Browse Exhibits (11 total)
Salsa Soul Sisters
This exhibit collection contains exhibits by Krü Maekdo and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. In May-June 2018, the Blackburn Printmaking Workshop hosted the exhibition, Salsa Soul Sisters: Honoring Lesbians of Color at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, as a celebration showcasing the recent donation of Salsa Soul Sisters: Third World Women archival materials to the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA). Members, Cassandra Grant, Imani Rashid, Nancy Valentine, and Brahma Curry, were responsible for this generous donation made in November 2016. It includes photographs, monthly newsletters, event flyers, discussion schedules, meeting minutes, financial papers, correspondence, pamphlets, and other materials documenting years of activism. It greatly expands the pre-existing holdings of LHA, furthering its positioning as the most comprehensive archive of lesbian materials in the world.
DIY Culture
In 1994, queer zine culture was flourishing. This was largely in response to a cultural zeitgeist in which grunge music, third wave feminism, and slackers—the latter being the poster children of Generation X—were creating a dialogue around anger, misogyny, and disaffection...(see more)
Stone Butch Blues
In an early scene from Stone Butch Blues—Leslie Feinberg’s pathbreaking first novel from 1992—the story’s narrator, Jess Goldberg, is institutionalized for their perceived sexual deviancy. Still merely a child in the story, Jess is forced to share a room with two fellow patients at the clinic: an older woman struggling with dementia, whose name is never given, and a young woman, Paula, whom Jess quickly befriends...(see more)
Dyke Marches
The Lesbian Avengers were a direct action group that organized the first ever Dyke March in New York City held on June 26th, 1993, with the theme ‘Lesbians Lust for Power.’ The organization encouraged attendees to “practice the art of mass seduction as we lick, squirm, fondle, moan, and kiss our way down Broadway.” See the following two articles, The NYC Dyke March and Origins of Dyke Marches Around the World by Olivia Wood and The Lesbian Avengers and the Dyke March by Samantha Leyerle to learn more.
The NYC Dyke March and Origins of Dyke Marches Around the World
On April 25, 1993, almost one million LGBTQ+ people gathered in Washington, D.C. for the third March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation (Smith). Their demands included a comprehensive LGBTQ+ civil rights bill, funding for AIDS research, universal healthcare, and the inclusion of LGBTQ+ history and issues in school curricula, among other things, such as abortion rights and anti-racism....(see more)
Marge McDonald
The Marge McDonald collection, as part of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, is a comprehensive account of working-class lesbian life in the Midwest during the 1950s. Along with numerous pulp novels and first-edition books by lesbian authors, the collection most notably contains Marge’s original writings and typed diary. These are unique contributions from a post-war and pre-Stonewall period that is less widely understood, yet critical to the gay liberation efforts that later emerged....(see more)
They Kept Us Out
At one of the women’s history salons organised by Center for Women’s History, Cassandra Grant, member of Salsa Soul Sisters: Third World Women Inc., reminded the audience, “There was a male bouncer to keep out the undesirables and the blacks— you remember that, right? They kept us out...(see more)
Gay Liberation and Trans Euphoria
Sylvia Rivera, cultural and political icon of both gay and trans liberation, sits with seven other unnamed queer activists in a grainy image taken by Ellen Shumsky on September 24, 1970. She's in the second row of at least two rows of seated people. Her arms are flung above her head in what looks like joy, and her face wears an expression that looks like easy happiness....(see more)
LOVE Tapes Collective
“And I’m tired of fuckers fucking over me [eeee],” belts out Flo Kennedy as she leads a group of lesbian activists in a sing-along. Kennedy’s raspy voice, a defining hallmark of her impassioned speeches during the 1970s, is the first sound the viewer hears in the L.O.V.E.Tape Collective’s 1975 video....(see more)
Black Lesbian Dreaming: Intergenerational Connection and Found Intimacy between Mabel Hampton and Me
Mabel Hampton’s favorite sweater was a cream, argyle v-neck. She would pair it with a plaid or checkered collared shirt underneath. Flipping through her photo collection, I imagine her standing in front of the mirror doing up all of the buttons on her collared shirt, pulling on her sweater, and heading out for the day...Read More