Voice

The Famous Door: A Little Piece of LGBT+ History

An Adodi Oral History Workshop featuring the voice of A. Nzere Kwabena

The following oral history is the result of a recorded conversation as part of an Oral History workshop facilitated by Ado Marcellus Armstrong and Ado Asadullah Muhammad. The workshop took place at the Adodi 2022 Summer Retreat at Loyola University Retreat and Ecology Campus in Chicago, Illinois. Members of Adodi were prompted to share a 5 minute story responding to one of the following questions:

  • Share a story about YOU as a child/teenager/adult that was meaningful in connecting YOU further to a location and your SGL identity?

  • What’s a favorite place in their home, why how did they choose to decorate it that way

  • What is a space where you felt cared for, public or private?

  • Discuss a space that no longer physically exists but you often think about

  • Name an object in your home or an heirloom that centers or is connected to your identity? Why?

  • Describe a person in your community that surprised you in the way that they showed up and supported you?


Transcriptionist: Marcellus Armstrong

Narrator: A. Nzere Kwabena (formerly Curtis Lipscomb)

Date: July 8, 2022

Keywords: Chicago, Illinois, 1964, National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum, Atlanta, Georgia, 1989, Group Dialogue, David Carter, Maxsonn Smith, John Southpaw, Marlon Riggs, Essex Hemphill, George Bellinger Jr, Kupona Network, Asotto Saint, National Leadership Task Force, Detroit Michigan, 1965, The Famous Door, Todd’s, S.S Kresge, Uncle Willy, Melvin Hill, Salisbury, Maryland, 1959, New Jersey Division of Family Services, parenting

A. Nzere Kwabena