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About Us: Press Coverage on the
Homosexual Information Center
“The Future of the Past:
Who Controls Gay History?”
Excerpts pertaining to the HIC from the May 27, 1986 issue of The Advocate, pages, 30–33m by Stuart Timmons
The following article was printed in the May, 27th, 1986 edition of The Advocate, much to the consternation of Don Slater, who sent The Advocate a letter of dissention complaining that it did not accurately represent his views.
The Homosexual Information Center (HIC,), just a few T-shirt shops away [from Jim Kepner’s International Gay and Lesbian Archives], boasts a collection of manuscripts and correspondence generated by ONE Magazine, the first widely distributed homosexual publication in the United States. Their collection includes letters from famous writers of the day, such as Norman Mailer and Christopher Isherwood, who were asked to write for the magazine, as well as “the rarest publications,” according to curator Don Slater. These include copies of Der Eigene, as well as many of its brother publications.
Slater, like Kepner, has been active in the gay movement since the 1950s. So has Dorr Legg, a central force in One Inc., the oldest existing homosexual organization in the United States?
If knowledge is power, there has always been the shadow of a power struggle over gay information. That struggle is usually polite, but not always. In 1965, the ONE library was essentially taken hostage in a clash of forces between Slater, Legg and other members of ONE. The controversy involved political and personality differences and began in the early, explosive days of the gay movement. Much of the ONE library remained with Slater, after a long court battle and out-of-court arbitration. Though both collections—HIC and ONE—developed to serve the public in complementary ways, the three libraries now in Los Angeles (Kepner was also a former ONE organizer who started the archives for personal reasons) duplicated work, divided and confused the community and established the myth that gay community collections cannot cooperate.
Kepner, Slater and Legg all mentioned in the course of being interviewed that while merging is an unlikely possibility, it is not impossibility. Newer members of ONE and IGLA are already working to increase communication. As Don Slater says, “There is not as much animosity between us as is popularly imagined.” He has proposed a “summit meeting” to discuss common concerns among his organization and the others, and explains, “I would be glad to see this collection eventually go to Jim Kepner or to ONE if it would keep it together.”
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