Guide to the Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center Records
SJSU Library Special Collections & Archives
© 2010
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
San José State University
One Washington Square
San José, CA 95192-0028
Phone: (408) 808-2062
Fax: (408) 808-2063
Email: special.collections@sjsu.edu
URL: http://library.sjsu.edu/sjsu-special-collections/sjsu-special-collections-and-archives
Trustees of the California State University. All rights reserved.
Guide to the Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center Records
Collection number: MSS-2010-10-25
SJSU Special Collections & Archives
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
San José State University
One Washington Square
San José, CA 95192-0028
Phone: (408) 808-2062
Fax: (408) 808-2063
Email: special.collections@sjsu.edu
URL: http://library.sjsu.edu/sjsu-special-collections/sjsu-special-collections-and-archives/
- Processed by:
- Jeannette Eaton
- Date Completed:
- 2011
- Encoded by:
- Jeannette Eaton
- Reviewed by:
- Danelle Moon
© 2010 Trustees of the California State University. All rights reserved.
Title: Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center Records
Dates: 1970-1999
Collection number: MSS-2010-10-25
Creator:
Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center
Collection Size:
17 box,
7.71 linear feet(approx)
Repository:
San José State University. Library.
San José, California 95192-0028
Abstract: On March 1, 1981 the Billy DeFrank Center opened its doors. Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center was organized
in response to the housing discrimination that gays and lesbians faced in Santa Clara County. The Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon
Valley Community Center Records document the grassroots efforts of its founders to build a community center that supports
the vast and diverse needs of the South Bay community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The central
mission of the Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center is to work toward promoting a "positive social identification"
by promoting civil rights to advance liberty and justice through collaboration and unity.
The Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center Records (1970-1999) consist of news clippings, newsletters, and magazines.
Included are a variety of related publications with an emphasis on program initiatives and health training resources, including
ephemera and pamphlets. There is a sizeable photographic collection that contains pictures of social events hosted by the
Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center, including Gay Pride San José and other social outings. This collection
is arranged into three series: Series I, Organizational Records, 1978-97; Series II, Educational Outreach and Publicity 1971-1999;
and Series III, Publications, 1970-1999.
Physical location: Vault 1, Range 29A
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
The collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the San José State University Library Special Collections &
Archives. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to
the Director of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Special Collections
& Archives as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the
copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader. Copyright restrictions also apply to digital
reproductions of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.
Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center Records, MSS-2010-10-25, San José State University Library Special Collections
& Archives.
Collection processed by Jeannette Eaton, finding aid EAD encoded by Jeannette Eaton, and reviewed by Danelle Moon.
The Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Center opened on March 1, 1981 in downtown San José, California. The center was posthumously
named after Billy DeFrank, the stage name of William Price (1936-1980). From San José, William Price was a well known African-American
drag entertainer as well as a prominent gay rights activist who dedicated his talents to the development of gay communities
throughout California. He was considered one of the "best-loved goodwill ambassadors" for the LGBT community. At the time
LGBT activists were generally influenced by the political legacy of Stonewall. The Stonewall riots, the escalation of a series
of violent confrontations between gay rights activists and police that began on June 28, 1969 outside the Stonewall Inn (a
bar in New York City), became the genesis of an international gay rights movement focused on social justice and human rights
for the LGBT community. The founders of the DeFrank Center concerned with practical challenges and most concerned about the
lack of housing and employment protections for lesbians and gay men living in Santa Clara County envisioned transforming the
legacy of the Stonewall riots by creating "a place to call home". The grassroots efforts to establish this LGBT center were
driven by forces from within the Lambda Association Board of Directors of San José, San Jose Staté University's Women's Center,
and other local activists. The center became the fulcrum whereby the large and diverse community of lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgendered in the South Bay could find refuge. The inception of the center's success was marked by an increase in
activist support from local political figures such Mayor Janet Gray Hayes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The center continues
to offer a safe haven for a large and diverse community.
The mission of the Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center is "to strive to be the community's premier resource
hub and a recognized leader in promoting health, strength, diversity and inclusiveness". The DeFrank Center affords its members
opportunities to develop "positive social identification" and is committed to political advocacy on behalf of the community
and to continue the struggle for civil rights. Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people of all ages benefit from
the resources and support services offered by the center staff of activists and volunteers. The Center facilitates vital sexual
education programs through workshops and other social engagements for a broad-based community.
In collaboration with the Family and Children Service, the DeFrank Center provides a safe and confidential space for youths
to gather and recieve counseling, as well as educational and professional medical resources. In addition, another youth centered
program, the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, helps to empower youth activists to fight homophobia and transphobia in schools.
The adult programs similarly provide a confidential space for HIV testing, and support groups for men and women including
transsexuals, drug abusers, and groups focused on the family. The DeFrank Center provides community referrals to local agencies
that address Aids/HIV, child and teen services, crisis centers, domestic violence, shelters and other similar services.
Scope and Content of Collection
On March 1, 1981 the Billy DeFrank Center opened its doors. Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center was organized
in response to the housing discrimination that gays and lesbians faced in Santa Clara County. The Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon
Valley Community Center Records document the grassroots efforts of its founders to build a community center that supports
the vast and diverse needs of the South Bay community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The central
mission of the Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center is to work toward promoting a "positive social identification"
by promoting civil rights to advance liberty and justice through collaboration and unity.
The Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center Records (1970-1999) consist of news clippings, newsletters, and magazines.
Included are a variety of related publications with an emphasis on program initiatives and health training resources, including
ephemera and pamphlets. There is a sizeable photographic collection that contains pictures of social events hosted by the
DeFrank Center, including Gay Pride San José and other social outings.
This collection is arranged into three series: Series I, Organizational Records,1978-97; Series II, Educational Outreach and
Publicity 1971-1999; and Series III, Publications, 1970-1999.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Gay rights--United States
Civil Rights--Gay Rights
Gay Rights
Gay and lesbian rights
Gay liberation movement
Gays--California--History
Gays--Civil rights
Gay and lesbian studies
Queer studies
GLBT studies
LGBT studies
GLBT studies--California
LGBT studies--California
Community Action
AIDS activists
Bay Area Nonprofit Organization
Billy DeFrank LGBT Silicon Valley Community Center
Billy DeFrank Silicon Valley Silicon Valley LGBT Community Center http://www.defrankcenter.org/
Fetner, Anita. "Working Anita Bryant: The Impact of Christian Anti-Gay Activism on Lesbian and Gay Movement Claims."
Social Problems, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Aug., 2001): 411-428
Mattachine Society Project Collection, Coll2008-016, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, California.
http://cowboyfrank.net/archive/ComingOut/02.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1386501/Stonewall-riots
Sahl, Ted.
From Closet to Community: A Quest For Gay & Lesbian Liberation In San José &Santa Clara County. Campbell: Ted Sahl Gallery, 2002.
Ted Sahl Collection, MSS-2001-01-01, San José State University Special Collections and Archives.
Guide to the Mark Porsche Papers, MSS-2003-04, San José State University Special Collections and Archives.
Guide to the Institute for Health Policy Studies - AIDS Resource Program Records, AR 92-20, UC San Francisco: Special Collections.
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Periodicals Collection 1968-2003, MSS-2005-05 San José State University, Special Collections
and Archives.
Guide to the Janet Gray Hayes Papers, MSS-2002-01 San José State University, Special Collections and Archives.
Collection Contents
Series I: Organizational Records 1978-1997
Physical Description: 2 boxes
Series Scope and Content Summary
This series documents the administrative aspects of the Billy DeFrank Community Center from the Articles of Incorporation
to the DeFrank Center Acorn Club Procedures and Correspondence, and Community Center General Regulations. This series also
includes information on board members, donors, and volunteers, as well as fundraising proposals and annual reports. Additionally,
there are some related documents including budgets and invoices showing expenses that are partially restricted.
A researcher interested in understanding the organizational structural of non-profit organizations and evolving collaboration
with associated partners and how resources are allocated might discover connections within administrative operations, mission
initiatives, and fundraising efforts.
Files are arranged by format and chronologically by date.
Files including invoice and financial information are labeled partially restricted.
Box: 1
Organizational records 1978-1990
Box: 2
Financial and membership information (partially restricted) 1990-1997
Series II: Educational Outreach and Publicity 1971-1999
Physical Description: 7 boxes
Series Scope and Content Summary
This series documents the diversity of education outreach and programs initiated and endorsed by Billy DeFrank. Scholars interested
in documenting AIDS research and HIV educational campaigns will find this series extremely valuable. This series consists
of reference, research, and educational resources from conferences such as the Ryan White C.A.R.E. Act Title I Manual (U.S.
Dept of Health and Human Services) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Materials also include information
on planning committees and task force coalitions such as the
Lesbian Connection, Gay and Lesbian Directory for the Area Network of Gay and Lesbian Educators, and papers from The Lambda Association organization.
The materials represented provide a snap-shot of the grassroots activism connecting it to the San Francisco LGBT community
through photographs, political ephemera, poetry, and other printed materials. The photographs document various events and
socials such as the San Jose Rally and Gay Pride March and related events and campaigns. Included is an autographed picture
of Joan Baez, a well known folk singer and prominent activist in the struggle for gay and lesbian rights.
The Billy DeFrank Center activism is connected to the larger gay rights movement, which has a long history throughout California.
The Gay, Lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered social and political networking arrived on the LA Hollywood scene in the late
1940s through the prominent homophile organization that came be known as "The Mattachine Society". This reform movement was
a dynamic concept and the brainchild of Harry Hay, an actor and music instructor. Hay is credited for framing this society
as the "International Bachelors Fraternal Orders for Peace and Social Dignity".
In the 1950s, the homosexual community made up of men and women within the outskirts of Los Angeles formed important communal
ties based on their sexual orientation. The Mattachine Foundation was formulated as a theatrical space "after traveling performers
in medieval Europe who staged satires wearing masks". While a commentary on the symbolic gesture of American homosexual's
instinct "to mask" themselves as a defense mechanism in a hegemonic society, the Mattachine Foundation provided a space for
social and political reform. Its members borrowed from Marxist concepts, delineating homosexuals as an oppressed class.
The consciousness of this group permeated Southern California and spread to the San Francisco Bay area. Eventually, chapters
sprouted up nationwide, advocating legislative reform in the east coast and specifically in Washington D.C. By the 1970s the
U.S. Civil Service amended the American Psychological Association definition of homosexuality, no longer delineated as a mental
illness.
Files are arranged by format and chronologically by date.
Boxes: 3-4
Binders and unbound training materials addressing AIDs and related research 1993-1997
Boxes: 5-7
News clippings (original and photocopy), news releases, crime reporting, articles, legislation and campaign initiatives, workshop materials, and other correspondence 1971-1999
Box: 8
Ephemera-political reform buttons undated
Box: 9
Photos from various social events 1987-1994
Series III: Publications 1970-1999
Physical Description: 8 boxes
Series Scope and Content Summary
This series documents the literary tradition of the gay community, which dates back to the founding of an array of gay and
lesbian organizations, periodicals, and newsletters. Scholars interested in the development of the gay community in terms
of LGBT South Bay history as it applies to political and social reform, locally, nationally, and internationally, will find
this series engaging while extremely informative. The newsletters and magazines represented here reflect the local grass roots
concerns while the history can be traced back to the earliest organizations established to defend LGBT rights.
The formation of Daughter of Bilitis (D.O.B.), the first national lesbian organization founded in the San Francisco in 1955,
was an important breakthrough for the LGBT community. The group started with only eight members and included Phyllis Lyon
and Del Martin, the most well known founding members. The aim of D.O.B. was to offer broad based programming to lesbians
and the public to engage in discourse on lesbian lifestyle and community. Part of their struggle for obtaining legal reform
inspired this group to push for more research, locally, nationally, and internationally. An east coast chapter soon followed
in 1958 in New York. D.O.B. chapters sprouted up all over the United States and as far away as Australia. D.O.B. first national
convention was held in San Francisco in 1960.
Out of the early movement emerged a rich body of literature on sexual orientation that germinated identity and community building
in a variety of locations throughout the U.S., developing a well communicated network. The newsletters, newspapers, pamphlets,
magazines, and comics represented in this series reflect the grassroots social activism of the members of the Billy Defrank
Center in the South Bay and their connections within the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Examples include:
B.A.R. Bay Area Reporter,
A Catalyst for all factions of the Gay Community, and
Monterey LGBT Community Center Newspaper. Additionally, there is a smaller subset of religious gay press material such as
Insight - A quarterly of Lesbian/ Gay Christian Opinion as well as references to the religious gay press magazine
The Gay Christian/ In Unity Magazine. Other magazines include:
Community Capital District Lesbianand
Gay Bi-Monthly Magazine,
Oblivion San Francisco, and
The Gay Alternative. Scholars interested in tracing the South Bay sentiments following the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and
County Supervisor Harvey Milk, will find a variety of articles memorializing their deaths. See the article entitled "In Memoriam
Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, December 1, 1978" in
The Sentinental, Vo. 5 No 24. Unique to the collection is the eclectic comic book selection,
Gay Cosmix 2 and
Hag Rag-Intergalatic Lesbian Feminist Press.
With the influx of movements and activism in the 1960s, the New Left and feminists contributed to discourse that challenged
the role of sexuality, and hegemonic forces within patriarchy. The LGBT, often referred to as the gay and lesbian movement,
pushed for legal change, state by state, as well as overturned national legislation. Nonetheless, the rise of the religious
right posed significant challenges to the gay rights movement.
At the forefront were Christian evangelicals who generally disdained any group that exhibited protests including the New Left,
the women's movement, hippies, and anyone part of the counterculture. Anita Bryant, an American singer from 1950s known mostly
for her top 40 hits, became an anti-gay crusader. She responded to victories gained in Florida which repealed a law that
had prohibited gays from the adoption of children. She went on to establish an organization titled "Save the Children "applying
her vilification of lesbians and gay men to legalize Prop 6 in California which would make homosexuals ineligible for employment
in the state's public school system. The mobilization of organizational efforts to oppose such legislation provided the momentum
needed to counter religious extremism. Ultimately, discrimination actually strengthened the alliance of gay and lesbian organizations
and opened up the public arena to what had been a large group of closeted gays. Together, all of these actions to rid society
of homophobia led up to homosexual activists picketing the White House and Pentagon in 1965, where for the first time ever,
homosexuals protested for their civil rights, including within the military.
Files are arranged by format and chronologically by date.
Boxes: 10-12
News clippings, newsletters, and miscellany 1971-1996
Boxes: 13-17
Magazines, including comics 1970-1997