Exhibit featuring voices of hundreds of LGBTQ+ Minnesotans kicks off state tour
Staff from the Twin Cities organization Telling Queer History set up an exhibit about LGBTQ Minnesotans in Red Wing.
Courtesy of Rebecca Lawrence
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A new Minnesota history exhibit featuring the recorded voices of hundreds of LGBTQ+ Minnesotans kicked off its journey around the state Thursday.
The exhibit, “We Live On: Stories of Radical Connection” is a first for the organization Telling Queer History, which has spent eleven years gathering Minnesotans for events to remember the past and create community.
It also will be their last project. The organization is closing after it visits cities including Red Wing, Duluth and Moorhead this year. The founder of Telling Queer History, Rebecca Lawrence, joined Minnesota Now to reflect on Minnesota’s colorful history and the exhibit.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
INTERVIEWER: A new Minnesota history exhibit is kicking off its journey around the state today, and it features the recorded voices of hundreds of LGBTQ+ Minnesotans. The exhibit is called "We Live On-- Stories of Radical Connection." And it's a first for the organization Telling Queer History, which has spent 11 years gathering Minnesotans for events to remember the past and create community.
It will also be their last project. The organization is closing after it visits cities, including Red Wing, Duluth, and Moorhead this year. Here to reflect on Minnesota's colorful history is the founder of Telling Queer History, Rebecca Lawrence. Rebecca, thanks for joining us today.
REBECCA LAWRENCE: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
INTERVIEWER: Well, 11 years that Telling Queer History has been around, that is a long time. I wonder if you could take us back to why you decided to start the organization, why you felt it was meaningful to have this mission?
REBECCA LAWRENCE: Yeah, I was working as a volunteer, as hundreds of thousands of people were, on the Minnesotans United for All Families campaign, that was fighting the amendment to limit marriage to just one man, one woman. This was a campaign that affected so many people. And 12 states before us had lost that ballot measure and defined homophobia into their constitution.
So Minnesota did something pretty different than those other campaigns. Because arguing for rights for people who don't believe you deserve them doesn't work very well. Logic doesn't work on something like that.
So we used storytelling and empathy as a tool for change. So the campaign was based around one conversation at a time, one Minnesotan calling another and saying, what does love and marriage mean to you? and then listening, and then sharing what it meant to them, and finding that kind of connection, and being able to move folks from the middle to our side, change the state constitution and our history across the country. And shortly the year after, we had marriage equality signed into law. And then two years later, the federal Marriage Equality Act came through.
INTERVIEWER: I love that idea of really hearing people's stories. That's one of my favorite parts about this show and my job, as well, is oftentimes, you can talk about facts and figures and ideas. But when you really hear from people, that can be a really powerful way to bring people to new heights and also, to to bridge divides.
So I want to listen to a small part of one of these stories that you recorded. This is a recording you made back in 2015 of a social worker named Maureen Wells. And she spent her career working with HIV and AIDS patients. Let's take a listen to Maureen.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- So in 1987, I got a phone call. And my friend Roger, who had gone to Chicago to be gay and a lawyer, was-- yeah, and it happened, was in the hospital. And his secretary called me and said, Roger has AIDS. He's in the hospital. He's dying.
His family showed up, too. And his parents did not know he was gay, and they did not know he had AIDS. And this was a sad story. It happened to a lot of people in those days. Your son is gay. He has AIDS, and he's going to die. And it's like they had to take that all in and then watch him die three days later. And it was a very hard time.
His funeral was in Pierz, Minnesota. The priest mentioned his name once, and there was no eulogy. And that was it. It was done. And that was not unusual in those days.
When it was time to bury him, we had a picture of him in drag. Because he used to do that once a year for the Lawyer's Follies. And so we took a picture of him in full drag, and we tucked it into his coffin, so not just the lawyer in the suit that everyone saw. But we wanted all of him to be there. So we tucked that into it, and that was our sneaky way of getting the real Roger in to be part of that.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
INTERVIEWER: I wonder what Maureen telling her story about her friend Roger there, how that makes you feel, Rebecca.
REBECCA LAWRENCE: After passing Marriage Equality, I went and heard my uncle Dan's telling his direct story as being a gay man and watching his community die. And that was really the spark that I had already had, this idea for Telling Queer History.
But hearing his story and stories like Maureen's friends gave me an urgency, this great sense of loss. We've lost a whole generation of people. And we lost their stories. We lost their assets, their tools, the things. These entire lives were lost.
And so it made me feel there was an urgency to make sure we didn't have that happen ever again. And then we learned from that pandemic, that epidemic. I really urge folks to check out our website and hear more stories from queer people.
We love Maureen. She's an ally. And so you get to hear directly from the people's own stories that have lived and those who have survived. So we have those available to you.
INTERVIEWER: Absolutely. That's great, a variety of voices and stories and loved ones. And you're not only including recorded stories in this traveling exhibit. You're also including research about the history connected to those stories. So what types of topics are you covering there?
REBECCA LAWRENCE: Our exhibit's going to be focusing on a few areas that are undertold, so two spirit and indigiqueer folks, intersex, HIV and AIDS, sex workers, the iron range. We're going to have a panel of on pleasure and performance and incarcerated queer folks. There'll be an ancestor altar and then the history of telling queer history itself.
INTERVIEWER: So many different facets of history that people can explore with this project. And recently, you announced that this will be the final project for your organization and that it's feeling like it's no longer sustainable for you. Can you talk a little bit about how hard it was to make that decision and how you're thinking about the future of sharing queer stories?
REBECCA LAWRENCE: So I've been doing this role for-- well, it's been 12 years and only paid for the last five years. We have been community held for a long time. And our community is really struggling. And we were seeing that.
And it just felt clear that it was time for me to set it down. And we didn't have the resources to do a leadership change. So we decided to do a long goodbye instead.
And in the process, we'll also be handing off a lot of our work to our community, so that our stories will still be accessible through the Tretter Collection at the U of M. Some pieces will go to the Minnesota Humanities Center, some to the Minnesota Historical Society. And we're also going to share some assets for how we've created our events can be accessible to other community organizers who want to do work similar and carry on this legacy.
INTERVIEWER: That's amazing that although the organization is coming to an end, obviously the work that you've put out there will continue to live on. And that's what's so great about preserving history and stories, is that everybody gets to enjoy that now forever. So you're gearing up for the first leg of this traveling tour, which is going to be in Red Wing. Will you tell me a little bit about where else you're visiting and why you felt it was important to really hit across the state?
REBECCA LAWRENCE: Well, because there's queer people everywhere. We have made these connections in these states because there are queer people who wanted us to be there, who wanted to be reminded that they have always belonged. So there's going to be some pieces of local queer history in our exhibit as well. So folks are adding that, especially in Red Wing. It's a pretty robust community exhibit.
So queer people are everywhere. And we also have always been here and always will be. And so being reminded of our history, of our belonging, especially when we're extra under attack under this new administration, it's more important to educate our community about who we are and to be together.
INTERVIEWER: Rebecca, thank you so much for coming on and talking about the exhibit and your work. I really appreciate it.
REBECCA LAWRENCE: Yeah, thank you.
INTERVIEWER: That was Telling Queer History founder Rebecca Lawrence. To learn more about the exhibit that will travel to Red Wing, Grand Rapids, Moorhead, Minneapolis, and other cities, you can visit our website mprnews.org.
It will also be their last project. The organization is closing after it visits cities, including Red Wing, Duluth, and Moorhead this year. Here to reflect on Minnesota's colorful history is the founder of Telling Queer History, Rebecca Lawrence. Rebecca, thanks for joining us today.
REBECCA LAWRENCE: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
INTERVIEWER: Well, 11 years that Telling Queer History has been around, that is a long time. I wonder if you could take us back to why you decided to start the organization, why you felt it was meaningful to have this mission?
REBECCA LAWRENCE: Yeah, I was working as a volunteer, as hundreds of thousands of people were, on the Minnesotans United for All Families campaign, that was fighting the amendment to limit marriage to just one man, one woman. This was a campaign that affected so many people. And 12 states before us had lost that ballot measure and defined homophobia into their constitution.
So Minnesota did something pretty different than those other campaigns. Because arguing for rights for people who don't believe you deserve them doesn't work very well. Logic doesn't work on something like that.
So we used storytelling and empathy as a tool for change. So the campaign was based around one conversation at a time, one Minnesotan calling another and saying, what does love and marriage mean to you? and then listening, and then sharing what it meant to them, and finding that kind of connection, and being able to move folks from the middle to our side, change the state constitution and our history across the country. And shortly the year after, we had marriage equality signed into law. And then two years later, the federal Marriage Equality Act came through.
INTERVIEWER: I love that idea of really hearing people's stories. That's one of my favorite parts about this show and my job, as well, is oftentimes, you can talk about facts and figures and ideas. But when you really hear from people, that can be a really powerful way to bring people to new heights and also, to to bridge divides.
So I want to listen to a small part of one of these stories that you recorded. This is a recording you made back in 2015 of a social worker named Maureen Wells. And she spent her career working with HIV and AIDS patients. Let's take a listen to Maureen.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- So in 1987, I got a phone call. And my friend Roger, who had gone to Chicago to be gay and a lawyer, was-- yeah, and it happened, was in the hospital. And his secretary called me and said, Roger has AIDS. He's in the hospital. He's dying.
His family showed up, too. And his parents did not know he was gay, and they did not know he had AIDS. And this was a sad story. It happened to a lot of people in those days. Your son is gay. He has AIDS, and he's going to die. And it's like they had to take that all in and then watch him die three days later. And it was a very hard time.
His funeral was in Pierz, Minnesota. The priest mentioned his name once, and there was no eulogy. And that was it. It was done. And that was not unusual in those days.
When it was time to bury him, we had a picture of him in drag. Because he used to do that once a year for the Lawyer's Follies. And so we took a picture of him in full drag, and we tucked it into his coffin, so not just the lawyer in the suit that everyone saw. But we wanted all of him to be there. So we tucked that into it, and that was our sneaky way of getting the real Roger in to be part of that.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
INTERVIEWER: I wonder what Maureen telling her story about her friend Roger there, how that makes you feel, Rebecca.
REBECCA LAWRENCE: After passing Marriage Equality, I went and heard my uncle Dan's telling his direct story as being a gay man and watching his community die. And that was really the spark that I had already had, this idea for Telling Queer History.
But hearing his story and stories like Maureen's friends gave me an urgency, this great sense of loss. We've lost a whole generation of people. And we lost their stories. We lost their assets, their tools, the things. These entire lives were lost.
And so it made me feel there was an urgency to make sure we didn't have that happen ever again. And then we learned from that pandemic, that epidemic. I really urge folks to check out our website and hear more stories from queer people.
We love Maureen. She's an ally. And so you get to hear directly from the people's own stories that have lived and those who have survived. So we have those available to you.
INTERVIEWER: Absolutely. That's great, a variety of voices and stories and loved ones. And you're not only including recorded stories in this traveling exhibit. You're also including research about the history connected to those stories. So what types of topics are you covering there?
REBECCA LAWRENCE: Our exhibit's going to be focusing on a few areas that are undertold, so two spirit and indigiqueer folks, intersex, HIV and AIDS, sex workers, the iron range. We're going to have a panel of on pleasure and performance and incarcerated queer folks. There'll be an ancestor altar and then the history of telling queer history itself.
INTERVIEWER: So many different facets of history that people can explore with this project. And recently, you announced that this will be the final project for your organization and that it's feeling like it's no longer sustainable for you. Can you talk a little bit about how hard it was to make that decision and how you're thinking about the future of sharing queer stories?
REBECCA LAWRENCE: So I've been doing this role for-- well, it's been 12 years and only paid for the last five years. We have been community held for a long time. And our community is really struggling. And we were seeing that.
And it just felt clear that it was time for me to set it down. And we didn't have the resources to do a leadership change. So we decided to do a long goodbye instead.
And in the process, we'll also be handing off a lot of our work to our community, so that our stories will still be accessible through the Tretter Collection at the U of M. Some pieces will go to the Minnesota Humanities Center, some to the Minnesota Historical Society. And we're also going to share some assets for how we've created our events can be accessible to other community organizers who want to do work similar and carry on this legacy.
INTERVIEWER: That's amazing that although the organization is coming to an end, obviously the work that you've put out there will continue to live on. And that's what's so great about preserving history and stories, is that everybody gets to enjoy that now forever. So you're gearing up for the first leg of this traveling tour, which is going to be in Red Wing. Will you tell me a little bit about where else you're visiting and why you felt it was important to really hit across the state?
REBECCA LAWRENCE: Well, because there's queer people everywhere. We have made these connections in these states because there are queer people who wanted us to be there, who wanted to be reminded that they have always belonged. So there's going to be some pieces of local queer history in our exhibit as well. So folks are adding that, especially in Red Wing. It's a pretty robust community exhibit.
So queer people are everywhere. And we also have always been here and always will be. And so being reminded of our history, of our belonging, especially when we're extra under attack under this new administration, it's more important to educate our community about who we are and to be together.
INTERVIEWER: Rebecca, thank you so much for coming on and talking about the exhibit and your work. I really appreciate it.
REBECCA LAWRENCE: Yeah, thank you.
INTERVIEWER: That was Telling Queer History founder Rebecca Lawrence. To learn more about the exhibit that will travel to Red Wing, Grand Rapids, Moorhead, Minneapolis, and other cities, you can visit our website mprnews.org.
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