Museum: Free to Be..."1960s LGBTQ Activism in Kansas City"

Free to Be...A1960s Fashion Revolution is the current special exhibit at the Johnson County Museum. This groovy exhibition takes visitors on a captivating journey through the vibrant world of 1960s women's fashion via four distinct themes that symbolize the era's spirit of self-expression and cultural transformation. Our Free to Be... speaker series helps give historical context to the social movements of the 1960s, and the people who inspired change.

Many believe the struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights began with the Stonewall Uprising in June of 1969. However, activists had been working for nearly twenty years prior to that pivotal event to make inroads to securing full citizenship in the United States. Queer individuals in Kansas City played surprisingly important roles in that movement, while simultaneously advancing the cause locally. This talk will focus on those details as well as the vibrant LGBTQ social scene in Kansas City in the 1960s.

About the Presenter:
Stuart Hinds is the Curator of Special Collections and Archives for the Libraries of the University of Missouri - Kansas City. In 2009 he was a co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America, an initiative to collect, preserve, and make accessible the documents and artifacts that reflect the histories of the LGBTQ communities in the Kansas City region. He has written and presented extensively on LGBTQ history, and is an adjunct instructor in the UMKC Department of History.