The foundation’s board members include poets, activists and local college professors and represents the spectrum of the gay community.
Bet Power stands with some of the archives for The Sexual Minorities Education Foundation.NORTHAMPTON – A newly formed foundation is hoping to bring information about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender worlds all the way out of the closet into a dedicated facility that will serve as a resource for the entire East Coast.
The Sexual Minorities Educational Foundation, Inc. already boasts one of the most extensive archives on gay life, history and art in the country, but since 1979 its has been confined to the Northampton home of Bet Power, the president of the foundation’s board of directors. With the recent establishment of the 12-member board and a pending application for non-profit status, the foundation is hoping to take the long-awaited next step and set up shop in a new, accessible location where the archives can be readily accessible to the public.
“It’s always been my intention to have it open to the public,” said Power, who has hosted a steady parade of students and scholars at his home for decades. “I wanted to organize and give it a structure.”
Power, 61, got involved with the archives in 1974, when it was in its infancy. Now a transgender man, Power was living in Chicago then and coming out as a lesbian. He volunteered to sell books in a lesbian bookstore and came upon a collection of books in the back of the store. A literature major in college, Power was astounded by the wealth of material on gay life. The Chicago store closed in 1977.
“The woman who started it left for Boston,” Power recalled. “I asked if she was going to take the collection. She said no and looked at me.”
When Power moved to Northampton in 1979, he took the material with him. The archive grew in leaps and bounds as members of the gay community donated books, magazines and art.
“In 1983, it filled one room,” Power said. “Now it’s my whole house.”
That house is presently bursting with more than 6,000 books, 700 periodicals, file cabinets full of newspaper clippings, DVDs, posters, paintings and other materials that chronicle the gay culture and all its sub groups. There’s even a “queer vinyl” collection that includes lesbian-themed albums produced by companies such as Olivia Records.
Power has been willing and eager to share the material. Entire classrooms from local colleges have visited his house, and a Smith College students gets a stipend from the college to help Power with projects. But the archives has outgrown its bounds and Power believes the time is right to go house-shopping for a permanent home for the collection.
“More than a third of it can’t be exhibited because there’s no room in my house,” he said. “We need to keep it in the control of the gay community instead of having it at a university archive. This is very important, because it’s direct education of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender life by LGBTs.”
Power, who has dealt with his share of abuse over the years because of his sexuality, believes that hatred and oppression arise from ignorance and lack of education. He wants the new foundation to work with area colleges to develop curriculum on gay life.
“We have the content to do that,” he said “This is the wave of the future.”
Power noted that the California state senate recently approved a bill that would mandate the teaching of gay and lesbian history in public high schools. That trend, he believes, will spread across the country. When it comes to Massachusetts, the Sexual Minorities Educational Foundation will be ready.
“We’re the only national archives on the East Coast,” he said.
The foundation’s board members include poets, activists and local college professors and represents the spectrum of the gay community. Power said the group hopes to start a capital campaign to raise the approximately $500,000 needed to buy a building near the center of Northampton.
“I’ve been saying 10 years, but it could happen in a few years,” he said.