Tede Matthews was a longtime member of the Modern Times Bookstore collective, an impresario, a poet and an activist for LGBT rights in the United States and Latin America. He died of AIDS in 1993. The Tede Matthews Oral History Project was conceived of as a memorial to Tede. The collection includes flyers, poetry, audiotapes of memorials for Matthews, poetry readings and oral histories.

Tede Matthews (July 29, 1951-July 17, 1993) was a longtime member of the Modern Times Bookstore collective, an impresario, a poet and an activist for LGBT rights in the United States and Latin America. Matthews started Modern Times’ monthly open reading for LGBT writers and created the store’s Spanish language section. He also hosted Mainstream Exiles, a salon for poets and musicians at the Valencia Rose. Matthews grew up working class in Florida and moved to Boston to avoid arrest for dodging the draft. He moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s. Matthews helped found Bay Area Gay Liberation in the 1970s, Lesbians and Gays Against Intervention in the 1980s and worked with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission’s Latin American programs in the 1990s. According to his obituary, Matthews “built bridges between movements, and he gave all he had to the causes he believed in.” He died of AIDS in July 1993. (See his Bay Area Reporter obituary for more information: (http://obit.glbthistory.org/olo/imagedb/1993/07/29/19930729_Matthews_Tede/m19930729_0.jpg)

1 box, 2 oversize boxes (1.8 linear feet)

All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Managing Archivist at the GLBT Historical Society. Permission to publish is given on behalf of the Historical Society as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner.

Collection is open for research. Funding for processing this collection was provided by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).