“For far too long, the stories, experiences, trials, and victories of the LGBTQ movement in our country and in Queens have often gone untold,” said Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer. Van Bramer, then a student at St John’s University, drew attention in the 1990s for his activism work encouraging members of the LGBTQ community to stand proud and in public, and for raising awareness of the AIDS epidemic and bias crimes.
Dromm, who at the time was a public school elementary teacher in Queens, was called before a school board disciplinary hearing where he was “ordered never to discuss his homosexuality with his fourth-grade students.” He stood firm and refused to be silenced this activism helped seed his decision to leave teaching for public office.Ĭity Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer contributed materials from his personal archives to The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens. Through his work on Queens Pride, Dromm came out publicly as gay. The anti-gay murder of Julio Rivera and the battle over the Children of the Rainbow Curriculum are Queens’ equivalent of the Stonewall Rebellion.”
This exhibition highlights a dynamic period in the history of the Queens LGBT rights movement. It’s been a long struggle for LGBT acceptance especially in the borough once known for being the home of Archie Bunker. “We didn’t just one day wake up and have same sex marriage. “Queens has its own unique lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history and people should know about it,” said NYC Council Education Committee Chairperson Daniel Dromm (D – Jackson Heights, Elmhurst). What results is a representation of struggle and pride that continues today. These include centers that offer social and counseling services as well as bars that function as leisure and entertainment spaces. The contemporary photographs in the exhibition by LaGuardia’s Gardiner-Shenker Student Scholars chronicle a range of Queens LGBTQ social organizations and cultural institutions. The title celebrates lavender not only as a symbol of the original gay liberation movement but also as the color of the line painted on the Queens Pride Parade route along 37th Avenue, from 89th Street to 75th Street. With both historical and contemporary work, The Lavender Line comprises photographs, flyers, video footage, and audio recollections, illustrating the pride and protests of a community unknown to most New Yorkers. Today it’s an annual tradition that attracts crowds of over 40,000, and draws support of politicians and corporate sponsors. The first Queens Pride Parade in 1993 drew 1,000 marchers. One of their first acts was to organize a march to take their advocacy to the streets.
#FOOTAGE OF NYC GAY PRIDE MARCH 2017 SERIES#
The exhibition’s title celebrates lavender as both a symbol of the original gay liberation movement and the color of a line marking the Queens Pride Parade route in Jackson Heights.įollowing a series of anti-gay incidents in the early 1990s, including the brutal murder of Julio Rivera, and controversy over references to same-sex couples in the Children of the Rainbow Curriculum, Dromm and fellow activist Maritza Martinez co-founded the Queens Lesbian & Gay Pride Committee, Inc., known as Queens Pride. This exhibition curated by LaGuardia commercial photography faculty Thierry Gourjon and Javier Larenas, and by LaGuardia’s Gardiner-Shenker Student Scholars, marks the first-ever showing of materials from the Dromm Collection.
The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens, draws largely from the Collection of Queens City Council Member Daniel Dromm, recently acquired by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College, which is presenting the exhibit. The exhibition runs through July 30 and is located in the Museum’s famed Panorama Room. Queens, NY (June 12, 2017)-Marking the 25 th anniversary of the Queens Pride Parade, a new multimedia exhibition at the Queens Museum spotlights the largely unknown history of LGBTQ activism in Queens from the 1990s to the present. Presented by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives atĪ museum visitor examines The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens exhibition at the Queens Museum (credit: LaGuardia Community College). The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens: June 10 to July 30, 2017ĭraws from records of City Council Member Daniel Dromm who co-founded Queens Pride, and explores how the 1990 hate crime murder of Julio Rivera impacted the LGBTQ movement in Queens