The History Project's Button Collection
Title
The History Project's Button Collection
Description
The History Project, founded in 1980, is the largest organization committed to collecting, preserving, and making available the story of New England’s LGBTQ communities. One of THP’s largest collections, a button collection, goes beyond local issues and events (like Boston’s annual Pride Celebration), to represent a full sweep of the struggle for LGBTQ civil rights. For more information on The History Project visit www.historyproject .org.
Collection Items
END IMMIGRATION ABUSE OF LESBIANS AND GAYS
Though for more than half a century family reunification has been the goal of U.S. immigration policy, under current laws, including the so-called Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, U.S. citizens received no legal recognition of their same-sex partners…
EQUAL JUSTICE: MARRIAGE FOR ALL / MAY 17, 2004
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health found in a suit brought before it by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) that same-sex couples had the right to marry. Chief Justice Margaret…
REMEMBER THE PAST – CELEBRATE THE FUTURE / 1969-1994 STONEWALL 25
The Stonewall Rebellion was a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations protesting a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, on June 28, 1969. The patrons of the bar – largely drag queens, hustlers, and homeless youth – reacted against…
LIFT THE BAN! MARCH ON WASHINGTON APRIL 25, 1993
The third March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Equal Rights and Liberation attracted up to 1,000,000 participants. The march was spearheaded by Urvashi Vaid of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, with marchers demanding full civil…
SILENCIO = MUERTE [SILENCE = DEATH]
![SILENCIO = MUERTE [SILENCE = DEATH]](https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/1461/archive/square_thumbnails/e307ce8b6225aa98f644a9b21e865c25.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1612396800&Signature=fip4orPTHAZGucQmJhVBjDqOuik%3D "SILENCIO = MUERTE [SILENCE = DEATH]")
The AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP), an international HIV/AIDS advocacy group, was formed in New York City in 1987 at the urging of activist Larry Kramer. The organization advocated direct political action and staged a series of high-profile…
BRING SHARON HOME / D.C. LESBIAN COMMITTEE TO FREE SHARON KOWALSKI
Sharon Kowalski and Karen Thompson were partners in St. Cloud, Minn., for four years when, in 1983, Kowalski suffered massive brain injuries in an automobile accident. A court named Kowalski’s father as legal guardian with the understanding that…
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS, OCT. 11, 1987
Known by some as “The Great March,” the second national march was attended by close to 500,000 participants demanding legal recognition of lesbian and gay relationships, the repeal of sodomy laws, for federal laws banning discrimination, for the…
U.S. HANDS OFF CENTRAL AMERICA – GAYS AND LESBIANS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA
Following the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, reaction against popular revolutions in Nicaragua and El Salvador was supported by the U.S. government. Gay anti-war activists joined in the protest of U.S. policy.
NATIONAL GAY RIGHTS MARCH, WASHINGTON, D.C., OCT. 14, 1979 – “RIGHTS ARE NOT WON ON PAPER…,” HARVEY MILK
The first such march on the nation’s capital, the National Gay Rights March was galvanized by the assassination of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, an organizer, months before. Between 75,000 and 125,000 participants in the march demanded…
ANITA SUCKS [ORANGES]
![ANITA SUCKS [ORANGES]](https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/1461/archive/square_thumbnails/f4d8b74bedb0daff012336e64be849f4.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1612396800&Signature=CO2%2BpQDwFOtZJVLjb3DVSmgMVeU%3D "ANITA SUCKS [ORANGES]")
The popular singer, a former Miss Oklahoma and spokesperson for the Florida citrus industry, Anita Bryant became the face of homophobia in 1977 when she campaigned to repeal a Dade County ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of…
GLAD TO BE GAY
An anthem of the gay rights movement, the song was written by out gay punk rocker Tom Robinson for a London gay pride parade in 1976. Released in the U.K. and U.S. in 1978, the song condemns homophobia and societal hypocrisy, and rallies for gay…
NATIONAL GAY TASK FORCE
Bruce Voeller, Dr. Harold Brown, Ron Gold, and Nath Rockhill founded the National Gay Task Force in New York City in October, 1973. It was the first professionally led organization to lobby politically for lesbian and gay rights on the national…
BOSTON/LAMBDA
The lower case Greek letter lambda was chosen as a symbol by the Gay Activists Alliance of N.Y. after the group split from the Gay Liberation Front in 1970. The lambda could be mistaken as a college fraternity symbol, but was recognized by those in…
HOMOSEXUALS FOR PEACE
In the late 1960s, activists seeking to change society participated in all sorts of progressive groups and movements - anti-war, Civil Rights, women’s rights, and gay rights; organizations shared members, leaders, and tactics. In Boston, the first…
GO-GO MATTACHINE
Founded in Los Angeles in 1950 by activist Harry Hay, his lover Rudy Gernreich, and others, the Mattachine Society was one of the earliest homophile organizations in the U.S.; it took its name from the medieval French masked wandering entertainers…
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