The 1990s

Love + Liberation: A History of LGBTQ+ Durham

In the 1990s the far right wing politics of North Carolina senator Jesse Helms sparked activity from many different segments of the LGBTQ+ community. Unseating him was a focus of many politically active LGBTQ+ people and progressives across North Carolina. Garden Variety Lesbians visited Helms’s Washington office to protest his lesbian bashing, and the Lesbian Thespians, a theater group, formed in response to his politics.

Also in the 90s several organizations were founded specifically aimed at the African-American LGTBQ+ population, including the first LGBTQ+ oriented group at Durham’s historically black North Carolina Central University. Organizations supporting young people questioning their sexual orientation first appeared in the decade, and in the arts, Manbites Dog Theater initiated “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: A Festival of Queer Theater and Performance,” which began in the mid-90s and ran for roughly 10 years.

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Cedar Chest, Center for Non-White Lesbians, Early 1990s

A group of African-American men and women, including Pat Harris and Carlton Rutherford, formed a social group called Umoja, and in 1994, Janice Vaughn founded Cedar Chest, a social and educational group for lesbians of African descent. Later Vaughn also founded the Center for Non-White Lesbians. Both groups remained active until the end of the decade.
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Cedar Chest and the Center for Non-White Lesbians, Early 1990s

Information sheet about the Cedar Chest Club. Jaye Vaughn Papers, LGBTQ Collection, North Carolina Collection, Durham County Library

In 1994, Janice Vaughn founded Cedar Chest, a social and educational group for lesbians of African descent. Later Vaughn also founded the Center for Non-White Lesbians. Both groups remained active until the end of the decade. In this audio clip, Jaye Vaughn speaks about how the intersection of homophobia and racism made it more difficult for black women to be publicly out as lesbians and how that affected her outreach for Cedar Chest.

Transcript Inside the black community was some really hard homophobia crossover with church and religion. In the white community, people have always wanted you to be what they wanted you to be. What they wanted that black woman to be, you needed to be that. And I’m one of those ones that went to UNC and it was one percent black when I went there. So I was used to it, but in the hiring process, you had to have very few strikes going in, so that was one of the strikes, so nobody was going to show that, because if you were trying to go up the corporate ladder the last thing you were going to be was a lesbian. And they would let a white lesbian move up but that’s not what they wanted you to be, black woman. I don’t want you to be that, so we didn't take that chance. People didn’t take that chance.

I wasn’t out at my job. I was just out in the community. If my job happened to see me, then so be it. But most of the time, nobody paid any attention to what I was doing, because I wasn’t the CEO. So, um, I had a little card and I got eye contact and I had a pretty good gaydar. (laughs) If I got eye contact, grocery store, anywhere, I gave the woman the card. I had my phone available, a phone line in my house available for women to call. The card said who I was, women of color group, so if they dropped in they’d be ok with that and they had good gaydar, too. (laughs) and so that’s what I would do besides people who came and told their friends. And then after that I did a mailing in a secured envelope and I told them, “It won’t have a return address on there, it’s going to have your address up in the return address and it’s going to do that.” And I would send things out to people. And people showed up from all over the state, outside of the state actually.