Maryjean Wall
Maryjean Wall is a journalist and an historian (Ph.D., University of Kentucky) who writes about the intersection of Kentucky’s horse world with national trends and developments during previous eras. This book, her third, examines a popular resident of Lexington, Sweet Evening Breeze, in relation to the worlds of LGBTQ, African Americans, and the emerging horse industry of the Twentieth Century. Dr. Wall was a sports writer for 35 of her 41 years at the Lexington Herald-Leader, and has lectured as a part-time instructor in U. S. History at the University of Kentucky.
Featured Book
“She’s the mother of us all”: Sweet Evening Breeze and the Queer Community of Lexington, Kentucky
Sweet Evening Breeze (1895-1983) was a well known LGBTQ figure in Lexington, Kentucky, whose gender identity defied categorization at the time. While she wore men’s clothing and answered to her birth name (James Herndon) at work and at church, she was Sweet Evening Breeze in her personal time, during which she dressed as a woman. As a Black individual living through the Jim Crow era, she received a rare level of visibility and influence, becoming a fixture in the city’s social and political life. Despite the cultural constraints of the South, she formed relationships across institutions of power including the mayor, local police, university athletes and members of the regional elite. Her story complicates dominant narratives of Southern history, LGBTQ identity, and Black experience in the Twentieth Century.
Meet Maryjean Wall and get a copy of their book at the 2026 Kentucky Book Festival, Saturday, November 7, 2026, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers.