Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

Ernestine Eckstein is an iconic figure from the 1960s homophile movement—from photos showing her as the only African American woman at the earliest protests, to her trailblazing cover story in The Lad...

24 Jan 201934min

Bayard Rustin was a champion of the Black civil rights movement—mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. But because he was gay and out, he faced bigotry inside...

10 Jan 201934min

Reed Erickson was a trans man with a big checkbook, a pet leopard, big dreams for a better world for gay people and trans folks—and he single-handedly financed ONE Incorporated and founded the first t...

27 Dec 201828min

“I’m a bisexual ki-ki s.o.b. butch-femme.” Stella Rush railed against rules and binaries: butch/femme, gay/straight. Fighting for social survival and wielding a pen, Stella (aka Sten Russell) carved o...

13 Dec 201821min

ONE, the first national gay magazine, attracted the attention of the FBI and was at the heart of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case. Dorr Legg, Martin Block, and Jim Kepner were key to ONE’s success. ...

29 Nov 201831min

Investigated by the FBI, blackmailed, but bold enough to keep going, Billye Talmadge was one of the early members of the earliest lesbian rights organization in the U.S., the Daughters of Bilitis. Vi...

15 Nov 201822min

Harry Hay had a vision, and that vision led to the founding of the first sustained gay rights organization in the United States—the Mattachine Society, in 1950. Mattachine (and Harry’s) first task—est...

1 Nov 201825min

More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld chose to take a stand for LGBTQ rights, founding a movement, providing a safe space, and seeking justice through science. The Nazis crushed his vision, b...

25 Okt 201828min