Tales from the City, Appalachia, and Beyond: The Kentucky LGBT Heritage Initiative

“As part of the Fairness Campaign’s 25th anniversary, the Kentucky LGBT Heritage Initiative has collected LGBT history from all across our commonwealth—including rural Appalachia—to yield the first-ever statewide LGBT Historic Context narrative in the U.S. Based on that narrative, at least two historic LGBT sites in Kentucky are being nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.

The Kentucky LGBT Heritage Initiative is a collaborative partnership between the Fairness Campaign—a quarter-century-old LGBT advocacy group in the American South—the University of Louisville’s Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, the Williams-Nichols LGBT Collection housed in the University of Louisville’s Special Collections, the Kentucky Heritage Council, State Historic Preservation Office, and Preservation Louisville. The initiative is made possible by a grant from the National Park Service and U.S. Department of the Interior.”

Chris Hartman

Chris Hartman is the first director of Kentucky’s Fairness Campaign. Recently, he has helped nearly triple the number of Kentucky cities with LGBT anti-discrimination Fairness Ordinances, from three to eight, including the state capital Frankfort and Appalachian coal town of Vicco. Previously Chris served as Congressman John Yarmuth’s campaign press secretary, an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteer In Service To America) in St. Louis, and director of the Democratic National Committee’s open-air Grassroots Campaigns in Philadelphia for the 2004 presidential election. He is a Louisville Metro Landmarks Commissioner and serves on the board of the national Equality Federation and Kentuckiana AIDS Alliance.

The Fairness Campaign

Founded in 1991, the Fairness Campaign is Kentucky’s broad-based community effort dedicated to equal rights for lesbian gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Its primary goal is comprehensive civil rights legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and to dismantle systemic racism. The organization helps lead the Fairness Coalition, a collaborative partnership between the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky (ACLU-KY), the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, and Lexington Fairness. Together, these organizations coordinate state and local public education and legislative strategy for LG
BT rights.

Website: www.Fairness.org
Twitter: @FairnessCamp
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/FairnessCampaign

Chris will be speaking on day 3 of the conference