Digital Archive

Sonia Johnson

Entity type: Individual

Sonia Ann Johnson is an American feminist activist and writer. She was an outspoken supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and in the late 1970s was publicly critical of the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), of which she was a member, against the proposed amendment. She was eventually excommunicated from the church for her activities. She went on to publish several radical feminist books, ran for president in 1984, and become a popular feminist speaker. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Wanda Acosta

Entity type: Individual

Wanda Acosta is a stalwart icon in lesbian nightlife in downtown New York. The creator and co-host of Sundays at Cafe Tabac, she has been creating and producing events in NYC for over 15 years. She was an owner of WonderBar, Starlight, and Clubhouse in Manhattan’s East Village. She also hosted and curated, events at Bar d’O, The Box, Angels and Kings, BLVD, Liquids, NYC, Clit Club and others. She has worked with a diverse range of clients and media, including The New Festival (New York Gay & Lesbian Film Festival), Mix NYC (New York Gay & Lesbian Experimental Film/Video Festival), The L-Word/Showtime Networks, Miramax Films, Tribeca Film Festival, Twist/Columbia Records, fashion/art magazine Visionaire, and non-profit organizations such as GLAAD, Empire State Pride Agenda, Astraea Foundation, Hetrick-Martin Institute and the LGBT Center. In collaboration with Electric Sheep Co. and L-Word/Showtime, Wanda developed a queer dance event, an experimental simulcast on secondlife.com, an online virtual world. She also published Tulip, a free quarterly pocket-zine for women. For the past five years, she has been the music director and dj for CUBA!, a rotating dance/live music weekly event in NYC. Her events have been featured and tweeted in New York Magazine, New Yorker Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Time Out, New York Post, New York Observer, Out Magazine, The Advocate, ourscenetv.com, l-word.com, and throughout the blogosphere. 

Addresses Project

Entity type: Organization

ADDRESSES PROJECT investigates lesbian and queer space and memory in New York City from the early 1900s to the present day through map-making, oral history interviews, ephemera and portraiture. The purpose of this project is to explore the history of the Gay Rights Movement (and it’s intersections with Civil Rights and Women’s Rights), shifts in identity building (and shedding) and the sociopolitical conditions of New York City from a lesbian and queer perspective. The mission of the ADDRESSES PROJECT is to offer lesbian and queer-identified individuals a multi-disciplinary platform through which to access a place-based heritage as well as intergenerational community building. The map component of the ADDRESSES PROJECT consists of lesbian and queer gathering locations. Each map entry includes a photograph of the site as it appears now, it’s address or approximate location and as much historical information as can be gathered about it while it served its lesbian and queer clientele. The map has been formed primarily through memory and community legend. Gwen Shockey created the Addresses Project in 2016. She recorded all of the oral histories and digitized the ephemera. Riya Lerner, Addresses Project collaborator, is the artist of the photographs. 

Mahnaz Afkhami

Entity type: Individual

Blair Imani Ali

Entity type: Individual

Blair Imani Ali is the creator of the viral web series Smarter In Seconds, co-founder and Head of Education at FEMINIST, and Los Angeles Times bestselling author of Read This to Get Smarter. She is also the author of Making Our Way Home (2020) and Modern HERstory (2018). 

Samina Ali

Entity type: Individual

Samina Ali is an American author and activist born in India. She was the curator of Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art and Voices, a digital exhibition for the International Museum of Women (IMOW). Her debut novel, Madras on Rainy Days, won the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger award from France and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award in Fiction. She is the co-founder of American Muslim feminist organization Daughters of Hajar.

Eudine Barriteau

Entity type: Individual

Aisha Becker-Burrowes

Entity type: Individual

Aisha Becker-Burrowes (She/Her) is a social impact strategist, consultant, and communications professional working at the intersections of media, communications, and social change, with a particular emphasis on racial equity and gender justice.  She co-founded and leads brand strategy and impact at FEMINIST (@feminist), the largest women-owned social-first digital platform dedicated to women, girls, and gender-expansive people.

Brenda Berkman

Entity type: Individual

Firefighter, Attorney, Artist, Educator, Historian. Founder and former president of the United Women Firefighters. Trustee of the Women in Fire Service. Taught at the FDNY fire academy. Vice-President and Board Member of Monumental Women. Education: B.A., St. Olaf College, Minnesota; M.A., Indiana University; J.D., New York University Law School, M.S. in fire protection management from City University of New York.

Plan C

Entity type: Organization

Artists Meeting for Cultural Change

Entity type: Individual

Ruth Chickering Clusen

Entity type: Individual

Ruth Chickering Clusen was an American conservationist, politician, civil rights activist, and government official. She is remembered for serving as the president of the League of Women Voters, for hosting the debates between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, and for serving as the Assistant Secretary of Energy under President Jimmy Carter. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Francine Coeytaux

Entity type: Individual

Francine Coeytaux is a women’s health advocate and public health specialist with extensive experience in the development and evaluation of reproductive health programs. She is a Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor of Plan C and is best known for her work on new reproductive technologies, including emergency contraception, medical abortifacients, and microbicides. 

Lisa Davis

Entity type: Individual

Lisa Davis is an author, educator, activist and living archive of queer and lesbian history in the Village. Lisa grew up in the South where she studied literature and Spanish before moving to New York City to teach.

Stormé DeLarverie

Entity type: Individual

Stormé DeLarverie (December 24, 1920 – May 24, 2014) was an American woman known as the butch lesbian whose scuffle with police was, according to Stormé and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall uprising, spurring the crowd to action. She was born in New Orleans, to an African American mother and a white father. She is remembered as a gay civil rights icon and entertainer, who performed and hosted at the Apollo Theater and Radio City Music Hall. She worked for much of her life as an MC, singer, bouncer, bodyguard, and volunteer street patrol worker, the "guardian of lesbians in the Village."

Mary Beth Edelson

Entity type: Individual

FEMINIST

Entity type: Organization

FEMINIST is a women-led social-first digital platform and collective that exists to actualize the intersectional feminist movement through the amplification of a diverse network of change-makers and creators. Their mission is to create a more just and equitable future for all. FEMINIST seeks to amplify, educate, inform and inspire. FEMINIST was co-founded by Blair Imani, Aisha Becker-Burrowes and Ky Polanco. 

Aminatta Forna

Entity type: Individual

A.I.R. Gallery

Entity type: Organization

A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence) is the first all-female artists cooperative gallery in the United States. It was founded in 1972 with the objective of providing a professional and permanent exhibition space for women artists during a time in which the works shown at commercial galleries in New York City were almost exclusively by male artists. A.I.R. is a not-for-profit, self-underwritten arts organization with a board of directors made up of its New York-based artists. The gallery was initially located in SoHo at 97 Wooster Street and on 111 Front Street in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn until 2015. In May 2015, A.I.R. Gallery moved to its current location at 155 Plymouth St, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

Global Fund for Women

Entity type: Organization

Cassandra Grant

Entity type: Individual

Cassandra Grant is an educator, activist and a founding member of Salsa Soul Sisters, the oldest black lesbian organization in the United States. Cassandra has dedicated her life’s work to uplifting and empowering young people and community through her teaching in education reform. From her passionate and committed involvement with Salsa Soul to protesting systematic racism and racist practices of lesbians, Cassandra has fought to create and hold space for lesbian and queer women of color for decades. Her emphasis on community and respect above all else is a true inspiration and has led to younger generations of activist organizations stemming from Salsa including AALUSC [African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change].

Dolores Huerta

Entity type: Individual

Hazel Hunkins Hallinan

Entity type: Individual

Hazel Hunkins Hallinan was an American women's rights activist, journalist, and suffragist. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License

Identity House

Entity type: Organization

Identity House is an all-volunteer community that provides counseling services to support and encourage LGBTQ+ adults who are struggling with issues of sexuality, gender identity, alienation, relationships, and family. We’ve proudly served the New York metropolitan area since 1971.