Our Crowdfunding Groups
A huge thank you to the donors who have supported us so far. Your gifts have inspired a new partnership with the Joseph W. Blount Center for Health and Human Rights, which has committed to match, dollar for dollar up to $5,000, gifts from our next round of donors—we’re extending the campaign to meet and exceed our $10,000 goal and we need YOU to help make this goal a reality!
When documenting an important period of history, the best sources are people who experienced it up close and personal. When documenting the response to the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s in Atlanta, the best sources are activists and frontline warriors who led the fight against the disease. Regrettably many of their remarkable stories remain untold or unrecorded.
Randy Gue, curator of Modern Political and Historical Collections at Emory’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL), wants to chronicle this important history before it is lost forever. As those who witnessed the Atlanta community’s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis continue to age, now is the time to capture their stories.
Gue will lead an effort to record oral histories from key players in the Atlanta movement in the early days of the crisis. As depicted in the recent award-winning HBO movie “The Normal Heart,” activists in New York City then often met resistance from government officials and even dissent from within their own community. Meanwhile in Atlanta, individuals, organizations, and municipal leaders worked in close coordination to address the wide-ranging needs that arose from the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Recording these undocumented stories from the frontlines of this major moment in history is vital. Help us preserve these amazing personal and organizational histories to share with future generations of students, scholars, and community members.
Emory University has long been a proponent of inclusion. More than 20 years ago, Emory opened the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Life, the first at a campus in the South and now the 10th oldest in the country, to provide support services to students, faculty, and staff. In 1995, Emory became the first Southern university to provide benefits to same-sex partners of employees. And in 2014, the nonprofit organization Campus Pride placed Emory on its list of "Top 50 LGBT-Friendly Colleges and Universities."
Now Emory is preserving and sharing the stories of the LGBT rights movement. MARBL houses a growing collection of historically significant LGBT materials.
Dedicated to expanding its LGBT collections, MARBL is focused on acquiring items that document LGBT history, culture, politics, and public health, particularly in Atlanta and the South. The LGBT political collections highlight the work of activists, organizations, and trailblazing political figures to achieve equality. The social and cultural collections include the personal papers of artists and writers as well as the records of social organizations and businesses. It also includes rare books, pamphlets, and periodicals written by and for the LGBT community.
With your help, MARBL can continue its mission of collecting and connecting important materials that highlight the LGBT community's long march toward equality.
Your gift will support the setup for interview filming—location, sound, video (hair?, makeup?), etc.
Your gift provides for one hour of film or sound editing services to transform footage from the taped interview to its final product.
Your gift enables the film team to record an hour of interview footage.
Your gift covers the total cost of one complete interview (setup, filming, video and sound editing, etc.).