Preserving Queer History with the Stonewall National Museum Archives

There is power in preserving the rich, diverse history and culture of LGBTQIA+ people, across generations and backgrounds, promoting creativity, collaboration, and community among queer people, organizations, and allies. Especially in this particular cultural moment, when the lives and stories of our queer community are being targeted and silenced more than ever before, we need to lift up and celebrate the institutions whose mission it is to collect, preserve, and share those stories and histories widely and proudly. 

Special Guest: Robert Kesten

Robert Kesten, Human Rights Advocate, is Executive Director of Stonewall National Museum Archives & Library, one of the world’s largest and most significant institutions of its kind, celebrating 50+ years of preserving history and culture in the face of prejudice and hate. Kesten’s human rights advocacy has taken many forms, including writing and producing an award winning documentary on the Holocaust at Concentration Camps in Poland, working on the Ghanaian Constitution, coordinating and producing events leading to Ukrainian independence, producing events for the first AIDS day treatment center in the nation, pushing for the decriminalization of homosexuality in Ukraine, challenging book banning, LGBTQIA+ inclusion in schools and navigating anti-LGBTQ sentiments. Kesten also worked on the West Bank during the Intifada and was brought into Egypt and Tunisia during the Arab Spring to try and establish human rights cities. 

Links from the Show:

• https://stonewall-museum.org/ 
• https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/stonewall-queer-history-exhibit-drexel-20240407.html 
• https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article296353869.html 
• https://washingtonpress.com/author/robertkesten/
• https://sfbwmag.com/human-rights-leaders-honored-during-international-human-rights-symposium-at-florida-atlantic-university/ 
• https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/opinion/columns/your-voice/2023/04/14/lets-act-to-ensure-lgbtqia-are-safe-and-valued-in-florida-schools/70110517007/ 
• Join Mama Dragons here: www.mamadragons.org 

In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you. Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mamadragons.org. 

Transcript

SARA: Hi everyone. Welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons. A podcast and community to support, educate, and empower parents on the journey of raising happy and healthy LGBTQ+ humans. I’m your host, Sara LaWall. I’m a Mama Dragon myself and an advocate for our queer community. And I’m so glad to be part of this wild and wonderful parenting journey with all of you. Thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here.

Hello, Mama Dragons. Today we are exploring the power of preserving the rich, diverse history and culture of LGBTQIA+ people across generations and backgrounds, in the context of our American history, and how that work promotes creativity and collaboration, and builds community among LGBTQ+ people, organizations and allies. And in this particular cultural moment and political moment when we are watching the lives and stories of our queer beloveds being targeted and silenced and rights being stripped away more than ever before, now feels like the time to lift up and celebrate the institutions whose mission it is to collect, preserve and share those stories and history widely and proudly. Because every story, big or small, joyful or painful, helps build a fuller, truer history that empowers and inspires all of us.

So we are lucky to get to talk with Robert Kesten, Executive Director of Stonewall National Museum Archives & Library, one of the world’s largest and most significant institutions of its kind, celebrating more than 50 years of preserving history and culture in the face of prejudice and hate. Today we’ll talk about the power of memory, the importance of visibility, and how honoring the past helps us create a more inclusive and hopeful future. Robert, welcome to In the Den!

ROBERT: Thank you.

SARA: It’s so good to have you here with us. I’m really looking forward to talking with you about your work, about the museum. Let’s start at the beginning, though. I wonder if you can give us a little context and share a bit about the origins of the Stonewall National Museum and Archives and what makes it unique among LGBTQ+ institutions.

ROBERT: Well, there are a number of things that make it unique. First, it was started by a 17-year-old in Hollywood, Florida who started collecting books for a lending library in his parents home.

SARA: Wow.

ROBERT: And that was in 1973. So, talk about progressive parents.

SARA: No kidding.

ROBERT: That was certainly a unique thing. And he was inspired because of the uprising at the Stonewall Inn in New York. So this happened just a few years after that. When he got to college, he met someone who had started a small archive. So they became the Stonewall Library and Archive. They realized that they couldn’t do it by themselves as college students. And they approached grown-ups who lived in Fort Lauderdale. And the whole thing was moved to Fort Lauderdale and the organization really kick-started then. And over the last 50+ years, it has developed into a remarkable library with 30,000 volumes and nationally-collecting archive. And, although small, a museum that makes sure that the stories from the library and the archive are shared, not only here but we have traveling shows that go literally across the country. And, in fact, we have one big exhibit, our biggest exhibit, is right now in Key West, but will go other places as well. And we have smaller traveling exhibits in probably 10-15 cities scattered across the United States right now.

SARA: Oh my gosh. That’s an amazing story. I had not heard that. I love that. For those who might not know, can you also give us a little context and share the story of the Stonewall Uprising?

ROBERT: Sure. That was in June 1969, June 28th, 1969. And it was a place called the Stonewall Bar, or the Stonewall Inn Bar. And that was in Greenwich Village in New York City. And it was a rundown, beat up place where there had been a fire. After the fire, the mob, the mafia, took it over, painted everything black, the walls, the floors, the ceiling, because they didn’t want to spend any money on this place that had been burnt. So, since it was scarred, black paint really covered it up well. There was no real running water. So they had to wash glasses in a bucket that was placed on the bar. So, needless to say, the bartenders did not drink there because nobody knew when the next time that water would actually be changed. So what was exceptional about Stonewall was that it had a dance floor. And very few, probably no other LGBT bars had a dance floor. So people flocked there, especially young people because it was the one place where they could just be. And they could dance and let out all the frustrations from facing the world around them. Because in 1969, it wasn’t easy. If it’s not easy now, it was much harder then. And they always made a point of not knowing people’s last names because if the police would stop you and say, “Who was that?” “It was Joe.” “Joe who?” “I don’t know.” They didn’t know what anybody did for a living. They didn’t know where they worked. They didn’t know where they lived. The less you knew about anybody the safer you all were. So it didn’t bode well for building community. It didn’t bode well for building lasting relationships or friendships, because you were always under the threat of being discovered and being outed and losing everything you had. So on June 28th, 1969 people were dancing. The air was thick with smoke because you could smoke in those days in places. So our exhibit of the bar actually has a cigarette machine in it because the cigarette machine played a very important role and cigarette machines and Jukeboxes were generally controlled by the mafia. So, therefore, they could double dip. They provided the liquor. They provided the Jukebox. They provided the cigarette machine. And they owned the club. So all the money that was made there was easily laundered for money that they were getting from other kinds of jobs. And then, around midnight, the vice squad marched in and said, “It’s a raid.” The lights went on. The smoke began to clear. And they started lining people up and looking for ID. And someone threw something. And they said, “No. We’re not doing this anymore.” And the police were sort of surprised because historically, when they would come in and raid someplace, for the most part, people would line up and march into the paddy wagons. And they knew that they wouldn’t be in jail long and very often they wouldn’t get much publicity and everything would just go back to normal within a day or so. But here, these young people – and it was predominantly young people and there were young people of color, and there were young people who were in drag, and there were young people who thought of themselves in that day whatever trans would have been as trans. – And this was their place. This was the one place that they thought of as theirs. And they fought back. And by the time they got outside, there was a mob. And the mob fought back. And they fought back so hard, that the police went back into the bar and barricaded themselves in. And because this was the vice squad and not the local precinct, they didn’t inform the local precinct that they were going to raid Stonewall. So they had to call the local precinct and ask for help because they couldn’t get out. And the local precinct was unhappy that they were left out, that they were not informed. So they got there, but it wasn’t a mad rush. And then they let people that they knew, because they were the police from that community, they let people go. So out of maybe 150, 200 people that might’ve at some point been in that bar, 14 ended up getting arrested.

SARA: Wow.

ROBERT: One who didn’t get arrested was a Catholic Priest who happened to be dancing there that night. Oh, the police officer walked in and said, “I’m not arresting a Catholic Priest, go.” And so that went on for four nights.

SARA: Wow.

ROBERT: The uprising went on for four nights. And at the end of those four nights, organizations started to form. And that was the beginning of the liberation movement as we know it today.

SARA: Thank you. I had not heard some of those details. I’m so glad to have such a full picture of that. In the four nights, were these repeated raids or was it just – it hung on for four nights of people coming and protesting.

ROBERT: Oh, no. There were no more raids. Exactly, exactly. The bar was closed. So there was no bar. It was padlocked closed. But the people kept showing up on this small street in New York City to say, “No. It’s over. The days of you telling us what to do are over.”

SARA: And this was really the early seed of the Pride movement and what we now celebrate as Pride Month in June with festivals and parades.

ROBERT: Pride started the next year. So this June will be the 55th anniversary of the first Pride.

SARA: Amazing.

ROBERT: And last year, in June, was the 55th anniversary of Stonewall.

SARA: Amazing. Thank you for telling us that story. It’s fantastic.

ROBERT: My pleasure.

SARA: I’m so glad to have it recorded as well. That’s part of preserving the history and culture. I’m sure you’ve told that story many times and there are many recordings of it. Now I am glad to know how I can access one. I’ve read a quote from you that I thought was really beautiful in regards to the work of the Museum and Archives in that the objective is to tell every story of everyone in the LGBTQIA+ community. To ensure that all stories get told. Why is that? Why is that such an important cornerstone of the work?

ROBERT: It’s an important cornerstone because, we in the United States do not often learn history correctly. We often learn biography, or we learn events, or we learn a certain group of people. But we don’t understand how they got there. We don’t understand why they did what they did. The context is missing. And so, because we are often targeted, because our achievements are often ignored, we feel that it’s very important, not only to know those who rise to a stature of being remembered and celebrated, but understanding the people who did the work that made it possible for them to get there. And we believe that by doing that – or at least we hope – that the mainstream communities will start doing that as well. And one of the examples I always give is: many of us have heard of John Adams. John Adams was George Washington’s vice president for eight years. And served as president for four years at a time when presidents and vice presidents did not get salaries. Unlike many of the other southern planters, John Adams was a New Englander. He wasn’t rich. So how did John Adams get to do all of this? He had children. He had a wife. How did he get to work for free? And the reason is because of Abigail Adams. And most people have never heard of Abigail Adams. But Abigail Adams ran the farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. And if you don’t know who Abigail Adams was, who raised the kids, and ran the farm, then you can’t possibly understand who John Adams was. And that’s the way it is in our community. If you don’t know the people who were on the line, if you don’t know the people who were in the restaurants waiting on tables, if you don’t know the people who did all of this other stuff, then you have no idea how a Larry Kramer became Larry Kramer and created Act Up and Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York being the largest health care provider for people with HIV and AIDS. You don’t know how some of the famous people in film, in television, in sports, a Martina Navratilova. How was it possible that they survived the brutality that they were going to face coming up in a very homophobic world? So that’s why every story is important. History is like the most densely, finely woven rug. And every thread in that rug is someone’s story. And when you start pulling out threads, you’re not teaching history anymore. You’re not learning history anymore. You’re learning somebody else’s appropriation of that history. And we want people to know the full story.

SARA: That’s excellent and feels especially important right now as we’re seeing so much of that history, those threads being pulled out from schools, from universities, from our cultural institutions supported by the federal government. It’s a really scary time right now. So I’m glad to know that institutions like the Stonewall Museum exist. What are some of the acquisitions and exhibits that you feel especially excited about right now?

ROBERT: Well, we’re getting ready for our June, Pride exhibit. And it’s called 55 years of Pride. And you will walk into a space, and you will be surrounded by screens, and those screens will take you from the first Pride, all the way to 2025, from all over the world. So in 15 minutes, you will visit 30 different countries and the Prides that took place in the cities within those countries, both good and bad. Both places that were able to have Pride over the 55 years, and those where Prides were cut short. So you’ll see people being attacked in Moscow. You’ll see people celebrating in Tokyo. You’ll see when there was a Pride in Uganda before people could be put to death for simply being LGBTQ. You’ll see all of that in a very quick spin around, all through video. And we’re very excited about that, to give that kind of immersive experience of something that’s still relatively new, still growing, and going through extraordinary changes, particularly this year. Because over the course of time, Pride had moved from being a protest to being awfully commercialized.

SARA: Indeed.

ROBERT: And now many of those commercial sponsors have pulled out of supporting Prides. And it’s very important that the community really be loud. And say, “No. You’re not going to push us back into hiding.” And so Pride now, from our perspective, from the perspective of us at Stonewall, is that we are the children of the rainbow. And because of that, we have a special obligation to extend a hand and invite people under the rainbow. Because we are not the only targeted community. People of color are being targeted. Women are being targeted. Jews are being targeted. I mean, it’s just gotten to the point where if you’re not a white Christian Nationalist, and male, the chances are at some point they’re coming for you. And we believe very strongly that because that rainbow was a gift to Noah at the end of the floods, that we have a unique responsibility to remind people that as long as there are people, there is hope. And everybody deserves to be protected by the rainbow.

SARA: Thank you for that. That’s beautiful. And I know that over the years of preserving history and telling stories, particularly in the queer community, there have been challenges in centering additionally-marginalized voices, queer voices of color, the voices of the trans community, and particularly trans folks of color. So how do you all at the Museum and Archive think about that now as you’re creating new exhibits and procuring new artifacts in trying to make sure that you’re addressing that and really getting a breadth and depth of voices because I know there’s been some critique of Pride and the history of Pride and it being very, very gay-centered.

ROBERT: What we did is, over two years ago, almost three years ago, is we dedicated one gallery space to the marginalized in our community. We wanted them to tell their stories on the walls in a museum. And the first exhibit was a black male artist from New York. And it was his exhibit and his story. And then we had one on Trans women of color. Their stuff on the walls, their stuff in the cases, their story in their words. Then we did one on health disparities within our community.

SARA: Wow.

ROBERT: And it showed if you’re an LGBTQ+ person of color, you’re probably going to suffer more health issues. If you’re a trans person, you’re probably going to suffer more health issues. And we put it on the walls. We made it so people could see it. Then we had an Asian artist exhibit. So we did that for two and a half years in that space. And then we said, “OK. Now, board members and people who come to our openings, it’s not marginalized anymore. We have introduced you.” And now, throughout the entire space, one of the first big programs we did was black lesbian archives. And they had the big walls and they had a presentation. And they did the whole thing. And now we have Edie Windsor, and we now make as a theme – March is Women’s History Month. And so women take over the museum. And so this is a very big focus of ours that our museum, our archives, and our library should have parity between the various intersectional groups that form this community. We do not censor. We do not limit. We aggressively – when we can – remind people that their stuff is welcome here. And it will be part of an exhibit. It will be part of a traveling show. It will be accessible to people doing research. And that’s how we try to overcome the obstacles that people have faced within this community for a very long time. Because, in reality, people in our community are like the communities that they grew up in. And white people are white people. And black people are black people. And the communities they grew up in, the shoes that they had to walk in until they came out, form who they are as people. And you’re more comfortable with people who look and act like you. And you have to find the way to break that shell open. And that’s really what we’re trying to help people do here. Find your comfort level grow. And I’m reminded of people like Eleanor Roosevelt who, when she was young, she said, “I was born racist and antisemitic.” Well, by the end of her life, she was anything but those things. But she had to find a way to help herself grow out of them. And for, back in the 1860’s, for Abraham Lincoln to say publicly out loud that Frederick Douglass was his friend, absolutely shocked people of that time. Those are people who found a way to recognize their shortcomings and they worked at becoming better human beings. And our community, like I said, is no different than that. We have to grow ourselves to accept the people who are within our community and who are outside our community and invite them in.

SARA: And stories, and appreciating, reading about, experiencing other people’s stories, is a really good way to do that. It sounds to me a lot like the museum is more than just a preservationist archive but is also really seeking to be a living resource, a living, changing, evolving resource.

ROBERT: History is living. History is alive. And part of what we do is bring history back to life. Learn where those mistakes happened and learn how to make sure that you never repeat those same mistakes. History doesn’t repeat. The aspects of humanity are always there. The hate is always there. The love is always there. The ignorance is always there. The bad things come up when we become complacent, when we stop thinking that there’s a need to struggle and to fight. As long as we’re there in the struggle, those horrific things stay under the water level because they know they’re not welcome in polite society. When we allow them to rise, they will rise. Our job is to make sure that they never feel comfortable enough to hurt anybody.

SARA: How does the museum work on connecting with the younger generations of LGBTQIA+ people who may not have lived through some of these big historical milestones?

ROBERT: It is difficult, especially in a state like Florida. But we are always open. We are always available. We had student interns here last summer from high schools, through the Big Sisters and Big Brothers organization. We’ve taken shows on the road to Drexel University, the City University of New York. So we go to places where these things can be more accessible to young people, where states and cities are not as confining. And we put out there as much as we can. We try to get things into newspapers. We use social media. So we try very diligently to be everywhere at all times as best as we can with our limited funding and our limited staff.

SARA: And you’re in Florida which is a hot zone for a flashpoint battleground state for anti-LGBTQ+ everything, and anti-DEI. Has that impacted the work and the museum particularly?

ROBERT: Well, it’s prevented us from doing certain things with schools. Not that it was ever necessarily all that welcoming, but then the law said you couldn’t do it which made it much more difficult. So, yes. And then our state aid was cut. Not cut, eliminated. So, yes. There are those kinds of things going on. Books banned. We have 30,000 books. All of them would be banned. So we are a national treasure in the sense that we have things that are not welcome in many states across the union. And you have to think about that, before Stonewall – and even after Stonewall – many of these books, if you would’ve put them in the federal mail system could’ve gotten you arrested because they’re about gay people, they’re by gay people, they’re for gay people. You couldn’t put that in the mail. So the fact is, in 50 years, we have collected so much material, it’s pretty amazing in and of itself.

SARA: It’s really amazing. How can folks in other states, or other states and organizations access some of your material? How does your traveling exhibits program work?

ROBERT: Well, everything is available on the website. So we have the information of what exhibits we have that are readily available so people can rent them. We have a list on the website of all the books that we have. And we do offer e-books so they can sign up for that. We have information on the programming that we do through Zoom or Facebook Live so people can join us when we’re interviewing an author live, or they can go to the recording of that which is also easily accessible through our YouTube channel which is through the website. So we try to make it so that everything that we do is accessible. Just yesterday, I interviewed the author, Rita Mae Brown who wrote [this] cornerstone book for lesbians called Rubyfruit Jungle. And that interview will be, within the next few days, available online. 

SARA: That’s great. And for folks in other states who are working on curating their own queer history in their state, I know that’s been a project in my community recently – I think particularly fueled by this moment by both wanting to share it more widely, but also wanting to protect it. Are you a good place? Do you partner with other organizations to be an archive that might receive those histories from all other states in the country?

ROBERT: We are nationally collecting. We will take everybody’s stuff. We are more than happy to accept things from all over the country.

SARA: That’s really great. Robert, your own career has focused significantly on issues of human rights and democracy and advocacy on all kinds of different issues. And I know you’ve done some extraordinary work in the support and advocacy during the AIDS crisis. I’m curious if you’ll share a little bit about your own story and how you came into this position at the Stonewall Museum and Archives.

ROBERT: Well, COVID stopped a lot of things. And prior to that, I was doing a lot of traveling internationally working on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and trying to find ways that people could introduce and integrate this document into their ways of life. So it took me to Egypt during the Arab Spring. It took me to Ghana. It took me to South Korea. It took me to all different places around the world where we talked about, “What is human rights? What is this universal declaration that came out of a committee that was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt at the very beginning of the UN?” Because the declaration itself was the response of the world to World War II and The Holocaust. And if we followed it, if we knew it, it would make it very difficult for any of those things to happen again. But we don’t. And governments would prefer that we don’t know about it because human rights makes governing a little bit more difficult. And people who get into positions of power want to make it easy for themselves. So the one thing governments do religiously is ask us to sacrifice human rights for security. “We’re going to put up cameras everywhere, so you will have no privacy. And whatever you do, we will have a record of. We want you to do this in order to get that.” Well, even in the Declaration of Independence in the United States, it says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all people – all men – are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Among them. Which means that there are more. They are given by the Creator, not, NOT by government and not by other humans. That means that document is suggesting to us that government's primary responsibility is to protect our individual rights, not for us to sacrifice what was given either by nature or by God, to government. Our governments don’t look at it that way and that’s why they don’t want us to know what human rights are. Everybody should have a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and everybody should read it regularly because it’s as simple as saying, “Good morning” to people and holding the door. It’s as simple as not littering. It’s as simple as being polite, because when you do that, you change the mood of the person you are being kind to. Human rights is understanding – and this is so important for the LGBTQ+ community as well as every other community – that my rights end at the tip of my nose. Your rights end at the tip of yours. So if I’m doing something that goes beyond that, then I am infringing on someone else’s human rights. That’s not my right because it says right in there that no human right can override any other human right. So I can’t step on your toes. And I can’t breathe smoke into the air. And all of those things are part of this structure that says, first and foremost we are all human beings and we are all equal in this world. And so it was a very exciting, if not always pleasant, undertaking to go around the world and try to take that message and bring it to people who were often in difficult situations. Like, in Egypt in Tahrir Square, facing tanks and machine guns is not always fun, especially when you’re a foreigner in a country that is trying to overthrow its current president. Or being in Taiwan where they’re constantly aware that China is breathing down their neck. Or to be in Kyiv and help them separate from the Soviet Union. Those are trying experiences. But it reminded me that each of us has a responsibility that is far bigger than any one of us by ourselves. And carrying that message always made me know that I was on the right side of history as long as I was doing it as well as carrying it.

SARA: I’m listening to you right now and the heartfelt tone of your words and how important they feel, but also feeling a lot of sadness about the state that we Americans in particular find ourselves in right now, where it feels like those human rights are being just trampled, ignored, thrown out, in a way that many of us have not felt to this magnitude in our country even though our own government never actually signed on to the Declaration of Human Rights.

ROBERT: Yes. It did.

SARA: It did. Okay.

ROBERT: Every nation that joins the United Nations has to recognize the Universal Declaration. So, yes, we did.

SARA: Okay, good. I was under the misinformed impression that we somehow skirted around having to affirm it.

ROBERT: But, what the United States did, and what the Soviet Union did, was that we don’t agree to implement certain elements. So there are two different binding documents, the United States believes in one. The Soviet Union believed in the other. But recognizing the totality of the Declaration – now declarations are not laws. And that’s what people have to remember. A Declaration is something that you aspire to, but it’s not the law. – So we believe in, or did believe in, democracy and other things that fit on one side. And the Soviet Union believed in certain things that were cultural on the other side. And we don’t share those things. And it was a mistake to give these countries so much power. But the UN was a collection of countries. Our constitution starts with, “We the people.” But we, the people, shirk our responsibilities far too often. And we don’t even know how our system really operates. And that’s our biggest danger, is that we put ourselves in a position where we believe that when we elect people, they become leaders. We don’t elect leaders in the United States. We elect representatives. If your representative, whether in the House of Representatives or in the United States Senate, are not representing you, you must replace them. And you have to stop treating them as if they were something special. We are what’s special. We the people, regardless of your gender, your sexual orientation, your color, your race, your religion, your ethnic background. We are what makes this country special. And until we start treating our elected officials as just that, our representatives in the halls of government, we will continue to see them aspire to be re-elected more importantly than represent their constituents. And that is a problem for every group, but especially for marginalized and minority groups.

SARA: So I want to dig into this just a little bit more. But I want to do it in the context of the Stonewall National Monument, the monument that is the federal monument created in 2016 by President Obama, run by the US Park Service, and really the first national monument dedicated to LGBTQIA+ rights and history. But this past February, there was a big protest at the monument in response to the administration directing the park service to remove the mention of trans and queer identities from the Stonewall Monument website. The T is removed, the Q and the + removed, dismantling the whole acronym and leaving only a reference to lesbian, gay, bisexual history on the website. Effectively erasing any recognition of trans and queer and other identities in the movement and also really in the history of the Stonewall Uprising, which you mentioned to us earlier involved several significant trans folks and folks of color leading the movement. So I’m just curious, what do you make of all of that? And how does it impact the mission of the museum moving forward?

ROBERT: Well, It makes us much louder. It makes us much more conscious of our role as educators and informers and storytellers. And so one of the things that we did is we started an exhibit called, “Standing on the Shoulders of Heroes.” And when we started to put that exhibit together and doing the research, we realized that this movement comes out of all the movements that came before it. So that includes the Labor Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, and anything that really looked at how civil and human rights are affected. And so in our research, we found that many of the people who really are heroes, who are invisible to many people of the generations that are growing up now, were women and people of color. And so when you look at that exhibit, it’s sort of surprising who the firsts were. Who were the loudest voices? Who are those people today? And what is doubly surprising is that it taught us how we became as successful a community as we are as fast as it happened. And the reason for that is the queer people who were in those other movements, who were not always comfortable in those places, as the LGBTQ+ community developed, moved to it. And they brought those amazing skills with them. So when you get someone like Bayard Rustin who was fundamental to the Labor Movement, was essential to the Civil Rights Movement, lending even a piece of that brain to the LGBTQ+ world, you’ve got a giant step into how to make things happen. And the same thing in the Women’s Movement. A lot of feminists didn’t want lesbians around, so lesbians moved into the lesbian movement which was part of the LGBTQ movement. And they took those skills, their ability to organize, their ability to raise money, their ability to do things based on the experience that they got elsewhere. And so we got certain rights towards our equality, not towards exceptional rights, but equal rights, that others didn’t get or were still fighting for as we started to achieve our goals, because we had the most talented people out there. When you’re the people that have Little Richard, when you’re the people who have Elton John, when you’re the people who have some of the greatest athletes, the greatest entertainers on the planet, you can do things. And you don’t really stop to say, “Oh my God, we can’t do this because we’ll be outed.” You just start to do it. And that is a real confidence builder when the top people in fashion, when the top people in all of these different industries, the CEO of Land O’Lakes – which is a multibillion-dollar company – is a lesbian. The head of Apple is a gay man. These are Fortune 100 companies. It is just amazing that such a small group of people has produced so many extraordinary talents in business, in academia, in the arts. It’s really quite surprising. But it gives people confidence. And when you add to that overcoming the AIDS crisis, Marriage Equality, securing the ability to be protected in housing, in jobs, all within a 50 year or less span, with pushback along the way. It makes you tough. It makes you resilient. And it makes you able to welcome other people into your community and be willing to help them achieve their goals as well. So that is our response to what this administration did in Greenwich Village in February. The one thing that is most troubling is that the United States has a history of when you extend rights to a marginalized or minority community, the federal government historically has defended those rights going forward. Not always wholeheartedly, but always. So when schools were integrated, the federal government sent in federal agents to make sure that black boys and girls could go to school. They knew it wasn’t popular.

SARA: Right.

ROBERT: But they did it because they made a commitment to desegregation. When the Voting Rights Act was passed, the federal government sat down and said, “You states will not be able to set the rules because you’re unfair.” And they stuck to it. This is the first time in American history that rights have been extended and then rights have been withdrawn. That is unamerican, it is unconstitutional, and it is the reason that people are fighting back. And it is the reason that we are seeing the spread of anger go across this country as if we were one of the wild fires that has gone through California. And it’s not going to stop until this administration has to recalibrate and remember that it is We the People that control this government and not We the Politicians and not We the Judges and not We the Elected Officials. And I’m still hopeful that that will happen. And because we are, as I said earlier, the children of the rainbow, not only do I believe it, but I believe that more and more people will join us in that struggle because they know that it’s ultimately right.

SARA: Thank you for that. That’s a really hopeful frame in this moment that I think will help inspire a lot of people to keep pushing, to keep fighting, to keep being loud, and to keep bringing people along in this moment where we need all voices.

ROBERT: Absolutely.

SARA: All people. In moments like these, when the work feels heavy – because it does, and it feels overwhelming a lot of the time – what helps you stay grounded and hopeful?

ROBERT: Well, I come in here very early in the morning so it’s still dark. And I walk through the book shelves or I walk into the archives and I am immediately reminded of all the things that came before. HIV and AIDS, people getting kicked out of their homes, young children on the streets. And then I remember the organizations that popped up, the individuals who assumed leadership positions and changed the world. And that makes me confident that people will always step up and fill the void in a crisis. That enough of us have learned something from the historic record that we will find a way through, that we will not be pushed back, that the world as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “History bends towards justice.” And I’m convinced that when you look at history from 100 miles off the earth’s surface, you do see that we bend towards justice. It’s not smooth. It’s not consistent. But in reality, the world is better towards more people today than it was 100 years ago. And my guess is that 100 years from now, if people assert themselves, if people continue to understand that the struggle part never goes away, that complacency is never okay, we will be better in 100 years from now than we are today.

SARA: I love that quote. It’s a favorite in my tradition and we often talk about, when we think about that moral arc of the universe bending towards justice, that it is up to us to put our hands on it and push.

ROBERT: Absolutely it will not happen alone.

SARA: When you think about the next 50 years of LGBTQ+ history, what do you hope people will say we got right?

ROBERT: The most important thing from my perspective is that we learned to be welcoming and we learned to create safe spaces to allow people to be themselves because the greatest gift you can give is to let people know that they are welcome, that they are respected for who they are, not for what you want them to be.

SARA: And do you have any advice that you would give, particularly to young folks, families, parents supporting their queer kids who want to be more active in advocacy, activism, preserving history, and be the next generation of change makers?

ROBERT: The first thing that I would say is get your copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and read it. And read it regularly. And make sure that you and your children live that way in your own home and that you carry that forward. Because every time you carry that forward and someone else adopts it, the world becomes a safer and better place.

SARA: Yes. Yes. It’s a good reminder. I imagine, I have a little copy of that document in my files over here and I know we’ve handed it out to young people before. And I just imagine that reading and rereading of it is a great reflective tool to be able to ask myself, “How am I living this? And are there places where I’m not that I can work harder into living into these declarations?” And how much of an impact just asking myself to live more fully into it can make in the world.

ROBERT: There are only 30 articles that make up the whole document. Each one of them, even when they don’t sound like they’re applicable to an individual, are. And when we learn how to make them our own, when we learn how to infuse them with who we are, we change the world around us. And they have to be read out loud. And they have to be shared. And you go around the room and you get everybody to read it, one article at a time. And then you ask people, “Which one is important to you and why? And how do you take that and bring it out?” Understanding that all 30 are equal. There is not one that’s more important than another. Because, once we start to determine, “Well this one is important and this one’s not as important,” we’ve defeated the whole idea of what human rights are. And that is a universal acceptance of other people as equal to us. And that, equally important, we are equal to them. No one is better than you and no one is less than you. And that doesn’t mean we’re all the same. It just means that we’re equal in the eyes of the law. We are equal in the eyes of society. No, I’m never going to be a basketball player. I’m never going to be a doctor. There are people who can do those things. But there are things that I can do that they don’t do well. And that’s what makes us equal. We all have our good things and our less good things. But being different is what makes the world interesting. Being equal means that we can all live in the world and be comfortable in our own skins.

SARA: Beautiful. Yes. Thank you for that. Thank you for this fantastic conversation that was just really heartfelt, really got me thinking about a lot of things. I have two final questions for you before we leave each other today. These are questions that I like to ask all of my guests at the end of every episode. The first has to do with the Mama Dragons name which was created out of this sense of fierceness and fierce protection for our kids. And I’ve heard a lot of fierceness from you already today, Robert, but I like to ask everybody, “What is it you are fierce about?”

ROBERT: I am fierce about pushing forth human rights because I believe it just protects all of us from the idiosyncrasies of the world around us. And it’s what I talk about most, as well as protecting our democracy because you can’t have human rights without democracy. And those are the things that make us better people. But also, I’m fierce about encouraging people to participate in the system because that’s the way the system gets better.

SARA: Yeah. Thanks. My last question for you is, “What is bringing you joy right now, particularly in these times when we all need to find and create more joy in our lives?”

ROBERT: What gives me joy right now is very early in the morning, usually around 3 or 4, I try to write something and post it every day. Sometimes they’re not uplifting. Sometimes they are. But they’re all about what’s going on. And they’re all about the experiences and the encouragement to get people to want to be involved. And when I write, I feel that I liberate myself a little bit and that makes me feel better. So I don’t necessarily care if anybody reads them, even though I post them. But I’ve gotten it out and that’s a big help.

SARA: That’s great. That is a great practice. Thank you so much for your time, Robert. Thank you for all of your work and for this beautiful resource that our community gets to learn about and access and know right now. It’s really inspiring. And I can’t wait to dive even deeper into the archives and explore some of the work of the Stonewall Museum and Archives and Library. Thanks so much for your time today.

ROBERT: And thank you. I appreciate it.

SARA: Thank you so much for joining us here In The Den. Did you know that Mama Dragons offers an eLearning program called Parachute? This is an interactive learning platform where you can learn more about how to affirm, support, and celebrate the LGBTQ+ people in your life. Learn more at mamadragons.org/parachute. Or find the link in the episode show notes under links.

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