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HHM celebrates PRIDE month with LGBTQIA+ programming
May 25, 2022 @ 12:00 am
For the month of June, the Hoboken Historical Museum is honoring and celebrating PRIDE with programming that highlights and celebrates the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans Queer Intersex and Asexual community. Join us at the Museum at 1301 Hudson and also online for these wonderful events.
For decades, the last weekend in June has been an occasion to commemorate the patrons who fought back after the police action at the Stonewall Inn club in 1969. The incidents of that night led to a week of violent clashes, as the foundation for a modern gay rights movement was laid. Over time, it became clear that a weekend could not contain the energy of remembering these events and the commemoration, contemplation and celebration organically expanded to the entire month of June.
PRIDE HOBOKEN TALKS: THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 7pm, ONLINE. Join us online Thursday, June 2 at 7pm as we kick off our PRIDE month with very special guest iconic gay rights activist Randy Wicker, with guest host Hassan Khan. In an article in Vogue UK from 2021, Randy says: “From the beginning, I believed in publicity and discussion as a means to change attitudes.”
Longtime Hoboken resident Randy Wicker began working for gay rights as a student in Austin, Texas in the mid ’50’s. After graduating, he moved to New York City. In 1962, after hearing a broadcast on radio station WBAI where psychiatrists discussed the sickness of homosexuality, Randy demanded and was given equal air time. He also informed Newsweek, Variety and The New York Times of this upcoming program. He and 7 other gay men spoke about what it was like to be gay. The show was met with a range of responses, including a challenge to WBAI’s FCC license to broadcast. The FCC ruled the show an exercise in free speech, making homosexuality a legitimate topic for broadcasting. In 1964, Randy famously led the first public gay protest at the New York City U.S. Army Induction Center after the confidentiality of a gay man’s draft records was violated. These are merely two example of his numerous, legendary ground-breaking contributions to the movement over a 60+ year span of time.
Wicker met pioneering transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson in 1973 when he was working as a reporter for the LGBT journal “The Advocate.” They became roommates around 1980 and were close until her untimely death in 1992, the details of which remain unresolved. Since 2009, he has been documenting and participating in the Radical Faerie communities in Tennessee and New York
PRIDE Sunday, June 5, 12 – 6, 3 events at the Museum, 1301 Hudson Street. Admission is free, donations are much appreciated.
PRIDE Sunday, June 5, 12 – 6: Pride in the Passageway: noon until – 4 or 5. Hudson Pride Center will have an information table and Hoboken Rainbow Family is sponsoring an arts and crafts table for kids and families, among many other offerings. If you’d like to join the tabling, click here.
PRIDE Sunday, June 5, 12 – 6: Wine and Cheese Meet and Greet Mixer: 4:00 – 5:00, inside
PRIDE Sunday, June 5, 12 – 6: Thomas Edison Film Festival presents a special curation of short films: 5:00 – 6:00. A screening of queer cinema from the TEFF collection, featuring a Q&A with filmmaker David De la Fuente and festival director Jane Steuerwald.
David De la Fuente is an animation artist with interests in the moving image, aesthetic theory, semiotics, and graphic design. His work has explored themes of loss, queerness, and romanticism. His films have been shown at festivals and screenings around the world. Currently, David is based in New York where he continues to play with the relationship between the digital image and its consumer.
Made over the course of two years, his film “Compositions for Understanding Relationships” is an animated short that takes the shape of a “love letter.” This concept is examined as various forms of relationships are brought on throughout the film. Taken in out and out of the romantic context, the viewer gazes upon the dynamic play of the variables of composition such as color, form, balance, proportion, and unity. Bleeding images of the human form elicits the emotions of love.
Also showing:
Anniversary – Narrative – 5 min. by Chantel Huston, North Hollywood, CA, US. A woman arrives at the beach to celebrate a special anniversary with her wife under unexpected circumstances.
I Want to Make a Film about Women – Documentary – 12 min. by Karen Pearlman, Sydney, Australia. A queer, speculative, documentary love letter to Russian constructivist women. It asks what the revolutionary women artists of the 1920s said, what they did, and what they might have created had it not been for Stalin’s suppression.
My Parent, Neal – Documentary – 8 min. by Hannah Saidiner, San Fernando, CA, US. An animated documentary reflecting on the filmmaker’s parent coming out as transgender and how their relationship evolved, as told through domestic spaces, intimate objects, and their shared birthday.
1-1 – Narrative – 7 min. by Naures Sager, Malmö, Sweden. Ayman’s sex date with Jonas gets crashed by his friends Amirah and Samir. This comedy short takes a hilarious and positive turn as it breaks stereotypes and celebrates diversity.
PRIDE Hoboken Talks, Thursday, June 9 –
Join us online Thursday, June 9 at 7pm as Hoboken Talks continues our PRIDE-themed month with guest Laurel Knittel (She/They), hosted by the Museum’s own Bill Curran.
Hoboken resident Laura Knittel (aka Lauran / Defran Knittel) is a veteran LGBTQIA+, and Women’s rights activist and community organizer, who has been instrumental in building the LGBTQIA+ culture in Hoboken while building bridges with the LGBTQIA+ community in Jersey City and other local communities. Laura has served on the Hudson Pride Center’s Board and has lead the community in its first Pride events and continues to work to ensure that LGBTQIA+ people are represented and protected. Laura currently serves as the LGBTQIA+ liaison for the City of Hoboken, and she also works in public service at Hoboken Public Library where she works in the Community Engagement and Outreach Department.
She has received numerous awards and recognition including: NJ Senate proclamation in 2018 during Hudson County Pride; citation from the Office of the Hudson County Executive office of New Jersey for her contributions to the LGBTQIA+ community, in 2018 and 2019; recipient of the Eileen “Beanne” Gaughan Award, from the JC LGBTQIA+, Pride Org. 2019; and listed on the Hudson County Power List for LGBTQIA+ Advocacy.
This interview will be pre-recorded, live chat is not available.
Past episodes may be replayed any time on YouTube.
PRIDE Hoboken Talks, Thursday, June 16 – to be announced
PRIDE Hoboken Talks, Thursday, June 23 – to be announced
PRIDE Hoboken Talks, Thursday, June 30: Jeanne Fahrenbach, from “Hoboken Rainbow Family” is our guest on Hoboken Talks. When love walks in the room, everybody STAND UP!