Check out our most recent achievement regarding our digital preservation project: https://www.roanoke.edu/about/news/blue_ridge_lambda_press

Check out this news story about the impact of the History Project on local queer history in honor of Women’s History Month! https://www.wdbj7.com/2023/03/22/roanokes-lgbtq-womens-history-being-documented-shared-thanks-history-project/

Check out this article that features Roanoke’s queer history: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/12/04/backstreet-cafe-roanoke-lgbtq-elections/

Check out this recent article about the Roanoke Diversity Center: https://www.wsls.com/news/local/2022/07/03/roanoke-can-turn-to-lgbtq-community-center-for-queer-literature/

For LGBTQ+ History Month, project member Dr. Samantha Rosenthal has published an essay in Southern Spaces about living with queer history in the spaces of our lives. Check it out at the link below! Gregory Samantha Rosenthal, “Living with the…

The Roanoker magazine interviewed Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project research assistant (and current Roanoke College sophomore) Megan Reynolds about her work on our new online exhibition, “BLT: Bisexual, Lesbian, and Transgender Inclusion and Exclusion in Southwest Virginia, 1990-1995.” Check it out:…

Back in June, the Roanoke Cultural Endowment published this piece about the LGBTQ+ arts scene in Roanoke and the role of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project in that work. Check it out: “Arts & Culture Provides LGBTQ+ Roanokers with…

The national queer women’s magazine GO Magazine ran a recent profile on Roanoke’s queer women’s scene, with ample quotes from Dr. Gregory Samantha Rosenthal of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project about the city’s LGBTQ history. Check it out: Isabelle Lichtenstein, “Roanoke is…

Tatiana Durant, President of No Justice No Peace – Roanoke, and Dr. Gregory Samantha Rosenthal of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project, co-wrote an essay on the importance of anti-racism and anti-white supremacy work within the LGBTQ movement. Check it…

On July 7, 2020, Roanoke’s local FOX news station, WFXR, ran a story on our new ‘Before West Station’ walking tour. Living Local producers interviewed Dr. Gregory Samantha Rosenthal about the tour and why it is important. Check it out:…

Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project Calls for the Removal of All Confederate Monuments Monuments are not history. They are interpretations of history. Monuments do not convey facts. Rather they convey ideas about who matters, and by omission who doesn’t matter….

On February 9, 2020 local television station WFXR attended our Old Southwest Gayborhood Walking Tour and reported on the tour and the importance of our local LGBTQ history to contemporary struggles in the Star City. Check it out! Ryan Moye,…

The Roanoke Times has published a groundbreaking article about Roanoke’s Black LGBTQ community and the work of The QTPOC Project: Representation Matters, an initiative of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project. Several members of the QTPOC Project spoke with the Times about…

This summer project member Dr. Gregory Samantha Rosenthal sat down with Book City Roanoke to talk about the Roanoke LGBT Memorial Library and our project’s efforts at preserving and interpreting LGBTQ history in Roanoke. Check it out! Book City Roanoke,…

The National Humanities Alliance has published a new essay on their Humanitiesforall.org website that features the work of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project. Check it out: Daniel Fisher, “Partnership and Publicly Engaged Humanities Work,” Humanitiesforall.org, August 1, 2019.

Dr. Gregory Samantha Rosenthal wrote an essay for WUSSY, an online magazine of Southern queer arts, politics, and culture, on interconnected legacies of LGBTQ history and white supremacy. Check it out: Gregory Samantha Rosenthal, “Lasting Legacy: What Stonewall Means in the…

Tiffany Stevens has written a wonderful piece about the work of the Tidewater Queer History Project and the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project for Scalawag magazine. Check it out! Tiffany Stevens, “On Archiving and Honoring Virginia’s Long Gay Histories,” Scalawag, March 18,…

On February 8, 2019, With Good Reason, a public radio program produced by Virginia Humanities, released a new episode called “How to Go Clubbing,” which features an 11-minute segment on “The Lost Queer World of Roanoke, Virginia” produced by Cass Adair….

Local journalist and podcaster Mason Adams spoke about Roanoke’s LGBTQ history, interviewed Deanna Marcin about her time working at the Backstreet Cafe, and references the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project, in episode 4 of his new podcast, Blue Ridge Free State….

The National Humanities Alliance has launched Humanitiesforall.org, a website showcasing over 1,400 publicly-engaged humanities projects across the country. The Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project was chosen as one of 51 projects nationwide to be profiled as an exemplary project. Check…

Dr. Gregory Rosenthal has written an essay about the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project and how the project’s oral history initiative, specifically documenting trans oral histories, has transformed their recognition of their own gender identity. Read more here: Gregory Rosenthal,…

Roanoke College Work-Study Research Assistant Beth Janes has written the following essay about her experiences working with the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project during the 2017-2018 Academic Year. Beth Janes, “Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project,” RC Research, April 30, 2018.

Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project co-leader RM Barton—who is a monthly contributor to WUSSY, an online magazine of queer + Southern arts, politics, and culture, based in Atlanta—has published a new piece that looks at the history of sex workers and…

Dr. Gregory Rosenthal of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project gave a talk on “Digital History and Queer Voices” at Washington & Lee University on February 1, 2018. Jenny Bagger, a Digital Humanities (DH) Undergraduate Fellow at Washington & Lee,…

Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project co-leader RM Barton—who is a monthly contributor to WUSSY, an online magazine of queer + Southern arts, politics, and culture, based in Atlanta—has published a new piece that looks at the internet and how it has…

The Roanoke Times wrote a great piece about the Roanoke LGBT Memorial Library and our 16-month effort to preserve, maintain, and create an online catalog of the library’s contents. Check it out! Tiffany Stevens, “Roanoke LGBT Library finds home as…

Rachel has written this great essay on queer neighborhood history and the Old Southwest Gayborhood Walking Tour, for GayRVA.com, an online magazine out of Richmond, Virginia. Check it out! Rachel Barton, “Old Southwest Gayborhood Walking Tour Sheds Light on Roanoke’s LGBTQ…

Project co-leader Rachel Barton is now a contributing writer for WUSSY, an online magazine of queer + Southern arts, politics, and culture, based out of Atlanta. Rachel wrote this piece on the history of gay liberation in Southwest Virginia in…

Reporter Bianca Holman of WDBJ7 stopped by the Downtown Roanoke LGBTQ History Walking Tour this weekend to document the first anniversary of our walking tours. Check out her story below: Bianca Holman, “Local group celebrates anniversary of a special walking…

Rachel Barton has written a wonderful essay about the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project’s arts initiative, published in GayRVA.com, an online LGBTQ magazine based in Richmond, Virginia. Check it out! Rachel Barton, “Queer Art, Queer History, and Queer Activism: Using the…

Dr. Gregory Rosenthal has written an essay for WUSSY, an online magazine of queer + Southern arts, politics, and culture, about the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project’s work on the Roanoke LGBT Memorial Library. Check it out! Gregory Rosenthal, “Who Needs…

The research of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project was featured in a recent article in Munchies—a project of Vice—about the decline of queer spaces in Roanoke, Virginia. Check it out: Mason Adams, “Roanoke’s Gay Bar Scene Will Never Be the Same,” Munchies (online…

In spring 2017, three seniors at Washington & Lee University produced the multimedia documentary “Transmural: A Queer Space in Rural Virginia,” which features text and videos about transgender history and contemporary transgender experiences in Roanoke, Virginia. The students interviewed Dr. Gregory Rosenthal…

Dr. Gregory Rosenthal visited Washington & Lee University as a guest on the hour-long radio show Equal Time hosted by Andrea Hilton. They discussed the ongoing work of the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project. Andrea Hilton interviewing Gregory Rosenthal, “Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+…

Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project volunteer and Roanoke College alum Rachel Barton has written a fabulous essay, accompanied by an interactive version of our downtown walking tour, reflecting on Roanoke’s queer history and the effects of gentrification on the erasure of queer spaces. This was published in…

Reporter Sara Machi of WDBJ7 stopped by the Roanoke Diversity Center to interview some of our LGBTQ+ History Project volunteers who have been working on the preservation and digitization of the Roanoke LGBT Memorial Library, a 2,700-volume collection that has been slowly…

History@Work, the official blog of the National Council on Public History, has featured a series of essays this spring responding to Dr. Gregory Rosenthal’s article “Make Roanoke Queer Again,” which discussed the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project and was published…

Sara Machi from WDBJ7 attended our Historical Marker forum at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke on March 22, 2017. This event was the kick-off for a campaign to research and apply for an official state historical marker on the site of The Trade…

Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project co-founder Dr. Gregory Rosenthal has written an academic article about the History Project, discussing the intersections of queer history and urban history in Roanoke. It has been published in the nation’s leading public history journal, The Public…

Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project co-founder Dr. Gregory Rosenthal wrote an essay about queer history and gentrification in Roanoke for the official blog of the National Council on Public History. Check it out! Gregory Rosenthal, “Reclaiming Queer Historical Space,” History@Work (blog),…

A reporter from local television station WFXR attended the Downtown Roanoke LGBTQ History Walking Tour on Sunday January 22 and reported on our project. Paris Holmes, “LGBTQ History Walking Tour guides people through Roanoke’s gay scene,” WFXR News, January 22,…

Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project co-founder Dr. Gregory Rosenthal gave the sermon at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke on Sunday, November 6, 2016. The title of this sermon was “Developing our Queer Historical Consciousness.” The audio is available below. Fast-forward…

Roanoke College sophomore and Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project Work-Study Research Assistant Haleigh Ardolino has had an essay published in the “Perspectives from the Field” blog of the Virginia Association of Museums. Haleigh writes about the launch of the new Downtown…

Dr. Gregory Rosenthal gave a “coffeeshop talk” at Mill Mountain coffeehouse on Main Street in Salem, Virginia on September 1. The title of the talk was “Queer History after Orlando.” Roanoke College’s student newspaper, The Brackety-Ack, reported on the event: Drew Luther, “Queer…

Roanoke College senior and Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project Work-Study Research Assistant Shannon Mace had an article published this summer in Unite Virginia magazine about our archives and oral history initiatives! Check it out: Shannon Mace, “Sex and Storytelling in the…

Research provided by the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project was featured in the fourth issue of Discover: History & Heritage, a magazine put out by the Roanoke Times. We got a whole page dedicated to the topic of Roanoke’s gay community in the 1970s!…

Amy Friedenberger of the Roanoke Times has written a substantial article about the LGBTQ+ History Project. She embedded with our project for two weeks in late April. Read the full article below. Amy Friedenberger, “History project strives to empower Southwest Virginia LGBT community,” The…

Roanoke College senior Olivia Rhodin has written an essay about the ongoing work of the LGBTQ+ History Project for PRISM Magazine. Check it out: Olivia Rhodin, “Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project Well Underway,” PRISM Foundation Magazine 1, no. 4 (Winter…

David Garland has written a fabulous essay about the LGBTQ+ History Project for the latest issue of Informative Q magazine. Check it out: David Garland, “Southwest Virginia LGBT History Comes Alive,” Informative Q (December 2015): 10-11.

Our first History Project event, a forum with LGBTQ+ community members and activists at The Park, was featured the next day in the local newspaper. Read the full article below. Amy Friedenberger, “Panel Reflects on change to Roanoke 15 years after Backstreet shooting,” The Roanoke Times, September…