Recording our own history

Sydney’s gay and lesbian historical society, the Pride History Group, will conduct an oral history workshop on Sunday, May 16 from 2pm.
The workshop will give a short introduction to the format and execution of the oral history interview. The group encourages members of the public interested in recording some part of the history of gay and lesbian Sydney to attend.
“We invite people to come along in the hope they’ll be inspired to record someone’s history. Even better if they’re a part of a group and they want to record the group’s memories and history,” Pride History Group oral history coordinator John Witte told Sydney Star Observer.
“These workshops cover the basics — if people are interested, they can then go on to an Oral History Association class to learn the full set of skills. We hope people will come along with a project in mind they’d like help or advice with.”
Witte said the Pride History Group was seeking some stories in particular in their quest to fully document the city’s queer history.
“We’ve been cherrypicking some of the key players in the camp scene, Sydney’s ’60s social scene. We’ve done early Mardi Gras and we’re doing the early gay liberation movement too.
“What we’d like to see happen is some post-1985 interviews. Getting young members to talk about their memories of what might seem like only recent history for older members, but is ancient history for them.”
Witte also stressed the importance of getting a wide range of participants involved — men, women and transgender people from a spectrum of different ethnic backgrounds, so as to “record history from many different perspectives”.
The workshop will be held at Benledi, 186 Glebe Point Rd (next to the Glebe Library near Wigram Rd). RSVP to [email protected] by Monday, May 10.
info: Visit www.pridehistorygroup.org.au