, the drag persona of 40-year-old Buford native Steven Igarashi-Ball, has held story time at the local library for more than a year and a half, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

{mosads}Igarashi-Ball told the Journal-Constitution the library system withdrew its sponsorship of the reading event but will allow an unsponsored event take place on April 27, adding that he was “definitely interested to discuss the possibility, and we love that the Mayor is supporting our event!”

“We appreciate the community support for the Drag Queen Story Time event, which has been successful and well received at the Ponce de Leon Library. We recommended to the organizer that it continue at the location where it has a strong track record. … Not every program is offered at every location,” the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System said in a statement.