Committed to Our History

Dear Friends,

From Tuesday’s news, we anticipate the role of the courts in the lives of the LGBTQ community will again be a growing part of the public debate. ONE Archives stands ready as a resource to educate people about the paths to equality that thousands have taken in the past.

58 years ago, ONE received a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in ONE Inc. v. Olesen, the first case to address free speech rights in conjunction with homosexuality. The successful outcome provided the precedent for LGBTQ individuals to fight for full equality.

Since the 1958 historic court decision, One Institute has captured the important history of our community. We have told the stories of thousands of individuals who fought for decades for our equality–often under extraordinary circumstances–at times experiencing isolation, job loss, poverty, and sometimes even incarceration. They strived for recognition and did not negotiate their identities to achieve it.

We know today what our founders knew when they started ONE more than 65 years ago: the crucial need to protect our history and culture, and the importance of using it to educate future generations.

We remain committed to collecting, upholding, and sharing our community’s diverse experiences and our history.

As One,

Jennifer C. Gregg

 

Image: March on Washington, 1993. Photo by Eric Evans. Eric Scott Evans and Jerome Maxwell Strum Papers. ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries