Vanguard Revisited Online Exhibit: Introduction

Tenderloin street youth founded Vanguard in 1966. They protested police harassment, picketed discriminatory businesses, and held same-sex dances in church halls. They also produced a blunt and honest magazine about poverty and queer politics; drug use and sex work; isolation and loneliness; artistic expression; and faith and queer theology.

Working with a variety of homeless youth services organizations, Joey Plaster and Pastor Megan Rohrer presented the history of Vanguard to queer youth in the San Francisco's Tenderloin in 2011. This exhibit shares information about both the historical and contemporary Vanguard youth.

Vanguard Magazine Volume One: Issue One, 1966

Courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society

 Vanguard Revisited Magazine Volume One: Issue One, 2010
Courtesy of the Megan Rohrer Papers at the GLBT Historical Society

Brief Video of Vanguard Youth 1960's and 2011:

Oral Histories of the Original Vanguard by Joey Plaster, 2010. Recordings of 2011 Vanguard Youth by Buzz Kill Films. Photos courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society. Edited by Megan Rohrer 2011.

Additional  Information:

• Joey Plaster, Imagined Conversations and Activist Lineages: Public Histories of Queer Homeless youth Organization and the Policing of Public Space in San Francisco's Tenderloin, 1960's and Present, Radical History Review, Spring 2012.
• Making History: "Vanguard Revisited" Has a Conversation with the Past, Indie Stories Blog, March 20, 2011.

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