Tag Archives: Old Y

Intrepid Jane’s Walkers who Love Queer History

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

Please remember to vote online for our short video proposal in Telus’ STORYHIVE competition. 11 more days left for voting. If successful we will get $10,000 to produce a short queer history doc. Vote: here!

The Jane’s Walk went ahead with 15 hearty souls who did not mind the sudden snow storm we found ourselves under when we awoke on May 3rd. The walk actually went longer then expected due to the nature of having a smaller group who could converse. Thank you everyone who came out and shared stories. The history project is richer because of it! Thanks also to Michael Wright for these candid Jane’s Walk photos.

Beginning walk on the steps of CommunityWise (Old Y). Note the snow in May! This building has been the defacto gay community centre since the early 1970s.

Catching a break from the elements in the Palliser Hotel - former location of the Kings Arms Pub.

Catching a break from the elements in the Palliser Hotel – the former location of the Kings Arms Pub, a much visited gay drinking hole from the 1960s.

Near the Bay downtown. Department store washroom cruising was a well-documented phenomena across North America. In this case, reading the threatening washroom notice, put up in the early ’80s to deter and intimidate gay men.

Placard-Waving Homosexuals Picket City Hall

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Kevin Allen | 4 comments

The City of Calgary for the longest time did not like Pride Parades. One of the earliest confrontations between City Hall and the gay community happened in 1980. Gay Information & Resources Calgary (GIRC) was hosting a national gay rights conference at the University of Calgary. These conferences in the 70s and 80s moved around the country as the gay rights movement gathered a critical collective mass. Calgary’s conference was the 8th annual event: at each conference, the organizers would stage a human rights parade.

However, City of Calgary Police Chief, Brian Sawyer, refused the permit for the parade citing that “confrontation was a possibility.” Organizers decided to march anyway.

Photo: Calgary Herald, June 30, 1980

40 of the conference delegates, marched silently for half an hour, ending at City Hall with their placards of protest. Bob Harris, a member of the GIRC collective, and conference chair, spoke at the protest. He said, “We do know how to conduct ourselves – we’re not running through the streets screaming and yelling.”

The delegates later moved to a rally in Centenary Park on St. George’s Island. One of the speakers at the rally was Alberta Federation of Labor representative Ken Neal who expressed his disappointment that the parade permit was denied. “Gays are constantly harassed,” he said, “we object to such unfair and discriminatory treatment.”

Protests, rallies and marches were springing up all over North America in this period and became an important platform for the gay rights movement, creating visibility for a relatively unknown community. GIRC was located in the Old Y Centre for Community Organizations; Calgary Outlink today is a direct descendent of that 70’s incorporated non-profit society.

[KA]

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Posted in Gay history

Tagged Alberta Federation of Labor, Bob Harris, Calgary, Calgary Outlink, Calgary Police, City of Calgary, gay, Gay history, Gay Information & Resources Calgary, GIRC, history, human-rights, lesbian, Old Y, queer, University of Calgary

Gay History Walk Revisited & Other News

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

The queer history project has some exciting news. The province has come on as a project sponsor through the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation – thank you province’o’mine, and thank you Culture Minister Heather Klimchuk, who wrote us a kind congratulatory letter.

Since the project launched at last year’s Pride Week, there have been more than 7000 readers on the site including visitors from over 55 countries. We have had two incredibly well attended public presentations, and one amazing gay history walk as part of the international Jane’s Walk movement supported locally by the Calgary Foundation.

Many of you who missed the walk last May, have been asking for a repeat, and I am happy to report we have one scheduled for the evening of Wednesday, August 28th from 7:30 – 9:00 PM. [I suspect that we will retire to a local pub afterwards for any who want to mingle and chat!]

The walk will commence from CommunityWise (formerly the Old Y) at 223 12 Avenue SW – an important building that was a focus for our city’s fledgling gay right’s movement in decades past. A current tenant there is Calgary Outlink, our queer community support organization, who also is an ongoing sponsor of the queer history project.

Finally, we will have a table at this year’s Pride Street Festival, Sunday, September 1st. Come by, pick up a project postcard, and talk to us about queer history in Calgary – we would love to meet you.

p.s. If you have not seen it, Stephen Fry’s open letter to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, calling for a ban of the Sochi Olympics is powerful. Closer to home Alberta queer right activist, Kristopher Wells, called for a similar ban in an Edmonton Journal editorial.

p.p.s. For links to more queer news sites, check out blogger Joseph Atkins
“Top 50 LGBT Google+ Pages Worth Following“.

[KA]