B. Trans Oral History Project
Composed of three Black trans scholars, the goal of the collective is to amplify, record, and uplift others within the Black trans community. The project is working with the Digital Transgender Archive to make all our research publicly available and searchable.
Kyky Archives
A digital archive and educational resource for Black Lesbian, Queer, Gender non-conforming, and Trans People; featuring historical photos, records, art, and ephemera of the Black Queer community.
Haringey Vanguard Archives
Haringey Vanguard is a Black British LGBTQ+ History project focused on the history and contributions of Haringey-based community activists in the 1970s – 1990s, work whose influence was felt well beyond the borough.
James Baldwin Photographs and Papers (Beinecke Library, Yale University)
Currently, only a portion of the Baldwin papers are available online. These include early drafts of "Go Tell It On the Mountain" and selected correspondence. The drafts are drawn from the James Baldwin Early Manuscripts and Papers, a larger collection of material documenting a short period of Baldwin's young adult life between 1941-1945, when Baldwin was just beginning his literary career.
Blacklight
Blacklight was the first national Black gay periodical in the United States, founded in Washington, D.C. in 1979 by Sidney Brinkley. The Blacklight digital collection contains digitized editions of the historic independent periodical from 1979 to 1985. Blacklight primarily covered the lifestyles and concerns of Washington’s Black gay men, although it occasionally addressed issues affecting the greater LGBTQ community
Elsewhere & Otherwise: Imagination & Worldmaking in the Black Queer Studies Collection
This exhibition is meant to highlight the rich holdings found within the Black Queer Studies Collection at UT Libraries. The materials brought together in this exhibition recognize the cultural productions by Black queer subjects from across the African diaspora. Curated by Nathan Alexander Moore
Oral Histories and Interviews
Houston LGBT History (an older website, with many great resources)
Texas
Sharon Bridgforth Papers (Austin History Center)
Sharon Bridgforth is an author, teacher, playwright, and performer. This collection documents her involvement in the Austin Black, Queer, and Feminist communities as well as the theater scene.
The Mahogany Project (African American History Research Center, Houston)
The Mahogany Project collection contains promotional materials, original logos, awards, and artifacts from 2017 to present and is a record of the activities and community work within LGBTQ communities of color.
Charles Law Community Archive (African American History R.C., Houston)
The Charles Law Community Archive is an ongoing community driven collection that documents the Black LGBTQ community in the Houston area. The collection consist of magazines, newsclippings, artifacts, photographs, posters. Of interest is the Mahogany Project Folx Tales program which highlights community members who have made significant contributions to the LGBTQ community.There are a growing number of individuals documented, including Monica Roberts, Tommie Ross, Atlantis Caprice, and Vernis McFarland.
Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity Collection (African American History R.C., Houston)
Being the first fraternity to be established in serving the needs of African American gay men, this collection consists of charter documents, constitution and bylaws, mission statement, photographs, manual, programs, and artifacts that document the history of the fraternity and its members.
Sterling Houston Papers, 1926-2006 (University of Texas at San Antonio)
Sterling Houston had a thirty-year career in professional theater as an actor, musician and writer in San Antonio, New York and San Francisco. The collection includes scripts, programs, press materials, correspondence, research and project files, photographs and AV materials.
BLK (Magazine) Collection, 1988-1994 (University of North Texas)
This collection contains originals and photocopies of BLK magazine, a free, monthly publication about the black LGBT community. Content includes interviews, histories, politics, social issues, and culture.
U.S. Based and International Archives
Black LGBTQ Studies in the Schomburg Center's Archive
This guide pays special attention to collections created by Black and LGBTQIA + individuals within the Schomburg Center's collections. These archival collections span from the early 1920's to about 2014, documenting the lives of activists, writers, performers, and organizations.
Select Collections:
GLBT Historical Society - Dr. John P. De Cecco Archives and Special Collections
This research guide is intended to help users locate collections that document the Black experience at the GLBT Historical Society. It highlights holdings in organizational records and personal papers, periodicals and oral histories. (Located in San Francisco)
Marlon Riggs Archive, 1957-1994
This collection documents the life and career of the documentary director, Marlon Troy Riggs. The majority of the materials are between 1984 and Riggs' death in 1994, a decade of his concentrated film-making activity, as well as some more personal materials from the late 1970s onwards. Papers include correspondence, manuscripts, subject files, teaching files, project files, research, photographs, audiovisual materials, personal and biographical materials created and compiled by Riggs.
rukus! Black, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans (BLGBT) Cultural Archive
The collection consists of diaries, letters, minutes and related papers, magazines, pamphlets, flyers, posters, journals, books, photographs and prints, audio-visual material, memorabilia and ephemera. Records relate to individuals including activists, DJs, club promoters, writers, artists and magazine publishers; community organisations; and subjects including sexual heath, black lesbians and women and night clubs. Coverage is focused on the UK, but there is some coverage related to Nigeria and New York City.
The following archives do not center the Black LGBTQIA experience, but collections related to Black Queer Studies can be found in these collections.
Digital Collections
Digital Transgender Archive
The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.
The Tretter Transgender Oral History Project
The Tretter Transgender Oral History Project (TTOHP) is committed to collecting, preserving, and making available oral histories of gender transgression, broadly understood through a trans framework.
Physical Archives
ONE Archives at USC Libraries
ONE Archives at the USC Libraries is the largest repository of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) materials in the world. Founded in 1952, ONE Archives currently houses over two million archival items including periodicals, books, film, video and audio recordings, photographs, artworks, organizational records, and personal papers.
The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria
Since 2007, the archive has been actively acquiring documents, rare publications, and memorabilia of persons and organizations associated with activism by and for trans, nonbinary, Two-Spirit, and other gender-diverse people.
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