Society Signs Five
Year Lease for New Castro Space
 Last week the GLBT Historical Society signed a five-year
lease to open a second exhibit in the Castro district of San Francisco. This
action, taken at the urging of the both city government and local organizations,
is a major step toward creating the first true GLBT history museum in the
United States.
The new exhibit space is a few doors up from the corner of
18th and Castro Streets (4127 18th Street). It is over 1,600
square feet, twice as large as our previous Castro exhibit. Our Silver Anniversary
exhibit will open in the new exhibit space September 1 and the preview exhibit will open in June or July.
The exhibit space was made possible in part by a generous
lease from the Walgreens Corporation which not only discounted the rent, but is also building out the space. We also received a grant from the City of San Francisco for
$100,000, about half the expected cost of the exhibit.
Because most of our costs will occur in the next few months
the Society is launching a special fundraising effort to support the exhibit. We
have already received pledges from core supporters to match all donations to
the Castro exhibit dollar for dollar up to $11,000.
You will soon receive a more formal request, but please
don't wait. If you are able to make a special donation to create a Castro
exhibit please visit: www.castroexhibit.kintera.org/donate
Note: The lease was signed twenty-five years to the month
after the birth of the Historical Society, founded March 16, 1985.
Read this week's BAR article about the new space here.
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The State of Gay Media: Realities, Challenges,
Relevance, Impact
 Thursday April
22nd
7 - 9 PM
GLBT Historical Society
657 Mission Street #300
San Francisco
Join us for a community forum presented by the Community
Initiative and the GLBT Historical Society with an interactive discussion about Bay
Area LGBT news and media. How well do local gay media serve us?
Can we help our media survive in the age of free Internet news?
Will a shrinking gay press affect the preservation of gay culture
and history?
Panelists include Kim Corsaro, Publisher-Editor, SF Bay Times
and Matthew Bajko, Asst. Ed., Bay Area Reporter. Moderated by Paul
Boneberg, Exec. Dir., GLBT Historical Society and Tim Vollmer, President,
The Community Initiative.
Free and open to all. More info visit: www.thecommunityinitiative.org
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Fabled Asp BENEFIT -- 25th Anniversary of the Bay Area Meteorites Women's Wheelchair Basketball Team vs. the Bay Area Musicians (BAM vs. BAM)
 Saturday, April 17th
2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Montclair Women's Cultural Arts Club
1650 Mountain Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94611
Celebrate twenty-five years of memories and the
strength of the inclusive community with a rousing day of entertainment and
celebration as we honor disabled women athletes and activists!
Join us for Mary Watkins and Melanie DeMore
in concert, crafts, silent auction, raffle, food and drinks. Also, the
Brick Hut gals will be on hand to
provide sweet and savory treats.
Two of the finest musicians will be in concert at the Club for a beautiful and fun afternoon of music, including Mary's evocative piano and Melanie's deep rich vocals as well as her chorus-director self leading us in song. Players from these wheelchair basketball teams -- Bay Area Musicians and the incomparable Bay Area Meteorites -- will be in the house to celebrate and tell stories.
Fabled Asp Film Crew will be around to take mini-interviews of your memories for the Disabled Lesbian Archives. www.fabledasp.com
Tickets on sale at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/105852
$20 in advance; $25 at the door.
Doors
at 2pm; Concert 3pm. For more info, contact Barbara Price: 510-339-1832.
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The GLBTHS Salutes
the Project Open Hand on its 25th Anniversary
 In 1985, during some of the darkest days of the AIDS
epidemic, San Franciscan Ruth Brinker began preparing nutritious meals for
victims of the disease. At a time when no social service agency provided anything
to those too weak or too impoverished from the disease to feed themselves - and
some feared any contact at all -- she realized that for many people
malnutrition was causing death as much as the illness itself. Using her
experience as a manager with another food program, Ruth enlisted the help of
friends, made the first meals in her kitchen, and began delivering them to
seven people who needed her thoughtfulness. Five years later, the organization
she founded served its millionth meal. To date, it has prepared and provided
over 14 million meals to tens of thousands of individuals in the Bay Area --
giving them both sustenance and connection -- and has served as a model for
over 100 organizations all over the world. Thank you for 25 years of loving
devotion to humanity.
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Picture of the Month
 Immediately after the great earthquake
and Fire of April 1906,
Dr. Marie Equi helped organize a group of Oregon physicians and nurses
who hastened to
San Francisco
from Portland
to give humanitarian aid. Her great efforts at the Presidio Hospital
earned her a commendation from the U. S. Army, but a decade
later, after urging men not to enlist during World War I, she was
arrested and
tried for sedition. At her trial, prosecutors argued that her being a
lesbian
corroborated their charge that she was morally corrupt. She served a
year in prison, including ten months at San Quentin. A
pioneering feminist and suffragette, Equi continued to support radical
causes,
including a woman's right to choose, until her death at age 80 on July
12, 1952.
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Ongoing at the GLBT Historical Society
New Research Hours:
Wednesday - Fridays: 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., by appointment only.
Saturdays: open to the general public 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Museum Hours:
657 Mission Street, Suite 300,
Tuesdays - Saturdays: 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.:
Main Gallery: Relaunch of Passionate Struggle
- Second Gallery: Man-i-fest: FTM
Mentorship in San Francisco from 1976-2009
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April 1, 1950
The United States Civil Service
Commission intensifies its efforts to locate and dismiss lesbians and gay men
working in government, leading to 382 federal employees being fired during the next
six months, 382 are fired, compared with 192 for the preceding two and a half
years.
April 4, 1976
Pope Paul VI publicly denies press
reports that he has had affairs with men.
April 11, 1953
The Mattachine Society holds its
first constitutional convention in Los
Angeles.
April 1, 1994
Yaroslav Mogutin, Russia's most visible openly gay journalist, makes headlines when
the head of Moscow's
Wedding Palace No. 4 politely refuses his application attempts to register his
marriage to American artist Robert Filippini.
April 22, 1966
Activists Dick Leitsch, John
Timmins, Randy Wicker, and Craig Rodwell hold a "sip-in" at Julius, a
popular Greenwich Village drinkery, to challenge
liquor commission policies that deny gay men and lesbians the right to be
served alcoholic beverages in bars.
April 30, 1921
Marcel Proust publishes the first section
of Sodome et Gomorrhe / Cities of the Plain, part of his
16-volume opus A la Recherche du Temps
Perdu / Remembrance of Things Past.
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April 10, 1977 - Julian Armanis, performer
April 13, 1937 - Lanford Wilson, playwright
April 15, 1907 - George Platt Lynes,
photographer
April 16, 1957 - Essex Hemphill, poet
April 17, 1897 -- Thornton Wilder, three time
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist
April 20, 1939 -- Katherine Forrest, author
April 24, 1952 -- Jean-Paul Gaultier, fashion
designer
April 25, 1964 -- Andy Bell, openly gay half of the synth-pop duo Erasure
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