For the Record: Community Programming
Wearing Gay History
Thursday, May 30, 2019, 7-8:30PM
T-shirts and other elements of popular culture serve as valuable tools to see how we place ourselves in local and national history. PhD candidate Eric Gonzaba of George Mason University will discuss wearing physical evidence as another historical source for making visible the history of diverse sexual, gendered, and racial queer cultures. Mr. Gonzaba’s research and interest revolve around the cultural politics of race and gender in late 20th century America, particularly 1970s African American and queer nightlife, along with costume history. Mr. Gonzaba formerly designed Wearing Gay History: An Exhibit on LGBT History through T-shirts. The exhibit featured t-shirts and other artifacts from the digitized Chris Gonzalez Library and Archives of Indianapolis to bring attention to LGBTQ+ history of “fly over” countries. Chris Gonzalez was an activist who succumbed to AIDS on May 5, 1994 in Indianapolis. Mr. Gonzaba is a doctoral student in American history at George Mason University, where he received his MA in history and women and gender studies. Joseph Cullon, guest curator of the LGBTQ+ FOR THE RECORD exhibit and WPI History professor, will moderate the talk with Eric Gonzaba.
The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution
Thursday, June 20, 2019, 7-8:30PM
WHM, Free with Museum Admission Revisits Stonewall activism: Empowering Communities and Archiving LGBTQ history with Jennifer Brier, PhD, writer and historian of the LGBT civil rights movement.
When Main Street Was Gay: A Walking Tour
Saturday August 31st at noon from Worcester Pop-Up, 20 Franklin Street, $10
Join WHM for a walking tour of LGBTQ+ Downtown Worcester. Follow the paths of early bar hoppers, community builders, cruisers, and Pride marchers as they cautiously and sometimes defiantly navigated the blocks around Worcester’s Main Street in pursuit of sociability, spiritual fellowship, sexual pleasure, and political rights between 1950s and 1990s. A digital companion to the tour will help bring the sites of early LGBTQ+ life to live through images and artifacts attesting to a time when Main Street was gay.
Worcester’s Role During the AIDS Crisis
Tuesday, September 3, 7PM, WHM, Free with Admission
Jim Voltz, who was executive director of AIDS Project Worcester from 1991-1996, will lead a discussion on the early days of the AIDS epidemic in Worcester, the establishment of APW, some of the early prominent leaders in the fight against AIDS in our community, the trauma still suffered by the generation that lost so many of its loved ones to the sickness, and the challenges that remain.
Prof. Robert Tobin (Clark University) will moderate.
LGBTQ+ Historical Overview: Community Memory
Wednesday, September 4, 2019, 7-8:30PM
Eric Marcus, award-winning oral historian of the LGBTQ civil rights movement, will bring the voices of LGBTQ+ history to life through intimate conversations with moderator, Allen Young, co-author of Lavender Culture, former hospital administrator, and a co-founder of the legendary Royalston, MA commune
of gay ex-new Yorkers at Butterworth Farm. Some of Marcus’ decades-old audio archive will be donated to WHM to help build the LGBTQ+ physical archive. A Dessert Social, by WOO PRIDE, will begin the program at 6PM.
When Main Street Was Gay: A Walking Tour
Thursday, September 5, 2019, 6PM from Worcester Pop-Up, 20 Franklin Street, $10
Join WHM for a walking tour of LGBTQ+ Downtown Worcester. Follow the paths of early bar hoppers, community builders, cruisers, and Pride marchers as they cautiously and sometimes defiantly navigated the blocks around Worcester’s Main Street in pursuit of sociability, spiritual fellowship, sexual pleasure, and political rights between 1950s and 1990s. A digital companion to the tour will help bring the sites of early LGBTQ+ life to live through images and artifacts attesting to a time when Main Street was gay.
Community Forum—Youth Culture and Worcester LGBTQ+ History
Tuesday, September 10, 2019, 7-8:30PM
This forum will provide insight into the current day experiences of LGBTQ+ youth, specifically the Safe Homes and SWAGLY programs for LGBTQ+, young people between the ages of 11 and 24. Young people at Safe Homes and SWAGLY come from Worcester and surrounding towns. Some are still in high school or college, and some have jobs or attend work-training programs. Topics: trans identity, queer people of color and intersectionality, marriage equality and current queer views on ME, military service, queer sexual health in schools. Moderated by Professor Roxanne Samer: Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Cinema Clark University.
LGBTQ and LatinX History: How LatinX Immigrants have challenged U.S. Immigration Policy Over the Last Century
Friday, September 20, 2019, 7-8:30PM
Professor Julio Capó is a transnational historian whose research and teaching interests include modern U.S. history, especially relationships between the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America. He addresses how gender and sexuality have historically intersected and coalesced with constructions of ethnicity, race, class, nation, age, and ability.
LGBTQ-ing A City
Wednesday, October 2, 2019, 7PM
Each year since 2014, the Human Rights Campaign has awarded Worcester a perfect score for being an LGBTQ+ inclusive city. This assessment is based largely on legal and employment protections, and Worcester should be proud of this ranking. In a community conversation moderated by Professor Stephanie Yuhl, we will explore what additional concrete initiatives Worcester civic leaders and community members might pursue to enhance the lives of LGBTQ+ residents. How might the needs, hopes, and aspirations of the city’s LGBTQ+ community enhance Worcester’s recently released 10-year Cultural Plan? Panelists include LGBTQ+ leaders from neighboring cities Providence and Boston, as well as Worcester City leadership. We expect lively audience engagement.
Lecture series programs are free with museum admission. Information is subject to change with- out notice—visit WHM website for updates. For more information on programs and about this exciting project and your opportunity to participate – go to LGBTQintheWoo.org.
The LGBTQ+ exhibit brings together the scattered documentation of Worcester County’s LGBTQ+ experience made possible in partnership with College of the Holy Cross, Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Digital Worcester. With sponsorship from Mass Humanities, state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, along with the Albert W. Rice Charitable Foundation, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee, the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ+ Youth, UniBank, the Mass Cultural Council, and College of the Holy Cross’s Scholarship-in-Action community-based research grant, sponsored by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.