What started more than 10 years ago as a simple suggestion has grown into one of the nations largest LGBTQ archives. Since 2011, The Dallas Way has led the effort to preserve the stories of Dallass LGBTQ community.The idea for the organization was sparked when a Dallas Voice reporter was interviewing community leaders Jack Evans and George Harris to commemorate their 50th anniversary. The two had lived through much of what is now considered quintessential queer history, and they knew firsthand what it meant to persevere through homophobic oppression.Evans had been fired from Neiman Marcus back in the 1950s for being gay. And Harris was arrested in the military for being gay and dishonorably discharged.Evans and Harris both made their way to Dallas in 1961 and ended up meeting at a bar called Taboo Room. Then 54 years later, they became the first same-sex couple legally married in Dallas County following the Supreme Courts ruling inObergefell v. Hodges.After that interview, the couple decided it was time to document Dallass LGBTQ history before it was lost in the mists of passing years. Evans emailed more than 50 community leaders, and the rest, as they say, is history.To preserve documents, photos and artifacts, The Dallas Way partnered with the University of North Texas, which has a cold-storage facility that includes equipment to digitize physical photos and documents, as well as space to store artifacts including posters, T-shirts and more.Robert EmeryThe goal of the organization was and still is to collect any materials relevant to queer life in Dallas. Anyone who may have documents from their involvement in the community is encouraged to donate. You never know what will be helpful in understanding LGBTQ history.The archives have more than 275,000 distinct documents and has surpassed 1 million users online. The partnership has been mutually beneficial as UNT had the goal of becoming the largest depository of LGBTQ archives in the southwest.It was the perfect intersection of two passions and focuses, and we helped each other to become one of the largest LGBTQ+ archives in the nation, said Dallas Ways former president and co-founder, Robert Emery. (Since this interview was conducted, Emerys term as president has ended; Steve Atkinson is the current Dallas Way president.)In 2023, the UNT libraries became a member of the Association of Research Libraries, which includes the libraries of Harvard and Yale. The LGBTQ special collection is the most frequently used and visited out of all of UNTs special collections.That means that the work were doing is igniting the imagination and intellect of countless students and authors and researchers, said Emery.The Dallas Way has amassed more than 150 oral histories on YouTube by making and preserving recordings of people who helped make history. The goal is not only to collect these stories, but to also make everything available online. The process of digitization is a slow and expensive one, but it provides access all over the world.One of the first donations to the archives was the Phil Johnson Collection, donated by the Resource Center. Johnson had collected every article written about the LGBTQ community in Dallas newspapers since the 1940s. Dallas Voice also contributed the original typewriter used by editor Dennis Vercher, who wrote all his stories on it until switching to word processors in the late 1980s.The archives have been used for a wide variety of projects. A number of graduate students have accessed them for support in their theses; Wesley Phelps has used them for his books Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social MovementandA Peoples War on Poverty: Urban Politics and Grassroots Activists in Houston.This past year, the Dallas Way began the collection project for Affirmation, a gay and lesbian Methodist group from the 1970s. Affirmation worked for many years within United Methodist Church to bring about recognition of equality. We want to tell the story of how it came to be and illustrate how these kinds of changes take decades to achieve, Emery said.Archiving is activism, stressed Emery, And the Dallas LGBTQ+ community has had a rich and meaningful history.Dallas has one of the worlds largest predominantly LGBTQ churches, one of the most-recorded mens choruses and one of the largest seated-dinner fundraising events in the country. Dallas hosts the states largest fundraiser for HIV. The first Rainbow LULAC chapter was founded in Dallas, and the city hosts one of the largest Black Pride weekends.Also included in the archives are the 2015 founding papers and annual summit records of the Coalition for Aging for LGBT. The organization supports almost 400,000 LGBTQ seniors who live in North Texas and has created the first North Texas LGBTQ-friendly senior housing guide.Visibility leads to understanding and understanding leads to equality, explained Emery.The Dallas Way also plays a special part in another couples story.James Lynn Williams met the love of his life, Charles Longcope Jr., just a few weeks after moving to Dallas back in the 1970s. The two were together for 46 years, until Longcope died.Archiving is activism.Robert EmerySince then, Williams has been donating in his memory specifically to things Longcope loved to continue to express his love for Charles and to support the missions and organizations they both loved together.Previously, Williams donated $25,000 toward funding the digitization of The Turtle Creek Chorale concert recordings and poster collection. In 2024 the Williams/Longcope Matching Gift Challenge was established and matched donations to The Dallas Way up to $50,000, funding the digitization of historical documents for worldwide access.Its a way James has of showing Charles that he loves him, even after his passing. Its a manifestation of their love, Emery said.In addition to the archives, The Dallas Way aso hosts free events to engage the community with their history. Last year, these event topics included the landmark legal case Baker v. Wade, and the early city of Dallas ordinances that brought LGBTQ citizens closer to full equality.The organization was also a sponsor for the 2022 Queer History South conference, which brought together people across the south to discuss how to preserve our history.Robert Emery encourages people to keep coming back to look at the archives. Our collection is growing all the time, he said, so there is aways something new to learn about our history.We want your story, we want every story from every corner of community to be remembered, Emery concluded.This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBC Universal.The post Preserving history through The Dallas Way archives appeared first on News Is Out.