PRIDE Film Fest: Baltimore Living Archives, Pride Elders Edition

  • Louis Hughes sitting on Queer Quotidian Bed create

Showings

SNF Parkway Theatre 1 Wed, Jun 22, 2022 7:00 PM

Description

Join us at the SNF Parkway for a conversation about Baltimore's queer history presented in partnership with the Pride Center of Maryland. Baltimore Living Archives artist in residence, SHAN Wallace conceived of this program featuring two heroes of Baltimore's queer past and present alongside images and clips from their personal archives.  Andre Powell and Louis Hughes Jr., two elders who are full of knowledge and have made many contributions to Baltimore's ongoing LGBTQ history will share photos from their experiences and engage in a conversation with the audience moderated by author, Imani Spence. Celebrate LGBTQ PRIDE by hearing from these pioneering gay elders who have been committed to Baltimore's LGBTQ community for decades.

 

Videos Screened:
WJZ-TV Eyewitness News Special Report  (Air Date: September 12, 1978, Television Station Archival Clip, Baltimore, MD, 9 min) Courtesy of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive

O Happy Day directed by Charles Lofton (1996, USA, 6 min) Courtesy of Frameline

 

Panelists:
Louis Hughes
, now 78, has been building LGBT community in Maryland for almost 50 years. Hughes was a founding member of the Baltimore Gay Alliance (which was later known as the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Baltimore and Central Maryland and is now known as the Pride Center of Maryland); the Gay Men’s Health Clinic, later named Chase Brexton Health Services; Baltimore Gay Paper, now Gay Life; the GLCCB’s youth group, Sufficient As I aM (SAIM); the Study to Help the AIDS Research Effort (SHARE); Baltimore Black Coalition; National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays (NCBLG); and Blacks United for Lesbian and Gay Equality (BUGLE). Louis Hughes has been very active in Baltimore’s faith community. A co-founding member of Unity Fellowship of Baltimore, Hughes was also a member and past board chair of the Metropolitan Community church of Baltimore. One of the regional leaders of the First National Gay March on Washington in October, 1979, Hughes also served as co-chairman of the first Third World Gay and Lesbian Conference in Washington, DC the same year. Hughes has testified in every attempt to pass a gay rights bill in Baltimore City and the State of Maryland. He has served on numerous Boards of Directors, been a member the Task Force on Gay and Lesbian Equality in Baltimore and been the recipient of many awards and citations. A retired engineer, manager and former Baltimore City school teacher, Hughes was appointed by the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City as the Commissioner on Homelessness. Hughes is currently a volunteer at Arlington West Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in the Senior Core for an H1N1 Flue Vaccine Study.

 

Retired Maryland state employee, Andre Powell began as a Gay Liberation activist in 1975 at age 21 by joining the Baltimore Gay Alliance. Powell helped form 2 gay student groups. In 1976 Powell founded the Essex Community College Gay Student Union, then in 1978 the Towson State University Gay Peoples Alliance. Powell is part of the group that helped form the Gay Community Center of Baltimore and their Gay Health Clinic which evolved into today's Chase Brexton Health Clinic. Powell worked on many of the pride activities throughout the 1970s and helped form the Black Caucus of the Baltimore Justice Campaign which successfully lobbied to pass a gay rights bill in 1988. Powell continues to be a community activist with the Socialist Unity Party advocating for the rights of poor and working people and against our country's military adventurism. Powell is proud to see the queer community becoming involed in and supporting progressive issues, making the linkage with other struggles beyond only LGBT issues. 

Moderator: 
Imani Spence is an Arts and Culture writer interested in queer spaces, literary history and theater in Baltimore. In 2022, she graduated with her Master’s in Library and Information Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. In the past, she’s freelanced for BmoreArt, the UMBC Magazine and City Paper. She currently is a staff writer at The Baltimore Banner. 

 

 

 

Image caption: Louis Hughes Jr. sitting on Queer Quotidian Bed created by Jaimes Mayhew and Rahne Alexander at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of Louis Hughes Jr.

 

Baltimore Living Archives is a collective place keeping project that builds community and civic engagement, centered around the sharing of stories through film and media co-produced by The SNF Parkway Theatre and the Enoch Pratt Library. Baltimore Living Archives is an artist residency that invites Baltimoreans to craft and showcase media-based stories alongside two Baltimore artists with archiving practices, SHAN Wallace and Lawrence Burney. SHAN and Lawrence will develop their own work and work with the community, sharing skills and stories through a number of participatory programs. Members of the community will be invited to share their stories, explore and contextualize archives, and enjoy the findings of SHAN and Lawrence.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Anonymous Foundation. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.

 

Anonymous Foundation


COVID-19 POLICIES

  • Face masks are required at all times in the SNF Parkway except when consuming concessions in your seat.
  • All patrons must show proof of vaccination (and booster shot, if eligible) OR proof of negative PCR test dated a maximum of 72 hours before the event.