Rob Boyte's Gay History Books In The Miami Beach Library

Rob Boyte's Gay History Books in the Miami Beach Library
September 26, 2015

For years since the 1980s Rob Boyte has kept news clippings of the various social issues in which he was involved, xerographically copying them and compiling them in Acco binders.

Those that he compiled from 1991 to 1995, while in Gainesville, Florida were labeled the "Chronicles of the Gay-Rights Struggle in Gainesville," and several copies were donated to the Alachua County Library and the Miami-Dade County Library. (Other activists were already asking to make copies of the compilations). When Rob moved back to Miami Beach in 1996 he got involved in the ongoing gay rights activism there and kept the "Chronicle of the Gay Rights Struggle in Miami-Dade County." He also made other compilations on Gay Culture and gave copies to the library.

In 2008 he was pleased to find that one of his compilations "Gay Art & Culture" had been hardbound and on the shelf of the Miami Beach Library.





Today, while biking to South Beach for recreation, Rob stopped at the library to see if that book was still on the shelf.



He didn't see it, but found seven other hardbound volumes attributed to him.

 

These clippings BTW were about events or activities in which Rob attended and participated and also contained some 50 of his letters or columns that were published in the local and statewide press.

So, it was kind of nice to see the chronicles of that moment of gay history of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries in Florida are archived in the library here.

Here are the opening pages of these books on local gay history:

 

Here is one such article in the Chronicle that Rob wrote for the 30th anniversary of the Loving Vs Virginia Supreme Court decision that overturned the miscegenation laws in Florida and 15 other backwater Southern states on June 12, 1967.

While celebrating that decision Rob segued to the obvious parallel of legally forbidden same-sex marriage, something that was finally addressed by the Supremes on June 26, 2015. And, a decision which Justice Clarence (uncle) Thomas (married to a white woman) voted against, making him to be a complete obtuse idiot or a self-righteous HYPOCRITE.

 

That is pretty cool Shale..

 

thats cool


are you able to see if theyre being used ?..have people borrowed them ? (or whatever they call it that thing library people do)



i would have signed it and noted the date i visited right there on the first page if i were you

 

Actually they are in the Florida Reference section and can't be checked out.

However, the missing one may have been slipped out. It was mostly the gay themed comic strips, many of local college artists in Gainesville as well as Lyn Johnston's "For Better or for Worse" comic strip that got so much controversy when one of the teens came out.

I rode back today and spent some time perusing them. There were many pages with my notes in the margins and a few original correspondences from activists with whom I had contact. A pretty accurate history of the gay rights in Gainesville and Miami-Dade.

 

I cried when the better for worse dog died..

 

Lynn Johnston really took a slice of N. American culture and documented it in caricature. When the dog (Farley?) died, she was just relating what so many families have to encounter.

Same when the one teen boy came out as gay (the strips that I had compiled). In Gainesville there was a big controversy over that comic strip and the papers were on the line as to whether they would pull it. I can't remember what the Gainesville Sun did. I think they ran the comic strip on the Editorial page for that segment.

 

it was her brother in law

Lynn based her comic strip on her real life...thats probably why people like them so much