LGBTQIA+ Commission 2022 Black History Month Statement
Category: History
Do You Have a Hard Copy of the 2003 ‘Voices for a New Tomorrow’ Needs Assessment?
If you were active in the regional community around 2003 (pre-Delta era) – I’d like to talk with you. In January 2003, Persad Center published a community needs assessment in conjunction with the Gay and Lesbian Community Center (now the Pittsburgh Equality Center) and The Seven Project. The researchers were Dr. Sandra Quinn and Dr. […]
This Blog Celebrates Our Sweet Sixteen Today
Most blogs are abandoned within 90 days. Those that endure typically last 2-3 years. That works out to my blog being 5-8 “generations” removed from the blogs someone launches as a New Years resolution in 2022. I don’t remember celebrating my actual sweet 16, but it was certainly not like the movies. I was all […]
City of Pittsburgh Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs honors LGBTQ History Month
The City of Pittsburgh Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs honors LGBTQ History Month thisOctober. We know that groundbreaking moments, big and small, have shaped the evolution ofour community since long before colonizers arrived on these waters and lands. The history ofour community is deeply intertwined with the histories of Indigenous, Black, and BrownLGBTQ peoples and we […]
Tour a 1900 Manchester Home the Night Before It Is Demolished
My friend Ed wrote this on his blog Travails of the Yinzer. This house has been empty for 20 years and home to many, many generations of cats and groundhogs and possum and some humans here and there. Miss Maryjanes haas. They are tearin dahhn Miss Maryjanes haas today. I stopped in for one last […]
Guest Blog Post: When Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ Community Tried to Warn of Rick Santorum’s Bigoted Politics in the early 1990’s
Guest Blog Post by Billy Hileman. Santorum’s pathetic white supremacist rant that erased the archaeological evidence that 50-60 million people lived on the two continents that white people later named N and S America, was surely harmful. CNN should fire Santorum and promise that they will not employ other white supremacists. We knew Santorum was […]
Part Four – Plagued by Worry: An Historical Look at Pandemics in Four Parts
Read Part One and Part Two Part Three Part Four Literature It was Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Masque of the Red Death that probably sparked my early fascination with epidemics. I remember checking it out of my elementary school’s library over and over. It both terrified and intrigued me. Prince Prospero is hiding in his […]
Part Three – Plagued by Worry: An Historical Look at Pandemics in Four Parts
Read Part One and Part Two When a disease is ready to spread to humans, it will find a way, and, like rats, bacteria do not recognize international borders. It’s natural to want to find something to blame for a disease like this. But it shouldn’t be at the expense of already vulnerable populations, or […]
Part Two – Plagued by Worry: An Historical Look at Pandemics in Four Parts
Part One can be read here. Part Two The Little Towns that Could (Quarantine) The bubonic plague made a large resurgence in Europe in the mid-1600s. Venice was one of the first ports of entry. Knowing their history, however, once it showed up, all boats were quarantined for a time outside of the harbor. If […]
Plagued by Worry: An Historical Look at Pandemics in Four Parts
I asked historian and chronicler of social justice history Anne E Lynch to help us understand the social justice implications of the COVID-19 pandemic – Sue. Part One Some of you may be seeing memes posted around social media of people in strange bird masks, wearing dark clothes and/or cloaks and carrying canes, and you […]