Events

[PRIDE] Carol Speser was sitting on a goldmine. As a longtime Buffalo LGBTQ activist and founder of the Stonewall Democrats, Speser’s an essential, enduring voice in the queer struggle for acceptance and equality in WNY. As a Chaplain, she’s married over 200 gay and lesbian couples—including fellow activists Kitty and Cheryle Lambert-Rudd, the first same-sex pair to legally get hitched in New York State. But she’s also a librarian and a historical archivist. Her VHS video footage of Buffalo’s first organized outdoor Pride event, (staged in 1991 behind the Historical Society building, now the History Museum), was burning a hole at the back of her proverbial closet. Now, in honor of the event’s 25 year anniversary, she’s liberating the tapes—professionally digitized and edited into highlight reels—for public consumption. It’s a mind-blowing time capsule that she’s thrilled to share with younger folks needing a sense of history as well as older ones who might have attended. “What we did was courageous and innovative in a way I’m not sure we could manage today,” she explained over the phone. “It wasn’t a rally. It was designed as a celebration with a huge spiritual component that, looking back now, was quite intense—not wimpy at all.” Culminating in a collectively-made wish by attendees holding candles, blowing them out as they would after wishing over a birthday cake, the original event also involved a big dance number, which is well documented in the archival footage (partially filmed by Speser’s late partner, Joan). Speser’s anniversary celebration, to be held at Evergreen Commons on Tuesday June 21, includes an updated version of the performance featuring Collin Kirdahy, a male student from Buffalo State’s dance department who was recently featured on NPR as the first male to regularly perform en pointe ballet in the school’s history. Chuck Basil will serve as accompanist, and a volunteer Wish Chorus will sing “I Am What I Am,” from La Cage Aux Folles. Speser has gone out of her way to bring back many of the original speakers and performers from 1991: George K. Arthur, Greg Bodekor, Madeline Davis, Donn  Esmonde, Ellen Kennedy, Anne Hartley Pfohl, Betsy Swift, and Leah Zicari. The late Bill Hoyt’s son, Sam Hoyt, will appear in his father’s stead. The magnitude of what happened in Buffalo on that day 25 years ago might be best reflected in the struggle to stage it: the city denied Speser the necessary permit for the show right up until the very last minute. “In the end, my Dad had to go down to City Hall and get it,” she recalled. “He told them ‘I’m a prominent local business man, I belong to the Chamber of Commerce, and my daughter wants to hold a gay pride event. We need that permit, and I’m not leaving without it.’ Thankfully, Papa Speser had his way, but the following year, the Historical Society attempted to block the event by withholding use of electricity—until Speser filed a lawsuit. “This is about honoring trailblazers upon whose shoulders all of the freedoms we now enjoy have happened,” she said. And how.