The papers of the North Carolina Lesbian and Gay Health Project (LGHP) span the dates 1983-1996. The papers consist chiefly of correspondence, meeting minutes, newspaper clippings, newsletters, training and publicity materials, programming and services records, volunteer information, financial statements, fundraising project records, grant applications, and subject resource files. The collection also includes t-shirts, banners, and photographs. Most of the papers concern the work of the LGHP, though the Community Connections and Subject Files series both document programs and issues related to HIV/AIDS and gay/lesbian/bisexual health issues as addressed by non-profit organizations; foundations and corporations; and city, state, and federal government agencies from across North Carolina and the entire United States.
The LGHP was founded in 1982. Due to the emergence of AIDS, it quickly became the most prominent group dealing with the epidemic, and began to provide direct support services to people with AIDS. The group also provided educational programs targeting both heterosexual and gay/lesbian audiences about specific lesbian and gay health concerns and HIV/AIDS. In addition to AIDS education and services, the LGHP identified other issues, including lesbian health, as major issues of importance. However, most of the organization's fiscal and human resources were devoted to addressing HIV/AIDS. The organization grew from a small, all-volunteer group led by a Steering Committee that made all decisions by consensus, to a larger non-profit organization with staff and a Board of Directors. Through its programming, services, advocacy, and events, the group assumed a central role in fostering the gay/lesbian/bisexual community in the Triangle and in the state more generally, until its demise in early 1996.
PROCESSING NOTE: Steering Committee/Board of Directors' meeting minutes, committee reports, financial statements, grant reports and other papers were sometimes stapled together and sometimes kept separate before coming to the Special Collections Library. Researchers unable to find financial records, committee or project updates, newspaper clippings, or other papers for a given date are advised to check the Steering Committee/Board of Directors minutes for that date.
The subject files maintained by the LGHP addressed a broad range of issues facing lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. For the purposes of this collection, Special Collections Library has only kept those materials related to health issues or to other issues specifically identified by the LGHP as central to its work, and deaccessioned other general materials likely to be found in other collections, at Duke University or elsewhere.
Much of the materials documenting lesbian health issues and programming as of the 1996 transfer of the collection to the Library were kept by the Lesbian Health Center, which the LGHP recognized as its successor at the time of its closing.
