According to the Chicago nonprofit The Legacy Project's website, the organization's Legacy Wall is the only installation of its kind. Created in 2013 during the March on Springfield, it is the very first interactive, traveling LGBT history exhibit.
The wall's gracefully curving 40-plus feet is packed with rare photographs, detailed biographies, multimedia and informational graphics charting the growth of the LGBTQ movement, the community's history, culture and some of the individuals who played defining roles within it.
On Dec. 10, The Legacy Wall received a grand opening at Chicago State University ( CSU )'s Academic Library. CSU is the first university to host the exhibit—the culmination of months of planning and partnership between Legacy Project creator/Executive Director Victor A. Salvo and CSU's student and faculty.
Salvo—alongside CSU Dean of Library Administration Dr. Richard Darga, Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Angela Henderson, College of Education Professor and Legacy Wall collaborator Dr. Gabriel Gomez, Deputy Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Illinois Secretary of State Ellen Meyers, and Affinity board member and CSU alumnus Jasmine Thurman—welcomed the wall, which will be available on the campus until mid-January 2016, when it will move on to the Chicago Hilton and then the Thompson Center as part of a 15-month journey across the state before going on to tour the country.
"The whole purpose of this project is to be a vehicle for discovery," Salvo said. "It is about having your eyes and heart opened to understand that LGBT people have been a part of every field of contribution in every era of history."
"We are spearheading a collaborative effort to make LGBT curriculum that is something that is available to schools across Illinois," Gomez said. "It's not something that's disturbing or unnerving, it's about simply explaining the history of people who have been important to our world, to our culture, to our history."
Meyers recalled The Legacy Wall's world premiere at the state library in Springfield on Oct. 1, 2015, as a "revolution."
"Our library staff was thrilled," she said. "Because they love diversity and [The Legacy Wall] fits everything you could think of. We had wonderful media coverage because something was going on."
In a testament to the transformative power of the wall, Meyers added that the state library in Illinois is the only one the United States that has an LGBT-specific book collection.
Salvo pledged that the wall "will never stop moving and will always be going somewhere."
For more information about The Legacy Wall, visit www.legacyprojectchicago.org/The_Legacy_Wall.html .
