Founded by San Diego LGBT community pioneer, Jess Jessop, for nearly 30 years, the Lambda Archives of San Diego have been collecting our community’s history by amassing a treasure trove of documentation, artifacts, photography, and stories honoring the growth of the LGBT community.
Having an understanding of our history is vital in the struggle for equality as we must be educate ourselves on where we came from if we are to understand where we are going. The Lambda Archives works hard every single day to ensure the community has access to materials documenting our past, and diligently strives to educate the community through exhibitions, presentations, and partnerships with local organizations and campuses. As one of this country’s largest collections LGBT history Lambda Archives is a hub for innovative LGBT historical research.
With the exception of a brilliant contracted archivist, the Archives is completely volunteer run, with a dedicated board of directors overseeing the organization’s efforts. In recent years, the organization has expanded its space to be able to hold their ever growing collections, and to provide a space for the community to visit and learn about our community’s collective journey to this point.
In addition to boasting what is believed to be this country’s largest collection or Pride ephemera, they are pioneering techniques which leverage social media tagging, and utilize facial recognition technology to revolutionize the way archivists properly collect, sort, and track vast amounts of historical photography and data.
The Archives are one of the most marvelous and valuable assets our community has.
It is timely and appropriate that he organization, its directors, contractors, and volunteers are recipients of this year’s Spirit Stonewall Service Award on this the 40th anniversary of San Diego Pride.
Fernando Lopez was the Executive Director of San Diego Pride. Lopez’s years of LGBT advocacy, nonprofit management, public education, diversity consulting, media relations, guest lectures, and organizing have made them a consistent presence ensuring the struggles of the LGBT community are ever visible.
