Greensboro has a large, economically and socially significant LGBTQ+ population. To preserve the history of this community, UNCG launched the first-ever large-scale initiative to document the LGBTQ+ history of the Triad region.
The project began in 2018, following a Common Heritage grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). “PRIDE! of the Community: Documenting LGBTQ+ History in the Triad” involves digitizing a variety of materials and records of the LGBTQ+ community.
“We recognized that this is a history that needed to be preserved and an important community that needed their voices heard,” said Stacey Krim, assistant professor and curator of manuscripts for University Libraries. Krim helps lead the project alongside colleague David Gwynn, associate professor and digitization coordinator for University Libraries.
To collect most of the materials, community scanning days are hosted in partnership with Guilford Green Foundation to digitize any unique artifact that documents LGBTQ+ history in the Triad.
The team also conducts oral history interviews with community members who share their experiences with LGBTQ+ life, culture, and politics.
A notable history is that of Pearl Berlin and Lennie Gerber, North Carolina LGBTQ+ icons. The couple met in 1964 and married in 2013. In 1971, Berlin presided over the then-new doctorate program in the kinesiology department at UNCG. UNCG’s Pearl Berlin Graduate Student Writing Award, named in her honor, recognizes excellence in thesis and dissertation writing.
Thanks to an award-winning 2014 documentary titled “Living in the Overlap” that told their love story to a national audience, Pearl and Lennie became the faces of the country’s same-sex marriage debate when it was illegal in most states.
The digital collection allows collected stories and artifacts like those of Pearl and Lennie to be shareable and easily accessible to all.
“This project honors their work, reminds us all not to take our current environment for granted, and reminds us that history is continually in the making,” says Krim.
To see the collection, visit pride.triadhistory.org.
Story by Alexandra McQueen
Photos at top of post:
Lennie Gerber and Pearl Berlin in Detroit, c. 1967
Lennie Gerber and Pearl Berlin in Paris, c. 1990
Photos courtesy of University Libraries