Please join researcher and writer Philip Clark on a tour around Capitol Hill for this WalkingTown DC tour. Capitol Hill has long been a social and residential center for Washington, DC’s gay and lesbian community. It has also been a neighborhood for bars and clubs, innovative women’s businesses and our federal government. Join this tour to hear stories of radical lesbian separatists, First Amendment fights, the underpinning of LGBT religious organizations, interactions with Marines and other tales from eight decades of gay and lesbian life in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol.

Please sign up for the event following the registration link.

This is an Arlington Community Foundation hosted and ran event.

Throughout the 1970s, lesbian pioneer Lilli Vincenz opened her Arlington home each week for a Gay Women’s Open House. It was part salon, part sanctuary, and it felt like family. People came for warmth, food, conversation, music, and the simple joy of being fully themselves at a time when many doors were closed to them.

To honor and celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month, we invite you to join us in that same spirit. Through archival photos, video, interactive displays, and first-person stories shared by those who have lived and made Arlington LGBTQ+ history over the decades, we will celebrate the people who built and sustained LGBTQ+ life in our community, in a warm, informal, “chosen family gathering” atmosphere.

Come share a meal, connect with neighbors, and help keep our local LGBTQ+ history alive across the generations, and for generations to come.

Featuring:

• Donnell Robinson: Living in Arlington and performing in drag as “Ella Fitzgerald” since 1975
• James Fisher: Former head of Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance (now Equality NoVA) and the Human Rights Commission
• Diane Kresh: Director of Arlington Public Library
• SC Nealy: Queer romance novelist and founder of The LGBTQ+ Counseling Collaborative
• Samantha Perez: Vice President of Equality Arlington