06/26/2026
🏳️🌈 : A Chicago home changed history.
In 1924, Henry Ge**er started the first chartered gay rights organization in the United States right out of his own house in Old Town. He called it the Society for Human Rights. He also put out the first American publication for q***r people, Friendship and Freedom, from that same address. His mission statement was way ahead of its time: to protect people "abused and hindered in the legal pursuit of happiness which is guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence."
Police raids shut it all down within a year. Members were arrested, documents confiscated. But Ge**er never stopped. He spent the rest of his life writing and fighting for q***r rights, and his home is still one of the most important sites in the history of q***r liberation.
Some foundations take 100 years to get their flowers. This is one of them. 💐
**er