QISTORY RECEIVES GRANT AWARD FROM CALIFORNIA HUMANITIES
FRESNO, CA — California Humanities has announced the recent round of Humanities For All Quick Grant awards. Qistory has been awarded 5,000 for its project entitled “Mapping Queer Fresno: Community History Talks and Digital Mapping of Fresno County”
The Humanities For All Quick Grant is a competitive grant program of California Humanities that supports locally-initiated public humanities projects that respond to the needs and interests of Californians, encourage greater public participation in humanities programming, particularly by new and/or underserved audiences, and promotes understanding and empathy among all our state’s peoples in order to cultivate a thriving democracy.
“We are excited by the opportunity to bring Fresno’s LGBTQ+ History to our community and the wider Central Valley. This project is meant to get people interested and excited about local Queer history. It will bring an innovative learning platform through a digital map and a new Qistory website full of archived oral histories and materials to preserve our history for future generations. This project is very much in line with the missions of Qistory and our founder, Jeffrey Robinson”—Katherine Fobear, Co-Chair
Qistory was founded by the late and great Jeffery Robinson. It was his passion for preserving Fresno and the Central Valley’s LGBTQ history that the “Mapping Queer Fresno” project sprang forth. Qistory will be hosting a series of filmed public talks in the fall of 2022 with historians, activists, and community members on the local LGBTQ+ History of Fresno. Topics include the history of the Tower District and the Fresno Rainbow Pride Parade, Transgender and Nonbinary Histories of Fresno, LGBTQ+ Social Spaces and Bars, The History of HIV & AIDS in Fresno, The Imperial Dove Court, and Queer Indigenous, Black, and Communities of Color Activism and History.
These talks will be open to the public and will be digitally recorded to be put on the new Qistory website that is currently in development and will be publicly launched in March 2023. As a way to create a more interactive way to engage with local Queer history, Qistory’s website will be creating a digital map of Fresno in which visitors can engage with local spots of queer history, listen to oral histories, and explore an extensive archive of uploaded photographs, writings, news articles, and other materials. This map will continue to grow as Qistory gathers more materials.
Please follow Qistory on Facebook and Instagram to find out more information about the upcoming public talks and our new projects. [Facebook:/Qistory Instagram:/qistoryfresno]. We want to sincerely thank California Humanities and the California Humanities Quick Grant for giving Qistory the support it needs to build this program. We invite everyone to come to our upcoming talks and join us in this endeavor. Queer history is Fresno’s history. Please contact Qistory through our email (qistoryfresno@gmail.com) if you are interested in getting involved” –Katherine Fobear, Co-Chair
“These projects will bring the complexity and diversity of California to light in new ways that will engage Californians from every part of our state, and, will help us all understand each other better,” said Julie Fry, President & CEO of California Humanities. “We congratulate the grantees whose projects will promote understanding and provide insight into a wide range of topics, issues, and experiences.”
A complete list of all Humanities For All Quick Grants can be found on the calhum.org website here.
California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment of the Humanities, promotes the humanities – focused on ideas, conversation, and learning – as relevant, meaningful ways to understand the human condition and connect us to each other in order to help strengthen California. California Humanities has provided grants and programs across the state since 1975. To learn more visit calhum.org, or follow California Humanities on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Please follow Qistory for the latest information about these upcoming events on Facebook and Instagram
Contact: Katherine Fobear C0-Chair & Chris Jarvis Co-Chair: qistoryfresno@gmail.com
Click on the flyers below for more information on our upcoming talks.
The mission of Qistory is to document, record and store the history of the LGBTQ community in Fresno and the Central Valley so that it is preserved for generations to come and may be used as an educational resource.
Join us to learn more about Qistory's new exciting Oral History project with Lavender Effect and our organizing for this year's Fresno Pride.
All are welcome to come and learn about Qistory and what we are doing.
If you are interested in getting training on how to conduct oral histories and creating a queer history of the Central Valley, we will be sharing information on our upcoming Oral History training with Lavender Effect.
For this year's pride we want to focus on capturing queer memories of Fresno and the Central Valley.
If you would like to share a queer memory or have your story preserved for future generations, please come and learn more about how you can participate!
