Award winning filmmakers and real life partners Dawn Logsdon and Lucie Faulknor are crowdfunding their latest project, Free for All: Inside the Public Library. This will be the first major documentary about the U.S. public library system and will chronicle a single day of operation at public libraries all across America. The film also delves into the various ways libraries have existed and adapted to change over the years.
While traveling the county and doing interviews with various librarians, historians and lovers of libraries the duo have come across many interesting pieces of history like libraries built by ex-slaves that are still standing or libraries that lend tools as well as books. One of those pieces of history is a never before seen interview with Harry Hay the founder of the Mattachine Society, which you can see below.
Harry Hay was the co-founder of both the Mattachine Society and the Radical Faeries. The Mattachine Society was founded in Los Angeles in the winter of 1950 and is one of the earliest Gay Rights organizations in America. During a time when even giving the impression of being gay could end careers and even lives, Hay and others gathered in what is now the Silver Lake/Los Feliz area of Los Angeles and laid the groundwork that the formal Gay Rights movement would be built upon. Following what seemed to be a loss of steam in the Gay Rights movement, Hay again gathered with friends and created the Radical Faeries, a group of "elder statesmen" and others looking to reignite the passion with the community. For more about the documentary visit their Kickstarter. And for more information about Harry Hay you can check out the documentary Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay