2nd Annual
Queer History South
Network & Conference
Archives for All, Y’all
Best Practices for Digital Access & Community Networking
Dallas, Texas

About Queer History South
QUEER HISTORY SOUTH is a vehicle for locating and sharing the rich, but often under-documented history of southern contributions to LGBTQ history and society.

QHS embraces the direct connection between sharing our stories and inspiring present-day activism. It strengthens our movement to know we are a part of the long legacy of American history and activism.

Who We Are
Queer History South is a network of professional and community members invested in preserving and promoting LGBTQ archiving and history in the US South. The primary purpose of QHS is to provide networking, professional development, and best practices for those directly working (formally or informally, professionally or communally) in the fields of Southern LGBTQ histories, archives, exhibits, historical research, and historical education. QHS meets every two years at a different location across the South.

Who Can Attend
QHS is open to anyone interested but will be of particular interest to archivists, historians, students, faculty, researchers, public historians, oral historians, and community organizations invested in preserving local histories. QHS has attendance from across the US, but primarily focuses on 13 Southern states: Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Want to volunteer during Queer History South?
Complete the form below.
Conference Schedule
8:00am – 9:00am | Registration
Sign-In & Vaccination Verification |
||||||||||||
9:00am – 10:30am | Opening
Welcome and Overview of the Conference Speaker Bio: Moe Vela has been named one of the “Top 100 Hispanics in America” by Hispanic Business magazine and was twice named one of the “101 Most Influential Latinos” by Latino Leaders magazine, as well as, one of Washington’s Top 300 Insiders by the National Journal. He was also named to the Powermeter 100—the Washington area’s most influential individuals for Hispanic Communities by El Tiempo Latino, a Washington Post Company publication. Vela is the CEO of MoeVela, LLC , a strategic business advisory firm, and Founder of The Vela Group, LLC, a global business development consulting firm. Additionally, he is Of Counsel/Senior Advisor at the law firm of Stein Mitchell Beato and Missner and the Principal Advisor at TransparentBusiness. His most recent endeavor is the the co-creation, co-production, and co-star of the streaming-TV series Unicorn Hunters. Vela is also the author of the best selling book, Little Secret, Big Dreams: Pink and Brown in the White House, an auto-biography detailing Vela’s upbringing in a Hispanic Catholic home in Texas, his coming out story, and his journey to the White House. |
||||||||||||
10:45am – 11:45am | Block 1
|
||||||||||||
11:45am – 1:15pm | Student Poster Session and Lunch | ||||||||||||
1:30pm – 2:30pm | Block 2
|
||||||||||||
2:45pm – 3:45pm | Block 3
|
||||||||||||
4:00pm – 5:00pm | Block 4
|
||||||||||||
5:00pm – 7:00pm | Break | ||||||||||||
7:00pm | Evening Options
Visit the LGBT Historical Marker at the Gay Crossroads at Throckmorton and Cedar Springs |
9:00am – 10:15am | Opening and Plenary Plenary Speaker: Mandy Carter Speaker Bio: Mandy Carter was born in Albany, New York in 1948 and relocated to North Carolina in 1982 after working for the War Resisters League (WRL) in California. There she worked at WRL’s southeast office and served on the planning committee for the annual Lesbian and Gay Pride march. In the early 1990s, Carter was a public policy advocate for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Carter is the co-founder of Southerners on New Ground, the National Black Justice Coalition, and Equality North Carolina. She was one of two openly LGBTQ speakers at the 2003 Lincoln Memorial Rally for the 40th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and was on the national steering coordinator for the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Carter was nominated as one of the “1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005.” She was honored with the 2006 Spirit of Justice Award from Boston’s Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the Anderson Prize Foundation’s Susan J. Hyde Longevity Award in 2008.In addition to being inducted into the LGBT Hall of Fame by the International Federation of Black Prides (now The Center for Black Equity) in 2012, Carter was a 2013 recipient of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation’s Vicki Sexual Freedom Award for her human rights work. The collection of Mandy Carter papers from 1970 through 2013 is held at Duke University Libraries. |
||||||||||||
10:30am – 11:30am | Block 5
|
||||||||||||
11:45am – 1:15pm | Resource and Expo Lunch | ||||||||||||
1:30pm – 3:00pm | Introduction to and Overview of The University of North Texas LGBTQ Archives Room C130 Morgan Gieringer, University of North Texas Libraries Head of Special Collections Wes Phelps, PhD, Associate Professor of History, University of North Texas Karen Wisely, PhD, History Instructor, Tarrant County College Morgan Gieringer will give an overview of the creation of the LGBTQ Archive at UNT, its evolution and major milestones in the collection, preservation and digitization of unique historical resources documenting the LGBTQ communities of the north Texas region. Recognized by the Texas Digital Library with the 2021 Excellence Award, the UNT LGBTQ Archive includes physical, digital and web-based content and archivists lead an active outreach program that includes exhibits community programming. Karen Wisely and Wes Phelps will discuss their original research utilizing the archive, as well as activities such as a podcasts and an oral history project which complement the archival holdings at UNT. |
||||||||||||
3:15pm – 5:00pm | Facilitated Affinity Sessions | ||||||||||||
5:00pm – 6:00pm | Break | ||||||||||||
6:00pm – 9:00pm | Evening Event: Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum at 300 N Houston Street Doors open at 6:00 pm, Sunset 6:37 pm, Bar opens at 6:39 pm |
9:00am | Closing Day Session Welcome Spoken Word with Niecee X VideoOut: Busting Misconceptions about the Queer South: An IHP and VideoOut Production Plenary Speakers: Historical Texas LGBTQ Legal Panel featuring Dick Peeples and Wesley G. Phelps, moderated by Mike Anglin Closing |
Program in English
Programa en Español
Pricing & Registration
Institutional Support Full Conference
For those with institutional financial support
Coffee Breaks
Plenaries
Breakout Sessions
Evening Events
Lunch
Students
Full Conference Attendance
Limited to 50 Attendees
Coffee Breaks
Plenaries
Breakout Sessions
Evening Events
Lunch
Non-institutional Support Full Conference
For those without institutional financial support
Coffee Breaks
Plenaries
Breakout Sessions
Evening Events
Lunch
Community Participant
Morning Plenary Sessions
Evening Events
Sunday Closing Events
Delayed Broadcast*
Recorded Plenaries
Recorded Sunday Closing
Select Sessions Recording
Available Two Weeks After In-Person
*Queer History South Delayed Broadcast Schedule
The following sessions will be recorded and offered as a delayed broadcast approximately 2 weeks after the conference.
Also included are the three plenary sessions.
Click to Expand the Queer History South 2022 Delayed Broadcast Schedule
Title/Presenter | Description |
---|---|
The Old Lesbian Herstory Project Arden Eversmeyer |
“We had never held hands out in public, but before they put her in the ambulance, I kissed Bobbie on the forehead and whispered that I loved her.” When interviewed for the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP), Jean, born 1927, talked about losing Bobbie. They’d been together for more than 35 years, living in rural Texas and had never shown affection towards each other in public. Although many things have changed for lesbians now, it is essential that we remember and honor the lives of the women who came before us, living during a time when there were no books or magazines and no organizations, when being homosexual was classified as a disease for which you might be institutionalized, when simply dancing at a bar with another woman might land you in jail. Some historians were trying to tell the story of these women, but it was always their interpretation of the story. The Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project has worked for more than 20 years to document and preserve the life stories of lesbians 70 and older. The OLOHP presentation will not only tell you about the Project and how it works, it will include a few readings of excerpts taken from their collection of 700+ interviews. |
Invisible Histories Project: How IHP is Working to Save LGBTQ History in the Deep South Maigen Sullivan, Director of Research and Development, Invisible Histories Project Josh Burford, Director of Outreach and Lead Archivist, Invisible Histories Project |
The Invisible Histories Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Birmingham, AL that locates, preserves, researches and makes community accessible the rich and diverse history of LGBTQ people in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. IHP acts as an intermediary between institutions like universities, libraries, museums, and archives and LGBTQ people and organizations. Join us for this presentation on the history of IHP, an overview of the IHP model, and a discussion on the challenges faced in developing and implementing a public history and community archiving project and nonprofit in the Deep South. |
Mapping Trans Joy Sophia Ziegler, Founder/Oral Historian, Louisiana Trans Oral History Project Nathalie Nia Faulk, Co-Director, Last Call Oral History Project SK Groll, Doctoral Student, Louisiana State University and Program Coordinator, Baton Roots Community Farm |
This presentation describes a project to collect and share stories of trans joy across Louisiana. The Louisiana Trans Oral History Project, together with Last Call Oral History Project, are creating a online mapping tool to enable trans and gender non-conforming (TGNC) individuals from across the state to contribute audio and video narratives, specifying places that are personally important to them as sites of trans joy. For our purposes, a place of trans joy can include any location that individuals feel included, loved or honored, as well as places where significant personal or communal events happened. Collectively, these narratives will create rich documentation of one of Louisiana’s most marginalized communities. |
Community-Led Archival Research James Capello, PhD, Organizer, Southern Fried Queer Pride and Professor of Anthropology, Savannah College of Art and Design |
Participants from local community organizations who identify as non-binary and/or trans made quilts along with offering oral histories. We created a community art show with the archival materials and worked with Emory to donate the materials that were created. Along with sewing their own quilt squares in response to prompts such as “who is chosen family for you?” I recorded and documented their oral histories and engagement in activism in Atlanta. I also documented through photographs and field notes trans led activist events from 2018 to 2021. Since SFQP is led by Black, Indigenous, and Latinx trans people many of these events were immigration rallies, documenting the stories of trans women being held by I.C.E., and prison abolition events. Hopefully this presentation can act as an example of a successful community led research and archival project that documents how radical the Deep South can be. |
Outrageous Oral Robert Emery, President, The Dallas Way |
Outrageous Oral is the most entertaining aspect of The Dallas Way. Speakers from all walks of LGBT+ life present their personal stories. They may seem improvised, but they are not. They are personal, vulnerable, and compelling. They are intimate, funny, poignant, encouraging, heartbreaking, and captivating. Ultimately, they are celebratory. Over 100 personal LGBT+ stories have been shared thus far. This break-out session focuses on how to produce an Outrageous Oral event from speakers to marketing, all the way through permanently storing them in an LGBT+ archive. |
Using Archives in “Queericulums” Aaron Elkins, PhD, Associate Professor of Library and Information Studies, Texas Woman’s University |
Given that queer culture and history are not taught in a comprehensive fashion in the United States public education system, queer youths, young adults, and adults are effectively left to situate themselves within such cultural and historical narratives as they choose to construct; as a result, these constructed narratives may be incomplete and value hegemonic culture and history over accuracy. How does the idea of using queer community archives to prepare a “queericulum” that presents a more inclusive and comprehensive depiction of queer culture and history interact with the notions of queer liberation? How can we use counter stories about queer history and culture in queer community archives to more effectively work towards dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy in the queer community and in mainstream society? |
Cruising for Queer Histories Outside of the Gay Bar Alexis Rodriguez, Vice President, LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida |
In 2021, the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida celebrated its 16th anniversary, a milestone representing persistent collaboration between community members and university historians to interpret the region’s queer past. Recently, the Museum has expanded its preservation efforts to locate instances of queer community building that occurred outside of gay bars and nightclubs. This presentation will address the challenges of the Museum’s evolution by focusing on two specific cases: an archiving effort to document regional LGBTQ sports leagues and an exhibition that wrestled with the shifting generational perspectives on what defines a “queer space.” Though gay bars have long represented a “safe haven” for the LGBTQ community, the future of these spaces is precarious – as evidenced in Orlando with the 2020 closure of the iconic Parliament House after operating for 45 years. Given this shifting landscape, how might queer historiography adapt to reflect a more nuanced understanding of community beyond its traditional preoccupation with barroom legends? What are the spaces (and the people who find belonging within them) that we have neglected in our interpretation of the queer past and how can new collecting endeavors address these oversights? In addition to reflecting upon these questions, the presentation will contribute to a larger reimagining of queer theory to be more radically inclusive within public history scholarship and praxis. |
On Naiad Press of Tallahassee, Florida: Exploring the Balance between Shared Authority and Social Justice in Queer Public History Michael David Franklin, PhD, Assistant Director of Honors in the Major and Honors Faculty, Florida State University RaeAnn Quick, Student, Florida State University |
This presentation will use our work on a public history project about Naiad Press – an internationally prominent lesbian publishing company located in Tallahassee, Florida, from 1980 to 2003 – to think about legacies of racial segregation in queer spaces, as well as the ethics of framing a majority-white lesbian community’s history through oral history research. |
Capturing the Faerie Playhouse, New Orleans: Documenting at-risk queer spaces through virtual tours and oral histories Catherine G. Cooper, PhD, National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, National Parks Service |
The Faerie Playhouse was the home of Stewart Butler, an activist for human rights and the LGBTQ+ community and remains important to the local community after Stewart’s passing in March 2020. According to notes written by Stewart and remembrances of the community, the iconic pink Creole cottage decorated with red hearts on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans served as a playhouse, wedding chapel, youth refuge, memorial garden, meeting place, hospice and art gallery. It served these roles and many more since Stewart and his partner Alfred purchased the home in 1978 and continues to do so, though the future of the home is uncertain after Stewart’s passing. In July 2022, a team from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) collected oral histories from friends and family of Stewart Butler and scanned the Faerie Playhouse using Matterport photogrammetry and virtual-tour technology in order to capture the space. These materials will be used to create a full interpretive tour of the Faerie Playhouse. NCPTT hopes to use this project as a template on which to expand and capture the tangible and intangible aspects of other at-risk sites of importance to LGBTQ+ communities throughout the South. |
Covid-19 Policy
You will be required to show proof of vaccination at registration in order to receive your nametag that will allow you into sessions and events.
Attendees of the conference will be required to wear masks while attending indoor events unless eating in the designated food areas or speaking during a presentation. Outdoor areas are available to eat meals. However, the State of Texas and Dallas County do not require masking.
Plan Your Stay
Host Hotel: The Westin Dallas Downtown
Rates range from $149 – $249 per night
Learn More About Dallas
QHS 2022: Archives for All, Y’all is brought to you by the collaborative effort of:
A huge thank you to our amazing sponsors! This conference could not happen without their support.

AT&T

Humanities Texas

Dallas Holocaust & Human Rights Museum

The University of North Texas Libraries

The Dallas Way

Summerlee Foundation
Robert
Walker
Emery

Dallas Voice

Coalition for Aging LGBT

Mellon Foundation

Oak Lawn Pharmacy

ONE Archives Foundation

Stonewall Democrats of Dallas
Virginia and
Bob Dupuy
Cece Cox and
Shelly Skeen

University of Houston Libraries

Texas A&M University Libraries
William
Waybourn
Jay
Oppenheimer
Tom Phipps and Rick Aishman

Southern Methodist University Libraries

University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries

Southwestern University

Hollinger Metal Edge

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Department of History

The University of North Texas Division of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access

Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library

Rice University Fondren Library



Rice University Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality



Rice University Fondren Library



Rice University Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
QHS Strives to Keep Attendance Costs Low for Socio-Economic Access
If you find the cost of attendance prohibitive or, want to help donate to sponsor attendance for someone else, please fill out this form
Register Now!
QUEER HISTORY SOUTH is a vehicle for locating and sharing the rich, but often under-documented history of southern contributions to LGBTQ history and society. QHS embraces the direct connection between sharing our stories and inspiring present-day activism. It strengthens our movement to know we are a part of the long legacy of American history and activism.