Speaking as part of the “Inside the Archives” series at the Dallas Public Library Central Archives and History Division. Librarians in Texas are on the frontlines of book censorship efforts—the vast majority by or about members of the LGBTQ community and people of color, according to the American Library Association. In Texas, Archive Activists are armed with our library cards from great public libraries and archives here (that must remain well-funded). Here I met Todd Camp, formerly a reporter from the “Fort Worth Star Telegram”, now Director of the fast-growing archive group Yester Queer: The Tarrant County LGBTQ+ History Project in Fort Worth. Afterward, I walked over to the classic, old Adolphus Hotel, where the original Mattachine Society of Washington gathered to challenge the American Psychiatric Association’s listing of homosexuality as a mental illness.
Charles Francis 