Interior Dept. Launches Program to Incorporate Gay-History Sites Into Parks System

The Interior Department announced today that the National Park Service is launching a study to “identify places and events associated with the story of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans” for inclusion in the national parks system.

The National Historic Landmark Program began actively looking for sites associated with LGBT history in 2010 for the potential of being listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Today’s directive, part of a broader administration initiative to “ensure that the National Park Service reflects and tells a more complete story of the people and events responsible for building this nation,” will expand those efforts.

“We know that there are other sites, like Stonewall Inn, that have played important roles in our nation’s ongoing struggle for civil rights,” said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who made the announcement outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City. “The contributions of women, minorities and members of the LGBT community have been historically underrepresented in the National Park Service, and the LGBT theme study will help ensure that we understand, commemorate and share these key chapters in our nation’s complex and diverse history.”

Site of the 1969 Stonewall riots, the tavern is currently the only LGBT-associated site that has been designated a national historic landmark by the National Park Service.

“We know that there are other sites, like Stonewall Inn, that have played important roles in our nation’s ongoing struggle for civil rights,” said Jewell. “The contributions of women, minorities and members of the LGBT community have been historically underrepresented in the National Park Service, and the LGBT theme study will help ensure that we understand, commemorate and share these key chapters in our nation’s complex and diverse history.”

The study will use public agencies and private funding from the Gill Foundation, a gay-rights organization, through the National Park Foundation.

Over the next year beginning with the first meeting on June 10, the Park Service will work with scholars “to explore ways to celebrate and interpret LGBT heritage.” The initial meeting in Washington will be open to the public.

“The goals of the heritage initiative include: engaging scholars, preservationists and community members to identify, research, and tell the stories of LGBT associated properties; encouraging national parks, national heritage areas, and other affiliated areas to interpret LGBT stories associated with them; identifying, documenting, and nominating LGBT-associated sites as national historic landmarks; and increasing the number of listings of LGBT-associated properties in the National Register of Historic Places,” the Interior Department said.

“The National Park Service is already making great strides in encouraging the nomination of properties that are associated with groups who have been historically underrepresented in parks and programs,” Interior added in the agency’s announcement. “Over the past four years approximately 70 percent of nominated national historic landmarks represent stories of diversity.”