AIDS Activist Dr. Jesse Peel Dies at 83
Atlanta's queer community has been left reeling at the news of Dr. Jesse Peel's passing on December 28, 2023, at the age of 83.
The North Carolina native lived a life of activism, advocacy, and compassion, dedicating his life to helping people living with HIV/AIDS and the entire LGBTQ community. Dr. Peel attended University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he received his medical degree, then completed his residency in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent two years in the Navy, with tours in Vietnam and Okinawa.
In Atlanta, his psychiatric practice served gay men, and when many of his clients began dying during the AIDS epidemic, Dr. Peel was at the forefront of advocacy efforts as a founding member of several activist groups.
Among those groups were AID Atlanta and Positive Impact, two organizations still working in Atlanta to address and eradicate HIV/AIDS. He was also active on many boards in Atlanta, including the Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus, Lost-N-Found Youth, and Actor's Express. In 2012, Dr. Peel donated his work to Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library when they began to build an LGBTQ collection. His collection consisted of journals, appointment books and subject files from his psychiatric practice, correspondence, photographs, and more than 80 reel-to-reel audio tapes he sent to his mother while he served in Vietnam.
“The collection is remarkable,” Randy Gue, MARBL's curator of Modern Political and Historical Collections, said of Dr. Peel's material. “It provides great insight into Atlanta's response to the AIDS crisis.”
He also helped establish the Dr. Jesse R. Peel LGBTQ Center at East Carolina University in 2014, which provides support and community to queer students, faculty, staff, and alumni. “I would've never imagined something like this when I was growing up. I was such a backwoods kid,” Dr. Peel told Georgia Voice in 2019. “I didn't come out until my 30s. I might've been too afraid to go to it if there were a place like this in Chapel Hill.”
“It is with great sadness that we mourn the loss of Dr. Jesse Peel alongside our entire community,” Out Front Theatre Company wrote on Facebook. “Jesse was a part of Out Front's family since day one. After seeing our inaugural production of Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical in 2016, he sent an email to Paul Conroy that simply said, ‘Perhaps I can be of some help.' That small show of desire to support LGBTQIA+ theatre was emblematic of who Jesse was; a giving human who felt that he could always do more. We were honored to have Jesse in our audience more times than we can count and to also have him serve on our Board of Directors. He always entered the theater with a smile and left telling the staff that he would see us again soon ... The world is a better place because Jesse was a part of it, and we are a better company because he was kind enough to share his gifts with us. He will be missed but he will not be forgotten.”
“The Atlanta Sisters had one of their first supporters in the city in Jesse,” the Atlanta Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence posted to Facebook. “He opened up his home and heart to us. Later joining the board of a project under the wing of the sisters nonprofit before it became Lost-N-Found Youth. Thank you for all of your service to community and welcoming everyone to Camp Merton.”
“Jesse Peel became my friend, confidant, and co-conspirator exactly 30 years ago when I moved to Atlanta,” Mark King wrote on Facebook. “He founded every major HIV/ AIDS group in town, mentored countless young activists, and was once my ‘one phone call' from jail. His loss cannot be measured. The lives he nurtured — and those he saved outright — are his legacy. I love you, Jesse. But you knew that. Rest in heavenly peace.”