Gerber/Hart Library and Archives (Gerber/Hart) held its fall benefit, Unboxing Queer History: LIVE AGAIN!, Sept. 20 at Gerber/Hart to celebrate the relaunch of the organization’s flagship podcast.
A sold-out crowd gathered to support the library and archives’s mission to preserve LGBTQ+ history in Chicago and the Midwest.
The festivities began with a VIP reception, archives tour led by Gerber/Hart Operations Director Erin Bell, and a Q&A. LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project Co-Founders Adam Greteman and Karen Morris; LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project members Molly Fulop, Zach Gross, Lizzie Maricich, Lisa Moore and Bailey Taylor; and Unboxing Queer History producerChijioke Williams were among the particiapants. Gerber/Hart Community Outreach and Strategic Partnerships Manager Jen Dentel moderated.
The event also featured a recreation of the second episode of the upcoming second season of the Unboxing Queer History podcast called “The Intergenerational Dialogue Project” with Williams, Greteman and Morris performing live readings of their portion of the recorded episode while it played with a video slideshow from C.J. Arellano.
Dentel asked how Greteman and Morris met and the origins of the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project.
Greteman said he met Morris through the then Center on Addison’s Human Service Manager Todd Williams. He added that Williams began a conversation with him and Morris about doing an intergenerational project.
Q and A discussion. Photo by Vern Hester
Greteman relayed that when he talked to younger queer/trans people about his volunteer work with elders in the community they were surprised that these elders existed. He said those initial conversations are what sparked the idea of the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project, which began in the fall of 2019 with 15 elders and 15 youth participants from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) which has grown to include faculty facilitators and new elder and youth members.
Morris joked that this is “one of those typical seven year long lesbian and gay man romances” between the two of them. She said they frequently discuss how queer/trans people have used “art as their voice.” Morris said that for some elder and youth participants, this is the first time they have ever been to Gerber/Hart and “it blows their freaking minds in such an awesome way” to discover that this facility exists.
Morris said that when Dentel brings out the archives, some of the elders realize that their own collections are worthy of being preserved by Gerber/Hart.
Dentel said that volunteering at Gerber/Hart at age 22 was the first time they had ever interacted intergenerationally with a fellow queer person who was decades older. Moore, who works at University of Chicago (UChicago) and is one of the project’s faculty facilitators, shared how she got involved as a consultant on group dynamics. She spoke about the first cohort of participants at UChicago this past year where South Side elders came to the campus to meet the students, have a meal together and engage in conversations. Moore said that “everything is really stealth now … but it’s going to happen again” this year.
Fulop, who works at University of Illinois at Chicago and is one of the project’s graduate assistants, said they started as a student at SAIC as a youth participant and now one of the facilitators, Nic Westsrate, is their doctoral advisor.
Maricich spoke about her participation in the queer elder history panel event Gerber/Hart and the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project held at the West Town lesbian bar Dorothy, which she called “amazing” and that she “truly enjoyed it.” She added that she had all these pictures of herself as a younger person, including as an infant, that she shared with the audience. Maricich said being a project participant “was one of the most incredible experiences of my life” and she will never forget all the people she has met throughout her involvement with this endeavor. She said the tee-shirt she was wearing was designed by Taylor.
Gross, one of the more recent youth participants, said he first learned about the project from Morris and was excited about getting involved so he could speak with gay seniors. He spoke about his involvement with the tee-shirt fundraising part of this year’s art exhibit event at the Center on Addison. Gross said that one of the seniors he worked with was Sandra White, who died before the art exhibit took place and that loss was really hard for him because it was so unexpected.
Morris said that the funds from the tee-shirt sales were given to Center on Addison and Gerber/Hart.
Chijioke Williams spoke about her role as one of the staff members at intergenerational focused One Roof Chicago (where Morris serves as a board member) and as a freelance journalist. She said she was recommended to Gerber/Hart by Bill Healy to work on the second season of the podcast and chose two episodes out of the eight—the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project one and the one featuring Gerber/Hart’s erotica archive—and the research that was involved in this endeavor.
Ahead of the live podcast episode recreation, Gerber/Hart Board Co-Chair Kevin Nunley spoke about all the people involved with the non-profit, including the 200 active volunteers that keep the facility going. He also said that Gerber/Hart has been able to do more programming and community engagement in recent years, reaching nine Chicago neighborhoods, and that fundraising is up by 30% this year.
Gerber/Hart Board Co-Chair James Conley said his first interaction at Gerber/Hart was in an intergenerational dialogue and described how much that changed his life for the better. He added that he was “thrilled” to be in that kind of space again due to this event and spoke about the “importance of our people telling their own stories.”
Conley said “especially during these difficult times that we’re going through right now. One of the things that they’re trying to take away from us is our history. They’re trying to silence our voices, and so what we are doing is an act of active resistance. We are collecting those voices. … You don’t have to have status somewhere [to utilize our facility].”
Bell spoke about some of the new collections in the archives from Greg Harris, the Chicago Gay Hockey Association, Telling Queer History from Minnesota, Steven Toushin and Bijou Video, Lavender Noire Project, Gary Chichester, John Schacht and Lori Cannon and Jon-Henri Damski.
Gerber/Hart Development Manager Michael Rashid closed out the event with a reminder that the library has approximately 26,000 items (some of which are banned in parts of the United States), including an entire young adult and juvenile section if they are unable to find those books at their school library.
Rashid added that now with “the daily dose of a doomscrolling news cycle that keeps more dire news on us by the minute, my answer to the question about how Gerber/Hart is doing varies not just by the day, but often nowadays by an hour or a moment.”
Rashid called on attendees to help keep Gerber/Hart operational with their donations so this independent non-profit facility can remain open and accessible to everyone for years to come.
“They can’t take away our archives,” said Rashid. “If you would have [told] me two weeks ago that I would be talking about Jimmy Kimmel, the former co-host of ‘The Man Show,’ [being suspended from his show for what he said] at a queer library and archive fundraiser [I would have dismissed that thought]. They can’t cancel us like they are doing to some of the strongest voices against what’s happening in the country right now. They can’t do that to Gerber/Hart because of the support of people like you because you are all on our side.”
