The Building an Enduring Legacy campaign ensures that the Legacy Project has the resources to continue our groundbreaking work while expanding our proven impact during this critical time in our nation. Mounting threats to the lives and civil liberties of LGBTQ people—and the intentional redaction of LGBTQ narratives from even fledgling attempts at inclusive education—underscore the urgency of the Legacy Project’s mission. We will never change the future without reclaiming and sharing our extraordinary past.
The Legacy Project works to build an inclusive and equitable future for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) people celebrating their contributions to world history and culture; by inspiring young people to stand strong in the face of bullying; and by helping the general public to realize LGBTQ people have always been an integral part of humanity’s story.
THE LEGACY PROJECT cannot thank all of you enough for making 2024 another year for the record books! From the very beginning this has been been the passion project of regular folks like you. No endowments. No mega-donors. Just people who understood how important history was and STILL is. And look at what we have accomplished because you believed in the Legacy Project!! Please help us keep it going with a 100% tax-deductible donation!!
Award-Winning... Historically Landmarked Outdoor Museum… Guided Tours… Digitally Interactive Traveling Installation… National Tour… Lesson Plans, Study Guides, Multimedia… International and Multicultural... Searchable Database… Robust Social Media… Promoting LGBTQ Contributions to World History and Culture… The most Multifaceted and Dynamic LGBTQ History endeavor on Earth...
The 2024/25 School Year is here! Transform your classroom experience into one which includes the many contributions LGBTQ people have made to the world we share. The Legacy Project, in conjunction with our partners at Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago, and Equality Illinois, maintains a database and Search Portal to help teachers create a classroom experience which meets the requirements of Illinois's new Inclusive Curriculum Law. Explore a fascinating aspect of human history which most people did not know was missing...
Through "The Legacy Walk" in Chicago (the world's only outdoor LGBTQ history museum and Chicago's newest Historic Landmark); "The Legacy Project Education Initiative" (free, downloadable resources); and "The Legacy Wall" (traveling interactive exhibit) – the award-winning Legacy Project is committed to challenging the social and cultural marginalization of LGBTQ people.
The Legacy Project was inspired the first time the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was shown at the National March on Washington for LGBT Civil Rights in 1987. Beyond the over-whelming, uncontrollable emotion of that experience was a sense of the vastness of our presence, the richness of our lives. So many people - both famous and obscure. So many interests. So many accomplishments. For all the talk about our "diversity" the full breadth of our existence was never more clearly represented at one time, in one place, than on that ¾ acre swatch of the fabric of our lives. Sadly, except for our own immediate circles, we were strangers to ourselves. At that time, there was no way for gay people to know about those who came before them and what they accomplished and The Quilt only seemed to magnify that. We were LIVING GAY HISTORY. But we were DYING. Who would remember those who came before us when we were gone? More >
