Help Us Preserve Black Leatherdyke History

As we prepare for our Folsom Street Fair Kick-Off Social this September, the Exiles are collaborating with the Women of the Black Panther Party Mural & Museum and the GLBT Historical Society to create an exhibition during Folsom Wednesday celebrating Black Leatherdyke history.

And we need your help!

We are looking for photographs, newspapers, newsletters, magazines, zines, event flyers, club publications, patches, artwork, and other leather ephemera documenting Black women and Black queer leather communities.

We are especially hoping to find Black Leatherdyke representation in…

🖤 Bay Area history

🖤 Materials from the 1970s through the early 2000s

🖤 Unapologetically Black lesbians, dykes, femmes, butches, trans, and queer leather communities

Black Leatherdyke history remains underrepresented in many archives. This is not because these communities were absent. Generations of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, economic inequality, and concerns for personal safety shaped what was photographed, published, collected, and preserved.

Archives are not neutral. They reflect whose stories were documented and whose were overlooked.

Support Our Black Leatherydyke History Pop-up