Category: Podcasts

Kansas City’s first Pride parade in 1977 was spearheaded by Lea Hopkins, a bold, Black lesbian whose organizing sparked a wider gay rights movement that continues today. But it was only a few weeks after that successful event that Hopkins found herself on the defense again, when a prominent anti-gay activist came on a crusade […]

Years before the Stonewall uprising, Drew Shafer started Kansas City’s first gay rights organization and published the first LGBTQ magazine in the Midwest. At one point, his Kansas City home was even the “information distribution center” for the entire gay rights movement. Episode from podcast series A People’s History of Kansas City.

This episode of A People’s History of Kansas City, KCUR-FM, by Olivia Hewitt and Mackenzie Martin tells the story of Barbara Grier and her involvement with The Ladder and as a co-founder of Naiad Press.