Thread by @cdc29

According to reports, a handful of Republican staffers & legislatures @MoGov statehouse pressured the @mohistorymuseum to remove an exhibit on #KansasCity’s #LGBTQ History. I helped curate the exhibit. Here’s what you need to know. /1

washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/09…

@MoGov @mohistorymuseum The exhibit is called “Making History: Kansas City & the Rise of Gay Rights.” It documents how in 1966 early gay rights activists met in KC in what became the first national LGBTQ meeting. You can read the exhibit here. /2

info.umkc.edu/makinghistory/

@MoGov @mohistorymuseum The exhibit is a work of scholarship. It was curated by students in my @UMKC “Public History” class in 2016 & was intended to raise awareness about a new marker installed in downtown KC commemroating the 1966 meeting. /3

kcur.org/arts-life/2016…

@MoGov @mohistorymuseum @UMKC As a teacher, you always want your students to do good work. Well, my students hit it out of the park. Their exhibit got fundinig from @ffnha to be built. It received national awards from @ncph & @MwHWG. And it’s been traveling around the state of MO since 2017. /4

@MoGov @mohistorymuseum @UMKC @ffnha @ncph @MwHWG According to one Republican staffer—& the elected officials who backed him—the exhibit was a work of advocacy “pushing the LGBT agenda in our state capitol.” /5

stltoday.com/news/local/gov…

@MoGov @mohistorymuseum @UMKC @ffnha @ncph @MwHWG This is, as I’ve shown patently false. And in removing the exhibit Republican legislators have both censored history and trampled upon the hard work of Missouris studnets. /6

@MoGov @mohistorymuseum @UMKC @ffnha @ncph @MwHWG But what’s more troubling is that to suggest that merely learning history is somehow tantamount to “pushinig the LGBT agenda” is also to suggest that the LGBTQ community is not a full and equal part of the American project. /7

@MoGov @mohistorymuseum @UMKC @ffnha @ncph @MwHWG There’s an old, tired saying that goes “Those who don’t learned history are destined to repeat it.” Well, in their removal of Making History, Missouri’s republican legislators reinacted the kinds of discrimination the LGBTQ community once faced. /8

@MoGov @mohistorymuseum @UMKC @ffnha @ncph @MwHWG Maybe instead of canceling history, they outta learn it. /finis.