FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 11, 2016

CONTACT
Gerard Koskovich
(415) 846-1423



GLBT History Museum and Tenderloin Museum   
Mark 50th Anniversary of Compton's Cafeteria Riot

Special Program Series Set for July-September 2016

San Francisco -- Three years before the more famous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City, San Francisco's Tenderloin district erupted with one of the first-known moments of collective queer resistance to persecution by law enforcement. The exact date is lost to history, but on an August night in 1966, drag queens, trans sex workers, hair fairies and gay street hustlers rose up against police harassment in what has come to be known at the Compton's Cafeteria Riot.

The GLBT History Museum and the Tenderloin Museum in San Francisco are teaming up in July through September 2016 to host a series of programs to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the riot. Events will take place at the two museums and the Roxie Theater. The programs are made possible by additional support from the Roxie Theater and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Easter Grant.

"The Compton's Cafeteria Riot shows how, even before Stonewall, trans people, people of color and those on margins have been at the vanguard of queer social justice," said Don Romesburg, curator of public programming at the GLBT History Museum. "This series celebrates their legacy and urges us all to envision how this story from the past can inspire our future."

The full series is open to the public. Events will take place at the San Francisco venues indicated:

The GLBT History Museum: 4127 18th St. in the Castro District 
The Tenderloin Museum: 398 Eddy St. in the Tenderloin District 
The Roxie Theater: 3117 16th St. in the Mission District

 
Tenderloin Museum
Tenderloin Queer History Walking Tour & Kickoff Reception      
Thursday, July 28   
6:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Admission: $5.00

Starting at the Tenderloin Museum at 6:00 p.m., Cruzin d'Loo (the drag alter-ego of performer Kevin Wisney) will give an hourlong walking tour of the LGBTQ history of the Tenderloin, centering on the Compton's Cafeteria Riot that took place at the now-famous intersection of Turk and Taylor Streets. The tour will return to the museum at 7:00 p.m. for a kickoff reception. Trans historian and award-winning documentary filmmaker Susan Stryker and original "screaming queen" Felicia Elizondo will speak briefly to mark the occasion. 
     
The GLBT History Museum   
Cruising the Tenderloin in the 1960s: A Talk by Felicia Elizondo    
Thursday, August 4   
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.   
Admission: $5.00; free for members

Felicia Elizondo, a self-described "Mexican spitfire, screaming queen, pioneer, legend, icon, diva, 29-year survivor of AIDS and Vietnam veteran" was one of the transgender participants in the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot. In 2015, she was named Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade. In this special multimedia presentation, she explores San Francisco's Tenderloin District in the 1960s to explain how the Compton's Cafeteria Riot was a defining moment in the struggle by a diverse gay and trans community to claim public lives and become who they were meant to be, paving the way for future generations.

The GLBT History Museum
Compton's 50th Anniversary Art Launch & Artist Talk  
Tuesday, August 16   
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.   
Admission: $5.00; free for members 

Launch party and artist conversation for Compton's 50th anniversary works by ceramic artist Nicki Green and interdisciplinary artist Chris Vargas, commissioned by the GLBT Historical Society. Green is producing a limited-edition signature coffee mug referencing both Compton's Cafeteria and the riot itself, while Vargas is hand-screening a numbered set of commemorative t-shirts from his own design. In conversation, the artists will discuss their creative processes and the relationship between trans history and art. Both works will be available for a limited time exclusively at the GLBT History Museum and the Tenderloin Museum.
 
Green is a trans-disciplinary artist whose work focuses on craft processes that document history and create legacy for marginalized communities. She has exhibited her work nationally, notably at the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York City and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Vargas is an artist whose work deploys humor and performance in conjunction with mainstream idioms to explore the complex ways that queer and trans people negotiate spaces for themselves within historical and institutional memory and popular culture. Vargas also serves as executive director of MOTHA: The Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art.

Roxie Theater 
Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria 
Thursday, August 18    
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.    
Tickets: $12  
 
Cosponsored by the Tenderloin Museum and the GLBT History Museum, a special 10th-anniversary showing of the Emmy Award-winning 2006 documentary Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria, followed by a Q&A with directors Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman. The film uncovered and popularized the then-forgotten 1966 riot at Compton's.
 
Susan Stryker is associate professor of gender and women's studies and former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies at the University of Arizona. A leader in the field of transgender studies, she is the author of many articles and several books on transgender and queer topics, most recently Transgender History (Seal Press 2008). She won a Lambda Literary Award for the anthology The Transgender Studies Reader (Routledge 2006). 
 
Victor Silverman is an award-winning filmmaker, historian and author. His current film, Getting High, is a provocative, feature-length documentary about his family's collision with drugs and alcohol set against a backdrop of American society's bitter conflicts around the "war on drugs." Silverman's latest book, coauthored with poet Laurie Glover, is California: On the Road Histories (Interlink, 2012). 
 
The GLBT History Museum
Sex Work in the Tenderloin Then and Now  
Thursday, September 1    
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Admission: $5.00; free for members 
 
A panel discussion exploring how trans lives and sex work have changed in the last half-century in one of San Francisco's most dynamic neighborhoods. Speakers include Tamara Ching, a Compton's veteran and longtime advocate for trans and sex worker rights, and several advocates with St. James Infirmary, which since 1999 has provided free, confidential, nonjudgmental medical and social services for current and former sex workers of all genders.

The Tenderloin Museum
Vanguard Revisited With Rev. Megan Rohrer
Thursday, September 8     
6:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Admission: $5.00 

In 2011, Megan Rohrer and historian Joey Plaster created a remarkable work of public history: Vanguard Revisited, which  introduced the history of the 1960s radical queer-youth organization Vanguard to contemporary queer homeless youth, who created their own art and poetry zine in conversation with essays and themes from the original Vanguard newsletter. The new zine also featured archival materials, a historical narrative and writings from urban ministers and youth organizers.
 
For the 50th Anniversary Compton's Commemoration, a second issue of the Vanguard Revisited zine will be released with new materials by the original authors and editors. For the Tenderloin Museum program, Rohrer will describe the initial process leading up to Vanguard Revisited and will discuss its legacy. Rohrer is the pastor of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in San Francisco and is a nationally recognized leader on issues of homelessness, gender, sexuality and faith. 
 
 
ABOUT THE GLBT HISTORY MUSEUM
 
Open since January 2011, the GLBT History Museum is the first full-scale, stand-alone museum of its kind in the United States. Its Main Gallery features a long-term exhibition on San Francisco LGBTQ history, "Queer Past Becomes Present." Its Front Gallery and Community Gallery host changing exhibitions. The institution also sponsors living-history discussions, author talks and other programs.

The museum is a project of the GLBT Historical Society, a research center and archives that collects, preserves and interprets the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and the communities that support them. Founded in 1985, the society maintains one of the world's largest collections of LGBTQ historical materials. For more information, visit www.glbthistory.org.


ABOUT THE TENDERLOIN MUSEUM

The Tenderloin Museum celebrates the rich history of one of San Francisco's oldest and most distinctive neighborhoods. The permanent collection tells the story of the district from its rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake through the present. The museum's vibrant community-based arts and educational programming is built on the diverse culture of its historic neighborhood. For more information, visit www.tenderloinmuseum.org. 
 
 
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GRAPHICS: The following images may be reproduced in association with coverage of the Compton's 50th Anniversary Commemoration series.
 
Headline in Cruise News and World Report, a gay newspaper in San Francisco, discussing the July 18, 1966, protest outside Compton's Cafeteria that preceded the riot the following month. Photo: GLBT Historical Society.  
 
 
A late night scene inside Compton's Cafeteria with patrons who had attended an Imperial Court event (circa 1966). Photo by Henry Leleu; courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society.


Cover of the program for San Francisco's second Pride celebration, held in 1972. In the centerfold, the main organizer, Rev. Raymond Broshears, briefly tells the story of the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot. This mention led filmmakers Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman to research the incident -- and to reveal its history in their award-winning 2005 documentary Screaming Queens. Photo: GLBT Historical Society.


Ceramic artist Nikki Green's limited-edition signature coffee mug commemorates the Compton's Cafeteria Riot itself. The mug will be available exclusively at the GLBT History Museum and the Tenderloin Museum.