Welcome Home – SMA Grand Opening Event

Date: Saturday, June 3, 2017
Time: 3:00 – 5:00pm

You are invited.

You are invited to celebrate the settlement of the Sexual Minorities Archives (SMA) in its permanent home in Holyoke, Massachusetts and to help inaugurate the Leslie Feinberg Library within the SMA! You will also learn about the SMA’s revolutionary, free community lending library – the 4,000 circulating books in Out Books On Wheels. Come kick off LGBTQ Pride Month and Holyoke Pride Week!

The Event

Come be a part of the ribbon-cutting celebration to open the new, trans-dedicated Sylvia Rivera Room in the SMA where Leslie’s library is housed and where the spirit of Stonewall is honored! Join:

• Minnie-Bruce Pratt, lesbian poet, social justice activist, and educator, who will read her poems in honor of Leslie.

• Ben Power, SMA curator, who will speak about the archival materials and the meaning of the Leslie Feinberg Library.

• Alex Morse, mayor of Holyoke, MA, who will issue a Proclamation welcoming the SMA and celebrating the Leslie Feinberg Library.

• Steven Gillis and a delegation from Workers World Party, Boston, who will share stories and hirstory about Leslie Feinberg’s influence on social justice movements, and socialist journalism and theory.

• Board directors of our non-profit organization, SMEF, Inc. and volunteers who will talk about their work for the SMA and how you can help.

Books by Minnie-Bruce Pratt and by Leslie Feinberg will be available for purchase. Light refreshments will be served. Wheelchair-accessible event but the restroom is not.

All proceeds will benefit the Sexual Minorities Archives. Suggested donation: $20 (sliding scale: $5 to $50). The Sexual Minorities Educational Foundation, Inc. is a federal 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; your donation is tax-deductible.

The SMA is located on a bus route, and on-street parking is available in the neighborhood. If you require special accommodation, please contact us.

Let us know if you plan to celebrate with us – RSVP to the event on Facebook here!

About the Leslie Feinberg Library

Transgender author and activist Leslie Feinberg donated their entire personal research library to support the SMA a few months before s/he passed away. By doing so, Leslie gifted the entire LGBTQIA community with access to the powerful body of intersectional knowledge s/he had assembled in hopes it would be useful to generations of researchers.

In addition to the

Photo by Caitlin Shea, SMA Volunteer.

SMA’s vast archives of more than 12,000 books, periodicals, subject files, multi-media and art, the SMA is now home to the 1,250 books and archival materials in this inspiring library that Leslie created and studied, and which formed the basis for Leslie’s historical and theoretical analyses.

We are grateful to Minnie-Bruce Pratt for bringing Leslie’s books to the SMA, ensuring a place where they can be ever shared with the LGBTQIA visitors and researchers.

About the SMA

The Sexual Minorities Archives is a 43-year- old, grassroots community repository of LGBTQIA literature, history, and art located in curator Ben Power’s residence, the Pink Lady. After a hard-won struggle through displacement from its former home, the SMA has relocated and is experiencing exciting new growth in Holyoke as one of the largest LGBTQIA archives and educational research centers in the United States.