Researching LGBTQ DC

This collection includes born-digital files from Black in Space: A Virtual Black Pride Experience, a five day virtual series of experiences in 2020 that celebrated the diversity and resilience of Black LGBTQ+ communities through storytelling and technology.

Blacklight was the first national Black gay periodical in the United States, founded in Washington, DC in 1979 by Sidney Brinkley. Blacklight primarily covered the experiences and concerns of Washington’s Black gay men, although it occasionally addressed issues affecting the greater LGBTQ community.

This resource contains captured websites from Fire & Ink. Fire & Ink was a nonprofit organization that was established in 2002 with the aim to increase awareness and understanding of LGBTQ+ authors of African descent.

This project documents the events of the final decades of the 20th century and first few of the 21st through the eyes of transgender elders, mostly Black women.

Vertical files are news clippings, brochures, pamphlets and other documents placed in folders based on subject headings. LGBTQ related subjects heading include newspapers, demonstrations & protests and Pride parades. The bulk of these files spans 1975-2000s.

The Washington Blade began as a monthly news sheet and a replacement for the Mattachine Society of Washington’s newsletter of the 1950s and early 1960s, covering current events from an LGBT perspective as well as LGBT life in D.C. and the social and political progress of the gay rights movement. Digitization is ongoing.

The Washington Evening Star newspaper collection contains 1.3 million photographs of local, national and international topics and events. Relevant subject headings include: the Gay Liberation Front and Demonstrations—Gay and Gay Groups.

The Whitman-Walker Health Oral History Collection contains 10 audio interviews conducted in 2017 and 2018 of members of the Whitman-Walker community.

Started in late 1993, and early 1994, Women in the Life, LLC, an events management company, carved out safe spaces for Black lesbians to interact through dance parties, concerts, and open mic poetry sessions. Women in the Life magazine covered issues affecting Black lesbians: art, politics, literature, history, relationships, family, and sexuality.