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Object Description
Interview no. | W-0006 |
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 | 27 June 2014 |
Interviewee | Palmquist, Ian Thomas. |
Interviewee occupation | Directors, NGOs and institutes |
Interviewee DOB | Unknown |
Interviewee ethnicity | Whites |
Interviewer | Lovett, Aaron. |
Abstract | Ian Palmquist is Director of Leadership Programs for Equality Federation, the national partner to state-based LGBTQ advocacy organizations and political action committees. He is also the former Executive Director of Equality North Carolina, a major statewide LGBTQ advocacy and lobbying organization. This interview is concerned primarily with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) advocacy and lobbying in North Carolina state government, but includes some information pertaining to Palmquist’s early role as an LGBTQ activist at high school and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where he received his undergraduate degree. In this interview, Palmquist retells how an anti-LGBTQ newsletter sent out by students at Enloe High School, where Palmquist attended high school, prompted him and five other students to release an antithetical, pro-LGBTQ newsletter. Palmquist mentions how the subsequent media attention was not necessarily desired. He considered the event to be a fluke, not intending, at the time, to become an activist. Palmquist also recounts his experiences as a member of B-GLAD (Bisexuals, Gays, Lesbians, and Allies for Diversity), the undergraduate LGBTQ student organization at UNC. That organization stemmed from the Carolina Gay Association founded in the early 1970s, and was renamed once again as QNC (Queer Network for Change) while Palmquist was president. After explaining how Palmquist became involved with Equality North Carolina after graduating from UNC, he gives an account of how the North Carolina School Violence Prevention Act and the Healthy Youth Act were both passed in the state legislature in 2009 due in part to lobbying from organizations such as Equality NC. The passage of the School Violence Prevention Act in North Carolina marked the first time the terms “sexual orientation and gender identity” appeared in North Carolina law, and the first time the term “gender identity” was used in a piece of law anywhere in the Southeast United States. Furthermore, Palmquist discusses Amendment One, an amendment to the NC state constitution which bans same-sex marriage, and its dampening effect on the recent successes in statewide LGBTQ activism. Lastly, Palmquist offers his insight on LGBTQ activism in the South. 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 Ian Palmquist by Aaron Lovett, 27 June 2014 W-0006, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Description
Interview no. | W0006_Audio |