Out in Chicago Honors Gay, Lesbian Pride Month

Illustration: 

Gay and Lesbian Pride Month is celebrated each year during  the month of June. The last Sunday in June is designated  as Gay Pride Day. On June 2, 2000, President Bill Clinton declared June "Gay & Lesbian Pride Month".In 2009, 2010, and 2011 U.S. President Barack Obama declared June to be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, stating, “I call upon all Americans to observe this month by fighting prejudice and discrimination in their own lives and everywhere it exists.” The month was chosen to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village that sparked the modern LGBT liberation movement in the United States.”

Now Open 

From its earliest days, Chicago has served as a dynamic crossroads of people and cultures—all who came to Chicago seeking a better life and creating new communities. Out in Chicago , a new exhibit at the Chicago History Museum explores the stories of a group of Chicagoans who have been here since the city’s beginnings but whose lives have often been lived in the shadows.( Harvey Milk is pictured here.)

For more than 150 years, a complex community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Chicagoans has been at turns surviving, struggling, and thriving, often on the edge of mainstream awareness.  In the nineteenth century, the forces that made Chicago a national metropolitan center also brought diverse LGBT people to the heartland and fostered their development as a community.

"Chicago’s LGBT history is not just a story about one group of people in one neighborhood. It’s a history that has happened throughout the city and over time."

 — Jill Austin, co-curator

Out in Chicago spans diverse stories and perspectives and explores issues such as language, gender expression, formation of identity, the role of LGBT people in politics and culture, and family relationships. It balances private stories with public perspectives in relation to gender, community, and identity and spotlights the inspiring and charged heritage of this diverse Chicago community, whose history truly belongs to all of us.

There are some great images in the "Out in Chicago" Flickr collection.

Exhibition Dates: Through - March 26, 2012

Location: Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St., Chicago

Background: Over the past seven years, the Chicago History Museum has featured a series of three programs each year dedicated to exploring and recounting the long and storied history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities (LGBT). These successful programs built the foundation for the development of the exhibition, Out in Chicago.

Visit your local library to obtain resources about this topic:

Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution
David Carter,(2004).

Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America
Dudley Clendinen, Nagourney, Adam (1999).
Jim de Strange, (2003).

San Francisco's Castro
Strange de Jim (2003).

Left Out: the Politics of Exclusion: Essays, 1964–1999
Martin Duberman, (1999).

Gayslayer! The Story of How Dan White Killed Harvey Milk and George Moscone & Got Away With Murder
Warren Hinckle, (1985).

Out In the Castro: Desire, Promise, Activism
Winston Leyland, editor, (2002).

Making Gay History
Eric Marcus,(2002).

Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present
Neil Miller,(1994).

The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk
Randy Shilts, (1982).

Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation
Raymond Smith, Donald Haider-Markel, editors, (2002).

Double Play: The San Francisco City Hall Killings
Mike Weiss, (1984).