Gay bars norfolk va

The stop — part of the Tidewater Queer History Project 's fall walking tour — was an especially somber one.

Norfolk’s Queer History

The bar's decorations had been stripped from the walls and piled in the middle of the dance floor, waiting norfolk be carted out. Everyone on the tour was crying. On other walks gay by the project, Kindley said bars included locations, long since repurposed or demolished, that had once served as key gathering sites for Norfolk's lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans communities.

The project would try to bring those locations to life, sharing information and soliciting stories about norfolk those spaces had been like. They visit with each other. They call across the bar and tease each other. And when a sweet, slow song starts playing, they get up and hold each other and dance. But for tour members who had been to Hershee Bar, there was no need to imagine.

The place had always been full of life, right up until its last night on Halloween. It was forcibly shuttered after the property owner sold the building to the city. While visiting Hershee for her 24th birthday, a little more than a week earlier, Kindley found herself scribbling notes, and in doing so, capturing one of the final joyous gatherings to be held there.

She watched a group of older lesbians gather to listen to two local performers, and teared up when the singers began a rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine. Since taking a course on queer history at ODU, Kindley has constantly looked for opportunities to share stories explaining what it was like to be LGBT in Norfolk back in the '70s, '80s and '90s.

She's one of many students at ODU who have combed through archival writings and photos in hopes of connecting younger generations with the community's past. In doing so, she's helped create a record of the community's present-day struggles. According to Cathleen Rhodes, a women's studies professor who teaches queer studies at ODU, that publication gay one of the only resources available to students who participate in the Tidewater Queer History Project.

The project, supported jointly by the university and the community, formed in with the hope of digitizing library copies of Our Own. Since then, the project has expanded its scope, conducting oral histories with local residents and creating walking tours like the one Kindley led in November. Rhodes has spent the majority of her life living near Norfolk.

The same year that Rhodes started the Tidewater Queer History Project, another professor miles away from Norfolk launched a similar effort. Just a year after coming out, they accepted a job at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, and began reaching out to local LGBT organizations to learn more about available community resources.

The Roanoke Diversity Center soon invited them to host a talk where residents could brainstorm potential subjects for a community history project. The Southwest Virginia project now offers monthly walking tours, online archival exhibitions and an extensive collection of oral histories. Audio of those interviews is available online ; they have also been preserved, along with transcriptions, in the Virginia Room — a collection of historical and genealogical resources housed at the downtown Roanoke Public Library.

In recent years, Rosenthal said a number of universities and communities, both in Virginia and outside of it, have created projects that aim to preserve LGBT history for future generations. Invisible Histories plans to hold its first Queer History South conference in March, which will bring together public historians, researchers, activists and bars who are documenting LGBT history in multiple southern states.

But now, smaller cities and more rural communities, especially in the South, are starting to unearth their own stories. Rosenthal said researchers at universities, too, are beginning to catch up.