What’s New
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I APRIL 2018 11
The Long Island City institution
opened “The Lavender Line:
Coming Out in Queens” late
last month, which highlights
the last 25 years of LGBTQ
activism in Queens and the growth of
the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride
Committee, Inc. This exhibit focuses
mostly on the Queens Pride march the
committee planned in response to a
series of discrimination.
The first Queens Pride march took
place in 1993 after Julio Rivera, a gay
Latino man, was murdered in Jackson
Heights after being lured to a schoolyard
and brutally attacked by three individuals.
A hugely significant development
for the city’s LGBTQ community, the
Queens Pride march was the first LGBTQ
rights parade to take place in one
of the city’s outer boroughs. Since then,
the Queens Pride Parade has grown to
become the second-largest in the New
York metropolitan area.
Exhibit curators from the LaGuardia
and Wagner Archives drew many pieces
from the personal files of City Councilman
Danny Dromm, who was heavily
involved in the creation of the parade.
City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer
also contributed materials from his archives.
He marched in the first Queens
Pride Parade as a representative of the
Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Alliance, now
known as Spectrum, that he started as a
student at St. John’s University.
The exhibit marks the beginning of
the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives’
LGBTQ Public History Project. College
faculty and students also worked to
present the exhibit at the Queens Museum
last summer.
Dr. Richard Lieberman, historian
and director of LaGuardia Community
College and Wagner Archives, along
with faculty members Thierry Gourjon
and Javier Larenas, poured through
about 3,000 photographs provided by
Councilman Daniel Dromm that documented
the beginnings of the Queens
Pride Parade.
Dromm said he tried to establish an
exhibition on the 25th anniversary of
the Stonewall Riots in 1994 but realized
that there were very little artifacts
highlighting Queens’ contribution to
the movement. This time, he was able
to donate about 20 boxes of artifacts,
buttons and paraphernalia.
“There was very little on any Queens
LGBT movements,” he said in a previous
interview. “Invisibility has always been
our biggest enemy and I didn’t want us
to ever be invisible again.”
Van Bramer provided photos from
marches that took place at St. John’s
University. He marched in the first
Queens Pride Parade as a representative
of the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual
Alliance, now known as Spectrum, that
he started as a student at St. John’s
University.There is also audio of him
being interview during the 1992 parade
and banner that is carried at the
Queens Pride Parade every year is also
showcased.
The exhibit will travel to different
CUNY schools throughout Queens and
Dromm said it’s one of the most important
aspects of the project because
“that’s going to send a clear message
that there was a history to the movement
in Queens.”
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