This lesson will use primary sources from the LGBT Detroit Records, an archival collection located at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs in Detroit, Michigan. LGBT Detroit, a community organization advocating for the Black LGBT community in Detroit and Southeast Michigan, donated the collection to the archives.

LGBT Detroit got its start publishing KICK Magazine in 1993, which focused on a broad range of topics around the central theme of Black LGBT life. The articles in this lesson have been excerpted from the magazine.

This lesson explores the struggle for LGBT civil rights in Michigan while intersecting with major events in the African American experience from the mid 1990s to the early 2000s.