Tucked away inside a small building in downtown Fort Lauderdale is the Stonewall National Museum, Archives and Library. For the past five decades, this little library/institution that could has chronicled the history and culture of the LGBTQ history.
In addition to gay novels and biographies, you will find more than 30,000 DVDs and artifacts that reflect the LGTBQ community. They include a gold record from The Village People, a pair of leather pants worn by singer Ricky Martin and the gavel that former House speaker Nancy Pelosi used to formally end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which made it illegal for gays and lesbians to openly serve in the military.
I recently visited Stonewall and wrote about the budget cuts and funding shortfalls it has been facing under the current political climate for a story for my paper, The New York Times. The facility is a treasure trove of LGBT history. Below is the print version of my article from this month.
By chance, my former newspaper, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, generously (yay!) picked up the story and published it on its front page last week. (story is on the lower right.)
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