
The All Virtual Arizona LGBTQ+ Museum highlights the culmination of over 55 years of all volunteer collecting, archiving, preserving Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Nogales, Casa Grande and other Arizona communities, along with many cities & events in other states those past LGBTQ+ generations traveled to. The effort began the summer of 1967 with the last of its founders passing in the 2010's. The museum remains as the worlds first All Virtual LGBTQ+ Archives. Those comprehensive historic collections require minimal effort to perpetuate.
It was amist the blurring backdrop of anti-war, anti-goverment suppression, Gay Rights and Civil Rights protests out in the streets around them that the summer of 1967 was both magical and at times tragic for a small group of local young teen boys that were just coming of age. Starting out at first on their bikes they all began collecting discarded Tucson and Phoenix related LGBTQ+ posters, announcements, event brochures, items, memoribilia, bar & event related t-shirts. The few boys with cameras began taking photographs of LGBTQ+ venues and events. Trash cans behind Gay Bars, Gay friendly restaurants, and private clubs and homes were full of rich LGBTQ+ historcial treasures in the early mornings after Gays, Lesbians, Drag Queen & Cross Dressers as they were then called had met, partied, danced, and laughed just a few hours before under the cover of the darknes of nightime. Back then, in 1967 all were known by those who hated them in one word... HOMOSEXUALS.
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