Tag Archives: history

The OK Campaign

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Kevin Allen | 5 comments

Calgary Outlink, our community hub, has been in Calgary in one form or another since 1975.

{The Calgary Outlink AGM is tonight and open to the public!}

In the late 1990s, the organization was called GLCSA (the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Association). In 1998 they embarked on an awareness initiative called the OK Campaign, spearheaded by a resourceful volunteer and former board member, Brian Crawford. The campaign literature explained that it “was designed to promote personal reflection specific to gay and lesbian issues in the mainstream media.” In reality it was a not-so-subtle political statement and outreach tool.

Screen Shot 2016-06-22 at 4.01.45 PM

The campaign ended up targeting 98% of Calgarians through bus, billboard and poster ads throughout the city. The campaign ran in September of 1998 and 1999, and was the first of its kind and magnitude in a Canadian city. In 1998, the World Wide Web was still emerging as a communications force. The GLCSA crisis and information phone line was heavily used. In that year the organization logged 3700 calls, and utilized over 10,000 volunteer hours. Just over a third of the people who used the phone service were under 25.

GLCSA aggressively fundraised in advance of the OK Campaign: the campaign budget being $56,000. The community delivered: many pledging a regular monthly contribution in support of the initiative. One fundraising dinner netted $27,000. The local office of Pattison Outdoor Group were hired to coordinate ad placement, and like many other gay advertising initiatives before the OK Campaign ran into troubles.

Screen Shot 2016-06-22 at 4.01.10 PM Some local shopping malls protested having the text only ads in their facilities. Worried that the ads could offend shoppers, they demanded the ads pulled. Mortified Pattison Account Executives gave bonus advertising of $15,000 to the Campaign to compensate for mall owners who had insisted the ads be taken down. Eventually the GLCSA wrote critical letters to those mall owners but were restrained in lodging a formal human rights complaint by the “public education only” nature of the campaign.

{KA}

5 Comments

Posted in Gay history

Tagged bisexual, Brian Crawford, Calgary, Calgary Outlink, gay, Gay history, GLCSA, history, human-rights, lesbian, OK Campaign, Pattison, queer, transgender

The homes of Everett Klippert

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Kevin Allen | 1 comment

A few weeks ago the Calgary Gay History Project spent an afternoon with Donald Klippert, exploring the city landscape and the history of the Klippert family. Donald’s Uncle Everett became infamous in the 1960s with his high-profile incarcerations which led to the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada in 1969.

Together in a Car2Go we orbited the older communities of Calgary and saw the houses (some still standing) where Everett grew up. It was interesting to anchor Everett’s story in the actual streets of the city and added depth to our understanding of his life.

Everett was born in 1926 in Kindersley, Saskatchewan but his family moved to Calgary when he was 2 years old. Their first house was on the North Hill, but the family moved around frequently in those first years, always staying on the north side of town. Hillhurst, Bridgeland and Crescent Heights were their neighbourhoods; there they lived, worked and attended church.

Here is a photo essay of the Klippert family homes in Calgary from 1930-1947.

The Klippert Family Home from 1930-1932 in Hillhurst.

The Klipperts rented this home in 1933. Everett’s mother died in May of this year, while living in this recognizable 14th Street house.

The Klippert family bought this Crescent Heights house and lived here from 1934-1942.

The Klippert family standing in the front yard of their Bridgeland house. They lived here from 1943-1947 (Everett is pictured on the far right with the Bridgeland School behind him.)

{KA}

1 Comment

Posted in Gay history

Tagged bisexual, Bridgeland, Calgary, Crescent Heights, Everett Klippert, gay, Gay history, Hillhurst, history, human-rights, lesbian, queer, transgender

Gay History @ Congress

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

Congress, a huge academic conference, is coming to the University of Calgary from May 28th – June 3rd. There will be approximately 8000 delegates representing 70 scholarly associations in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The Calgary Gay History Project is participating in a couple of ways.

Calgary professor Dr. Nancy Janovicek and the Canadian Historical Association have invited us to run campus gay history walks during Congress. We have developed a 50-minute tour which will takes delegates, and members of the public to key sites of queer culture and politics on campus. We will explore how students organized to challenge homophobia and fought to make the university a place of tolerance. This tour is co-sponsored by the Faculty of Arts, Department of History, and the Q Centre.

The walks will take place, Monday, May 30th, Tuesday, May 31st, and Wednesday, June 1st at noon leaving from the Q Centre at MacEwan Hall Room 210 on the U of C campus.

We are also in the program for the Sexuality Studies Association on May 31st. Working with Third Street Theatre and playwright Natalie Meisner, we will be presenting a play reading and panel discussion about: 69: Legislating Love & The Everett Klippert Story. Klippert’s famous 1967 court case has been in the news recently, as the Prime Minister considers a posthumous pardon for the man whose court case led to the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada. The panel will feature Natalie Meisner, Jonathan Brower, Tereasa Maillie and Kevin Allen representing both the artistic and research driven aspects of the project.

There are two film screenings at Congress exploring international aspects of the LGBTQ struggle for human rights. Nancy Nicol, a documentary filmmaker and scholar, is presenting two films: And Still We Rise (2015, 70 min.) co-directed with Richard Lusimbo, and No Easy Walk To Freedom (2014, 91 min.) created with the Naz Foundation India Trust in Delhi. Click the links for screening times and tickets info (tickets are free).

We will leave you this week with some photos from our recent Gay History Jane’s Walk, thanks to Ashley Bedet from The New Gallery. Let’s hope the weather is as nice next week for the walks at the U of C!