RESOLUTION NO. 160811

Recognizing the installation of Kansas City’s first LGBT historic marker and honoring pioneers of the LGBT community.

WHEREAS, 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the origin of the modern lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement for equality in Kansas City…three years before the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City; and

WHEREAS, in February 1966, Kansas City hosted at the State Hotel, on the northeast corner of 12th and Wyandotte, the first-ever, national conference of lesbian and gay organizations from across the United States; and

WHEREAS, Kansas Citians Drew Shafer, Al Greathouse, and, Larry Hungerford, joined 36 other LGBT leaders from 14 organizations from across the country; and

WHEREAS, they helped to create the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO, pronounced "NAy-KO"); and

WHEREAS, Shafer, a pioneer activist, soon co-founded Phoenix Society for Individual Freedom, opened the City’s first LGBT community center at 1333 East Linwood Boulevard, and published a nationally-distributed magazine The Phoenix: Homophile Voice of Kansas City; and

WHEREAS, the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America (GLAMA) in the LaBudde Special Collections of Miller Nichols Library at UMKC now preserves Phyllis Shafer’s “Changing Times” scrapbooks documenting her son’s and Phoenix’s impact on the gay and lesbian movement; and

WHEREAS, the LGBT-KC, an independent committee of community-minded citizens, will commemorate this auspicious anniversary between October 16-20, 2016, coinciding with LGBT History Month; NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF KANSAS CITY:

That the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s first LGBT historical marker shall be installed and dedicated on Thursday, October 20, 2016, on the northeast corner of Barney Allis Plaza, overlooking the site of the 1966 historic event in Kansas City and LGBT history; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this Resolution be spread upon the Minutes of the Council in testimony thereof and that a copy hereof be presented to representatives of the LGBT-KC Committee with appreciation from the Mayor and Council for their commitment to preserving LGBT history.

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