"Here Because We're Queer" chat with author and archivist Brian Miller

A chat with researcher and archival collections donor Brian L. Miller, author of "Here Because We're Queer: Inside the Gay Liberation Front of Washington, D.C., 1970-1972," and Vincent E. Slatt, Rainbow History Project's director of archiving.
In 2020, Brian F. Miller published Here Because We're Queer: Inside the Gay Liberation Front of Washington, D.C., 1970-1972, a history-memoir of this early radical group.
A long-time Washington resident, Miller attended early GLF-DC meetings and other radical activities in the early 1970s. In April 1993, he attended a reunion of GLF-DC activists (available on RHP's TH-cam page). After the reunion, Miller began a research project to document GLF-DC activities and to preserve the memories of its participants and other LGBTQ activists, which became the basis for the book.
Miller's extensive collection of GLF-DC materials includes scores of folders of documents, transcripts, news clippings, photographs and court records, as well as oral history interviews with over 60 people. In 2022, Miller donated his entire research collection to the Rainbow History Project. It is now available at the DC History Center as part of MS 0764 RHP: Series XXIX: Brian F. Miller GLF-DC Collection.
In 2014, Miller, along with other GLF-DC members Nancy Tucker, Michael Yarr, and Kent Jarratt participated in RHP's public panel, 'Gay Power to Gay People:' The Gay Liberation Front-DC, moderated by Philip Clark. Watch the panel on RHP's TH-cam page; it is a great introduction to the history covered in Miller's book, which is available for purchase where you buy books and can be borrowed from local libraries.
This talk took place 5 October 2022 at the Kiplinger Library of the DC History Center. It was recorded and produced by Irene Rojas of Small Wonder Media, LLC, (www.smallwondermedia.com).
Further information about RHP, this collection, or its analog archives, can be found on its website: www.rainbowhistory.org, or by contacting [e-mail]. The Rainbow History Project respects the copyright and intellectual property rights associated with the materials in its collection. To the best of its knowledge, these items are either in the public domain; are orphaned works; and/or had their rights for public display transferred to RHP.

[@8730Alice]

I very much enjoyed Brian's presentation and thank him for his preservation of this important moment in gay liberation history in Washington D.C. He and I have traded stories about the Black Panther Revolutionary Constitutional Convention sessions in Philadelphia and Washington back in 1970 that I attended as a member of the NYC GLF. I still have my own crocheted beret in a rich brown yarn that we New Yorkers wore to the meetings.

[@michaelgnat1712]

Great to see Brian and hear him talk about not only the history but his research process. Enjoyed the court-file story and LOL'd as the 'hundred pounds of paper'. How lovely, too, to learn that all that research can provide grist for other mills through RHP!

[@DeaconMacWins]

Thanks for preserving the history of early LGBTQ movements like the Gay Liberation Front. I attended many GLF meetings in 1969-70 and participated in at least some of their "Zaps". This brought back some great memories.