Political Notes: CA state library announces $750K in LGBTQ history grants
LGBTQ history projects across the Golden State, from digitizing periodicals and films to preserving archival material related to gay rodeos and Santa Cruz's LGBTQ community, are receiving $750,000 in grant funding from the California State Library.
It is the second time since 2019 that the state has allocated funds to such projects.Three years ago state lawmakers allocated $500,000 toward the Preserving California's LGBTQ History grant program.
The bulk of the funds went to projects in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, such as nearly $15,000 awarded to the UCSF Archives and Special Collections for its "Documenting the LGBTQ Health Equity Movement in California" project.A request from LGBTQ archival groups that state leaders renew the $500,000 in the fiscal year that began July 1, 2020, was denied, as previously noted by the Bay Area Reporter.
Led by the GLBT Historical Society based in San Francisco, the organizations beseeched lawmakers in Sacramento last year to once again provide them funding assistance since the COVID-19 pandemic had forced them to close to the public and upended their revenue streams.They upped their ask by $250,000, and the full $750,000 survived the 2021 budgetary negotiations to be included in the current fiscal year that began July 1.
