Photo Credit: Photo credit Dr. Charles H. Ford (Table-Left)
What has the writing and publishing experience been like - challenges or pleasant surprises?
In terms of the local African American struggles for educational equity, the length and inconclusiveness of this story were at first astonishing to me. The primary sources about desegregation were not readily available, and there were artificial roadblocks placed in front of us. Some actors repented of their sins or boasted of their bravery and gladly gave information, while many did not want to talk about a difficult experience until later in their lives. In terms of publishing queer stories, I was amazed by the eagerness of publishers – both popular and academic – to support pioneering efforts in local queer history. Furthermore, I have noticed the more you know, the more you realize that you do not know. That is particularly true in uncovering stories of African American, Latino, transgender, military and religious happenings in local queer history that may not have been covered by the newspapers – both mainstream and gay.
What advice would you give new historians looking to engage in activist scholarship?
I was told at Vanderbilt that advocacy and activism were anathema to scholarship, but that was not the case at Norfolk State, a Historically Black University (HBCU). For example, I worked with a prominent historian of the American South from Washington and Lee on an American Association of University Professors-led coalition to increase and enhance non-discrimination statements on sexual diversity and gender identity on Virginia campuses. That Washington and Lee contact happened to be working on public school desegregation as well, but in western Virginia. He helped to arrange a Southern Historical Association panel in Louisville in 2009 that showcased our research to two other leading scholars in that field as well as key officials at the University of Virginia Press. In other words, working on an advocacy project helped to publish our research at a gold-standard university press.
How have you seen public awareness of queer history in Virginia evolve over the years?
People always shared stories about this bar or this agency but they never saw LGBTQ+ stories as history – a systematic view of the past tied to regional and national trends – until the last fifteen years in Hampton Roads. I would love to see an historical marker project for LGBTQ+ sites in Hampton Roads – I have done two professionally-produced films on local queer historical places and people in Norfolk’s Ghent neighborhood as well as the City of Hampton. And I am not working alone here. For at least a decade, Cathleen Rhodes and her students in queer studies classes and with the Tidewater Queer History Project at Old Dominion University have raised public awareness through gathering oral interviews and giving tours. So, the best way to raise awareness is to get people involved – not just as passive receptors of lectures, but through various media and as content providers themselves.
What hidden LGBTQ+ landmarks or stories in Norfolk would surprise first-time visitors?
I think first-time visitors to Hampton Roads would be shocked at the intensity and effectiveness of the Gay and Lesbian Caucus at the local Unitarian Church, The Our Own Community Press came from that milieu, but so did the Norfolk Council on Human Rights, which eventually became Virginians for Justice, the predecessor of Equality Virginia. I think first-time visitors would also be interested in the widespread cultural influence of a lesbian power couple – Irene Leache and Anna Wood – in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the late nineteenth century, they managed a girls’ school on the corner of Freemason and Granby, which later moved to Ghent as Granby Street became more rowdy. Irene Leache died in 1900, but Anna Wood would live on until 1940, providing core collections from their travels in Europe for the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, which would become the world-class Chrysler Museum of Art of today. In memory of Irene Leache, Anna Wood also helped to set up the Little Theater of Norfolk, the Norfolk Society of the Arts, and the Virginia Symphony. How did they have the money to do all of this? Well, Anna was a Cogswell, who knew the Lincolns and played there as a young girl at the White House. A colleague, Joshua Weinstein, discovered that her ancestors had been involved in maritime trade and benefited from a large federal settlement of an insurance dispute in the Caribbean in the 1790s. I suspect that this settlement involved the international slave trade, but more research is needed there.
Photo Credit: Tidewater Queer History Project
