The Legacy Walk is an outdoor public display on North Halsted Street in Chicago, Illinois, United States, which celebrates LGBT contributions to world history and culture. According to its website, it is "the world's only outdoor museum walk and youth education program dedicated to combating anti-gay bullying by celebrating LGBT contributions to history." [1] It is the world's largest collection of bronze biographical memorials. [2]
| Name [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] | inducted | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Jane Addams | 2012 | Illinois 1860–1935. The founder of the social work profession in the United States. |
| Alvin Ailey | 2012 | Texas 1931–1989. Founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in NYC. |
| Reinaldo Arenas | 2012 | Cuba 1966–1990. Poet, novelist, and playwright. |
| James Baldwin | 2012 | NYC 1924–1987. Novelist, playwright, and activist. |
| Margaret Chung | 2012 | California 1889–1959. First Chinese-American woman physician. |
| Barbara Gittings | 2012 | Austria 1932–2007. Lesbian activist. Organized the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB). |
| Keith Haring | 2012 | Pennsylvania 1958–1990. Pop artist who used his work to advocate for safer sex and AIDS awareness. |
| Barbara Jordan | 2012 | Texas 1936–1996. First African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction. |
| Christine Jorgensen | 2012 | NYC 1926–1989. Traveled to Denmark for hormones and gender confirmation surgery and became a public figure on her return to the US. |
| Frida Kahlo | 2012 | Mexico 1907–1954. Artist who painted many portraits, self-portraits and works inspired by nature. |
| Alfred Kinsey | 2012 | New Jersey 1894–1956. Biologist and sexologist known for the Kinsey Scale. |
| Leonard Matlovich | 2012 | Georgia 1943–1988. First gay service member to out himself to fight the military ban on gay people. |
| Harvey Milk | 2012 | New York 1930–1978. First openly gay elected official in the history of California (San Francisco Board of Supervisors). Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White. |
| Antonia Pantoja | 2012 | Puerto Rico 1922–2002. Educator, social worker, feminist, civil rights leader and founder of ASPIRA. |
| Bayard Rustin | 2012 | Pennsylvania 1912–1987. Leader in social movements, civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, gay rights. |
| Alan Turing | 2012 | England 1912–1954. World War II code breaker and computer scientist. Died by suicide after being convicted of "gross indecency" for a consensual sexual relationship with another man. |
| Two-Spirit people | 2012 | This is one of the four Historic or Social Milestones on the Legacy Walk |
| Oscar Wilde | 2012 | Ireland 1854–1900. Poet and playwright convicted of "gross indecency" for having sex with other men. |
| Ruth Ellis | 2013 | Illinois 1899–2000. African American lesbian activist and centenarian. |
| Lorraine Hansberry | 2013 | Illinois 1930–1965. Playwright and writer. First African American woman to have a play performed on Broadway. First Chicago native honored on the Legacy Walk [4] |
| Frank Kameny | 2013 | NYC 1925–2011. Gay rights activist and co-founder of the Mattachine Society. Dismissed from his position as astronomer in the army because of his homosexuality. |
| Tom Waddell | 2013 | New Jersey 1937–1987. Sportsman and competitor at the 1968 Summer Olympics who founded the Gay Games. |
| Walt Whitman | 2013 | New York 1819–1892. Poet, essayist, and journalist whose poem Leaves of Grass was described as obscene for its overt sensuality. |
| Mychal Judge | 2014 | New York 1933–2001. Fire Department chaplain became first certified fatality of the September 11 attacks. |
| David Kato | 2014 | Uganda 1964–2011. Murdered after a magazine published his photo as Uganda's first openly gay man. |
| Audre Lorde | 2014 | NYC 1934–1992. Black writer, feminist, womanist, and civil rights activist |
| Cole Porter | 2014 | Indiana 1891–1964. Composer and songwriter who won the first Tony Award for Best Musical Kiss Me, Kate . |
| Sally Ride | 2014 | California 1951–2012. NASA Space Shuttle Challenger astronaut, physicist, and engineer. |
| Stonewall Riots | 2014 | NYC 1969. This is one of the four Historic or Social Milestones on the Legacy Walk. |
| Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias | 2014 | Texas 1911–1956. Won two gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Summer Olympics. |
| Josephine Baker | 2015 | Missouri 1906–1975. World War Two spy, dancer, singer, civil rights activist. First African American woman to be inducted into French Pantheon. |
| Leonard Bernstein | 2015 | Massachusetts 1918–1990. Composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist known for West Side Story. |
| Rudolf Nureyev | 2015 | Siberia 1938–1993. Choreographer of the Paris Opera Ballet known for Swan Lake . |
| Billy Strayhorn | 2015 | Ohio 1915–1967. Jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, best remembered for "Take the 'A' Train". |
| The Pink Triangle | 2015 | This is one of the four Historic or Social Milestones on the Legacy Walk |
| Sylvia Rivera | 2016 | NYC 1951–2002. Founding member of Gay Liberation Front, Gay Activists Alliance and STAR. |
| Vito Russo | 2016 | NYC 1946–1990. Film historian. Author of The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. |
| The Harlem Renaissance | 2017 | |
| Marsha P. Johnson | 2018 | |
| Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | 2018 | |
| Freddie Mercury | 2020 | |
| Sylvester | 2020 | |
| Pauli Murray | 2021 | |
| The Legacy of Matthew Shepard | 2021 | |
| Alan L. Hart | 2022 | |
| Daniel Sotomayor | 2022 | |
| José Sarria | 2022 | |
| Glenn Burke | 2023 | |
| The Road to Marriage Equality | 2023 | |
| Leonardo da Vinci | 2024 |
The Legacy Project was conceived at the National March on Washington for GLBT Civil Rights in 1987. The advent of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, the first recognition of what would become National Coming Out Day (October 11), the first Act Up civil disobedience at the U.S. Supreme Court, and the simple experience of being at the March itself inspired the Legacy Walk's creators to propose an outdoor LGBT history installation that would leap-frog over the education system which failed to acknowledge and teach about LGBT contributions to world history and culture. The City of Chicago became the logical site because, in 1991, it had established the first Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame to recognize the contributions of Chicago's LGBT community; and because, in 1998, the City of Chicago had dedicated the "Rainbow Pylon" streetscape on North Halsted Street [9] to define the cultural and business nexus of Chicago's LGBT community. The dedication of the rainbow pylon streetscape brought to an end the eleven-year search for a site to house the outdoor museum. Planning for the Legacy Walk's creation and fundraising for its launch took 13 years. The inaugural dedication of the Legacy Walk's first eighteen bronze memorials took place on National Coming Out Day, October 11, 2012 – exactly 25 years to the day that the idea was first conceived. [10] [11] [12] [13] Each year on the anniversary of its creation, additional bronze memorials are added.
As of 2024 the Legacy Walk consists of fifty bronze memorials, each of which is digitally linked to a cloud-based system accessed either by scanning a QR Code or by activating a microchip on each marker with Near Field Communication technology. This opens a portal in users' smartphones to watch video and download education resources. The Legacy Walk is joined by its cousin – the traveling "Legacy Wall" – which began a state-wide tour in 2015. In 2017 the Legacy Wall began a national tour that has taken LGBT contributions to world history and culture on the road by visiting libraries, high school and university campuses, cultural institutions, civic plazas, and corporate headquarters across the country.
A gay village, also known as a gayborhood, is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Gay villages often contain a number of gay-oriented establishments, such as gay bars and pubs, nightclubs, bathhouses, restaurants, boutiques, and bookstores.
A pink triangle has been a symbol for the LGBT community, initially intended as a badge of shame, but later reappropriated as a positive symbol of self-identity. In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, it began as one of the Nazi concentration camp badges, distinguishing those imprisoned because they had been identified by authorities as gay men or trans women. In the 1970s, it was revived as a symbol of protest against homophobia, and has since been adopted by the larger LGBT community as a popular symbol of LGBT pride and the LGBT movements and queer liberation movements.
Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin and Phyllis Ann Lyon were an American lesbian couple based in San Francisco who were known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
Tom Waddell was an American physician, decathlete who competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics, and founder of the Gay Olympics.
Lakeview is one of the 77 community areas of Chicago, Illinois. Lakeview is located on the city's North Side and is bordered by West Diversey Parkway on the south, West Irving Park Road on the north, North Ravenswood Avenue on the west, and the shore of Lake Michigan on the east. The Uptown community area is to Lakeview's north, Lincoln Square to its northwest, North Center to its west, and Lincoln Park to its south. The 2020 population of Lakeview was 103,050 residents, making it the second-largest Chicago community area by population.
Center on Halsted is a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) community center in Chicago, Illinois.
Technical Sergeant Leonard Phillip Matlovich was an American Vietnam War veteran, race relations instructor, and recipient of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He was the first gay service member to purposely out himself to the military to fight their ban on gays, and perhaps the best-known openly gay man in the United States of America in the 1970s next to Harvey Milk. His fight to stay in the United States Air Force after coming out of the closet became a cause célèbre around which the gay community rallied. His case resulted in articles in newspapers and magazines throughout the country, numerous television interviews, and a television movie on NBC. His photograph appeared on the cover of the September 8, 1975, issue of Time magazine, making him a symbol for thousands of gay and lesbian servicemembers and gay people generally. Matlovich was the first named openly gay person to appear on the cover of a U.S. newsmagazine. According to author Randy Shilts, "It marked the first time the young gay movement had made the cover of a major newsweekly. To a movement still struggling for legitimacy, the event was a major turning point."
The Chicago Pride Parade, also colloquially called the Chicago Gay Pride Parade or PRIDE Chicago, is an annual pride parade held on the last Sunday of June in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. It is considered a culmination of the larger Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in Chicago, as promulgated by the Chicago City Council and Mayor of Chicago. Chicago's Pride Parade is one of the largest by attendance in the world. The event takes place outside and celebrates equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, which is also known as the celebration of LGBTQ rights.
Vito Russo was an American LGBT activist, film historian, and author. He is best remembered as the author of the book The Celluloid Closet, described in The New York Times as "an essential reference book" on homosexuality in the US film industry. In 1985, he co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a media watchdog organization that strives to end anti-LGBT rhetoric, and advocates for LGBT inclusion in popular media.
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Howard Brown Health is a nonprofit LGBTQ healthcare and social services provider that was founded in 1974. It is based in Chicago and was named after Howard Junior Brown.
The Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame is an institution founded in 1991 to honor persons and entities who have made significant contributions to the quality of life or well-being of the LGBT community in Chicago. It is the first city-sponsored hall of fame dedicated to LGBT people, organizations and community in the United States.
Lucy Foozie, better known as simply Miss Foozie, is a character from Chicago. Time Out Chicago calls her a "drag hostess and entertainer", and Chicago Free Press has awarded her "best female impersonator". Since 2008, Miss Foozie has served as Community Ambassador for ChicagoPride.com.
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Artemis Singers is an American lesbian feminist chorus based in Chicago, Illinois. Its goals are to create positive change in cultural attitudes toward women and female artists and to "increase the visibility of lesbian feminists."
Charles "Chuck" Renslow was an American businessman, known for pioneering homoerotic male photography in the mid-20th-century US, and establishing many landmarks of late-20th-century gay culture and leather culture, especially in the Chicago area. His accomplishments included the cofounding with Tony DeBlase of the Leather Archives and Museum, the co-founding with Dom Orejudos of the Gold Coast bar, Man's Country bathhouse, and the International Mr. Leather competition, and the founding by himself alone of Chicago's August White Party, and the magazines Triumph, Rawhide, and Mars. He was a romantic partner of Dom Orejudos as well as Chuck Arnett, Samuel Steward, David Grooms, and Ron Ehemann.
The Rainbow Honor Walk (RHW) is a walk of fame installation in San Francisco, California to honor notable lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals from around the world "who left a lasting mark on society." Its bronze plaques honor LGBTQ individuals who "made significant contributions in their fields". The plaques mark a walk located within the business district of the Castro neighborhood, which for decades has been the city's center of LGBTQ activism and culture.
The rainbow plaque programme is a UK scheme to create commemorative plaques to highlight significant people, places and moments in LGBTQIA+ history. Emulating established UK blue plaque programmes run by English Heritage, local authorities and other bodies, the first permanent rainbow plaque was unveiled in York in July 2018. Some UK LGBT locations are denoted by pink plaques, an idea that predated rainbow plaques.