W0005_Audio |
Previous | 1 of 2 | Next |
small (250x250 max)
medium (500x500 max)
Large
Extra Large
large ( > 500x500)
Full Resolution
|
Object Description
Interview no. | W-0005 |
Restrictions | No restrictions. Open to research. |
Project | W.1. LGBTQ Life in the South: LGBTQ Activism in the North Carolina Triangle Area |
Project description | A collection of oral history interviews on the topic of local queer life, community, and activism from 1969 to the present. Aaron Lovett, an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, conducted these interviews as part of his independent research project in the History department in summer 2014. The study was advised by Dr. Rachel Seidman, Associate Director of the Southern Oral History Program. This study traces the development of queer activism from social organizing in the early 1970s, to the beginning of statewide lobbying and political activism in the early ‘90s, and to recent developments in North Carolina regarding pro-LGBTQ laws such as the NC School Violence Prevention Act and anti-LGBTQ legislation such as Amendment One. LGBTQ activists interviewed include feminist theorist Alexis Pauline Gumbs, HIV/AIDS advocate Carolyn McAllaster, and LGBTQ lobbyist Ian Palmquist. This study connects local and statewide LGBTQ events with regional and national trends, analyzes the nature of the Triangle area’s LGBTQ community in relation to rest of the South, and documents changes and continuities in local LGBTQ life and culture. |
Date | 28 July 2014 |
Interviewee | Nelson, Michael R., 1963- |
Interviewee occupation | Politicians |
Interviewee DOB | 1963 |
Interviewee ethnicity | Whites |
Interviewer | Lovett, Aaron. |
Abstract | Mike Nelson was mayor of Carborro, NC from 1995 to 2005. When elected, he became the first openly gay mayor in the state. He was reelected four times. Prior to his time as mayor, he served on the Carborro Board of Aldermen, where he proposed and passed a resolution granting equal benefits and rights to state employees in same-sex marriages officiated in other states. Additionally, he helped found NC Pride PAC, the first LGBTQ lobbying organization in the state. He later became Executive Director of Pride PAC. The interview begins with Nelson recalling his childhood and years as a young adult growing up in Jacksonville, NC. Specifically, he remembers his hometown as an uninteresting place to be gay. Later, the interviewee discusses his time as an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where he received his B.A. in Political Science. Arriving at UNC in 1982, Nelson became involved in the gay community beginning with his second year. He contributed actively to the LGBTQ student organization on campus, founded as the Carolina Gay Association in 1974 but operating under a different name during Nelson’s college years. At the time of the interview, Nelson could not remember the name the organization had had when he was affiliated with it. He also discusses his coming out experience, his early interest in politics, and how he organized a plan to get several openly gay and gay-friendly students elected to the UNC Student Congress. Nelson recounts his experience managing Joe Herzenberg’s campaign for Town Council of Chapel Hill in 1987; Herzenberg was the first openly-gay elected official in the state, and a mentor of Nelson’s. Nelson goes on to retell how he became elected to the Carborro Board of Aldermen in 1993. During his term as an Alderman, he initiated Carborro’s Domestic Partnership Ordinance, which extended health benefits to the same-sex partners of town employees and created a domestic partnership registry so that same-sex partnerships could be recognized by the local government. Carborro was the first township in the South to pass such an ordinance. Nelson also recollects being elected as mayor of Carborro in 1995, and the significance of his election as the first openly-gay mayor in the state. Furthermore, he gives an account of how he and LGBTQ activist Mandy Carter worked together to begin a statewide LGBTQ organizing project in the early 1990s. Though he and Carter eventually parted ways, as she was more interested in grassroots activism and Nelson more interested in lobbying, their collaboration led to Nelson founding Pride PAC in 1991 to advocate for LGBTQ issues in state government. The interview concludes with Nelson’s assessment of Amendment One, his understanding of the Triangle area as having “always been at the cutting edge of political change in North Carolina,” and his opinions on the area regarding LGBTQ life and visibility. This interview was conducted as part of the interviewer’s oral history research project on LGBTQ activism in the NC Triangle area since 1969. |
Citation | Interview with Michael R. Nelson by Aaron Lovett, 28 July 2014 W-0005, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Description
Interview no. | W0005_Audio |