No Shame, Just Pride: LGBTQIA+ Materials at Rose Library

By Gaby Hale, Outreach Archivist 

The air is getting unbearably hot and muggy, mosquitoes are getting bolder, kids are out of school, a different colleague is out every week on vacation, and you’re fighting your first sunburn in months. All this means one thing – it’s summer! And summer includes June, during which we celebrate Pride. Let’s make one thing clear before we continue: LGBTQIA+ communities should be celebrated all year, not just in June (or October). Activism should not be relegated to one month a year. That said, Pride Month is a great opportunity for us all to remember the actions LGBTQIA+ communities have taken to acquire certain rights, as well as how far we have yet to go. The month celebrates LGBTQIA+ history, expression, individuality, friendship, and love.   

If you want to learn more about the history of LGBTQIA+ communities, including that of activist groups and individuals, you are in luck. Here are just a few of our collections and rare books that we are proud to preserve and share at Rose Library: 

1) Marriage matters by Cheri Gaulke and Sue Maberry (2005) 

The introduction to this artist book reads: “In the 26th year of our relationship, we wrote the story of our love and life together. In a year of intensifying public debate about the freedom to marry, we invited 10 lesbian and gay couples to go to Sears and get their portraits taken.” The book intersperses the portraits and love stories of the ten couples with facts about marriage and same-sex couples. The Rose Library edition is copy no. 15 of 100.  

2) Shay Youngblood papers 

Shay Youngblood is a gay Georgia-born playwright and author who was raised by a community of Black women elders after her mother died when she was two years old. Many of her works explore family dynamics, race, the transition from girlhood to womanhood, and travel. Her 2013 novel, “Flying Blind” is about two lesbian protagonists as they take a cross-country trip without a map. The Shay Youngblood papers at Rose Library contain manuscripts of her works, photos of her travels, letters, and more.  

3) G.B.F. : gay black female 

As the title suggests, this serial was created by and for gay black women in the Los Angeles area in the 1990s. The issue from 1996 includes personal ads, feature stories, articles on safe sex and current events, and poetry. G.B.F. also contains ads for LGBTQIA+ positive businesses and events. 

4) National Association of Black and White Men Together collection 

The National Association of Black and White Men Together is a “collective nationwide network of affiliated and developing chapters in cities that identify themselves as Black and White Men Together (BWMT), Men of All Colors Together (MACT), or People of All Colors Together (PACT) in keeping with the cultural dynamics of their respective areas.” Beginning in the 1980s, the goal of the organization is to provide a supportive environment for folks to combat racism, homophobia, sexism, and other inequalities. The collection at Rose Library is a treasure trove of newsletters from chapters across the United States.  

5) Trikone Atlanta Chapter records 

Trikone is a support group for LGBTQIA+ people of South Asian descent, first founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986. This collection contains the records of the Atlanta chapter of Trikone, including flyers, membership applications, a t-shirt, and newsletters from South Asian organizations in the United States and Canada.  

6) Stephani Shope photographs 

Stephani Shope is an Atlanta based photographer whose collection arrived at Rose in 2019. Her photographs document the Queer community and arts scene in Atlanta during the 1990s and 2000s.  

7) Network Q records 

Network Q was a PBS program that ran from 1992 to 1996. The show was the first weekly program about gays and lesbians to be shown on public television. The Rose Library collection contains 90 partial or full episodes of Network Q, which are available to view only onsite in our reading room. The episodes showcase LGBTQIA+ life across the United States in the 1990s, and include interviews, performances, parades, and updates on LGBTQIA+ legislation.

8)  Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus records 

Inspired by the first gay men’s choir in San Francisco, the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus was founded in 1981 by Jeffrey McIntyre and 45 other singers. It is still an active chorus, and performs throughout the metro Atlanta area. The collection first arrived at Rose Library in 2005, with additional materials donated in 2018. The papers include promotional posters, admin records, photographs, and much more.

9) Scott McCord papers 

Scott McCord participated in Atlanta’s LGBT+ subculture throughout the 1980s and 1990s. His small, one box, collection includes newspapers, magazines, and ephemera from Atlanta gay nightclubs and bars. There’s a whole folder just on RuPaul in Atlanta! One of the newspapers in this collection, “Next”, is the source of the title of this blog post. The October 11th, 1989 issue includes an article about a march for equality in Provincetown, MA with the picture of a person holding a sign that reads “No Shame, Just Pride”. The sign is a poignant reminder about where the origins of the term “Pride” came from. 

10) Black & queer 

Adrian Stanford, a poet and essayist, compiled new and previously published poems into “Black and Queer” in 1977. The collection contains poems about race, queerness, and the Civil Rights movement. It contains some deeply personal poems on these topics (one poem speculates if his father would have stopped him from being born if he had known his son would be queer). According to a Philadelphia newspaper, “Black and Queer” was the first collection of poetry edited by an openly Black gay man in America and inspired other poets after him. 

 

These ten collections and rare books only scratch the surface of our LGBTQIA+ materials at Rose Library! We hope to see you in our reading room soon, or at one of our events throughout the year (including our annual Rose Library Drag Show in the fall or at Atlanta Pride in October).

You can learn more about our collections on our LGBTQ Collections landing page. If you are interested in adding your records to Rose Library’s collection, please contact us at rose [dot] library [at] emory [dot] edu.