Senior Wednesdays are informational and entertaining sessions, designed for active seniors and offered by a collaboration of local institutions. Learn more at Seniorwednesday.org

Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum offers their Senior Wednesdays on the 4th Wednesday of each month, January-October.

JUNE’S TOPIC: LGBTQ WICHITA

PRESENTED BY DR. JAY PRICE

Located in the middle of the nation’s heartland, Wichita, Kansas, has been a regional hub for LGBTQ persons, forming a community that extended well beyond just local residents. In spite of the area’s restrictive laws and conservative attitudes, these people have, since the 1960s, found space among an ever-fluid bar and club scene and a larger network of groups, from community centers to rodeos to religious organizations to art and activism groups. It has a history that includes one of the nation’s earliest gay rights ordinances as well as pioneering figures in AIDS research. The community has faced discrimination and hostility and the AIDS crisis. Since then, it has celebrated milestones like the legalization of gay marriage and the losses of many of its key leaders. With a legacy that extends from homophile to gender fluid, this story provides a window into how LGBTQ persons in the center of the country have both faced challenges and lived ordinary lives.

Since 2010, The Center of Wichita has been a community resource and is proud to preserve the history of the LGBTQ community of the region. Working with a team of researchers and students from Wichita State University, the center hopes that this work inspires future collecting and storytelling.

About the Author

Jay M. Price is chair of the Department of History at Wichita State University, where he also directs the Public History Program. His works include Temples for a Modern God: Religious Architecture in Postwar America, Gateways to the Southwest: The Story of Arizona State Parks, Wichita, 1860-1930, and El Dorado!: Legacy of an Oil Boom. He has co-authored Wichita’s Legacy of Flight, Cherokee Strip Land Rush, Wichita’s Lebanese Heritage, and Kansas: In the Heart of Tornado Alley. He has served on the boards of the Kansas Humanities Council and the Kansas State Historic Sites Board of Review. He is currently on the board of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum and the University Press of Kansas.

(Due to capacity restrictions, program has limited seating of 60.)