May

Celebrate Pride Month with Smithsonian Globe

Join LGBTQ+ staff and allies for special tours, programming, performances and more during the month of June. Help us represent at the Capitol Pride parade June 9!

Smithsonian GLOBE is the Institution’s active and vibrant lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) employee group, providing support and guidance to staff, volunteers, researchers, contractors, and visiting faculty. With a 40 year+ history, GLOBE members work behind the scenes to help guide the Institution through the issues of homophobia and transphobia, including violence, discrimination, and visibility of all people of non-conforming sexualities and genders. We have lots of dreams and ideas for Smithsonian to ensure LGBTQ+ people are properly represented and acknowledged in our collections, in our research, and with the awesome staff that make it all happen.

June is LGBTQ Pride month, commemorating, in part, the 1969 Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in gay history, where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people rioted after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City, and now a national monument. Today, LGBTQ Pride is made up of numerous worldwide events promoting self-affirmation, dignity and equal rights of LGBTQ people.

Smithsonian GLOBE is sponsoring multiple events in June for LGBTQ Pride month. All are welcome!

Friday, June 1
7–11 p.m.
Invoke Your Pride: A Night at the African Art Museum

Kick-off the annual Capital Pride Festival at this exclusive after-hours event at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. Get special access to spectacular exhibitions, including Jim Chuchu’s stunning Invocations, and enjoy curators’ talks, music, dancing, cocktails, and more. In his deeply personal and visually mesmerizing videos Invocation: The Severance of Ties and Invocation: Release, versatile Nairobi-based artist Jim Chuchu draws on the language of rituals and the divine imagery of world religions to commemorate his journey to self-definition as an adult and as a gay man, while envisioning a more inclusive African future. Click here to purchase tickets.

Sunday, June 3
3-4 p.m.
Smithsonian American Art Museum LGBTQ Art Tour

A curator-led, hour-long tour of the Smithsonian American Art Museum will highlight the works of a variety of LGBTQ artists, including David Hockney, Paul Cadmus, Edmonia Lewis, Mickalene Thomas, Mark Bradford, and Ellsworth Kelly, among others. Tour begins promptly at 3:00 PM from the G Street lobby. Please RSVP on the Facebook Event page.

Saturday, June 9
4-8 p.m.

Smithsonian @ Capital Pride Parade. Join over 100,000 people, including Secretary Skorton and many undersecretaries and museum directors along with hundreds of other Smithsonian staff, family & friends, and march in the annual Capital Pride parade. The parade kicks-off at 4:00PM at 23^Rd St. & Q St near Dupont Circle, and moves its way through the neighborhood. More information including t-shirt purchasing, specific meeting location, volunteer sign-up and more is available at the SI GLOBE Facebook Event or email SI-GLOBE@si.edu

Sunday, June 10
12-10 p.m.

Smithsonian @ Capital Pride Festival & Concert. On Sunday from Noon to 10PM, the Capital Pride festival takes over Pennsylvania Avenue for a day full of entertainment, music, food, drink, education, and celebration. The festival is open to everyone, and there is no fee for entry. Headliners include Alessia Cara, Troye Sivan, and MAX. Three stages of national and local talent and will host more than 300 exhibitors including Smithsonian! A booth at the festival will be staffed by representatives from the Office of Equal Employment and Minority Affairs (OEEMA), Office of Human Resources (OHR), many of our museums, and volunteers from Smithsonian GLOBE. More details are available at the SI GLOBE Facebook event or directly from Capital Pride Festival website.

Thursday, June 14
7–8:30 p.m. (doors at 6:30 p.m.)
LGBTQ Latinx Arts Activism: Creating Change and Sustaining Community

Join the Smithsonian Latino Center for a special Pride Month program exploring the contributions of LGBTQ Latinxs to community development, social justice, and self-determination. Moderated by scholar and curator Gina V. Díaz (University of New Mexico), this onstage conversation will feature the perspectives of Louis Ortiz-Fonseca (artist and youth advocate; Gran Varones storytelling project), J. Soto (artist, writer, and arts organizer; Latinx Artists Retreat) and Ani Rivera (director, Galería de la Raza). See the Facebook event page for more information including a live stream option.

Get Involved with GLOBE!

Whether you identify as LGBTQ+ or you are an ally, GLOBE does not exist without the hardworking volunteers that make it happen. If you would like to get involved or learn more about GLOBE, you can contact us via email, join our LISTSERV or our Facebook group (links below). Or better yet, join us tomorrow night! We are holding our final Pride Planning Session at Vie de France (After Hours) in the Ground Floor of Capital Gallery (600 Maryland Ave SW) on Thursday, May 17^th from 4:30 to 6:00 PM. See the Facebook Event page for more details.

For more information, to join, or just follow GLOBE, use one of the links below:
EMAIL: SI-GLOBE@si.edu
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SIGLOBE/
LISTSERV: GLOBE-L-subscribe-request@SI-LISTSERV.SI.EDU