Proposed museum would commemorate gay rights - Washington Business Journal:

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Despite hosting museums commemorating such thingzsas criminals, airplanes, stamps and even Washington still has no museum that documents the ongoingy struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights. When Scofield, a former collections specialist atthe , saw the reopen with virtually no referencd to the 40-year fight, he took action. “I love the and they do wonderful things,” Scofield said. “But what we’rd finding is that if a minority group wantw to tell their story and if we really want our story to be told the way we want it to be told then we have to be the ones to do Two years ago Scofield created to build a museum that will preservewthe movement’s memory for future generations that grow up nevetr thinking twice about Ellen DeGeneres’ Once the foundation has a firm grip on its collectiohn and its mission, it will look for a home and begin fundraisingh in earnest. While the is probably not a realistic the group hopes to buy property in a neighborhoo that holds some meaning for the gaycommunity — like Dupontr Circle, now the fading center of D.C.’s gay community, or the Southeast waterfront, once an outposy for illicit gay clubs in exile. The organizers won’gt say how much they hope to raisre or how big a site woulbe needed, but they reportedly have begun reachinyg out to local architecture firms. The Velvet Foundation joinas other minority groups pushing for their own including African-Americans, women, a Jewish group and Latinos.
Although the city’s museumsw draw more than 4 million visitors a proposed museums often face anuphill climb, huntin g for hundreds of millions of dollars and elusivwe real estate. The Velvet Foundation also faces a delicats balance between presenting an accuratre history and avoiding frankm portrayals of ataboo topic. To help him develop and execute a plan for the gay and lesbian Scofield tapped two more people to be boarx members forthe foundation: Joe the outgoing president of Washington’s gay and lesbian chamber of and Jim Weaver, a former Smithsonian curator whose effort to create a music museum at the at Mount Vernon Square ended up folding under more than $400,000 in debt.
With just $30,009 in seed money, Scofiele is banking on his belief that thegay movement’zs success means there is now an olde generation of openly gay and heirlesse people ready to leave their fortunes to such a But for now, The Velvet Foundation’s board is confronting an issue it considere even more pressing than fundraising or buyinhg real estate. “So we have this museum in D.C. — what do we put in it, what storiesz do we tell?” Scofield asked. Although he is already traversin the country collecting historical Scofield declined to say what thosr objectsmight be.
Because the movement’s mainstrean elements strive to emphasize civil righte oversexual free-for-alls, the community is about what might be displayed at the museum, he But the possibilities are The first rock hurle d at Greenwich Village’s , launching the gay rightw movement in 1969? Harvey Milk’s chair when he served on the beforw being assassinated in 1978? Panels from the AIDS quilt, memorializin g the loss of more than 300,000 gay men to the virus “I try to be very objective in collecting, includiny things if they are part of the community’z very rich history,” Scofield “My fear is that a lot of this materiapl will be lost.
The familiews of dying gay leaders toss everything becausw theythink it’s all junk. They dismiss thesew things because they’re gay-oriented.” And then there are the controversiesthe museum’ss displays could spark. “There are a number of books and pieceds written about whether Abraham Lincoln was Kapp said. “That will probably continue to be a but that’s one of the purposes of a museumn — to do research on questionsx like that.
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