Raleigh is seeking community input on important sites in local LGBTQ history — but the deadline is quickly approaching for those interested.
The city’s LGBTQIA+ Historic Context Study began with a request in 2019, project head Erin Morton Pugh said at a community meeting in July. Stonewall Sports, an LGBTQ sports organization, was holding its national tournament in Raleigh, and the local chapter wanted to show out-of-state participants some important LGBTQ sites in the City of Oaks, she recalled.
“And we looked around and said, ‘Uh oh, we don’t know any,’” Pugh told the audience. “‘Let’s fix that.’”
Five years later, the effort is nearing completion. The first phase, which involved eight oral history interviews and research on local sites of interest, wrapped up in January. The second phase began in July and involves two community surveys, the first of which closed Aug. 18.
Now, people have until 11:59 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 15) to participate in a survey at engage.raleighnc.gov/x0213 , which asks respondents to rank their top 20 favorites out of 70 sites. The top 20 won’t necessarily all be selected for further research, as factors like available information and a site’s importance to underrepresented groups will also be considered.
What’s eligible?
The 70 sites for this month’s survey were selected under the following criteria:
Inside current city limits
Known street address
Physical building still standing
Association with LGBTQ history from the 1990s or earlier
Received at least three votes in August’s survey
The survey applies at least one category to each site. Those categories include:
Sites under consideration range from Dorothea Dix Hospital, where LGBTQ+ people were often sent for “treatment” in the 20th century, to the ever-popular Legends nightclub on West Hargett Street.
Here’s a small sampling of the locations in the running:
City Council chambers at 222 W. Hargett St., where a Jan. 5, 1988, vote took place to expand the city’s non-discrimination ordinance to include sexual orientation.
Equality North Carolina historic headquarters at 126 E. Hargett St. The survey describes Equality North Carolina as “the oldest statewide org[anization] dedicated to securing LGBTQIA+ rights and protections.”
Pullen Memorial Baptist Church at 1801 Hillsborough St., which held funerals for people who died of AIDS in the 1980s, performed same-sex unions in the 1990s before gay marriage was legal in the state and still provides “LGBTQIA+ ministry and meeting space for community groups and more.”
The former home of White Rabbit Books & Things at 309 W. Martin St., which also provided spaces to LGBTQ organizations and businesses, like The Front Page newspaper, one of the first statewide LGBTQ newspapers.
“The more we learned about some of these places, the more you can see the web of human connection between them,” Morton Pugh said. “Somebody knew somebody at this place to give them some free space to do something they wanted to do for the community. And so we’ve got a single street address that has multiple organizations or clubs or other uses that are led by separate individuals.”
The former site of the gay bar The Mousetrap at 1622 Glenwood Ave. is a good example of that, Morton Pugh said.
“It started off as The Mousetrap in the ’70s, but it had a string of various LGBTQ bars in that same location over a period of 30 years,” she said.
Why it matters
As Morton Pugh said at July’s community meeting, her team got motivated after discovering there were no sites in Raleigh specifically designated as associated with LGBTQ history.
“There are many places that are actually a local historic landmark or in one of our historic districts that have LGBTQ history,” she said. “But we didn’t write that history down when we designated it, so we’re working to correct that.”
Speaking to The News & Observer on Thursday, Morton Pugh explained why such representation is important.
“I think the work of a city’s planning department needs to be representative of the full community that they serve, and our work is studying Raleigh’s historic places,” she said. “It’s hard for people to see themselves reflected in the place they live when you haven’t put that work in.”
Project consultant Cynthia de Miranda, a Durham-based architectural historian, said historic-context studies can help:
Identify important historic places associated with a specific theme
Guide future planning
Share collected knowledge with the public and other researchers
Empower independent community projects
Honor influential people and places
A draft report on the study’s findings is expected to be posted for public comment in October, with a final report heading to the City Council in early 2025. Morton Pugh said her team will present a variety of options, including traditional historic designation for some sites and more creative ideas that intertwine physical recognition with digital archiving.
Until then, she said, she is eager to hear from community members.
“Anything the public wants to share with us, we are here to receive it,” Morton Pugh said.
Local News
