801 K Street NW Washington, D.C. 20001 www.DCHistory.org SPECIAL COLLECTIONS FINDING AID Collection Number: MS 0764 Title: The Rainbow History Project Collection, 1950s- Processors: Rona Razon, Josef Parker, Steven Mandeville-Gamble, Anne McDonough, Vincent Slatt, Philip Clark and the Rainbow History Project Date: June 2008, March 2010; April 2011; 2014; 2015; 2016 [finding aid last updated April 16, 2016] The Rainbow History Project (RHP) began on November 4, 2000 during a meeting at CyberStop Café on 17 th Street NW. The Project was organized by Mark Meinke and other individuals such as Charles Rose, Bruce Pennington, Jose Gutierrez, and James Crutchfield. The purpose of the group is “to collect, preserve, and promote an active knowledge of the history, arts, and culture relevant to sexually diverse communities in metropolitan Washington D.C.” Scope and Content: The RHP Collection documents the history of homosexuality in America, particularly in the greater Washington, D.C. area. It contains correspondence, newspaper clippings, magazines, pamphlets, articles, case briefings, committee reports, administrative documents, and ephemera. In 2008, the RHP and the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. created a partnership agreement whereby the RHP serves as an active collecting organization which solicits, processes and selectively digitizes material within its scope; the Society serves as the repository for the RHP’s physical material. The Society receives accruals to the RHP Collection on an on-going basis; this finding aid will be updated as accruals are made and will indicate the processing status of each incoming series. The collection is currently arranged as follows: 1 SERIES I: U.S. GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT, ca. 1960S-1984 includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, magazines, pamphlets and articles. (.5 cubic feet) SERIES II: DAVID AIKEN PAPERS include newspaper clippings, case briefings and articles. David L. Aiken was born in Mt. Tabor, New Jersey and educated at Parsippany High School and the University of Chicago. Aiken arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1968 as a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. He worked as an editor and a journalist for the Joint Center for Political Studies, Editorial Experts, Princeton University, and the Advocate. He also edited the newsletter of the D.C. chapter of Black and White Men Together in the 1980s. Aiken was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front – DC and of Stonewall Nation Media Collective (SNMC). He was a broadcaster for SNMC’s Friend’s Radio program from 1973 to 1982. In 1974, he helped form the Washington Area Gay Community Council (WAGCC), which he served as president and as editor of Just Us, WAGCC’s guide to the local gay community. David Aiken died of AIDS on December 31, 1986. (1 cubic foot) SERIES III: GAY WOMEN’S ALTERNATIVE (GWA-DC) includes committee reports, ephemera, newspaper clippings and program announcements . From 1981 to 1993, the Gay Women's Alternative of D.C. served as an essential educational and social focus for the metropolitan area's lesbian community. The organization dedicated itself to presenting an alternative to the closet and to the bars for the area's women, by providing lectures, social events, and discussions, often at the Washington Ethical Society. GWC- DC became known for its dances for women, particularly its signature Spring Cotillion, and for its involvement with other women's events in the area including the summer Sisterfire musical extravaganzas and the Passages conferences. In 1985, GWA-DC presented its first conference. The initial organizers included Ina Alterman, Trish Bangert, Bonnie Becker, Susan Geiger, Maryl Kerley, Ann Meltzer, Lil Russo, and Joyce Sideman. By 1993, facing competition from a growing array of competing lesbian organizations, the demands of running a major social organization, and the group's inability to meet speakers' and performers' growing requests for payment (GWA had from the outset determined not to pay such fees), the board of Gay Women's Alternative decided to close down the organization following its final Spring Cotillion in May 1993. (1.5 cubic feet) Sub–series A: Financial records, 1986–1991 (includes financial documents and receipts). Sub–series B: Organization Documents, 1981–1992 (includes meeting minutes, flyers, programming schedules, articles of incorporation, and organization logistics) SERIES IV: BRUCE PENNINGTON PAPERS include newspaper clippings, case briefings and articles. Bruce C Pennington was born in Rugby, North Dakota on September 17, 1947, and died in Washington, D.C. on August 26, 2003. He arrived in Washington in 1968 to work initially for Liberation News Service. He was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front (1970-1974), founding member of the Stonewall Nation Media Collective, producers of the Friends radio program on WGTB-FM and 2 WPFW-FM (1973-1982), board member of Black and White Men Together-DC (1980- 1984), and vice president of the Rainbow History Project (2000-2003). He served on the Washington, D.C. Human Rights Commission (1988-1991). Pennington worked professionally as a chef and restaurant manager and a teacher of English; he also served as a foster parent to a gay youth. The series consists of personal correspondence and photographs; career resumes, diplomas, and school documents; topical files and documents including the Gay Liberation Front-DC; business files, manuscripts, and newsletters from his tenure as president of Black and White Men Together-DC; files of Names Project memorabilia and obituaries of prominent members of the Washington, DC community, and drafts of articles for The Advocate . This series is currently being processed. Researchers may access this series upon consultation with Society staff. SERIES V: KENDA KIRBY PAPERS include clippings, memos, correspondence, and brochure drafts. In February 2003, the D.C. Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services hired Kenda Kirby, a former Oklahoma firefighter and emergency medical technician, to be a trainer and coordinator for the Tyra Hunter Human Diversity Training Series, which takes its name from a transgender car-crash victim who died in 1995. The series comprises materials relating to her role with D.C. Fire/EMS as a trainer on gay sensitivity issues and her subsequent dismissal from Fire/EMS in 2004. (1 cubic foot) Sub-series A: Diversity Brochure, final and working papers and correspondence Sub-series B: Administrative Documents, FEMS Diversity Training Program; includes biography and reference; timesheet issues; clippings and correspondence relating to the Watchdesk postings and Kirby’s lawsuit against Fire/EMS; budgets and requests for supplies; the Training Academy. Sub-series C: Outreach; includes correspondence, fliers, and other material. SERIES VI: BARBARA GITTINGS PAPERS ON THE MATTACHINE SOCIETY AND OTHER HOMOPHILE ORGANIZATIONS, 1962-2001 (bulk 1962-1980), includes copies of outgoing correspondence, news clippings, legal proceedings, ephemeral publications, flyers, press releases, and other documents generated by the activities of various homophile organizations, many of which Gittings was a member. A significant number of the items in this collection document the joint activities of Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny in their efforts to secure basic civil liberties for lesbians and gay men. The largest gathering of materials relate to the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. and the various homophile organization confederations of which it was a constituent member, such as East Coast Homophile Organization (ECHO), Eastern Regional Homophile Conference (ERCH), Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO), and North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO). Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) was a prominent American activist for gay equality. She organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) from 1958 to 1963, edited the national DOB magazine The Ladder from 1963 to 1965, and worked closely with Frank Kameny in the 1960s on the first picket lines that brought attention to the ban on employment of gay people by the largest employer in the US at 3 that time: the United States government. Gittings challenged the Daughters of Bilitis' conservative leadership by publishing an article by Kameny that urged readers to "move away from the comfortingly detached respectability of research into the often less pleasant rough-and-tumble of political and social activism." In response to her publishing this article, the Daughters of Bilitis leadership removed her as editor of The Ladder in 1965. Her early experiences with trying to learn more about lesbianism fueled her lifetime work with libraries. In the 1970s, Gittings was most involved in the American Library Association, forming the first gay caucus in a professional organization, in order to promote positive literature about homosexuality in libraries. She was a part of the movement to get the American Psychiatric Association to drop homosexuality as a mental illness in 1972. Her self-described life mission was to tear away the "shroud of invisibility" related to homosexuality that associated it with crime and mental illness. She was awarded a lifetime membership in the American Library Association, and the ALA named an annual award for the best gay or lesbian novel the The Barbara Gittings Award. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) also named an activist award for her. (1 cubic foot) Sub–series A: Barbara Gittings Correspondence and Press