The Lesbian Gay Community Business Fair, a LGBT+ community event organized by Linda Malicki, was held on May 22, 1988 outside the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland‘s former 1418 West 29th Street location. Malicki, owner and operator of Another State of Mind, believed that LGBT+ Clevelanders in the 1980s were largely “disconnected” from one another, “and in many cases uninformed as to [what was] going on in other segments” of the LGBT+ community in Cleveland. Malicki organized the Lesbian Gay Community Business Fair to create a way for “gay businesses and organizations to…identify each other and promote themselves” to the broader LGBT+ community in Cleveland. To this end, Malicki devised the Lesbian Gay Community Business Fair as an event that would “present lesbian/gay businesses, services, and groups in an atmosphere of fun, games, and entertainment.” Nearly “20 local [LGBT+] businesses and services” participated in the Lesbian Gay Community Business Fair, with over “31 booths [that] advertised a diversity of wares and services” to attendees. The Lesbian Gay Community Business Fair was a highly successful event, having attracted upwards of “300 participants.” The Lesbian Gay Community Business Fair greatest achievement, however, was its role in “[opening] avenues of communication between lesbians and gay men by taking a first step toward reassembling the fractured elements of Cleveland’s gay community.” In 1989, a second Lesbian Gay Community Business Fair was held at the same location as part of the city’s first annual Cleveland Pride event.
Additional information coming soon.
Resources
- “Brian DeWitt Interview, 2008.” Cleveland Voices.
- “Clevelanders to Take Pride In.” Gay People’s Chronicle. August 1988. Page 7.
- Glassman, Anthony. “A Generation of News.” Gay People’s Chronicle. February 4, 2005. Page 4.
- “Lesbian and Gay Community Service Center Report.” Gay People’s Chronicle. July 1988.
- Malicki, Linda. “Community Unite!” Gay People’s Chronicle. May 1, 1988. Page 2.
- Schneck, Ken. LGBTQ Cleveland. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2018. Page 58.