MPR News with Angela Davis

Minnesota lesbians tell their stories from another time

An oral history project captures women's memories from the 1970s and '80s

Amazon Bookstore, a lesbian feminist bookstore and gathering place.
Amazon Bookstore, a lesbian feminist bookstore and gathering place in Minneapolis, in 1973.
Courtesy of Lisa Vecoli

Until her recent retirement, Lisa Vecoli made big changes as curator of the upper midwest’s largest LGBTQ history archive, the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota.

Now she’s onto a new project, one that was inspired by her work at the archive: Over the next few years, she will capture the stories of lesbians who were activists in Minnesota in the 1970s and ‘80s, a time when a lot of gathering had to be done in secret. The project is called “the Minnesota Lesbian Community Organizing Oral History Project.”

If you have a story you’d like to contribute, get in touch with Vecoli at mnlesbianhistory@gmail.com.

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