Legacy Walk dedication Thursday: Our community's legacy - 4364 - Gay Lesbian Bi Trans News

A huge event will take place Thursday, Oct. 11, as the Legacy Walk dedication takes place in the Boystown area of Halsted Street. There will be VIPs, musical guests such as singer Matt Alber, and hundreds of attendees who will witness the induction of LGBT icons such as Jane Addams.

The following is the text of the official dedication statement of the Legacy Walk, to be read as part of the dedication ceremony, Thu., Oct. 11. See the bottom of the page for a full schedule of the day's events.

The Legacy Project's board of directors would like to express its thanks for the overwhelming support of our efforts to create the Legacy Walk. Though it is easy to find information on those who are known—it is only by way of people reaching out to us that we have been able to learn the names and contributions of so many others whom we did not know even existed. People from all over the world have written to suggest names for nomination—underscoring our belief that there is a great hunger for the type of public recognition the Legacy Walk will offer—and an international team of 24 Ph.D. historians, academics, researchers, biographers, archivists and librarians has helped ensure the integrity of our development.

The 180 people nominated for the Legacy Project to date hail from more than 30 counties, represent over 20 fields of contribution, span 4000 years of history, and have traveled every walk of life. There are writers and scientists, entertainers and military heroes, artists and politicians, business leaders and social workers; people who devoted their lives to being "activists" and those who would not have viewed themselves that way; those who were "out," those who had compelling reasons to remain closeted, and those who probably never thought of themselves as "in."

There are many who self-identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered but also those for whom such terms would have been meaningless because of the era in which they lived and/or because of the political constructs we have come to apply to those terms. There are poor people; wealthy people; working people; influential people and those whose feelings of powerlessness did not stop them from trying to change the world; people whose names you will recognize, many you will not and more than a few that may surprise you.

Cutting across lines of gender, class, race, orientation, identification and nationality, the Legacy Project is about us—all of us—in whatever form we may exist. It is about rescuing our heroes from obscurity, and reuniting others—whose non-hetero-normative sexuality has been edited away—with the truth about their lives. It is about correcting the oversights of our high school textbooks which continue to allow the general population to think that everything fine and good and important that has ever happened in this world was accomplished by heterosexuals alone. It is about educating LGBT youth to see themselves as part of a great lineage of gifted people who—in spite of incredible odds and adversity, and often at great risk—have accomplished truly remarkable things.

Our only regret is that there will never be enough room in any one place to acknowledge all of those who are so deserving of consideration; for no one exhibit could ever make up for the countless centuries of oversight that have forced our people to remain in the shadows. That is why we sincerely hope the Legacy Walk will be only the first of many tributes to those who came before us—and an inspiration to those whose legacies are still being written.

Please join us in thanking the courageous sponsors of our plaques without whose faith generosity none of this would have been possible; and the hundreds and hundreds of people whose donations, ticket purchases, volunteer efforts, and invaluable advice have made the Legacy Walk—the only installation of its kind in the world—a reality.

We dedicate the Legacy Walk to all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth…

Here is our past—the future is up to you.

FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

VIP PRE-CEREMONY RECEPTION 2—2:45 pm

Sidetrack (in the Cherry Bar), 3349 N. Halsted St.

2012 DEDICATION CEREMONY 3—4:15 pm

Tent, Roscoe and Halsted

Gay Chorus, "America the Beautiful"

by Katherine Lee Bates (2013 Legacy Walk Nominee)

Invocation

Greetings, Acknowledgments and Introductions

Ralph Kennedy, Legacy Project Board Chair