LGBT Pride Month this year commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Richmond held its first Pride Festival and marked the return of Rainbow Richmond, our local LGBTQ community organization, that was originally founded in 2006. With the efforts of Dr. Travis Rountree and his Eng-W270 students in Spring 2019, the IU East Archives created Richmond’s first LGBTQ archive collection. Students collected interviews and articles from in and around Richmond and Wayne County’s LGBTQ community and wrote research papers based on relevant topics that they encountered with this collection.
Figure 1 Screen capture of IU East’s LGBTQ collection homepage
The collection currently holds several short interviews from local students who identify as LGBTQ, local news articles, photos, and promotional fliers and social media screen captures from local LGBTQ events. There is also a video of poet Stephen S. Mills, a Richmond native, talking about his growing up here in Richmond, coming out to his family, and finding himself in college. We have a video clip and audio of Mills reading some of his poetry here at IU East. We also have available the video of IU East’s LGBTQ Community Panel that took place in April. Items from Richmond’s Pride Festival will soon be added to the collection as well as a new interview focused on the planning of Richmond’s Pride.
Figure 2 Screen capture of Indiana University East Facebook Event
Figure 3 Flier of Local LGBTQ community members panel
IU East Archivist Beth South will continue to expand the collection with more oral histories and interviews. If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community from Richmond or the surrounding areas and are interested in sharing your experiences with us, please contact Beth at eabrockm@iue.edu to set up an interview (you can be anonymous, if you choose). If you do not want to be interviewed, but would like to share photos, memorabilia, or relevant information, please let us know! This collection started as a class project and we strive to grow it into a sustainable and informative resource documenting LGBTQ experiences in the small, rural communities of Wayne County, Indiana and the surrounding areas.
You can view the LGBTQ+ Collection online at https://iu.pressbooks.pub/eastlgbtqarchive/. For more information about the IU East Archives, you can find us at iue.libguides.com/iuearchives
If you have any questions about this collection or any of our other archives collections, Just Ask Us! eabrockm@iue.edu.