Denim Day 2019

[00:00:06] >> My name is Nancy Kelly and I was the first lesbian co-president of the gay student alliance in 1978 here in Blacksburg. We decided we wanted to make people more aware ff our presence and also the issues that we faced. And so as an organization we had a gay awareness week in January of 1979. [00:00:29] Had a number of programs: a radio show, coming out day, panel discussion. One of the things that we we did which we co-opted from I believe O.D.U. or another university that was nearby we had a denim day and the message was very simple support gay rights wear denim. [00:00:47] As soon as we published our intention of having this week Blacksburg a absolutely errupted. Local merchants reported record sales of khakis and dress clothes and corduroys. We were taunted, ridiculed, we were verbally and physically assaulted. We had supporters, we had allies, we had... it was just a time when we became public and let people know that gay people and lesbians were their classmates, their brothers, their professors, their sisters. [00:01:22] People did not appreciate us standing up for ourselves and the next year we went to do Denim Day again and we were banned. We were told we could not do it again. We had to in a few minutes decide to do another event. But what is important about denim day now is that for many of us it has been 40 years and we are coming back to campus for the first time. [00:01:48] And there is such power in our stories. And what I am so deeply appreciative of is that the Special Collections department is capturing our stories and we have oral histories online. And it's important that students now know that we have always been here and that we support them and that if they want to hear our stories we do you know we do have them for people to view.