Blue Ridge Pride LGBTQIA+ Archive launched in January 2019. We are a cultural heritage repository for LGBTQIA+ oral histories and physical artifacts (e.g., PRIDE festival paraphernalia, travel scrapbooks, reader-written periodicals, T-shirts, buttons, and more). With the help of community volunteers and undergraduate research students, our archive is home to over 112 oral history interviews and thousands of images related to LGBTQ+ history of the South.
In 2024, we designed a historical walking tour for downtown Asheville. This one mile tour shares some inside stories of the vibrant LGBTQ+ scene that has existed in our region since the 1960s.
Tour proceeds help support our oral history project, and we welcome donations, volunteers, and collaborations.