Badpuppy Gay Today

Monday, 12 May 1997

Ft. Lauderdale's archival collection and library, long known as The Stonewall Library and Archives, is moving into new quarters after a decade spent outgrowing a site on the premises of the Sunshine Cathedral, Ft. Lauderdale's M.C.C. church.

The new locale is adjacent to Ft. Lauderdale's Gay and Lesbian Community Center at 1164 East Oakland Park Boulevard, Suite 300. Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33334. A Grand Opening will be held on May 16 (Friday, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.)

Scholars and professional archivists have confirmed that this unique lesbian and gay Archives has, by far, the largest collection of materials south of Washington, D.C. Researchers, including authors and professors, tracing the development of same-sex awareness and socialization in Dixie, have found a treasurehouse, they say. Such scholars include John Loughery, art critic for The Hudson Review, an author who is working on a soon-to-be-published gay and lesbian cultural history.

The south's best known gay history scholar, Dr. James T Sears, has also frequented the Archives. Sears, whose 5-volume history of lesbian and gay southern life--collectively titled Generations--will see its first volume-(1948-1968) published in autumn (Westview-HarperCollins, publisher) has found invaluable documents, he says, in the Stonewall Library and Archives. Correspondence, little-known attempts to introduce gay activism to the South, and the state-wide witchhunt dramas of the Johns Committee era, all these are only a small part of what the professor discovered there.

The Stonewall Library and Archives houses 6,000 volumes, and countless periodicals. Such periodicals include The Homosexual Citizen, Florida's first gay rights magazine, to which Badpuppy's GayToday editor, Jack Nichols, was once a monthly contributor. Nichols, in fact, was asked May 1 to accept, and has since accepted, his election to The Stonewall Library and Archives Board of Trustees. Giving reasons that the Archives Board of Directors had for electing Nichols, John C. Graves, president of the Stonewall Library and Archives, wrote that Nichols is "one of the distinguished pioneers in our movement, and his recent book on The Gay Agenda has put him back in the spotlight as an activist."

The rental costs of the Library and Archives (it plans to be open Monday through Friday, 7 to 9 p.m.) will be $1,000 monthly. This will include 1000 square feet, which, says John Graves "is ideal." "By the end of March we had moved everything out of the church," he explained, "and were open for business at the new site. We still have a major job ahead in moving all the boxes from the warehouse." The largest room has 432 feet of book shelves on two-sided stacks. Contributions to maintain the growing facility are welcomed. Researchers and others interested, including those who'd act as volunteers may call (954) 561-1982.