House of History Project: Black LGBTQ+ Survivors and Thrivers in Milwaukee.

FAIN: PN-295850-24

Diverse and Resilient, Inc. (Milwaukee, WI 53212-2934)
Brice D. Smith (Project Director: May 2023 to present)

The recording of 15 new oral histories and updating of 11 existing oral histories about the Black LGBTQ+ experience in Milwaukee, including discussions of both the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics, and the development of a documentary website to present the recordings.

The House of History is devoted to sharing the resilience, history, and joy of Black LGBTQ+ people. This project features an interactive website with oral histories as its cornerstone. Oral history interviews with Black LGBTQ+ Milwaukeeans, a multiply-disadvantaged community who suffered the effects of COVID-19 disproportionately. This project allows Black LGBTQ+ Milwaukeeans to create and preserve their history, and to share their resilience and wisdom. They do so through an interactive website of their own creation that is so beautiful, personal, and compelling that users can’t help but care about the people it features. The full interviews will be made available in perpetuity by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archives, which is serving as a repository. The interviews speak to surviving both the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics, the violence and systemic inequality endemic to the Black LGBTQ+ community in Milwaukee, and to finding ways to thrive. [edited by staff]